Normal Maps for CBBE/CHSBHC

[slash197]

Here it is, to tide a few people over until you finish looking around, then. It's 4096 only, though, because I am too lazy to repeat the process for 1024 and 2048 right now.

 

Muscular, CBBE v3 Compatible

[cefwyn]

You don't need to do the 2048 or 1024 versions separately. You should get pretty good results just by going into an image editing app and scaling the image down to the size you want.

 

I've tried to do a better compatibility texture by baking the normals to the CBBE v2 mesh but unfortunately it doesn't work all that well and it looks like the only good way to do it is by using the clone tool and extending the legs up which makes it impossible to completely remove the seam.

 

It's not really that hard to port older armors to use CBBE v3 body though since you can usually just import the armor into a modeller, deleting the visible body parts and then importing a CBBE v3 mesh of similar shape and then deleting the covered vertices (or not if you want to use alpha layers in the armor to show skin later).

[cefwyn]

I've finally sculpted the head mesh and made some normal maps from it! The lips are possibly too raised and I'm not happy with the ears but it'll still lessen the seam between the body and neck and even at the vanilla size it's not blocky at all.

[orangemegaslide]

Excellent job man! I don't know the work involved to do things like this, I can only appreciate them. The muscle work is godlike.

 

Unfortunately I won't be able to use these, cause I'm using UNP body, but I gave you a thanks in the OP anyway, and if at any point in time you convert these to vanilla/UNP I'll be all over it. Or, if at whatever point I'd prefer or start using CBBE body over UNP.

 

Any plans to team up with Navetsea, this person made great textures for CBBE and UNP, your normal maps would be amazing included.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6554

 

EDIT: AH! I recognize you now. Weren't you the creator of the original Athletic Body mod on Fallout 3? Superb job on that, that was my favorite body mod.

 

Later EDIT: Just found out that CBBE v3 has a vanilla styled option. So I think I might make the conversion over to CBBE now, just to use these maps youve made.

[cefwyn]

Excellent job man! I don't know the work involved to do things like this' date=' I can only appreciate them. The muscle work is godlike.

 

Unfortunately I won't be able to use these, cause I'm using UNP body, but I gave you a thanks in the OP anyway, and if at any point in time you convert these to vanilla/UNP I'll be all over it. Or, if at whatever point I'd prefer or start using CBBE body over UNP.

 

Any plans to team up with Navetsea, this person made great textures for CBBE and UNP, your normal maps would be amazing included.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6554

 

EDIT: AH! I recognize you now. Weren't you the creator of the original Athletic Body mod on Fallout 3? Superb job on that, that was my favorite body mod.

 

Later EDIT: Just found out that CBBE v3 has a vanilla styled option. So I think I might make the conversion over to CBBE now, just to use these maps youve made.

[/quote']

 

I certainly wouldn't call it godlike. I wasn't the original creator of the Athletic Body for Fallout 3 however the original author abandoned the project and I picked it up for Fallout: New Vegas and did some outfit conversions for a short time before I became too busy with work.

 

I don't know if Navetsea would be interested in any sort of collaboration and I'm not sure how that would work. As far as I'm aware he does all his work in photoshop or something similar (and yet still does an amazing job with the seams), while I do all my work in Blender and since I've never been that great at texturing I'm pretty much limited to what I can make in 3D and then render out to a normal map while still trying to follow existing skin textures. In my game I use Navetsea's skin textures and my normal maps and they work great together.

 

I may have a go at a few maps for the UNP mesh at some point but that involves remodeling everything from scratch which is why the muscle map for CHSBHC looks so different from CBBE though in my opinion my second attempt does look a million times more realistic and therefore better. Before I do any UNP work I really want to improve the maps I've already done further.

[lumenbeing]

I'd like to see that stomach on a flat-chested argonian model.

[orangemegaslide]

Excellent job man! I don't know the work involved to do things like this' date=' I can only appreciate them. The muscle work is godlike.

 

Unfortunately I won't be able to use these, cause I'm using UNP body, but I gave you a thanks in the OP anyway, and if at any point in time you convert these to vanilla/UNP I'll be all over it. Or, if at whatever point I'd prefer or start using CBBE body over UNP.

 

Any plans to team up with Navetsea, this person made great textures for CBBE and UNP, your normal maps would be amazing included.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6554

 

EDIT: AH! I recognize you now. Weren't you the creator of the original Athletic Body mod on Fallout 3? Superb job on that, that was my favorite body mod.

 

Later EDIT: Just found out that CBBE v3 has a vanilla styled option. So I think I might make the conversion over to CBBE now, just to use these maps youve made.

[/quote']

 

I certainly wouldn't call it godlike. I wasn't the original creator of the Athletic Body for Fallout 3 however the original author abandoned the project and I picked it up for Fallout: New Vegas and did some outfit conversions for a short time before I became too busy with work.

 

I don't know if Navetsea would be interested in any sort of collaboration and I'm not sure how that would work. As far as I'm aware he does all his work in photoshop or something similar (and yet still does an amazing job with the seams), while I do all my work in Blender and since I've never been that great at texturing I'm pretty much limited to what I can make in 3D and then render out to a normal map while still trying to follow existing skin textures. In my game I use Navetsea's skin textures and my normal maps and they work great together.

 

I may have a go at a few maps for the UNP mesh at some point but that involves remodeling everything from scratch which is why the muscle map for CHSBHC looks so different from CBBE though in my opinion my second attempt does look a million times more realistic and therefore better. Before I do any UNP work I really want to improve the maps I've already done further.

 

You're too modest, you did an excellent job. All I can really do is give words of encouragement, because I can't even begin to create what you've done. Plus, I don't feel it's even my place to give any criticism, because I can't create what you've done here.

 

The abs are by far the best, and I really like your femalehead_msn too, because it remains faithful to vanilla but improved.

[xH3X3Nx]

How exactly do we install this? i know i might be an idiot for not reading but can someone please just tell me?

 

Please include detailed instructions so i don't have to post on the thread again xD

[cefwyn]

How exactly do we install this? i know i might be an idiot for not reading but can someone please just tell me?

 

Please include detailed instructions so i don't have to post on the thread again xD

 

In order to install you need to extract the texture file into Data/textures/actors/character/female/ starting where you installed Skyrim. If explorer asks about replacing files then select the option to overwrite the pre-existing file. I apologize for not providing instructions but I was planning on waiting until I got it all to my liking and uploaded it to Skyrim Nexus before making it all idiot-proof (not to imply that your an idiot for not knowing the file directories Skyrim mods commonly use).

[xH3X3Nx]

How exactly do we install this? i know i might be an idiot for not reading but can someone please just tell me?

 

Please include detailed instructions so i don't have to post on the thread again xD

 

In order to install you need to extract the texture file into Data/textures/actors/character/female/ starting where you installed Skyrim. If explorer asks about replacing files then select the option to overwrite the pre-existing file. I apologize for not providing instructions but I was planning on waiting until I got it all to my liking and uploaded it to Skyrim Nexus before making it all idiot-proof (not to imply that your an idiot for not knowing the file directories Skyrim mods commonly use).

 

Well i did what you said and its not working, Do i have to have a certain mod installed? If so send me a link to it and tell me what mod it is ( the name of the mod )

 

[cefwyn]

In what way is it not working? Do you have Bethesda's HD texture DLC installed? If so you need to disable it. If you still want to use the HD DLC you need to add the BSAs to your skyrim.ini file. Though if you've not already done this then you probably havn't installed CBBE in order to notice the problem and these normal maps only work with CBBE or CHSBHC.

[xH3X3Nx]

In what way is it not working? Do you have Bethesda's HD texture DLC installed? If so you need to disable it. If you still want to use the HD DLC you need to add the BSAs to your skyrim.ini file. Though if you've not already done this then you probably havn't installed CBBE in order to notice the problem and these normal maps only work with CBBE or CHSBHC.

 

ok i have CBBE installed, so do you want me to add the rar file to the Nexus mod manager? then enable it after i enable CBBE?

 

[cefwyn]

It's not set up as a fomod, so if you used Nexus mod manager that's why it's not working. Also, it's not a rar file so if it's not working because you can't extract it, then you need a program for extracting 7-zip files like powerarchiver. You have to extract the texture and place it at Data/textures/actors/character/female and overwrite the normal map that was installed with CBBE. If your using a non-human race then you can also place a copy at Data/textures/actors/character/(argonianfemale or khajiitfemale) but then you need to also rename it. For khajiits it would need renamed to "femalebody_msn.dds" and for argonians it would need renamed to "argonianfemalebody_msn.dds."

[pandabear]

Is the head normal supposed to match the body normal? (CBBE v3) I've been playing with Calientes Texture Blender and blending the normals made the seam less noticable. Now the normal map as a whole seems a lot lower detail though.

 

And of course, thanks for making and sharing these, the detail is very noticable.

[cefwyn]

If you use Texture Blender on the face map it will replace the texture with the vanilla face texture which is much lower quality. If your using the blender on the body and your using the SHD version of the body map, texture blender will lower the resolution because all it's template textures are lower resolution. Also, my face normal map will only match my body normal maps. There is a slight seam by default with my textures but I'll fix it when I have time.

[xH3X3Nx]

Having a few issues with the textures, Don't have any issue with the Muscular, But Smooth, Toned, and any other textures from this guy has a few distorted texture on the hips, If i could post a picture i would show you what im talking about, Anyone know how to fix this?

 

BTW, i have better females by Bella installed

CBBE installed

And CHSBHC BBP installed as well

[xH3X3Nx]

Since the last upload of my WIP normal maps I've been working on how to get the most detail out of them as well as doing some anatomy study to actually make things more realistic. To anyone who wonders why I bother' date=' with a high detail normal map you can make the character skin look realistic while only having a really basic diffuse texture which allows you to compress the diffuse texture to increase performance and reduce compression errors because of a simpler color palette. Check out these screenshots!

 

CHSBHC:

 

 

 

 

Ignore the lines under the right breast and armpit as that is Skyrim's typical twitchy shading.

 

 

 

The feet still need some work, and I'm still having trouble modifying the hand mesh to fit seamlessly with the CHSBHC body so I've not made normal maps for the hands.

 

Skyrim Vanilla(1024)

HD(2048)

SHD(4096)

 

Since not everyone likes muscles and it doesn't make much sense for a mage type character to be very muscular I've created a normal map sans the muscular abs.

 

 

 

 

 

Skyrim Vanilla(1024)

HD(2048)

SHD(4096)

 

CBBE 3:

 

* NEW: Extremely muscular normal map mark 2. I've smoothed out the ass and thighs a bit and now it fits the CBBE body mesh far better.

 

 

OLD:

NEW:

 

 

Skyrim Vanilla(1024)

HD(2048)

SHD(4096)

 

It doesn't really look right without a more muscular mesh so as soon as I can figure out how I plan on releasing the mesh alterations I made as an extension of Caliente's BodySlider program to include a muscle slider, but there's no telling how long that will be.

 

* Tone body normal map. I think this one looks quite nice and doesn't assume your character runs through the wilderness swinging a battle axe but is still in good shape just from a life in a harsh environment.

 

 

 

 

 

Skyrim Vanilla(1024)

HD(2048)

SHD(4096)

 

Hand Normals! The details aren't finished but with this normal map you won't get a seam at the wrist (At least not one caused by the normal map being different). You can check out the affects of the new maps in the new image for the muscular map.

 

Skyrim Vanilla(1024)

HD(2048)

 

* Smooth Normals: I've smoothed out the muscles but kept the rest of the extra detail.

 

Skyrim Vanilla(1024)

HD(2048)

SHD(4096)

 

* Head Normals: I've finally got around to sculpting details back into the head mesh. This is definitely a work in progress as it's kind of too smooth and could give the character a bit of a mannequin look, but it's better than the upscaled and blurred normal maps available on the nexus. I think the 512x512 is even better quality than the vanilla map!

NOTE: In order to make the normal map show up on all characters you want it to show up for you'll need to place it in character/female/, character/bretonfemale/, character/imperialfemale/, character/redguardfemale/, and/or whichever ones you want to use it for.

 

Skyrim Vanilla(512)

HD(1024)

SHD(2048)

 

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

 

Having a few issues with the textures, Don't have any issue with the Muscular, But Smooth, Toned, and any other textures from this guy has a few distorted texture on the hips, If i could post a picture i would show you what im talking about, Anyone know how to fix this?

 

BTW, i have better females by Bella installed

CBBE installed

And CHSBHC BBP installed as well

 

 

[cefwyn]

Stop spamming the thread! A single day without posts doesn't make it dead. If you had done any reading of previous posts you would also see that the distortion around the hips are caused by your using CBBE 2 meshes (most of the outfits available) which use the same textures as CHSBHC. The CBBE 3 textures are just for CBBE 3 meshes or outfits and armor that doesn't show too much skin around the hips since that's the only area that's different between CBBE 2 and CBBE 3 UV map.

[CrisG9]

great job thanks for this great add on.

[ceruleanboar]

a CBBE/CHSBHC version of this would be nice:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=44 (Female Muscle Mod)

[cefwyn]

There is already a CBBE 2 version of that mod on Skyrim Nexus. I can't remember what name it's under though.

 

I will hopefully get a few hours to myself one of these days to work on some more stuff. I haven't had a chance to play Skyrim or check out the latest mods in months now.

[ekwood]

That'd be better if you get get a mesh and slider thing working because, like you said, the texture seems really out of place as is. Your goal is ambitious but sounds pretty damn cool.

 

Have you made any progress in that regard? Did you contact Caliente to see if he has any pointers?

[cefwyn]

Hopefully this weekend I'll get something done. I've worked the last two weekends and I've some people pushing me to get back into making music so I've had very little time at the computer lately.

[bcofer]

Is this yours?

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=16731

[cefwyn]

No, it's not. I've not been able to do anything more with the project since work is leaving me with barely enough time to sleep, and now I'm working towards a promotion meaning this project will have to wait until things slow down ( I've worked 16 hours a day 7 days a week for the last month now at least).