race mod Races of Nature – A Custom Race Collection

[Wonders of Eros]

Races of Nature – A Custom Race Collection

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2024-03-07, personal announcement: 

 

I am making no money at the moment and have been struggling to find employment for a very long time. I am essentially relying on my folks for essentials and housing at this point, so if I do not make a course-correction, I will not be able to support myself going forward, let alone be able to continue with my projects. For this reason, I have decided to pivot my attention towards my most promising, potentially profitable endeavors. I have always wanted to be a 2D artist and to write my own erotic stories, so considering that I am already fairly alright in both those areas, I have decided that my main focus from now on is going to be art commissions and the development of my own visual novels.

 

So, what does this mean in practical terms?

• Some of my already announced erotica projects will be turned into visual novels on Itch.io over time, but I will no longer write pure erotica.

• The Races of Nature mod for Skyrim is going to see some limited active development, mainly focused on making more races, but learning Blender on the side is no longer a viable prospect.

• The Slavery Tales mod for Monster Hunter World is not being resurrected. At least not by me. Unless someone is truly willing to adopt it, not just talk the talk, it is not coming back.

• The Other World will remain open to public creations, but at the end of the day, it is my intellectual property. As was always my intension, it is going to be used as the setting for much of my standalone artwork and visual novels, but I will still allow the public to make their own non-monetized stories and content set within the series' universe.

• I plan to go public with my own Patreon page in the very near future for those who are willing to support me financially.

 

INFO

Races of Nature – A Custom Race Collection is an ever-expanding collection of animal-style custom races made by yours truly. Each race comes with its own, hand-crafted RaceMenu presets that will allow you to give a pre-existing race a completely new appearance in the form of an entirely new race. All of my races come with their own texture replacers, and all that are fully completed have multiple, race-specific PoserHotkeysPlus facial expression packs for those who use PHP.

 

VOTING

(Click HERE to vote for what you think I should do next; in the short term)

(You can also vote HERE if you have a particular type of animal in mind)

 

DISCLAIMER REGARDING THE PREVIEW IMAGES

Please keep in mind that the body proportions seen in the preview images are not set in stone. As long as you have Racemenu and some sort of morphable, female body mod (preferably, 3BA), you could easily change the proportions to be whatever you wish. The presets simply come with the shown proportions because they seem appropriate for the animals in question.

 

DISCLAIMER FOR THOSE LOOKING TO PLAY AS A MALE CHARACTER

All of my RaceMenu character presets are made with a female player character in mind, and it is therefore unwise to assume that everything will work perfectly if you try to use them with a male player character or male NPC. Nevertheless, I have outlined some additional instructions – at the end of the HOW TO USE section of this page – that should allow you to create a male version of the presets with relative ease.

 

HOW TO USE (These instructions assume that you already have RaceMenu and the specific requirements of the RaceMenu character preset in question)

Once you are in the character creation menu (showracemenu), do the following:

1. under the ALL section, select female for your sex if you have not already done so

2. go to the PRESETS section and find a preset of mine that you want to use. Do not click it yet; just find out what race it needs. The race is specified in the name of the preset itself

3. go to the RACE section and select the race that my custom race preset needs

4. go back to the PRESETS section and load the preset

If you intend to be female, then you are done at this point and can now customize yourself to your hearts content, but should you for some reason want to be male instead, then you also need to do the following steps:

5. under the ALL section, select male for your sex

6. go to the SCULPT section and import the head preset of the custom race preset that you selected earlier

7. you will likely have to do some small personal edits at this point to correct any issues that come with using a female preset with a male character, but you are otherwise done and can now begin to customize yourself as you see fit

 

LEGEND

⬤ Finished – fully complete, featuring a RaceMenu character preset, RaceMenu head preset, and multiple PoserHotkeysPlus facial expression packs

⬤ Finished – complete, but an optimized and/or further improved version is planned or in the works

⬤ Work in Progress – close to completion

⬤ Work in Progress – intermediate

⬤ Work in Progress – early

■ Planned – feasible and likely to be finished after only a short development cycle

■ Planned – feasible, but will likely require a slightly longer development cycle

■ Planned – probably feasible, but I cannot guarantee a satisfactory result

■ Planned – more or less impossible to achieve a satisfactory result without help from a third party

■ Planned – viable but of uncertain development scope

■ Planned – highly uncertain of both development scope and overall viability

* = prioritized race

 

FINISHED RACES

 ⬤ Camelid – Camlenthe

Spoiler

CAMLENTHE

(Camelid - unspecific)

 

The Camlenthe race is a modification of the Cervid race by Bad Dog. It does not come with any extra plugin files – just some replacement textures and the RaceMenu presets necessary to transform your Cervid character into a Camlenthe. This means that you can easily switch between Camlenthe or Cervids in your game mid-playthrough as long as you keep backups of the original Cervid texture files and backups of the texture files from this mod. All you need to do to switch between the two races is to exit your game and swap out the textures. It is as simple as that.

Initial release date:

　2023-07-13 / 07/13/23

Version 2.0 release date:

　2024-01-15 / 01/15/23

 

Hard Requirements:

・Bad Dog's Ungulates: Horse, Deer, Minotaur (by Bad Dog)

・RaceMenu (by Expired)

 

Soft Requirements:

・CBBE 3BA (3BBB) (by Acro)

 

(An even more refined version of the Camlenthe race will release later down the line with new feet textures, all new normal maps and footprints, as well as fixes for any remaining texture seams.)

 

v2 previews:

alpha version previews:

 

⬤ Hippopotamus – Hippotem

Spoiler

HIPPOTEM

(Hippopotamus)

 

The Hippotem race is a modification of the Minotaur race by Bad Dog. It does not come with any extra plugin files – just some replacement textures and the RaceMenu presets necessary to transform your Minotaur character into a Hippotem. This means that you can easily switch between having Hippotems or Minotaurs in your game mid-playthrough as long as you keep backups of the original Minotaur texture files and backups of the texture files from this mod. All you need to do to switch between the two races is to exit your game and swap out the textures. It is as simple as that.

Initial release date:

　2023-02-08 / 02/08/23

Version 2.0 release date:

　2024-01-14 / 01/14/24

 

Hard Requirements:

・Bad Dog's Ungulates: Horse, Deer, Minotaur (by Bad Dog)

・RaceMenu (by Expired)

 

Soft Requirements:

・CBBE 3BA (3BBB) (by Acro)

 

(An even more refined version of the Hippotem race will release later down the line with all new normal maps and footprints.)

 

This secondary spoiler contains the preview image for the optional addon Smooth skin for Hippotem:

Spoiler

 

v2 (with optional skin addon) previews:

v1 previews:

(The lighting conditions of the room in which the following screenshots were taken can make certain textures and normal maps appear more shimmery and/or oily than usual. As such, do not take the reflective qualities of surfaces and skin in these screenshots as representative of what the textures would look under normal lighting conditions!)

 

⬤ Pig – Boegen

Spoiler

BOEGEN

(Pig)

 

The Boegen race is a modification of the Minotaur race by Bad Dog. It does not come with any extra plugin files – just some replacement textures and the RaceMenu presets necessary to transform your Minotaur character into a Boegen. This means that you can easily switch between having Boegens or Minotaurs in your game mid-playthrough as long as you keep backups of the original Minotaur texture files and backups of the texture files from this mod. All you need to do to switch between the two races is to exit your game and swap out the textures. It is as simple as that.

Initial release date:

　2023-03-24 / 03/24/23

 

Hard Requirements:

・Bad Dog's Ungulates: Horse, Deer, Minotaur (by Bad Dog)

・RaceMenu (by Expired)

 

Soft Requirements:

・CBBE 3BA (3BBB) (by Acro)

 

(A more refined version of the Boegen race will release later down the line. It will include all new normal maps and footprints, a multitude of different PHP facial expression packs, and also fixes for any texture seams that still remain.)

 

(The lighting conditions of the room in which the following screenshots were taken can make certain textures and normal maps appear more shimmery and/or oily than usual. As such, do not take the reflective qualities of surfaces and skin in these screenshots as representative of what the textures would look under normal lighting conditions!)

 

⬤ Rhinoceros – Rheenen

Spoiler

RHEENEN

(Rhinoceros - unspecific)

 

The Rheenen race is a modification of the Equine race by Bad Dog. It does not come with any extra plugin files – just some replacement textures and the RaceMenu presets necessary to transform your Equine character into a Rheenen. This means that you can easily switch between Rheenen or Equines in your game mid-playthrough as long as you keep backups of the original Equine texture files and backups of the texture files from this mod. All you need to do to switch between the two races is to exit your game and swap out the textures. It is as simple as that.

Initial release date:

　2023-03-24 / 03/24/23

Version 2.0 release date:

　2023-04-04 / 04/04/23

 

Hard Requirements:

・Bad Dog's Ungulates: Horse, Deer, Minotaur (by Bad Dog)

・RaceMenu (by Expired)

 

Soft Requirements:

・CBBE 3BA (3BBB) (by Acro)

 

Version 1 is more realistic, far closer to what actual African rhinos look like.
Version 2 is made for people who use gags regularly. It does also come with improved eyes and brows, but in terms of the mouth region, it is far less realistic than Version 1.
Version 3 is going to be a mix of both, combining the more realistic mouth region of Version 1 with the eye improvements of Version 2.

 

(A more refined version of the Rheenen race will release later down the line. It will include an improved mouth interior, as well as all new normal maps and footprints.)

 

 

The following images are from a slave playthrough for visual reference on how the mouth and eyes differ between version 1.0 and version 2.0:

 

 

 

WORK IN PROGRESS RACES

⬤ Alligator

*⬤ "Beaked Argonian Prototype"

*⬤ "Bluekin Prototype"

⬤ Crocodile

⬤ Gharial

*⬤ "Isaar Prototype" / Sauropod ← currently in active development

*⬤ "Nog Prototype"

*⬤ "Short Faced Dragon Prototype"

 

PLANNED RACES

■ African Elephant

■ American Bison

■ Asian Elephant

■ Badger

■ Beaver

■ Boar

■ Brown Bear

■ Ceratopsian (non-specific)

■ Cougar

■ Dodo

■ Dog, Pitbull

■ Donkey

■ Dromaeosaurid (non-specific)

■ Elasmotherium

■ Gaur

■ Giraffe

■ Hyena

■ Iguana

■ Jackal

■ Kangaroo

■ Kiwi Bird

■ Leopard

■ Lion

■ Moose (US)

■ Muskox

■ Panther

■ Polar Bear

■ Rabbit

■ Rat

■ Seal

■ Sheep

■ Skunk

■ Smilodon

■ Tapir

■ Walrus

■ Warthog

■ Weasel

■ Wildebeest

■ Woolly Mammoth

■ Woolly Rhinoceros

 

RACE REQUESTS

If you have any races that you would like to see added, feel free to leave a comment in the Support thread.

 

REQUIREMENTS

A full list of prerequisites will be published for each and every race as they are released.

 

CREDITS

The following mod authors deserve special shout outs for their fantastic work regardless of whether a preset is dependent on their mod or not. All of the custom races that I have made for this collection are dependent on one or more of these mods to function, or they are simply at their best when used in conjunction with these mods)

・@Bad Dog (for all of the amazing custom race mods that you have made)

・Acro (for CBBE 3BA (3BBB)) (multiple races use edited elements from Acro's normal maps as part of their own normal maps)

・Expired (for RaceMenu)
・Flawn (for Flawn's Argonian Overlays and Flawn's Vanilla Argonians Redux)
・KouLeifoh (for the High Poly Head mod)

・millepon (for Poser Hotkeys Plus)

 

REQUEST TO MY FELLOW MODDERS

I do not yet know how to make my races completely standalone, so If you are a modder and would like to help out, feel free to create .ESP/.ESL plugin based versions of my races and post them in the Support thread. Needless to say, you will of course get credited for your work and you will have my gratitude.

 

If you have any modding resources to share or recommendations for software that I could use to make 3D models for SSE, feel free to also share such recommendations in the Support thread.

 

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• Submitter
  Wonders of Eros
• Submitted
  03/03/2023
• Category
  Adult Mods
• Requires
• Regular Edition Compatible
  No

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Wonders of Eros
updated description

[InsanLady]

Is there a posibility of a le port? xd

[Lagartixa Amarela]

great mod

 

may I suggest a new race in the future, chaumicidae the ant race, a cousin race of the chaurus

[Wonders of Eros]

For those who are wondering about the lack of files.

 

The mod is currently empty, but some of the presets will release before the end of the weekend.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Coalstorm

[Wonders of Eros]

51 minutes ago, Lagartixa Amarela said:

great mod

 

may I suggest a new race in the future, chaumicidae the ant race, a cousin race of the chaurus

 

This should be feasible but it would require a ton of time and effort to accomplish. I will definitely look into it at the very least.

[Wonders of Eros]

11 hours ago, InsanLady said:

Is there a posibility of a le port? xd

 

I will not make an LE conversion.

 

If someone wants to convert my presets to LE or AE, then they have my blessing as long as they credit me and the original mod. 

[Blaze69]

This is certainly an interesting premise, and having more anthro/beast-race-related content around is always good. Definitely going to keep an eye on this.

 

I do wonder, though: races are mentioned as the main focus, but the description also mentions all the content will most likely be provided as RM presets with custom sculpts to match at most. Is there any particular reason this is done this way? Any plans to eventually create full custom races with their own assets and such (even if they're still heavily based on existing ones)? For example, while the characters and heads in the screenshot look surprisingly alright for RM sculpts, they could probably greatly benefit for stuff like custom skin textures and such to set them apart from the base races they were built off, if that's ever an option. Just wondering, though.

(And in case this information wasn't known, it should be possible to turn a custom RM sculpt into a new "base" head mesh for use as a separate custom race, if need be).

 

Otherwise, I do feel the need to point out several of the species mentioned here are already available either a straight up race mods or as alternate customization options for those existing mods. For example, AFAIK Bad Dog's own Ungulates mod has alternate customization options for its Equine and Cervid races that let users create donkeys, elk, moose (to some extent) and wildebeest; likewise, Yiffy Age of Skyrim includes lions/sabrelions (smilodons), panthers, hyenas, and jackals. Even I made a bear race based on vanilla Skyrim bear assets (although that one is admittedly on hold for the time being and only available as a WIP in the YA Discord server).

 

Obviously variety is the spice of life and having other interpretations of those races/species is always welcome as well, just wondering if you were aware of some of those already having some versions available and what your thoughts on them are.

[Wonders of Eros]

 

1 hour ago, Blaze69 said:

I do wonder, though: races are mentioned as the main focus, but the description also mentions all the content will most likely be provided as RM presets with custom sculpts to match at most. Is there any particular reason this is done this way?

 

The short and simple answer is that I am not currently capable of doing it any other way.

 

I know little about programming, and moreover, I do not know how to create my own plugin mods. I only have some very basic knowledge about scripting and changing parameters within existing Creation Engine plugins, but that is about it. I would love to make this a standalone plugin mod and to learn the ins and outs of the engine so that I would have no limitations on what I would be able to achieve, but I do not know where I would start or even where to find tutorials or written material on the process of creating a Creation Engine mod. If you have any links, you are welcome to share them with me.

 

1 hour ago, Blaze69 said:

Any plans to eventually create full custom races with their own assets and such (even if they're still heavily based on existing ones)? For example, while the characters and heads in the screenshot look surprisingly alright for RM sculpts, they could probably greatly benefit for stuff like custom skin textures and such to set them apart from the base races they were built off, if that's ever an option. Just wondering, though.

 

I am highly experienced with image editing, so creating new textures and overlays would not be a problem for me, but I have not used a 3D modeling software in well over 12 years, so creating brand new 3D assets and models - for instance, new feet for a custom race - feels like it is a bit out of reach for me at the moment.

 

The current plan is to gradually replace some of the RM overlays that I have in my game with my own, custom textures and to then incorporate the new overlays into my race presets as needed. If I ever learn how to make a plugin mod and new RM overlays from scratch, then I will of course get rid of any dependencies on random RM tattoo packs all together and instead make the overlays standalone, but this is the only way I know how to incorporate my own textures at the moment. I will admit that it is not a very practical or prestigious way to do it, but one can still achieve some really good results even if one does it through this sort of process.

 

It should be mentioned that none of the race presets used in those screenshots use my own custom textures.

 

1 hour ago, Blaze69 said:

(And in case this information wasn't known, it should be possible to turn a custom RM sculpt into a new "base" head mesh for use as a separate custom race, if need be).

 

Yeah, it is a fairly common practice from my understanding.

 

1 hour ago, Blaze69 said:

Otherwise, I do feel the need to point out several of the species mentioned here are already available either a straight up race mods or as alternate customization options for those existing mods. For example, AFAIK Bad Dog's own Ungulates mod has alternate customization options for its Equine and Cervid races that let users create donkeys, elk, moose (to some extent) and wildebeest; likewise, Yiffy Age of Skyrim includes lions/sabrelions (smilodons), panthers, hyenas, and jackals. Even I made a bear race based on vanilla Skyrim bear assets (although that one is admittedly on hold for the time being and only available as a WIP in the YA Discord server).

 

I enjoy anthro content a great deal, hence this mod, but I still value lore-friendliness and immersion more. Last time I checked, which was admittedly over a year and a half ago, Yiffy Age of Skyrim was a type of total conversion mod that turned all NPCs into anthros. That is not my thing, so I have never installed it, and therefore, I do not know what the mod contains as far as species are concerned.

 

As for donkey and wildebeest options existing within the Ungulate mod, I only know of a pair of wildebeest-like horns and a bulging nose for the Minotaur. There are definitely no options to create a believable-looking donkey in my build which do not require extensive sculpting of the face. Donkeys have very different facial features than horses do, so the default Equine faces do not cut it by themselves.

 

1 hour ago, Blaze69 said:

Obviously variety is the spice of life and having other interpretations of those races/species is always welcome as well, just wondering if you were aware of some of those already having some versions available and what your thoughts on them are.

 

I was already aware of the Yiffy custom races beforehand, and I also know of a crocodile race on the Nexus, but that is about it.

 

The thing is that I am NOT playing and modifying an AE build here. It is an SSE build running on the last (or second to last) version released before AE dropped. Long story short, I basically spent an entire year making such a ridiculously extensive yet still highly functional build for SSE that I still feel no need to upgrade over a year on from AE's release. Being honest, the build is so good and all-encompassing that I will likely not upgrade or create a new build until Beyond Skyrim drops a few years down the line. Besides, many of my favorite mods, which are used in the build, have not yet been updated to AE, so I have little reason to move on.

 

 

 

That was quite a lot to unpack there, but thanks a lot for your keen interest in the project. I hope to see you around these parts going forward and I welcome your expertise.

 

[Blaze69]

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

I know little about programming, and moreover, I do not know how to create my own plugin mods. I only have some very basic knowledge about scripting and changing parameters within existing Creation Engine plugins, but that is about it. I would love to make this a standalone plugin mod and to learn the ins and outs of the engine so that I would have no limitations on what I would be able to achieve, but I do not know where I would start or even where to find tutorials or written material on the process of creating a Creation Engine mod. If you have any links, you are welcome to share them with me.

Oh, I see. Yeah, that's unfortunate but quite common, and specially so in the topic of creating custom races for Beth games.

I'm afraid I can't really think of any tutorial on this topic in particular. The best I can suggest is to familiarize yourself with using xEdit (SSEEdit) and then "reverse-engineer" the kinds of records a single custom race mod (like Lykaios) uses and what each of them do.

 

Otherwise, if there's any specific questions you might have about this kind of stuff, I can try to answer then, although I can't make any promises.

I'd also recommend joining the YA discord server, since it holds some of the few people that are knowledgeable(ish) in Beth game race mod creation including myself, and you'll probably get a quicker reply to your queries there.

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

I am highly experienced with image editing, so creating new textures and overlays would not be a problem for me, but I have not used a 3D modeling software in well over 12 years, so creating brand new 3D assets and models - for instance, new feet for a custom race - feels like it is a bit out of reach for me at the moment.

Fair point, and TBH I'm not great at from-scratch asset creation myself either. I usually tend to search for available base assets to edit, and modify them using the skills I *do* have to suit my tastes. For example, in the case of needing new feet meshes for a custom races, I'd try to find an open-perms 3D model of the "feral" animal the race is based on, so I could cut off the feet/hooves/paws/whatever, and then modify them to fit the Skyrim humanoid body, do the rigging, etc.

 

Also, on the topic of 3D modeling software, I'd strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with Blender if you ever want to go for this. Thanks to PyNifly, pretty much all of the mesh work required for custom race stuff can be done easily in Blender and exported straight into the game itself, so there's that.

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

The current plan is to gradually replace some of the RM overlays that I have in my game with my own, custom textures and to then incorporate the new overlays into my race presets as needed. If I ever learn how to make a plugin mod and new RM overlays from scratch, then I will of course get rid of any dependencies on random RM tattoo packs all together and instead make the overlays standalone, but this is the only way I know how to incorporate my own textures at the moment. I will admit that it is not a very practical or prestigious way to do it, but one can still achieve some really good results even if one does it through this sort of process.

Yeah, lacking knowledge of how to get the plugin stuff done (which I'll confess is probably the most tedious part of working on custom race stuff), I see how piggybacking off existing mods would be the best available way to get your assets ingame. Not ideal, as you say, but then again, man's gotta make do. ?‍♂️

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

It should be mentioned that none of the race presets used in those screenshots use my own custom textures.

Hmm. Any chance you could showcase those at some point, if any of those textures are at least "WIP-shot-worthy"? I'm curious.

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

I enjoy anthro content a great deal, hence this mod, but I still value lore-friendliness and immersion more. Last time I checked, which was admittedly over a year and a half ago, Yiffy Age of Skyrim was a type of total conversion mod that turned all NPCs into anthros.

Yeah, YA does its thing by directly editing the vanilla races and making them furry by replacing the human assets with beast ones. Nords still use the vanilla NordRace and Altmer still use the vanilla HighElfRace, it's just that with YA installed those all point to anthro assets.

 

Implementing it all this way had its reasons, and TBH it seems like it's still the "best" (= least bad) method for Skyrim. In the case of FO4 we opted for making the custom races standalone and simply directly editing the NPC data of "furrified" actors to have them use those races instead; this is a much "cleaner" method and allows the races to be used on the player or select NPCs only without editing the whole world, but that's only possible due to changes in the game engine and systems compared to Skyrim.

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

That is not my thing, so I have never installed it, and therefore, I do not know what the mod contains as far as species are concerned.

The description has a list of the available races:

Quote

• Nord - Lykaios (Wolf)
• Imperial - Vaalsark (Jackal-ish)
• Breton - Fennec Fox by Jelly
• Redguard - Kygarra (Hyena)
• High Elf - Cheetah
• Wood Elf - Tigers
• Dark Elf - Panther
• Orc - Saberlion
• Snow Elf - Snow Leopard
• Reachmen - Striped Hyenas
• Skaal - African Wild Dogs

It's mostly up to date, although the latest version has Bretons as "normal" foxes as opposed to Fennecs. I should also mention Sabrelions (Orcs) have saberteeth by default but there's a chargen morph that gives them standard teeth instead and effectively turns them into normal lions.

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

As for donkey and wildebeest options existing within the Ungulate mod, I only know of a pair of wildebeest-like horns and a bulging nose for the Minotaur. There are definitely no options to create a believable-looking donkey in my build which do not require extensive sculpting of the face. Donkeys have very different facial features than horses do, so the default Equine faces do not cut it by themselves.

There should be some nose and ear shape options for Equines that should provide a decent donkey-ish look, moreso if coupled with the proper tints/paints. But I do agree specific sculpting would probably be able to result in a much more species-accurate look instead. Same goes for wildebeest.

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

I was already aware of the Yiffy custom races beforehand, and I also know of a crocodile race on the Nexus, but that is about it.

There's... not that many, outside of Bad Dog's standalone races + YA ones, yeah.

 

There's the bear one I mentioned which TBH was mostly just a wacky experiment, and while functional, it doesn't really have much to offer (yet?), thus why I called it a WIP and only released it on the YA server.
(Also because getting stuff posted on Nexus and taking pics and writing descriptions and such is pain).

 

Here's some example shots:

Spoiler

 

As for the crocs, I did some cleanup, made the textures compatible with SOS and UNP, and backported the race to SE. It's not much, and the textures would probably need to be converted to CBBE for proper use in SE, but the file might be useful in some way. It's also available on the server:

Spoiler

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

The thing is that I am NOT playing and modifying an AE build here. It is an SSE build running on the last (or second to last) version released before AE dropped. Long story short, I basically spent an entire year making such a ridiculously extensive yet still highly functional build for SSE that I still feel no need to upgrade over a year on from AE's release. Being honest, the build is so good and all-encompassing that I will likely not upgrade or create a new build until Beyond Skyrim drops a few years down the line. Besides, many of my favorite mods, which are used in the build, have not yet been updated to AE, so I have little reason to move on.

That's good to know, although to my knowledge that should have no effect on any of the stuff involved in this process. I've been using SE (aka 1.5.97) myself for quite a while now, and while I mostly focus on FO4 lately, I go back to Skyrim from time to time and I haven't had any issues so far.

 

1 hour ago, Coalstorm said:

That was quite a lot to unpack there, but thanks a lot for your keen interest in the project. I hope to see you around these parts going forward and I welcome your expertise.

Happy to help! As I said, having more anthro/beast-race-related content around is always good.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Blaze69

[cutcut]

Crossed fingers for someone doing LE conversion

[Wonders of Eros]

ANOUNCEMENT

 

The first content drop is being postponed, but only by a few days.

 

This is happening because of a rather fundamental change to how I develop my races. In short, I have decided that it is better to directly modify the default textures of the races that my races use as foundations rather than to force users to install a ton of random Racemenu overlay mods. That way, users will not have to worry as much about their plugin counts and it also enables me to create races that much more closely resemble their real life counterparts. This does of course mean that you will have to swap out your textures between playthroughs if you want to play as a different race, but I think most of you are fine with such a setup. 

Lastly, this of course also means that it is going to take me much longer to develop each race, as it takes a significant amount of time and effort to modify the base textures, let alone testing different iterations out in game to make sure that it all aligns properly and looks like it is supposed to. Add to that the pain-staking process of playing with scales and molding a new head using the sculpt function in RM and I have my work cut out for me.

 

Just to give you guys a sense of how big of a difference this makes, I have provided a before-and-after image of where I started this morning and ended this evening after some more sculpting and first time use of the new texture method.

 

 

[Blaze69]

15 minutes ago, Coalstorm said:

This does of course mean that you will have to swap out your textures between playthroughs if you want to play as a different race, but I think most of you are fine with such a setup.

It's certainly a downside, although I do think it's better to have better-looking characters rather than just convenience. Besides, if/whenever these are made into full standalone races, they were going to need their own textures anyway, so it's good for that work to be done already, methinks. Even if it means it takes a while longer for new updates to arrive.

 

15 minutes ago, Coalstorm said:

as it takes a significant amount of time and effort to modify the base textures, let alone testing different iterations out in game to make sure that it all aligns properly

Hmm... I know you probably have a lot on your plate already, but... may I suggest looking into Blender for the issue of "texture alignment"? It has a "Texture Paint" mode that would let you load your textures and paint directly on the mesh itself; probably not as powerful as whatever tools you're currently using, but it's pretty straightforward for stuff like texture blending across UV/mesh seams (and it's precisely what I use it for).

It's not extremely complicated but it would probably need watching a tutorial or two, though, so that's why it's only a suggestion. Alternatively, I think newer versions of Photoshop (if you're familiar with it/are using it) are supposed to be able to import OBJ or FBX mesh files and paint on them, but I've never used it myself so I can't say for sure.

 

Last, but not least, there's more advanced tools like Substance Painter, which offer many more possibilities with pre-made materials and such (there might be even "skin" materials based on the species you want to go for, although whether those would be easy to turn into a proper skin texture or not is a different story). The main "con" to those is none of them are free, though.

[Painbow69]

I usually just have the mesh loaded in bodyslide while I work on texture stuff. To reload the texture, just double-click the mesh in bodyslide and hit OK. That should reload the texture so you can see it.

 

Having nifskope loaded can sometimes work too, even loading the texture in real-time. But it seems to be inconsistent.

[Wonders of Eros]

Thanks a lot for the suggestion, @Painbow69. Using Outfit Studio to preview my textures in real time really sped things up quite a bit.

 

Here are a few progress images to show where things are right now with the Hippo race:

 

Spoiler

 

I know that the feet look pretty rough, but it cannot be helped. I will try to draw in some toes later and I will also do my best to realign the nails.

 

[Wonders of Eros]

RACE RELEASED

 

The race Hippotem has been released.

 

(Check the main page for more information)

[Wonders of Eros]

ANOUNCEMENT

 

With the initial version of the Hippotem race now released to the public, I have resumed working on my rhino race. That being said, an improved version of the Hippotem race will release later, which will include all new normals and specular maps, all new footprints, a multitude of different PHP facial expression packs just for the Hippotem, as well as fixes for any texture seams that still remain.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Coalstorm

[Wonders of Eros]

I am making good progress on the rhinoceros race and have also begun looking at new normal maps for the Hippotem. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Coalstorm

[MyNameIsnt]

That pig race looks fantastic! Is there any chance of a beta release of the races that are WIP but not complete?

[Kernog]

If I may make a suggestion, I would absolutely love a gorilla/primate race.

[Wonders of Eros]

1 hour ago, Kernog said:

If I may make a suggestion, I would absolutely love a gorilla/primate race.

 

I have actually been thinking of doing an ape race for some time now, but I have always been on the fence about which species to go for. I imagine gorillas are your personal preference, since you mentioned the species by name, but if you had some other species in mind, feel free to mention it.

 

In terms of viability and development scope, an ape race would be significantly easier to achieve than many of the other races that I have been working on, and I could probably make it in only a few days, perhaps as few as two or three.

 

Also, thank you for your support. ?

[Wonders of Eros]

4 hours ago, MyNameIsnt said:

That pig race looks fantastic! Is there any chance of a beta release of the races that are WIP but not complete?

 

I have a ton of older work in progress races just lying around that are more or less done in every regard except for textures. In fact, many of the races that are currently listed as "planned" on the mod page are actually in some stage of development, and some of them are likely close to completion. I simply do not remember which stage of development they are in so I just defaulted to listing them as "planned."

 

My initial proof of concept version for a pig race, which is what you see in that picture you mentioned, uses a ton of random RaceMenu overlay mods, so it has a lot of unnecessary dependencies. I am currently on somewhat of a personal crusade to get rid of such dependencies from all of my races, and that takes times, because it means that I have to create brand new default textures from scratch (or at the very least heavily modify the existing default textures of the races that they are based on to create new defaults).

 

In the end, the pig race will likely go through the same process as the Hippotem, whereby I re-textured the race, re-scaled the body proportions, and re-sculpted the head over multiple in-game/Photoshop sessions trying to get it as close to the real life animal as possible before I went ahead with a release. I am definitely going to make a lot of changes to the head of the pig race before I feel ready to release it. You can bet your money on that. I am actually a bit of a perfectionist in that regard. For instance; even though I personally think that the Hippotem race head already looks pretty damn good, I still see room for improvement - in particular, as the ears are concerned. I already plan to re-sculpt the head for that race extensively for its final version, beyond the other numerous additions and fixes that I have planned.

Seeing as you seem to like the pig race in particular, you will be glad to hear that it is immediately next in the pipeline after the rhinoceros race, which is itself now very close to an initial release.

 

Also, thank you for your support. I am glad that you like the mod. ?

[Wonders of Eros]

For those who are interested in roughly how long it took me to create the Hippotem, here is a short summary:

 

[Blaze69]

HIPPOTEM - STANDALONE VERSION (BETA)

 

Exactly what the title says. "Standalone" version of the mod, with Hippotem set up as a standalone race that does not edit or override Minotaurs anymore. The custom head shape is also implemented as a new base head nif, so there's no need to import the RaceMenu sculpt data anymore.

(Only includes female assets, since male versions don't exist (yet?). Males will look like bugged Khajiit; this is normal. Simply change to female before selecting Hippotem if you want to avoid any possible weirdness).

 

Do note that the ingame Bodyslide morphs and the RaceMenu body scales from the original preset file cannot be stored in vanilla race/preset data, so the RM preset file is still required to properly apply those on the Player.

 

Testing has shown no issues or bugs so far, but please do report them if any are found, and I'll do my best to sort them out if that happens.

 

Credit goes to Coalstorm and Bad Dog for the original files.

 

RoN - Hippotem - Standalone Version - Alpha v2.7z

 

EDIT 2023-03-12: turns out the paths for hands and feet still pointed to the original Minotaur assets by mistake, so those body parts would be missing if BD's Ungulate Races was not installed (which kinda defeats the point of the file being standalone). Reuploaded the package with fixed paths.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Blaze69

[Kernog]

22 hours ago, Coalstorm said:

 

I have actually been thinking of doing an ape race for some time now, but I have always been on the fence about which species to go for. I imagine gorillas are your personal preference, since you mentioned the species by name, but if you had some other species in mind, feel free to mention it.

 

In terms of viability and development scope, an ape race would be significantly easier to achieve than many of the other races that I have been working on, and I could probably make it in only a few days, perhaps as few as two or three.

 

Also, thank you for your support. ?

 

You are welcome. ?

 

I do not know the extent of the manipulation you can do on each gender, but you could make the male gorillas, and the female chimps. If you want references of how a good-looking female chimp character would look, I strongly recommend that you check Neurodyne's art.

[SoulessAndroid]

Can you add snakes and dragon races?