? The Selachii - Shark Race

[Blaze69]

That's fine. But for Fume I already have a quest idea lined up - the Reunion in Death quest I mentioned before. I have some more details for it in the next blog entry, though it is basically what I already mentioned, with only one detail left out, as that is quite the spoiler.  

Yeah, I figured as much. I was simply refering to quest complexity. I'm sure the quest you've come up for her requires more knowledge and skills than the basic quest implemented for Mizuno so far (which TBH borrows a lot from the basic example quest in the "Quest Creation Tutorial" from the CK wiki). Thus, the more stuff I create in the meantime, the higher the chances of me actually managing to create something acceptable for her and any other NPC, lol  .

[Unintentional]

 

There will probably be some issues. Most notably, clipping.

The shark heads are a very close (if not 100%) match of the vanilla human head shapes on the back, top and sides (aka everywhere except for the nose/snout). This means any helmet or head item that doesn't cover the front or only covers a bit of the forehead at most (i.e. Imperial helmets, Blades helmets, circlets, etc.) should look fine, but everything else will clip. Since the mod takes care of Closefaced helmets, they will clip for sure.

 

I could make a patch that adds Selachii-specific meshes to vanilla helmets using ICH as a base, but A) it would be incompatible with other certain custom race mods (causing them to use shark meshes instead of humanoid ones), depending on how their ArmorRace entries are set up, and  I would have to make both a YA version and a vanilla one. Also my mesh-editing posibilities are somewhat limited, so that's a thing to bear in mind too.

 

Still, now that the idea has been brought up, I will look into it when I get the chance in case I can come up with something like that.

Thanks for the response. I have not tried out the mod yet (looking like a promising package for a custom race though), but when I do I'll probably end up using a helmet toggle mod if something looks off on my shark.

[Blaze69]

Thanks for the response. I have not tried out the mod yet (looking like a promising package for a custom race though), but when I do I'll probably end up using a helmet toggle mod if something looks off on my shark.

Yeah, in my game I either use one of the helmet alternatives (like the armored circlets from CCOR) or I simply stick to the vanilla helmets that do fit their heads without clipping.

 

To be honest, I added the racial passive skill that grants an extra 10 points of armor rating mostly to make up for the (potentially) lost armor points due to not wearing helmets, so there's that as well.

[Taven]

 

Thanks for the response. I have not tried out the mod yet (looking like a promising package for a custom race though), but when I do I'll probably end up using a helmet toggle mod if something looks off on my shark.

Yeah, in my game I either use one of the helmet alternatives (like the armored circlets from CCOR) or I simply stick to the vanilla helmets that do fit their heads without clipping.

 

To be honest, I added the racial passive skill that grants an extra 10 points of armor rating mostly to make up for the (potentially) lost armor points due to not wearing helmets, so there's that as well.

 

 

Also, if you use Ordinator, a perk overhaul mod(The best IMHO), there's a perk you can get for light and heavy armor that gives you a 20% AR boost when -NOT- wearing a helmet, but at least wearing heavy/light armor on your feet, hands, and body/chest. Sometimes it gives you more AR than a helmet does. xD

[Kuroyami]

So I think this is the idea. 

Gave her a bit of the suggested Husky look, added the YiffyAgeHairPatch and used one of the Apachii hairs. I think it is possible to use that same hair for the vanilla preset, I'll just have to find it when I do that one. 

 

Selachii-YANordNPC-Khrista.7z

 

However, the problem presented is that, obviously there are only three beds in the Jarl's longhouse, and each of them are already used. So I took the above shot for reference, and have a few suggestions to change that room around. 

 

-Move the barrel elsewhere in the cell. Not sure why that is right next to a bed in the first place.

-Move the wardrobe on the left, to where the foot of the existing bed is now, and move the bed to the left wall(so that the head of it is against the south wall - at the top of the shot). 

-Maybe move the shelf(and items on it) elsewhere in the cell, or remove(disable etc, whatever would not cause problems) it. 

-Move the wardrobe on the right, against the south wall - next to where the chair is now. 

-Move the light fixture against the south wall, next to the two wardrobes, and below the deer skull. 

-Add a bed to the west(right) wall, and move the chair against the east(bottom) wall, facing the wardrobe. 

 

The added bed could be the same as the existing one in the room, or the single "noble" one, since she is the Guard Captain, after all. 

 

[Blaze69]

So I think this is the idea.

Gave her a bit of the suggested Husky look, added the YiffyAgeHairPatch and used one of the Apachii hairs. I think it is possible to use that same hair for the vanilla preset, I'll just have to find it when I do that one.

 

However, the problem presented is that, obviously there are only three beds in the Jarl's longhouse, and each of them are already used. So I took the above shot for reference, and have a few suggestions to change that room around. [...]

Okay, she looks good. I'll add her and her preset to my To-Do list. If there are no changes to her appearance, I'll probably get her ingame, or at least her appearance and a dummy NPC entry. Changing stats and so is easier afterwards, as the less I have to touch the CK, the better. Same goes for any other NPC preset that may be done in the meantime.

 

Sounds reasonable about the cell edits. Don't think there are many mods that alter Winterhold's Longhouse except for maybe city overhauls, so the chance of conflicts is slim. I'll look into it, but looking at the pic you posted, rearranging the furniture to fit an extra bed should be easy enough indeed.

[Kuroyami]

 

Okay, she looks good. I'll add her and her preset to my To-Do list. If there are no changes to her appearance, I'll probably get her ingame, or at least her appearance and a dummy NPC entry. Changing stats and so is easier afterwards, as the less I have to touch the CK, the better. Same goes for any other NPC preset that may be done in the meantime.

 

I'll probably do Khrista's vanilla preset next, and then move on to Seika's - which I'm thinking of the MachoF hairstyle from KS Hairdos for her. Writing wise, I'm mostly focusing on getting these blog entries done. One thing I've noticed, while perhaps obvious, is that I have next to no story for Kori. Have to come up with something for that.

[vegetatp]

I'm sorry to disturb, Blaze69, but I've just stumbled upon this mod and love it so much.

Every thing is working as a charm for me except for one thing, whenever I restart the game and try to load my save with the shark race character, the settings on SOS for the shark race completely reset and fails to load the "Schlong size" only displaying "sosracemenu" instead.

https://i.imgur.com/0ZJs7Uw.jpg

However if I restart SOS

http://i.imgur.com/pEsBHsd.jpg

The "Schlong size" seems to load fine and I can alter it like any other schlong. But, it is a very tedious way of dealing with it every time I start the game.

https://i.imgur.com/KjUYimD.jpg

 

I did notice that the load order of the addons changed order after the restart, so I thought that maybe changing the order in which the plugins are loaded so that the "SOS - Shark Race Addon" within the "Shark Race.esp" would load after "Schlongs of Skyrim.esp" (Not just the core) could possibly fix the problem. However I was not able to change the order of the plugins in LOOT as they won't allow SOS to load above Shark Race and not let Shark Race load over SOS.

 

So I am kind of at a loss at the moment as to what I can do. Please if you have any insight I would love to hear it! I honestly love this mod so much and the draw back isn't that bad, but it gets somewhat annoying.

[Kuroyami]

I'm sorry to disturb, Blaze69, but I've just stumbled upon this mod and love it so much.

Every thing is working as a charm for me except for one thing, whenever I restart the game and try to load my save with the shark race character, the settings on SOS for the shark race completely reset and fails to load the "Schlong size" only displaying "sosracemenu" instead.

https://i.imgur.com/0ZJs7Uw.jpg

However if I restart SOS

http://i.imgur.com/pEsBHsd.jpg

The "Schlong size" seems to load fine and I can alter it like any other schlong. But, it is a very tedious way of dealing with it every time I start the game.

https://i.imgur.com/KjUYimD.jpg

 

I did notice that the load order of the addons changed order after the restart, so I thought that maybe changing the order in which the plugins are loaded so that the "SOS - Shark Race Addon" within the "Shark Race.esp" would load after "Schlongs of Skyrim.esp" (Not just the core) could possibly fix the problem. However I was not able to change the order of the plugins in LOOT as they won't allow SOS to load above Shark Race and not let Shark Race load over SOS.

 

So I am kind of at a loss at the moment as to what I can do. Please if you have any insight I would love to hear it! I honestly love this mod so much and the draw back isn't that bad, but it gets somewhat annoying.

 

That is actually the intended behavior, if you have installed the XPMSE Skeleton mod, and selected the SOS Compatibility option(which adds a SOSRaceMenuPlugin.esp), which allows you to set your character's schlong size in RaceMenu, rather than the SOS' MCM menu. So if you use showracemenu in the console, you should see a "Genitals" tab, which has many options to scale your character's schlong. 

 

Also, the current version of the mod should only have two plugins, one for the race(which includes the SOS addons for the race), and the Follower plugin(which is optional). The SOS - Shark Race Addon.esp was part of the previous versions(before 2.75 at least) where the heads for the race were different.

[vegetatp]

 

That is actually the intended behavior, if you have installed the XPMSE Skeleton mod, and selected the SOS Compatibility option(which adds a SOSRaceMenuPlugin.esp), which allows you to set your character's schlong size in RaceMenu, rather than the SOS' MCM menu. So if you use showracemenu in the console, you should see a "Genitals" tab, which has many options to scale your character's schlong. 

Also, the current version of the mod should only have two plugins, one for the race(which includes the SOS addons for the race), and the Follower plugin(which is optional). The SOS - Shark Race Addon.esp was part of the previous versions(before 2.75 at least) where the heads for the race were different.

 

 

Okay, thank you for the clarification! I'll be looking into the menu then and adjust it there.

 

And yes, i do have all the above mentioned plugins. And I was referring to "The SOS - Shark Race Addon.esp" as I saw it was merged within the Shark Race esp plugin.

 

Once more thank you!

[Blaze69]

[...]

What Kuroyami said. Either set the node scales in the "Genitals" tab in RaceMenu when you create your character, or disable the SOSRaceMenuPlugin.esp and use SOS' scaling system instead. Both are incompatible due to the way scales are applied, and SOS overwrites any scale from RaceMenu, so enabling the RM scaling disables it in SOS so it doesn't get overwritten.

 

If you go for the former (RaceMenu), it can be a bit counter intuitive because when you start a new game and create your character they are wearing clothes and you don't get to see how the schlong looks with the scaling. But you can simply use the showracemenu console command afterwards when your character is naked, and set the scales directly there (so you can see the end result). Note down the desired values, and simply set them up when you start a new game and create your character.

 

Also, thanks for the nice words  .

[vegetatp]

 

What Kuroyami said. Either set the node scales in the "Genitals" tab in RaceMenu when you create your character, or disable the SOSRaceMenuPlugin.esp and use SOS' scaling system instead. Both are incompatible due to the way scales are applied, and SOS overwrites any scale from RaceMenu, so enabling the RM scaling disables it in SOS so it doesn't get overwritten.

If you go for the former (RaceMenu), it can be a bit counter intuitive because when you start a new game and create your character they are wearing clothes and you don't get to see how the schlong looks with the scaling. But you can simply use the showracemenu console command afterwards when your character is naked, and set the scales directly there (so you can see the end result). Note down the desired values, and simply set them up when you start a new game and create your character.

 

Also, thanks for the nice words  .

 

 

I managed to figure it out shortly after Kuroyami's reply. And scaling it in the RaceMenu works quite well indeed. But, thank you for letting me know the different options regarding how to change between the two.

 

I guess the RaceMenu threw me off when I first created him as I indeed couldn't see what the scale was doing. I did use the showracemenu command and it works like a charm after undressing the necessary parts.

 

You are most welcome and thank you very much for this awesome mod!

[Kuroyami]

Not sure if I mentioned this character before(likely did when I asked about the Bad Kid hair for males), but this is Kage, a Shadow Mage/Necromancer(I seem to like that combination, don't I?). Playing with Ordinator and Path Of Sorcery, along with the Shadow Spell Package mod, to name a few.

Found that Hot Spring in the Rift. 

 

Planning on doing the College quests, and I've also met and taken Rumarin(Interesting NPCs) as a follower. Which is almost the beginning of a joke, and I just need to take them into a bar for some reason. A shark and a fox....

 

Also, due to Cheetah's being in YA 3.0, I think this has to be done. 

 

Corera, Altmer, Male 

 

Not sure of any details for him yet, but based on a reference pic(probably link that soon, when I have more details), he will be a Fire Mage. 

[D C]

http://jace-lethecus.deviantart.com/art/Jayce-Cabin-Fever-01-Second-Life-429126233 first one

http://jace-lethecus.deviantart.com/art/Skye-Naked-Predators-Second-Life-440193393 second one

all are for feet

[Blaze69]

http://jace-lethecus.deviantart.com/art/Jayce-Cabin-Fever-01-Second-Life-429126233 first one

http://jace-lethecus.deviantart.com/art/Skye-Naked-Predators-Second-Life-440193393 second one

all are for feet

You mean those are your suggestions for new beast feet? Well, the thing is, the digitigrade feet model has already been designed and there is even a WIP version of them done by BadDog and posted in the Yiffy Age thread some time ago.

 

Right now BD is working on the assets for the 3.0 update of YA, but my intention was to wait for it to be done and see if we could work on the shark feet afterwards, when everything else is done and the new digitigrade skeleton/system has been tested and implemented. So I don't think the design will change, unless the digi conversion requires changing the feet shape to work or Nightro comes up with a new design.

 

Now, as for new plantigrade feet meshes to replace the current ones... It won't work either. We've talked about creating a fully plantigrade version of the digi feet once they are finished, so I can still offer support for standard skeletons and footwear. It may not even be necessary, since the digi feet may double as acceptable planti feet when paired with a standard skeleton (as the current canine/feline paws do). But in any case, they would be very similar to the digi ones, just... plantigrade. So their design is fixed too, barring the aforementioned situations.

 

Last, but not least... I don't really like that design  . Reminds me too much of frog feet without the membranes between the toes, and while I kinda see where that's coming from (being acuatic and so), I simply don't like it.

 

BTW, fun fact: I'm pretty sure the shark head used on the first character you linked (Jayce) is the actual Second Life shark head resource used in the original Sharkmer Race. Oddly enough, it doesn't look as cartoony in SL as it did in Skyrim, though. Maybe the shaders/engine or the overall aesthetics of SL make it blend better, I don't know. I still prefer Nightro's awesome new heads, but I wouldn't be so pressed to replace the heads in the pics as I was with the ones in the mod, lol.

 

Also, I've been browsing some other pics of said character, and I have to say, I like the airbrush effect at the transition between the standard skin and the white underbelly, it looks better and more shark-y than the one in the current textures. The arms have that white pattern on their under/inner side too, and I like it. Maybe it should be something to bear in mind for the new textures, whenever they are done.

[NightroModzz]

 

 

The arms have that white pattern on their under/inner side too, and I like it. Maybe it should be something to bear in mind for the new textures, whenever they are done.

Already had that in mind. Although, I do think the width of white on the inner thighs can look more angular.

[D C]

and what about the second one?

[NightroModzz]

and what about the second one?

You mean the Sergal feet? I have to make those anyways for another race mod. The one I made is modeled after this picture. The second one is also a similar picture.

 

I will likely have to remake it anyways for full body normal maps and will have better retopology, but those feet you linked don't really look all that  good on this kind shark race.

[D C]

 

and what about the second one?

You mean the Sergal feet? I have to make those anyways for another race mod. The one I made is modeled after this picture. The second one is also a similar picture.

 

I will likely have to remake it anyways for full body normal maps and will have better retopology, but those feet you linked don't really look all that  good on this kind shark race.

 

ok , still thanks for the reply and i searched the yiffy age but was taking too long to search through 100pages to search for the feet mesh

[NightroModzz]

 

 

 

 

ok , still thanks for the reply and i searched the yiffy age but was taking too long to search through 100pages to search for the feet mesh

 

You can do a search in a topic. keyword: Sharkmer or shark.

[Taven]

Hmm..for some reason when I try to brawl, she only takes 100 gold from me..and the dialogue actually advances as if I -DID- brawl with her when I Talk with her again, and has it where I'm asking for a rematch...and she still just takes the gold from me, no brawl or anything. >< Is this something wrong on my end or..?

[Blaze69]

Hmm..for some reason when I try to brawl, she only takes 100 gold from me..and the dialogue actually advances as if I -DID- brawl with her when I Talk with her again, and has it where I'm asking for a rematch...and she still just takes the gold from me, no brawl or anything. >< Is this something wrong on my end or..?

It has to be something on your end. It works just fine on my game (both on my main rig and on the temporary new Skyrim setup on the PC I'm using at the moment), and Kuroyami confirmed it works fine for him too.

 

Do you have an up-to-date brawl bug patch? Maybe you are missing it and thus the brawl gets cancelled as soon as it starts due to a rogue cloak script/spell. Otherwise, do you have any mods that could mess with brawls?

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In other news, I have some progress to report. I've finally managed to fix the seams in the male textures that have come up several times already. (Yay! At last  ). I'm talking about the seams at the body-schlong transition (most notably with human schlongs, though the beast ones also had them to some extent) and at the body-neck transition.

 

Long Explanation:

 

Turns out it was caused by the way the game engine renders textures, coupled with the way it uses mipmaps. So, texturing 101: mipmaps are downscaled copies of the main texture included as extra data in the file. Each mipmap is half the size of the previous "layer", so a 2048x2048 main texture has these mipmaps: 1024->512->256->128->64->32->etc. all the way to 1 pixel. The further you are from the object in question, the smaller the loaded mipmap, to save on memory and increase performance and so on (because at each distance, you wouldn't be able to notice the difference between the main texture and the corresponding mipmap that gets loaded instead).

 

So far, so good. The problem comes when the textures are too tightly adjusted to the UV borders of the mesh. As you decrease the resolution by half, you have less pixels to work with, and the pixels that used to fall on "even" positions (and allowed for seamless textures even if they were adjusted to the UV layout too tightly) can now fall into "odd" positions, so they end up in the middle of the seam instead of one of the sides. Thus, depending on the mipmapping algorithm you use, they end up being painted either as one of the sides or as a mixture of both, and then the textures are no longer seamless, and we get seams. I made two mistakes here: I used textures that were indeed to tight on the UV borders, and also used a black background for the normal maps (which caused a much more noticeable difference when compared to the rainbow-colored model space normals).

 

End result: very noticeable seams that weren't supposed to be there and that would only disappear when zooming in to the affected body parts (and thus forcing the game to load the main texture instead of the mipmaps, which is why upclose they were seamless). Also some ENBs could hide the seams to the point where they weren't visible (which is what happened on my rig and the reason I didn't look further into it before), but with "softer" ENBs or vanilla setups, they were pretty visible. Kuroyami's character shots show this, for example, as I've said before.

 

But I fixed it. Using some Blender voodoo BadDog told me about, I managed to do what I should have done in the first place: edit the textures so that they extend some distance past the actual UV border, so that mipmaps end up being seamless as well. So even fully vanilla/no-ENB setups (or anyone that has the Texture Quality set to anything lower than Ultra and thus forces the game to skip the main texture and use the mipmaps even up close) should finally be truly seamless at all distances.

 

TL;DR: seams were caused by my ignorance of the way textures and mipmaps work ingame and of proper texture creation etiquette. The next update will fix them and the textures should be completely seamless now  .

Edited July 21, 2017 by Blaze69

[Blaze69]

Okay, so, I took a quick pic of the fixed male textures to show what I meant. This is with ENB turned off:

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you check out some of Kuroyami's pics, you will see that roughly at this distance from the character, there were some noticeable seams at the neck and schlong. They are gone now.

 

Also in glorious 1360x768 eyesore, no less! Because that's as much as this toaster oven can manage with a playable framerate, both with and without ENB, lol. Cropped to 1024x768 because I like my pics to be 4:3 for some reason. But that doesn't matter, I guess; all you are missing is some more background with jaggies .

 

I also took some pics at 1080 with full-on Tetrachromatic ENB, just for the sake of it. FPS were around 5-10, but hey, the result was nice. I'll probably change to this ENB once I'm back home, it looks pretty good, both with YA's character textures and with the ones from this mod  .

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kuroyami]

Nice work, Blaze. 

 

I have to say, that blog has helped with ideas, mostly since it seems getting the basis of things there is easier than having to create it elsewhere. 

 

Details for Lyra and Arashii's content:

 

 

Quest: "Before the Storm" - In order to gain Lyra's trust, you have to find her companion, and learn about the troubles a member of Harkon's Court once caused. 

 

The quest will mostly be as already suggested, with a few changes to the parts I had not yet considered before. When you find Arashii, he does become a follower right away(though obviously with a bit of dialog, not just an instant "Follow me"), but with a pretense - he wants you to help him deal with a Vampire in the castle's North Tower. Luven, an Imperial that Harkon found in his search for the Elder Scrolls, was dissatisfied with how Harkon so easily accepted help from Lyra, though it was more because of her Selachii companion, than the Scholar herself. As Valerica was making her plans, he holed himself up in the North tower, knowing very little about what Valerica was doing. 

 

He seems to have spent his time in that North tower trying to get information out of one that Valerica herself obtained information from, concerning the Soul Cairn. Korina has spent all this time as his prisoner, being unable to tell Luven all of what he wants, because she does not know it. That being, while she may have provided Valerica with the basic information that might allow passage into the Soul Cairn, she was never privy to the exact process Valerica used, and never saw her at work, much less, knew if the process worked at all. 

 

Korina is an Altmer, and due to her assistance, Valerica offered her the choice to become a Vampire, and she agreed.

 

Also, I have some backstory for Arashii too - hopefully the next blog post should be up soon. 

 

 

 

Some more backstory for Moku is already in the blog - including details about why her original appearance has those vivid red eyes. She is also perhaps a bit older than most of the other characters(making that FemaleCommander voice fit a little more), though still young due to being a Selachii, having participated in the Great War. 

[Taven]

 

Hmm..for some reason when I try to brawl, she only takes 100 gold from me..and the dialogue actually advances as if I -DID- brawl with her when I Talk with her again, and has it where I'm asking for a rematch...and she still just takes the gold from me, no brawl or anything. >< Is this something wrong on my end or..?

It has to be something on your end. It works just fine on my game (both on my main rig and on the temporary new Skyrim setup on the PC I'm using at the moment), and Kuroyami confirmed it works fine for him too.

 

Do you have an up-to-date brawl bug patch? Maybe you are missing it and thus the brawl gets cancelled as soon as it starts due to a rogue cloak script/spell. Otherwise, do you have any mods that could mess with brawls?

 

 

 

Hmm...I do have this mod, but it's supposed to be a kind of a remake for the brawl patch because it's quite a few years old...