Bad Dog's Birds

[TheLastKhajiit]

Okay

[Bad Dog]

Just had a bit of time to check some more but there's nothing I can do until I get back to my modding laptop. Somehow I uploaded everything and didn't hit "save" or whatever. Since the new forum SW separates updating the description from updating the files (I hate it when developers break a mechanism that was working fine) you all got the new description but not the new files. So same answer--I'll get a fixed version up tomorrow.

[Bad Dog]

Okay, birdbrains--new file is up really truly this time, I think. Let me know how it goes.

[Bad Dog]

I finally figured out why Bethesda's hairs are shipped as a hairline + a hair mesh. Maybe other people know this but I never found it in my research. Turns out it's all about getting around problems in the shader.

 

In the last version of Birds, the neck ruffs used shader settings 4844 or close, which means no blending and alpha test threshold of 100 (and some other flags I haven't figured out). That means things are transparent or not, so it's really hard to blend the ruff into the head. That's what Bethesda uses for "hair." For the latest, I switched to 4333, which means blending of "src alpha" with "inv src alpha". (Not really sure why that's a good thing but it works.) This provides a gradation of translucency so your hair can blend nicely into the scalp and it's what Bethesda uses for the "hairline". But if it stands out from the head you get very odd transparency artifacts depending on what's behind it. 

 

So what that means is you need one kind of transparency for blending the roots into the head and a different one for locks or feathers that stand out from the head. Which is why they have two meshes. There's probably some constraint which requires them to be in two nifs too, but I don't know about that.

 

Dunno what I'll do with the final version of the ruffs. I can load up all the morphs into one mesh, separate the mesh in two, and create the equivalent of hair and hairline... but I'm not sure how much I think it's worth it.

[Nevadathehighelf]

Is there a way that a version that doesn't require the "flying mod" can be made?

Even if it means the birds don't have wings. I would greatly appreciate it.

[Bad Dog]

Srsly, give me a break, you're killing me. Yes, it's doable but I already have a bunch of variants for a simple mod. The Wings mod is real low impact (no scripts, no animations) and you don't have to give yourself wings.

[ther1pper]

To this mod

Still impressed with the amount of work you put into this, so great job on that. Make a violent screech attack and you'll have the perfect bird mod.

[RohZima]

On 7/15/2018 at 9:03 AM, lefttounge said:

Is there a way that a version that doesn't require the "flying mod" can be made?

Even if it means the birds don't have wings. I would greatly appreciate it.

 

I agree, massive respect for the work on this mod, but I am a bit "hawkish" (sorry) when it comes to keeping my plugin count down. 

[Bad Dog]

So make a merge mod. I've been meaning to do that with the basic mods I run all the time, haven't yet.

[Nevadathehighelf]

On 7/15/2018 at 8:59 PM, Bad Dog said:

Srsly, give me a break, you're killing me. Yes, it's doable but I already have a bunch of variants for a simple mod. The Wings mod is real low impact (no scripts, no animations) and you don't have to give yourself wings.

I don't want to install the animated wings though.

I kinda just wanted the race, I LOVE the bird wings

But I didn't want to go through all of the motions of installing that other mod. 

[zarphus]

just in case the mandatory pun has not been made

i am gryphonborn.

~Fus Ro CAW!

[Bad Dog]

Thanks. We, uh, needed that.

[TheLastKhajiit]

Textures seem to be missing, or not loading

 

[Blaze69]

1 hour ago, TheLastKhajiit said:

Textures seem to be missing, or not loading

That's MadMansGun's edited mesh. It was adapted from one of the creature dongs from MNC or HCoS (can't remember which) and thus uses the textures from there.

 

Bad Dog forgot to either pack a copy of the textures in this file or list MNC/HCoS as a requirement for the latest version.

[TheLastKhajiit]

Ah, okay just thought I'd mention it

[Bad Dog]

Yeah, that. I must have that mod so I didn't notice. Will fix soon.

 

It's kinda cute in blue, tho.

[GDelscribe]

I actually really like that dicc, and the blue is Talis accurate so Im fine w that for sure lmfao

 

Its cute

[Blaze69]

14 hours ago, Bad Dog said:

Yeah, that. I must have that mod so I didn't notice. Will fix soon.

 

It's kinda cute in blue, tho.

 

7 hours ago, GDelscribe said:

I actually really like that dicc, and the blue is Talis accurate so Im fine w that for sure lmfao

 

Its cute

I mean, if you want to make it blue, that's fine, but you still need to pack a texture for it. Preferably separate from the original MNC/HCoS one, so it doesn't affect the original texture in case you do make this one blue.

[Bad Dog]

Too many damn options. I'll certainly ship MMG's dick in the original color. But maybe bird dicks are blue.

[sanaret]

this is definitely one of those mods i

• never could have even imagined on my own
• find very disturbing
• will probably try anyway our of morbid curiosity
• and may or may not end up giving me a new fetish (joking.. .....kinda. mostly.)

[RevaliTheRito]

Not exactly sure what im doing wrong here but everytime I remove the shirt/armor on the chest of the bird the game crashes. All I have installed is this, sos, quick start, race compatibility, and animated wings. Am i forgetting something?

[Blaze69]

2 hours ago, RevaliTheRito said:

Am i forgetting something?

XPMSE. Try installing that and see if it helps. Make sure it overwrites any other existing files when doing so (don't know how to do that exactly in NMM, though).

[RevaliTheRito]

Thanks that fixed it.

[Bad Dog]

Anybody got an idea why? I would have thought there'd only be a problem if you're putting dicks on the girls but it seems like a hard requirement.

 

Hmm, I wonder if I erroneously got schlong bones on the feet or hands.

[Blaze69]

57 minutes ago, Bad Dog said:

Anybody got an idea why? I would have thought there'd only be a problem if you're putting dicks on the girls but it seems like a hard requirement.

 

Hmm, I wonder if I erroneously got schlong bones on the feet or hands.

Maybe it's because of the skeleton behaviour files (the .hkx ones), or some other extra files that are not part of the skeleton .nif itself but are needed for them to work. Groovtama can probably help you figure it out if you want.

 

Does it really matter, though? Anyone that intends to do any kind of modding period should absolutely have XPMSE installed anyway, and there is no reason not to do it, so I don't see the dependency on it as an actual problem.