This has all turned out really well.

 

 

Did some further tweaking on these. The original Dwemmy thighs were put together in a slightly haphazard way that was making things difficult, so I used the selective masking technique to isolate and adjust the component parts of the right thigh, in particular, to get them slightly more lined up. They'll never be perfect, if just because those shoulder pad pieces aren't symmetrical to start with, but they're better. I used the same method to extend the large blocks at the center of the thighs to provide a new 'connection' point, as the original thin bar gets horribly mangled by the thigh sliders. Thin parts in general just seem to be a bad idea in that area.

 

And lastly I adjusted the stance of the lower legs. I had left them in the more vertical stance from the Dwemmy model, but in-game that just led to the lower legs clipping through each other like crazy during the walk cycle. Kicking them out to line up more with the original legs seems to have fixed that, and doesn't seem to have any negative effect on the animations in general.

 

 

So, having fixed all the significant issues I had seen in the initial testing, I finally got that null boot built so I could get some proper shots of these in action.

 

 

Everything works even better than I had expected.

 

The feet being articulated is a small touch, but it really gives them life.

 

 

They can be a little floaty on the joints sometimes, but not enough to really blow the effect. And the way they kick up while running is great, even if the ankle does sometimes pop through a bit.

 

 

The digitigrade lower legs look spectacular during sideways run animations.

 

 

Since it works on animation bones that assume a straight shin the calf does frequently sink into the thigh when the leg is fully bent, but it honestly doesn't look that bad so I'm not gonna get concerned about it. 

 

The Immersive First Person effect is a bit iffy, since the toes are so short they mostly get obscured by the knee armor...

 

 

...but you can get some glimpses of them if you watch your feet while you're running.

 

 

The original hooves were a very round, draft horse kind of shape. I elongated them a bit to make them look more like a racer's. 

 

 

Of course, while these look great on your character, they look even better on your NPCs.

 

 

During idle animations...

 

 

In combat...

 

 

They just make everything look that much more dynamic.

 

 

They also do pretty interesting things in the shadows, if you happen to have those on at high quality.

 

 

And obviously, the best thing to pair with horse hooves is a horse's head.

 

 

I'll be honest, I've genuinely managed to impress myself with this. This is something I started on a whim, just to see if it could work.

 

It works. It really, really works.