Looking for a armor/clothing modder

[Bustie]

I'm learning how to create clothing mods for Skyrim and I would like to have someone experienced in making mods to talk to in Discord or Curse. I know the basics of molding meshes and UVW maps in 3DS Max 2015; but damn, Nightasy's videos only help so much :/ If anyone is interested in teaching me a few things to help me make the Suits I've attached HMU. Thanks 

[myuhinny]

Making outfits when all you have is a picture will take 10 times more time to do as the person who would be doing them would have to make everything from scratch. Not many will do it as it takes way to much time to make everything from scratch. Unless you learn how to do it the chance that any of those ever get made a next to nil.

[Bubbajones_ya]

I don't think he was asking for someone to make them necessarily, but for someone knowledgeable to talk to him over a video/voice chat thing (I don't have curse or discord but assume that's what that is) so that he can learn more first hand on how to make them himself.

 

I just learned and pretty much got the hang of making armor for Skyrim now, but it took me a little figuring out to do it. I did use nightasy tutorials a bit because they seem to cover the most stuff, but they don't cover everything you'll run into and can be kinda hard to watch at times.

 

 

If you are going to make the armor, the basics I use for 3DS Max (I'm using 2012 but should be the same for 2015) are:

 

 

- Import the skeleton you are using (female in this case if you are going to make those armors)

- Import the female body parts that your armor will be attached/cover (so the feet will need to be imported if you model the boots as well as the body) 

   You can import everything if you want to, it won't hurt anything to "over import" things

 

- Start building you mesh.

   This will take the most time and I'm not the most versed in trick to make things quicker.

 

    One tip here is if you are going to make clothing that conforms to the body somewhat closely then:

 

        + Right click on the body and clone it. Theno "create copy"

        + Switch to vertices/polygon on the cloned body and delete parts where to armor won't be visible

        + Use this cloned part to base your mesh off of since it will have a similar shape to what you're making!

        + You can scale this part or use the brush tools (on editable polygons) to conform it easier. You'll need to delete and redo the UV map

 

- Once your armor mesh is done, you will have to rig it to the body. This is where you will most likely use the skin wrap modifier and convert to skin (in nightasyas tutorials, I can't think of the exact steps off the top of my head.) This will usually get decent results, but not perfect.

 

- Once you armor is skinned, delete every object that is not part of your armor or the skeleton

 

- Export the armor using the recommended export settings (make sure you don't weld vertices). There should be a bit of references to what these settings are.. I just don't have them off the top of my head either.

 

 

 

With the armor exported, you'll have to make sure the bslightingshader properties are correct in NIFSkope and may need to copy paste them over from other similar nif files, then route the proper textures for you armor.

 

You then add the armor in the Creation kit (first the armor addon, then the armor piece pointing to the addon)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know what I have here is super brief and missing a bit, but maybe it will help some if you do get serious into making armor and stuff.

 

[Bustie]

Na, I'm making them from scratch. I just need someone to give me pointers. Myuhinny, you aren't kidding about taking a long time to make them. JUST FOR THE TORSO, with no sleeves, takes like 2 hours. Making the skin tight mesh isn't hard at all but the smoothing process and UVW mapping takes forever. Bubba check out Nightasy #64-66. That's how I make the torso skin tight but I don't know how to make sleeves or panties/pants. I tried doing the method of using garment maker but the damn panties go through the body mesh and fall out of view. So that isn't an option right now. I don't want to have to resort to using a latex armor mod to build off of but that's what I might have to do.  Thanks for replys and thanks for the tips Bubba.

 

I tried using a hollowed cylinder as sleeves; then forming the cylinder to the arms using the method in Nightasy's #64 then welding the polys of the arms and torso together but that didn't turn out too well. I don't have the skill or know how to do it properly. This modding community has made INCREDIBLE armors, pulling these off aren't a long shot. 

[Bubbajones_ya]

I tried for a few days trying to make sleeves work on a t-shirt and then a leather jacket I made (the Final Fantasy Squall outfit) and I just couldn't get it right. No matter what, there was clipping on certain animations.

 

I got it really close, but then found out what Bethesda did. For full body armors (things that cover the arms/sleeves area), the include the body mesh WITH the armor. However, the DELETE most of the body, so only leave things visible (like the upper chest or end of the arms for example) where you would be able to see the body. This way, there won't be any clipping whatsoever!

 

The biggest downside to this that it makes the armor much less modular if you do it this way and it requires the slot 32 skin partition data to be used. I ended up using this method however and was able to still keep the clothes modular (I made pants, a shirt, boots and a jacket you can all wear individually).

 

I haven't seen nightasy #64-66 yet (but I probably will watch them sometime kinda soon), but I ended up using a hollow cylinder for the legs of the pants. When it came to the jacket sleeves, I just copied the body's arms, then enlarged them slightly and shaped them how I wanted. After I was done, I welded them to the torso section I made and aligned the vertices around the sleeve section so I could make a clean UV map seam.

 

 

 

 

HERE'S A NICE TIP:

 

Try working on only half of the armor at a time, the clone and mirror the other half when you are done.

 

This obviously won't work for 100% of everything made, but for the most part it saves a tremendous amount of time. I wasn't doing this until recently and am so glad I thought about doing this. Things are probably done this way pretty often to save time.

 

[Bustie]

EDIT* I didn't see that you posted. But that's what I was about to say below. I'm going to copy the body part change it in to the armor and see if I can at least get the skin tights done.

 

 

 

So after doing some "research" I found a clue on how to make these armors. I have to play around with the body mesh in NifSkope, turn it into a .nif with some texture modifiers and then get that into 3DS get all the extra fancy super hero gear on the mesh made in NifSkope. Then add more stuff in MudBox and I'd be set to release the first armor within a month. I still gotta learn how to do this stuff.

[Bubbajones_ya]

Yeah, copying the body has helped me a whole bunch when I made the jacket and boots for my armor. I used a cylinder at first for the undershirt and it took me probably just as long to make when it was extraordinarily less complicated.

 

 

 

If you decide to try and make the capes, I can't be of much help with that. I haven't messed around with Havok stuff so I don't know how to do it (plus you need the content tools too which are no longer available and I don't know if they had 2015 compatible version for skyrim yet...)

 

That's something I really want to try and get working though so I can start learning animations. After making a few models, my modeling skills have gone up quite a bit! The initial curve was a little steep though and I still have a bunch to learn.

 

It might be possible to see if an HDT cape has been released, make a mesh, then rig that mesh to the bones in BodySlide (because it lets you do rigging), but I'm not too sure if it will work for stuff like that.

[Bustie]

I found the 2013 Havok content tools some months back when I thought about making poses; but I think some parts of the tool won't work with 3ds 2015. I'll PM you the .exe for it

 

Also check this guy's videos out. 

 

 

[Bustie]

If anyone stumbles across this thread, I've figured it out. At least I figured how how to model it in 3DS Max. Now I'm struggling with Mudbox lol. My topography is shit