How do painted ghouls work?

[Doc_Ctdm]

How do Nuka World painted ghouls work, from a technical perspective?

I wasn't sure if this would be a "technical support" topic or a "non-adult mod" topic, but since it's both technical and not regarding any mod, specifically, I put it here. Hope that's okay.

 

Anyway, when I checked the DLC04 ba2s, I found the painted ghouls didn't have a nif model. They do have textures (with an LGRAD file for colors) and a unique material.

I think I'm right in suspecting that the painted ghouls use the standard ghoul bodies and employ a material swap effect somehow. But where and how is the swap activated?

A material swap that triggers on spawn or via conditional would be a really useful general purpose technique to have.

 

And while I'm here, I'll also ask about the use of LGRADs - what's the rundown on using those? Dynamic colors is yet another good technique that an aspiring modder should know about, but technical info on it seems to be a little hard to come by.

[Invictusblade]

It uses material swaps that swap between the ghouls original textures to its new texture

and the material is activated inside the NPC data inside Object Template in the same way that weapons and armors are put together.

 

I believe that is more or less what you wanted to know

[Andy14]

It is similar to Skyrim - but almost nobody uses it.
In Skyrim there is a SkinTextureSwap - used for - nothing.
Well, I use it, but I have not seen a mod or seen a "super-duper" tutorial using it.

In FO4 - it will certainly be similar - just as materials.
I'm not on the right computer at the moment, but I'll check it out - just for my own curiosity.

[AWP3RATOR]

17 hours ago, Invictaxe said:

It uses material swaps that swap between the ghouls original textures to its new texture

and the material is activated inside the NPC data inside Object Template in the same way that weapons and armors are put together.

 

I believe that is more or less what you wanted to know

This is how it's done.  The feral (clown) ghouls in Nuka World have 16 material swaps that are set among two different leveled actor templates.  In the CK, there are 2 ghoul template "masters", which all of the leveled ghouls are set to use (one or the other).  The material swaps are split, 8 each, between the two templates.

 

You won't see new meshes included as they weren't needed due to the material swap functions within the CK.

[Invictusblade]

14 minutes ago, AWP3RATOR said:

This is how it's done.  The feral (clown) ghouls in Nuka World have 16 material swaps that are set among two different leveled actor templates.  In the CK, there are 2 ghoul template "masters", which all of the leveled ghouls are set to use (one or the other).  The material swaps are split, 8 each, between the two templates.

 

You won't see new meshes included as they weren't needed due to the material swap functions within the CK.

Also I Imagine that it would also use a new set of normal textures to give it a different surface texture(not the image)

[AWP3RATOR]

@Invictaxe I would have imagined so as well... but apparently not.  Bethesda never ceases to surprise me in their reuse of assets.

 

[flatliner10]

Why would they need a different Normal map, when the Body/skin surface is the same? (unless you want it to look like the pant layer is really thick).

The did put a different spectacular map though (refaction), makes sense.

You also don't need different normal maps for different skin colors in Skyrim/Fallout. However you need them for the Skyrim Beastkin,

since the Fur/Scales would make the surface different.

You can "fake" a normal map by using the diffuse Map as template, however ideally you use the 3D Mesh/Model.