[WIP] A new body replacement idea.

[ElectricSheep]

 

 

Like i said before you can't mirror an object space normal, but you can mirror a tangent space one.

Of course you can, you just need to invert the red channel afterwards.

 

 

How? When both the left and right side are occupying the same UV space?

And even if they wasn't and had there own UV space why would you not then just bake out a proper normal map?

 

Mirroring an object space normal requires specific shader support, and skyrim does not have it.

 

I'm not sure I understand what are you talking about.

 

Mirroring an object space map is as simple as that:

 

Of course it's impossible when the second half occupies the same UV space. Why? Sometimes something goes wrong, artifacts occur, or you simply want to tweak the texture and then mirror the results. It's not like you need to mirror the whole texture after all.

[mobius48]

 

 

 

Actually I do notice a performance gain switching to Dream Girl from even CBBE. It's one of the major reasons I switched and stayed with Dream Girl. My game just runs smoother all the time.

 

Interesting that you notice a performance gain after switching to a body mod that has 1k polygons more than your previous one.

 

 

Polygons are no real problems vor modern GPUs. Textures, Lighting and shadows are the stuff that stresses your GPU most. If you have incorrect settings for a texture (e.g. DXT3 instead of DXT1) and such stuff, your graphics card will have a lot of unnecessary work.

[barjack]

 

 

 

 

Actually I do notice a performance gain switching to Dream Girl from even CBBE. It's one of the major reasons I switched and stayed with Dream Girl. My game just runs smoother all the time.

 

Interesting that you notice a performance gain after switching to a body mod that has 1k polygons more than your previous one.

 

 

Polygons are no real problems vor modern GPUs. Textures, Lighting and shadows are the stuff that stresses your GPU most. If you have incorrect settings for a texture (e.g. DXT3 instead of DXT1) and such stuff, your graphics card will have a lot of unnecessary work.

 

 

ya,,polygon count isn't a primary issue for performance,but it's still a factor.

Skyrim is a heavy mod oriented  game,lots of small factors in each mod cause total performance lost,that's what i want to eliminate.

Also,maybe you guys already know this,will tri-strip polygon in nif data cause ctd in skyrim?convert polygon data from tri-list into tri-strip should gain a tiny performance too:)

 

[barjack]

almost finished sculpture and painting,,here is the preview.

still need to paint some detail parts like nails,,but the shader in skyrim should be different.

I guess i need to adjust specular/gloss,,then add vein,muscle color in sss layer map.

[barjack]

Testing and doing shader adjustments atm.

Here is a strange stuff i found,,i remember someone talked about this bug in some other forums.didn't remember the adress,it's the strange lighting,i'm not sure if it's specular value related,,it shows only in indoor,other body mods have the same stuff,,,but vanilla doesn't have it.I've tried disable specular,and lots of different shader combination ,but it's still there.

It's the strange orange(sometimes white) ring,,it seems there is kind of relationship with light,,but reallly not sure about this..any solution?

[barjack]

released public beta in nexus.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49287/?

also contain resource data for modders.

[Guest]

released public beta in nexus.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49287/?

also contain resource data for modders.

 

Did you compress the normal map? Because, no offense, but the textures look pixelated.

[barjack]

the normal map in the nmm installer only has 2k resolution.

And i used dxt5 on it.

[Vioxsis]

 

 

^bug, you will need to flip those faces in max. you can also use nifskope to remove any bogus nodes "spells > optimize > remove bogus nodes" this might help a little with performance gains.

 

 

And Absurdity you can download the normal map .psd and save a .dds uncompressed > (8.8.8 RGB  24 bpp | unsigned) < use if you don't need the alpha) and ( 8.8.8.8  ARGB  32 bpp | unsigned) < if you do need it.

[barjack]

ok,,i'll fix it when i have time,thx for reporting.faces flipping issues is not too hard.

I didn't sure skyrim support that except dxt1-dxt5,,so i used dxt5

[Guest]

the normal map in the nmm installer only has 2k resolution.

And i used dxt5 on it.

 

Well, compressing normal maps in any way causes pixelated skin in the game.

[barjack]

I do see the difference between compressed and uncompressed normal,,from now on,,i won't use compressed one.

And somebody mentioned the weird angle of hip/leg,,that's very interesting,,i didn't notice it when i were modeling .

I think it's affected by animation data.really interesting.

I'll release fixed version soon,also i need to paint more detail in SSS layer.

As for the white/orange ring lighting issue i mentioned,I think i found solution,,it's lighting effect 1,default value is 0.4,,i set it to 0.1,,then it's fixed,,,Is this flag value related to SSS shader depth?because i see less vein color when i set it to lower value...still not sure about it.

 

[barjack]

updated to version 0.2

fixed the problems you guys mentioned.

If you have ENB installed,,plz take some pictures for testing sub surface effect,my game is still vanilla for best compatibility of modding.

[barjack]

The lighting effect 1 flag, it's not sss related,it's soft lighting map strength,

the correct solution is turn off the "soft lighting" in shaderpropertyflag2.

here is a thread i found here talked about this strange map,

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/5312-having-some-issues-with-evie-mask/

,But it's not showed on the nifskope texture slot,

What the hell is this?,,is it possible to mod this map called soft lighting?

 

Edit

here is another thread talked about this flag

http://enbdev.com/enbseries/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1374&start=20

it said soft lighting map is SSS map,hmmm,,,gonna do some tests..really confusing

 

[mobius48]

the normal map in the nmm installer only has 2k resolution.

And i used dxt5 on it.

 

Better use DXT1 for non transparent textures.

[barjack]

 

the normal map in the nmm installer only has 2k resolution.

And i used dxt5 on it.

 

Better use DXT1 for non transparent textures.

 

 

ya,,it's all fixed,,diffuse map uses dxt1,normal map uses non-compressed rgb in ver 0.2 now.

 

And guys,,turn off the soft lighting flag,,my sss map seems not correctly painted ,,need to study more about it.

[barjack]

a tiny update,,

use this new specular map,,you will see big difference

and my normal map doesn't have enough padding,so there is a tiny gap when mipmap loaded,,will fix both of them in the next update.

performance_body_s.7z

[barjack]

About the xxx_sk.dds map,or so called soft lighting map in nifskope.It's kind of fake SSS map,not really SSS like blender or other render software does.It works like kind of color blender,strength is depending on the  lightness and color of the map.

For gaming,it's good enough.Here is my painting method from observing it's behavior.Correct me if i'm wrong.

1.Choose the SSS color you want,for human flesh,i choose salmon red.

2.Adjust light level,for photoshop,,slide the center control point to the value 15-20,why this value?it's an experience of testing,base on nifskope's flag value,it's default value (lighting effect1) is 0.4,if the map too bright,the colored (white/orange) ring i mentioned will appear in the torso,if too dark,the color won't appear,,15-20 is my tested value.

3.In the fingers,toes,ears those part have strong SSS effect,paint it with white first,,then the color will return to it's original value,that's what we want.if you don't set the color too deep from level adjustment.

4. Do the same to veins after you finished red color part,it's usually blue.

 

I found lots of tiny problems,will fix them slowly.With this body as base established,now i'm working on head mesh

[barjack]

Fixed some topology error of 1st version .It's far away from perfect,but the mouth,eye,and nose area i follow the loop of  good topology template picture,it should be able to have good facial expression.After finishing the ear,basically i won't change current topology anymore.

Is there anyone have time to help me build facial expression database?There are lots of them need to be done.

No need to be very nice,,just a first attempt,it can be improved slowly by time.It will go faster if anyone can help ,still need to do some sculpture in zbrush.

[barjack]

Here is the test painting of face,,hope i can see enough detail in final result.

Gonna test some eyes.

[barjack]

New eyes, it's UV will still use vanilla's setting,,so i can use all eye textures in nexus.

I will make it has 2 layers like real eyes,it's an experiment,the outer layer will have environment map shader and be transparent,inner layer will have diffuse color of iris.I saw a nif shader flag called refraction ,,but i bet it's not like what it said as oblivion,lol,

 

 

Edit:

2 layer eye mesh doesn't work,at least i didn't success,1st layer is transparent,but i can't make 2nd layer apper when 1st layer have transparent alpha.

I find something annoying,when i export meshes with 2 different map,,like this

mesh a--->texture set 1

mesh b---->texture set 2

combine a,and b,,then export it to single nif,,this will cause 3dsmax's plugin crash,is this only happen to me?

[barjack]

eyes,eyelash,and mouth are done,they're compatible with vanilla textures,this will save lots of time.

,eyebrow is painted as gray so that i can adjust it's color in PS easily to fit the color of other hairs.

fast render previw with 2k texture,what the size of texture most people are using?2k or 1k?

 

[barjack]

facial expressions are done,really exhausting stuff.I added lots of different facial expressions compare with vanilla one.for example,battleange/dialogueange,vanilla face used same expression,i made some variations to make them lookng different between combat/dialogue.

now I'm working on character generation menu stuff,nose,eyes,mouth,,i will only add few variations,it's not as much as vanilla's face.Then i'll start to register them in CK,here are 2 in game test rendering of face.I repainted the color used SG's face texture as reference.it's much smoother compare with 1st version.Eyebrow is failure,I will redo it later.

[barjack]

About the mirrored UV,i found the reason it looked weird,it's about lighting,not shadow,,it's very obvious to observe it in CK preview window,compare body/head's lighting you will see.It's not easy to find this  in game,because there are too much lights showed in the same time,,so i will try to use tangent space on body,,if it's looking too bad or cause more problems,i'll have to switch back to non-mirrored UV assignment.

Head is okay i think,all parts showing correctly .with some in game screens,,need to import some hair styles.testing facial expressions .

[barjack]

I have a problem of hair,it's about overlapping UV,,for meshes like hair,if you must reuse same pixel spaces for hair,you can not overlap the 2nd mesh on the same UV for nif format,Is this correct?I find the mesh get distorted when i use overlapping UV.

 

Edit:not really ,,there is other reason cause distortion,i found some vanilla hairs use overlapping UV too.