Did you miss me?

[Frankfranky]

I have been busy. boring.

 

But I have lots of new toys and tricks. I have Marvelous Designer now. So I am not just making shoes anymore. I am going to make whole outfits (and shoes). Do you guys have any idea how out of proportion the Skyrim bodies we use are? lol. It wasn't till I started trying to fit real world clothing patterns that I realised. The std UNP_1 body has an L bust, XXS waist and L hips. Soooo.... yea. This creates a challenge.

 

Folds are really interesting things. I thought I knew what they looked like. I have spent hours sculpting them in zbrush. What marvelous designer makes using a simulation  is nothing like what I have ever made. And then I compare it's results, to my efforts, to reference pics and  .... MD is better at it than me. And I think I need glasses, because what I thought looked like realistic folds, don't, and what  I thought looked like my ref pics, doesn't and .... sigh.

 

So here is a bit of a tease. This is a WIP shot of the jacket in MD. Still trying to get it to fit her rediculously tiny waist. I think I will make a few skirts to go with it. The yoga pants .... mb. Kinda easier to do that with a tat. And some glam heels of course. Don't start holding your breath just yet, but any input is very welcome.

[SmedleyDButler]

Franky! WB!

 

I was literally just wondering yesterday "Hey... it's been a while since Franky  posted... wonder if he's around or if he quite Skyrim for a while."

 

Be cool to see what you're up to now. 

 

And whatever could have POSSIBLY given you the idea that Skyrim bodies used by many LL members are misproportioned? ?

 

Coat looks nice. Don't have much input on this outfit since, MUH IMMERSHUNS, but I'm sure some folks might be interested in a version with a skirt... or just the coat

[Frankfranky]

Don't even get me started on the curve in the spine. Mind you if you look at instagram, apparently that curve is natural, at least it is if you are an Eastern Bloc model. Actually having huge boobs and a tiny waist is apparently quite normal if you are an Eastern Bloc instagram model, so mb Miss UNP is actually ... Ukranian?

[Frankfranky]

Well, Smedly, your immershuns may not be in such dire threat. The jacket is just the basic shape. Replace the buttons with ye-olde versions, kill some of the seams and darts (whilst still retaining the form, cause magic not real world, also ty Maya) whack some fur on the collar and give the whole thing a rustic, hand woven, large weave fabric texture some dirt, mb a rip, some earthy tones and ....

 

Still not doing immersive heels tho. Screw that.

[Sursed]

3 hours ago, Frankfranky said:

I have been busy. boring.

 

But I have lots of new toys and tricks. I have Marvelous Designer now. So I am not just making shoes anymore. I am going to make whole outfits (and shoes). Do you guys have any idea how out of proportion the Skyrim bodies we use are? lol. It wasn't till I started trying to fit real world clothing patterns that I realised. The std UNP_1 body has an L bust, XXS waist and L hips. Soooo.... yea. This creates a challenge.

 

Folds are really interesting things. I thought I knew what they looked like. I have spent hours sculpting them in zbrush. What marvelous designer makes using a simulation  is nothing like what I have ever made. And then I compare it's results, to my efforts, to reference pics and  .... MD is better at it than me. And I think I need glasses, because what I thought looked like realistic folds, don't, and what  I thought looked like my ref pics, doesn't and .... sigh.

 

So here is a bit of a tease. This is a WIP shot of the jacket in MD. Still trying to get it to fit her rediculously tiny waist. I think I will make a few skirts to go with it. The yoga pants .... mb. Kinda easier to do that with a tat. And some glam heels of course. Don't start holding your breath just yet, but any input is very welcome.

Hi, Franky!

 

It's great to see you are back!

[Andy14]

Marvelous Designer is cool, I use it for almost 3 years.
If I can give a hint for the Avatar - use a complete body (with head, hands, feet).

 

Have fun with Marvelous Designer and welcome back.

[Frankfranky]

that is a good tip Andy. I can see how that would help. In fact I am looking at the collar right now and seeing that it is going to stick through the neck.

ty

 

oh I have a question now. Retopo. You doing this manually? Zremesher? Just take the quads MD makes and yolo?

[Guest]

Looking great  Cool to see you advancing.

[SmedleyDButler]

On 10/7/2018 at 1:13 AM, Frankfranky said:

Well, Smedly, your immershuns may not be in such dire threat. The jacket is just the basic shape. Replace the buttons with ye-olde versions, kill some of the seams and darts (whilst still retaining the form, cause magic not real world, also ty Maya) whack some fur on the collar and give the whole thing a rustic, hand woven, large weave fabric texture some dirt, mb a rip, some earthy tones and ....

 

Still not doing immersive heels tho. Screw that.

HAHAHA

 

DAMMIT!

[Andy14]

On 10/7/2018 at 10:45 AM, Frankfranky said:

that is a good tip Andy. I can see how that would help. In fact I am looking at the collar right now and seeing that it is going to stick through the neck.

ty

 

oh I have a question now. Retopo. You doing this manually? Zremesher? Just take the quads MD makes and yolo?

Retopo - if necessary, I do in Blender 2.79
I have MD 4. Here is unfortunately not possible to export thick/double-sided meshes as quads.
So I do this in Blender 2.79 - or export directly with triangle.

I make skin in Outfit Studio.

[Frankfranky]

The problem with cloth simulation is the constant distraction. It is for science.  Need to re-drape the skirt to get the ruffles to fall nicely. A lot. It is entirely possible that there has been so much science, the hem of the dress could cure cancer... the things I do for my fellow man.

 

In other news this one may actually turn into an item. The jacket had issues, turned into a shirt, made incredible creases and folds, exported a 500k decimated model, started to retopo .... then there were tears .... but lessons were learnt and I have made the dress with the rest of the workflow in mind. And I have some almost finished Zanotti rip-off strappy heels that can go with this. Or mb I will finish the other ones with the broken feet ...

 

This week.

[ababababab]

Can't have too many slutty clothes. or clothes that are too slutty. Looking forward to your work!

[Frankfranky]

omg so rude. The hem of poor Miss UNP's dress gets caught in a stray gust of wind, while standing at a less than discrete angle to the camera, and now you are telling her she is a slut!! Shame on you.

[Frankfranky]

Getting there.

 

So this will be the dress, kinda. This is just a viewport shot, not a render, so no purdy baked normal map, no .... well no nothing really. Just the mesh and some very basic UV's. The straps aren't even mesh, they are just nurbs pretending to be geo, but I thought I would toss up a pic anyway, cause I think it is starting to look nice. Oh and I mentioned some shoes so here they are too, Zanotti inspired sandals as seen at Cannes this year on the feet of some ... one, I don't remember who. Oh and if you think it is too short ... I simmed a longer dress so the 3rd pic is a MD view of that. I am going to finish the little one first.

 

[Frankfranky]

Immurshun level > 9000  ?

 

 

[SmedleyDButler]

Daaamn that texturing.

[Frankfranky]

2018 is a good place in the CG world

2 hours ago, SmedleyDButler said:

Daaamn that texturing.

I want to say that took hours. That I went all old-skool, and it is made from 100 layers in photoshop with hand crafted scratches and dirt and ... stuff, but  .... (I mean ....) but .... so I just baked some nice maps in substance and dropped a Steel Gun Matte smart material preset on it. It was just supposed to be a test of the AO and Curvature maps cause it has such defined edge-wear, but it works surprisingly well. I think I will export it as a texture set. I am working on a "cloth version" now that has a little more of my input. Shall we take bets on whether or not I can compete with Algorithmic?

 

Asuming there is no nightmare in the weight painting part of the process, this might be done today. might. I will toss it out to you guys and get the shoes finished.

[Frankfranky]

that moment when you realise you don't know ... enough, open up plural sight to find a quick course on fabrics in substance, and the course materials are 9GB .... for a 3hour course. I mean wtf? coffee time I guess

[Frankfranky]

unsurprisingly, Algorithmic wins I think. But, I think my rough hand-woven, mb even lore-friendly? effort doesn't completely fail. (dem doo-dads on the end of the spaghetti straps doe   .... lol)

 

Time to put the fun toys away and turn it into a game item. I can always make more textures later. (and yes there is a weird gloss coming from somewhere. idk. I have a stray metalic or roughness channel in there somewhere .... but it is a PBR shader. Skyrim doesn't know about PBR so wherever it is coming from, it isn't going to Skyrim). Perhaps a subtle blood-stain or 2 ... a blood stain or 2 might be nice.... even classy. Can blood-stains be classy? mb if you buy them a drink first?

 

[Frankfranky]

sigh.

 

Skinning fail. I suck. Stupid skirt bones Stupid ruffles. Stupid geo. stupid .... me.

Over it. 3 days I have been trying to get the hem of the skirt to stay out of her legs during a basic vanilla run animation, with the vanilla skeleton .... so I suck is the take-away here.

 

Moving on I am going to do something else. Lore-friendly yoga pants, with lore-friendly belts and lore-friendly boots.

[Frankfranky]

wait ...mb it isn't ... entirely ... me. Anyone a skinning guru? Anyone know 3ds max?. This is a super simple model, literally just a polys shaped to the body. I skinned it to the absolutely base UNP_1 body with the vanilla skeleton. Bind pose it works perfectly. rotate a bone, it works perfectly. Check the weights left leg to right leg and they are exact mirrors of eachother. Import the mt_runforward animation and the left leg pants disappears into the leg and flattens, just at the thigh. Left leg doesn't, left pants calf doesn't Right leg doesn't, right pants leg doesn't pelvis doesn't, just the pants on the left leg at the thigh.

 

I don't get it. The verts are 100% weighted to L thigh. On the other leg the verts are 100% weighted to R thigh. I would say the animation got stuffed somewhere in the conversion from .hkx to .kf, but why does the body still work? It doesn't make any sense. I am missing something ...

 

Here is a pic. Anyone seen anything like this before? I bet it is something really basic ....

[Frankfranky]

oh.

 

ty beyond skyrim

" Normally a lot of tutorials would advise using the vanilla skeleton. But I would advise against that as the vanilla skeleton is not optimized for 3ds max, the vanilla skeleton does not have symmetry, this makes rigging anything tremendously difficult. "

 

So I dumped the vanilla skeleton, imported xpmse, and now it works perfectly. sigh. And shut up. Normally I only skin feet ok. so shut up.

[Andy14]

18 minutes ago, Frankfranky said:

oh.

 

ty beyond skyrim

" Normally a lot of tutorials would advise using the vanilla skeleton. But I would advise against that as the vanilla skeleton is not optimized for 3ds max, the vanilla skeleton does not have symmetry, this makes rigging anything tremendously difficult. "

 

So I dumped the vanilla skeleton, imported xpmse, and now it works perfectly. sigh. And shut up. Normally I only skin feet ok. so shut up.

 

You import animations (sneak, run) for skin editing - right?

looks like a well-known tutorial.

 

This is an old problem in 3ds.
The reimport of skeleton (without animation override) solves the problem - even with vanilla skeleton.

 

Before you export your mesh: reimporting the skeleton with animation override is better than importing the idle animation.

 

[SmedleyDButler]

So, you can get algorithmic weight-painting? Hmmmm do tell?

[Frankfranky]

52 minutes ago, Andy14 said:

Before you export your mesh: reimporting the skeleton with animation override is better than importing the idle animation.

Sneak and run yes, and then I have some modded anims for walk, run and sneak and idle that I use. I try to skin to them aswell, though some compromise is required.

 

to reset the static pose?

 

I will try that. I have been selecting all the bones, then setting a skin pose. Then when I am done, selecting all the bones, deleting all the keys, and clicking assume skin pose, to get the mesh back into its original position. This works. Your way might be a bit easier I guess.