[WIP]Mermaids

[mantaman]

oi, actually mer's lower halves are subject to debate, seeing as how no one has ever seen one

 

and mers with the lower bodies of aquatic mammals are far more realistic and plausible then a half warm/half cold blooded creature

 

but we cant really apply much logic to a game with magic and talking cats and lizards

[firepower02]

Have you seen mermaid movies? They have fish tails, not dolphin tails. No one has seen an argonian either, but we don't need to see one in real life to know they are reptiles.

[skirmish]

Have you seen mermaid movies? They have fish tails, not dolphin tails. No one has seen an argonian either, but we don't need to see one in real life to know they are reptiles.

 

Well not exactly. Scaly like a fish, but their tail movement goes up and down like a dolphin. FIsh tails move left to right. But I think most people agree that mermaids should be scaly. 

[aravis7]

Wow, looks awesome EB : ) Please keep it up and don't worry about negative feedbacks. It can be sad but most of the times people just post to complain about bugs, problems or personal taste when the vast majority like it but don't say anything. 

Good to see something new in this thread anyway : )

[Kyubi]

I've quickly made a UV-Layout and texture for it as well as removed the feet and created a new Race. To me this is almost done beside missing animations and further variety. Currently there is a model gap at the hands and neck as I was in a hurry and didn't spend attention on correct weighting in that area. Also the transition from skin to scales is quite rough at the moment. Anyway, this will be fixed soon.

 

Screenshots:

 

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This is so damn awesome! <3

 

Especially the second to last picture makes it look like it was already a playable race. However, is it possible to make those little fins which are attached to the sides of the fish tail a little longer, thinner and finer? I am thinking about the little extra fins of Pterophyllum scalare, for those who would like reference.

Those fins could also stay after the mer has transformed, additionally everything below the waistline could still be somewhat or completely scaled. I think in connection with those extra fins it would look pretty cool and distinctive.

[firepower02]

Well not exactly. Scaly like a fish, but their tail movement goes up and down like a dolphin. FIsh tails move left to right. But I think most people agree that mermaids should be scaly. 

 

Bravo! You are correct, it has the look of a fish's tail, but moves of a dolphin's. Dolphins don't have scales, and fishes have scales but not on the fin part.

[Guest DeleteMePlease]

 

 

 

Model gaps are fixed now as well as added fins to the model. The fins are semitransparent and have a light fracturing effect applied (not that visible as they are rather flat).

 

For me this model is done so far. I will continue setting up a simple race mod without much functionality so that they are at least playable as well as one or two standard armors (they are currently equipable but not visible).

 

I'll see what I can do about a male counterpart.

 

Sincerely

EB

[mantaman]

 

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Model gaps are fixed now as well as added fins to the model. The fins are semitransparent and have a light fracturing effect applied (not that visible as they are rather flat).

 

For me this model is done so far. I will continue setting up a simple race mod without much functionality so that they are at least playable as well as one or two standard armors (they are currently equipable but not visible).

 

I'll see what I can do about a male counterpart.

 

Sincerely

EB

oooh, the fins look good, (told you he knew how to do he fins firepower) and for armour, a heavy armour and a light armour?

[Hollow_Fang]

Wonderfull you can also make Naga useing a modified verion of that body mesh

[mantaman]

Wonderfull you can also make Naga useing a modified verion of that body mesh

 

oi, if im right, that mesh is actually a modded naga tail(i think?) but yeah, EB has(had?) naga meshes.

[firepower02]

oooh, the fins look good, (told you he knew how to do he fins firepower) and for armour, a heavy armour and a light armour?

 

Right, I'm glad he did not make tails like a dolphin after all, although it was fine, and stop blaming me like I'm complaining, I'm only suggesting. I don't think you care much about how the tail looks, you just want to see genitals and butt and have mermaid sex.

 

The bones of the monofin part looks a bit thick, I thought it would be a little thinner like the OP, or just all fins like guppy tail. Since it is a new playable race, will the tails be customizable, like how the argonians customize their horns? They can have different types and colors of tail, and have finned wings.

[Suludi]

Very nice, EB. Can you send me the skeleton and nif so I can try and adapt my swim animation to it? I made a test animation for legs but it's useless if it's attached to the wrong bones.

[mantaman]

 

oooh, the fins look good, (told you he knew how to do he fins firepower) and for armour, a heavy armour and a light armour?

 

Right, I'm glad he did not make tails like a dolphin after all, although it was fine, and stop blaming me like I'm complaining, I'm only suggesting. I don't think you care much about how the tail looks, you just want to see genitals and butt and have mermaid sex.

 

The bones of the monofin part looks a bit thick, I thought it would be a little thinner like the OP, or just all fins like guppy tail. Since it is a new playable race, will the tails be customizable, like how the argonians customize their horns? They can have different types and colors of tail, and have finned wings.

 

alright alright man

 

but yey, fin wings sound like a good idea

[Kyubi]

Woah, this tail looks so amazing! I really love those little "wings" you added EB, that is what I actually meant in my last post. Good thing you thought alike.

 

I am really looking forward to this race and how it will look in "human" form now.

 

 

[Xenos]

So got bored and figured I try and see if I could contribute something, so I had a go at making a mermaid, if any one ones the model to skin and rig let me know. Still need to do textures which I plan on doing tomorrow.

[Guest DeleteMePlease]

 

 

 

The racemod now works flawlessly. Glass Armor is done also (shoes are in development). As soon as the two armors are done I'll wrap it up for download and continue on a male model.

[Kyubi]

So got bored and figured I try and see if I could contribute something, so I had a go at making a mermaid, if any one ones the model to skin and rig let me know. Still need to do textures which I plan on doing tomorrow.

 

Nice job Xenos! I really like the "multiple fins" concept of that. Maybe your mermaid tail and the one of EB could both work in one mod as 2 different species of mermaids? I don't know though.

 

 

2013-12-07_00008.jpg2013-12-07_00005.jpg2013-12-07_00001.jpg

 

 

The racemod now works flawlessly. Glass Armor is done also (shoes are in development). As soon as the two armors are done I'll wrap it up for download and continue on a male model.

 

Gosh, I really love it! This is so going to be a download. Thanks for all the effort you put into it EB, especially since you decided to come back after the "rough start" at first.

[mantaman]

So got bored and figured I try and see if I could contribute something, so I had a go at making a mermaid, if any one ones the model to skin and rig let me know. Still need to do textures which I plan on doing tomorrow.

 

oi, as Kyubi said, this would make a cool tail for different mers on the same mod, it could prolly use the same animations/skeleton as EB's mers

[firepower02]

A mermaid who looks like a normal human on land with no traces of fish, and has tail when in water. And just a simple flash effect for the transformation. They will have legs when they set foot in water, and gain legs when they get to shore while still on water so they won't have a hard time moving. But yeah, I think you want mermaids who takes time to gain legs so you can enjoy seeing them flop on land, or a mermaid who has a lesser power who can transform legs and tail at will, regardless whether in water or on land.

[mantaman]

somethin like that

 

it would just be kinda wasted if they where only mers in water, who's gonna stay in the water that long? but yeah, im hopin that some of these mers will have a 3-5 second dry out time, while others are unable to transform at all, then they'll be a reason to have fighting animations/armour for mers in tails

 

but at the very least, crawling animations, so they can get across land

[Xenos]

Still working on the textures but here we go.

[RandomStranger]

So got bored and figured I try and see if I could contribute something, so I had a go at making a mermaid, if any one ones the model to skin and rig let me know. Still need to do textures which I plan on doing tomorrow.

Still working on the textures but here we go.

Is it only me or does this look like a rip off of EB's work (I wouldn't be suprised if he leaves again)? Sure the head topic is "Meremaids" but out of 4372848902734 shapes possible he's chosen to go with same idea of EB's still accessible and human like genitals.

Nothing wrong with keeping good ideas but I'm getting sick of people that can't come up with anything by themselves.

[Kyubi]

A mermaid who looks like a normal human on land with no traces of fish, and has tail when in water. And just a simple flash effect for the transformation. They will have legs when they set foot in water, and gain legs when they get to shore while still on water so they won't have a hard time moving. But yeah, I think you want mermaids who takes time to gain legs so you can enjoy seeing them flop on land, or a mermaid who has a lesser power who can transform legs and tail at will, regardless whether in water or on land.

 

Don't get me wrong but I think that most people would not be interested in or quickly get bored with a race that is only special once it entered a lake or a river. Keep in mind that Beth actually gave a damn about water as a gameplay element in Skyrim. As far as I can remember there are only a few sidequests that require the player to actually leave solid ground and enter some sort of water world and those mainly revolve around "Dive for a few seconds to find item X". Other than that there is nothing else to do, maybe you could kill the odd slaughterfish and that's pretty much it. There aren't even any dungeons that have water as their primary environment, the game always focuses on combat, questing etc. ashore.

 

What I want to say is: If you want a mermaid race that has no "fish traits" or anything related to that once they left their habitat it loses any kind of appeal - because you could just stick to any other human race (believe me, you won't spend hours of playing just swimming around that giant lake near Riften just to watch your mermaid being a mermaid).

You need to create an appealing underwater world first, a reason why the player should stay underwater most of the gameplay time. This includes enemies, quests, followers, maybe a mermaid town with mermaids living there (as well as making it look like they'd actually have any kind of business and everyday life), dungeons (!) and all that.

Why? Because modders don't have much to work with if they want to flesh out a race or gameplay that focuses solely on Skyrim's waters.

Conclusion: A "water-only" mermaid race would pretty much be a waste of time until someone would engage in the mammoth task of creating an appealing environment for that race which is unlikely to happen.

 

So in my opinion mermaids should remain somewhat "fishy" even when wandering ashore.

 

 

somethin like that

 

it would just be kinda wasted if they where only mers in water, who's gonna stay in the water that long? but yeah, im hopin that some of these mers will have a 3-5 second dry out time, while others are unable to transform at all, then they'll be a reason to have fighting animations/armour for mers in tails

 

but at the very least, crawling animations, so they can get across land

 

I pretty much agree with that, though I don't really like the aspect of not being able to leave the water at all without a gamebreaking confinement such as "only being able to crawl around" or anything similar.

It could be very problematic for the game itself to detect when to transform automatically (especially transition zones water/land and all that) - if not impossible.

The easy solution would be adding a transformation spell similar to that succubus race created by Nikitaa so you could choose yourself when to transform (this requires players to make it look realistic themselves which needs a sense of "roleplay" or immersion but that is a lesser evil I think).

Oh, and I think some people don't have an idea of how much effort it is to create fluent and realistic animations, let alone the skill you need for it. So creating a flopping or mermaid-exclusive crawling animation for a few seconds only (before transformation) that might not even work out? I doubt that.

 

 

 

And Xenos, very nice work! It is a huge eye-candy and I am already looking forward to the finished textures.

[mantaman]

 

So got bored and figured I try and see if I could contribute something, so I had a go at making a mermaid, if any one ones the model to skin and rig let me know. Still need to do textures which I plan on doing tomorrow.

Still working on the textures but here we go.

Is it only me or does this look like a rip off of EB's work (I wouldn't be suprised if he leaves again)? Sure the head topic is "Meremaids" but out of 4372848902734 shapes possible he's chosen to go with same idea of EB's still accessible and human like genitals.

Nothing wrong with keeping good ideas but I'm getting sick of people that can't come up with anything by themselves.

 

 

eh man, eb has a good concept goin, and xenos is just tryin to contribute, plus, the fins look very different from eb's work, they'd make a cool subrace of mermaid

 

and i very much doubt eb is going to up and leave somethin he already made a mesh and armor for

 

 

A mermaid who looks like a normal human on land with no traces of fish, and has tail when in water. And just a simple flash effect for the transformation. They will have legs when they set foot in water, and gain legs when they get to shore while still on water so they won't have a hard time moving. But yeah, I think you want mermaids who takes time to gain legs so you can enjoy seeing them flop on land, or a mermaid who has a lesser power who can transform legs and tail at will, regardless whether in water or on land.

 

Don't get me wrong but I think that most people would not be interested in or quickly get bored with a race that is only special once it entered a lake or a river. Keep in mind that Beth actually gave a damn about water as a gameplay element in Skyrim. As far as I can remember there are only a few sidequests that require the player to actually leave solid ground and enter some sort of water world and those mainly revolve around "Dive for a few seconds to find item X". Other than that there is nothing else to do, maybe you could kill the odd slaughterfish and that's pretty much it. There aren't even any dungeons that have water as their primary environment, the game always focuses on combat, questing etc. ashore.

 

What I want to say is: If you want a mermaid race that has no "fish traits" or anything related to that once they left their habitat it loses any kind of appeal - because you could just stick to any other human race (believe me, you won't spend hours of playing just swimming around that giant lake near Riften just to watch your mermaid being a mermaid).

You need to create an appealing underwater world first, a reason why the player should stay underwater most of the gameplay time. This includes enemies, quests, followers, maybe a mermaid town with mermaids living there (as well as making it look like they'd actually have any kind of business and everyday life), dungeons (!) and all that.

Why? Because modders don't have much to work with if they want to flesh out a race or gameplay that focuses solely on Skyrim's waters.

Conclusion: A "water-only" mermaid race would pretty much be a waste of time until someone would engage in the mammoth task of creating an appealing environment for that race which is unlikely to happen.

 

So in my opinion mermaids should remain somewhat "fishy" even when wandering ashore.

 

 

somethin like that

 

it would just be kinda wasted if they where only mers in water, who's gonna stay in the water that long? but yeah, im hopin that some of these mers will have a 3-5 second dry out time, while others are unable to transform at all, then they'll be a reason to have fighting animations/armour for mers in tails

 

but at the very least, crawling animations, so they can get across land

 

I pretty much agree with that, though I don't really like the aspect of not being able to leave the water at all without a gamebreaking confinement such as "only being able to crawl around" or anything similar.

It could be very problematic for the game itself to detect when to transform automatically (especially transition zones water/land and all that) - if not impossible.

The easy solution would be adding a transformation spell similar to that succubus race created by Nikitaa so you could choose yourself when to transform (this requires players to make it look realistic themselves which needs a sense of "roleplay" or immersion but that is a lesser evil I think).

Oh, and I think some people don't have an idea of how much effort it is to create fluent and realistic animations, let alone the skill you need for it. So creating a flopping or mermaid-exclusive crawling animation for a few seconds only (before transformation) that might not even work out? I doubt that.

 

 

 

And Xenos, very nice work! It is a huge eye-candy and I am already looking forward to the finished textures.

 

 

oh true, but, again, i'd suggest making a few mods to the crawl on fours mod, with it, we can have mers that fight by standing on their "knees" and crawl around by, well, crawling

 

and not ALL mers will be stuck in tails out of water, or legged, once we play around with the textures and race, we can have different subraces with different dry out times

[Wolfoftheshadows]

I've never been interested in mermaids or playing one, but seeing the great work being done here. I'm really considering it because of the awesome job everyone is doing.