Creating Overlay tattoos for racemenu?

[ivanov13]

I'm currently trying to learn how to create tattoo overlays for racemenu, using vwr Racemenu Mod Maker to turn skin textures with the tattoos into overlays.

 

 Problem is, they don't even show up in game. I noticed that i can open the textures with GIMP, which shows skin+tattoo. However, if i extract racemenu overlays and try to do the same, GIMP won't even open them, so i assume i must be missing something...

 

Just in case there could be something wrong with the script, here it is

 

 

 

Scriptname Crazy1918tats extends RaceMenuBase

Event OnBodyPaintRequest()
    AddBodypaint("Devil Body", "Actors\\Devilbody_1.dds")
    AddBodypaint("Dark Angel Body", "Actors\\DarkAngelbody_1.dds")
    AddBodypaint("Red Rose Body", "Actors\\RedRosebody_1.dds")
EndEvent

Event OnHandPaintRequest()
    AddHandpaint("Devil Hands", "Actors\\Devilhands_1.dds")
EndEvent

 

 

 

Hopefully someone more experienced in this task could give me a few pointers on how to get it working ^^ Thanks in advance

 

EDIT: Apparently i'd forgotten to compile the script xD Once that was done the overlays finally showed up in game. However, using them makes the skin black, though i notice the shape of the tattoos. I'm still missing something :/

[HeavyDude]

You sure you're saving with the right extension (right file type)? It should be *.DDS. I'm not familiar with GIMP but you need a plugin to open/save DDS files in PS so I think it might be the same case with GIMP?

[ivanov13]

Yes, i have the addon and can edit textures normally. The working tattoos are .dds as well but GIMP can't open them.

[Monsto Brukes]

make sure you're using the right DDS compression type. DXT1, -3, -5, whatever.

 

Also make sure you've properly set up the alpha. Unless i'm mistaken, the word "overlay" is key here. That would mean that it's the tattoo texture only and no skin. so in the overlay, the part that would be skin should be alpha/transparent.

 

I'm curious to know your experience with this. I was considering redoing my skin mod Aureolean with this. It'd be killer to have different nip/areola available in a manner like hair color or scars.

[Expired6978]

If you intend to replace the entire skin I wouldn't recommend this as there are small caveats; the skin will show the previous texture if viewed from outside of water into water, and the skin will be shown ontop of things like steam (this bug can actually be circumvented if the AlphaProperties of the templates are changed, but this isn't configurable per-overlay). If you intend to only replace portions this is more useful.

 

I had planned to allow for actual skin overrides but I've never got around to adding it to NiOverride. There are some special subroutines that happen with skin in particular that can be hooked to allow you to override the skin for a particular actor in such a manner that it is non-intrusive and does not suffer from the above problems. This would be a true ingame replacer, it is actually already possible to replace only skin by overriding the ActorBase's Skin Form, only there is no reliable way to update it visually (QueueNiNodeUpdate will work, but this should be avoided at all costs due to the physics bug with horses). If overriding Skin for an ActorBase over an Actor is acceptable I could just add a routine to update the current Skin Form. If you need it to be per-Actor I would opt for the hook method.

 

Either way, I will eventually add such a method, in which case I will also be adding an API for that in RaceMenu that will be something like:

Event OnSkinTextureRequest()

AddFaceTextureSet(myFaceTexture)

AddHandTextureSet(myHandTexture)

AddBodyTextureSet(myBodyTexture)

AddFeetTextureSet(myFeetTexture)

EndEvent

 

Where the plugins will push their own lists of textures to RaceMenu which will populate special sliders in the menu, similar to Complexion, except for Face,Body,Hand,Feet.

[ivanov13]

I'm just trying to replace portions, to get only the tattoos xD Indeed i wasn't even compressing the textures at all, so that might be the problem.

However, i only downloaded GIMP a couple of days ago and selecting only the skin to add transparency is proving to be hassle :/

I'm gonna try to test this by taking just a part of the tattoo to start.

 

Edit: Adding transparency failed, or i didn't do it right. Compressing didn't help either... This is clearly beyond my skill atm xD

Though if you make that nipple overlay mod, you're a boss i've been trying to give my dunmer black nipples by tampering with the textures with little to no success...

[Monsto Brukes]

I'm just trying to replace portions, to get only the tattoos xD Indeed i wasn't even compressing the textures at all, so that might be the problem.

However, i only downloaded GIMP a couple of days ago and selecting only the skin to add transparency is proving to be hassle :/

I'm gonna try to test this by taking just a part of the tattoo to start.

 

Edit: Adding transparency failed, or i didn't do it right. Compressing didn't help either... This is clearly beyond my skill atm xD

Though if you make that nipple overlay mod, you're a boss i've been trying to give my dunmer black nipples by tampering with the textures with little to no success...

 

OOOOOHHHHH that's great . . . overlay of a consistent color with a coloring option?! 

 

Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot.

[ivanov13]

LOL xD I'll nail it eventually

[LaEspada]

 

I'm curious to know your experience with this. I was considering redoing my skin mod Aureolean with this. It'd be killer to have different nip/areola available in a manner like hair color or scars.

 

Imagine entire body textures as options in racemenu.

No more having to only settle for certain mods or use bodychange and it's buggy glory. or use custom races.

[HeavyDude]

Textures for tattoos/warpaints are in black and white (monochrome) and have no alpha.

 

So the part that's visible is white (or grey) and the part that's transparent/invisible is black. 

 

So this (image link) would result in a tattoo that fades away and has transparency.

[Malystraza]

Are any of you using Mod Organizer with the vwr Racemenu tool?  If so, what do you have your game folder set to, so that the script generates correctly?  I set it to my game folder, but then it can't find Racemenu and, unfortunately, I can't seem to get it to point to the virtual director that MO creates.

[Monsto Brukes]

Are any of you using Mod Organizer with the vwr Racemenu tool?  If so, what do you have your game folder set to, so that the script generates correctly?  I set it to my game folder, but then it can't find Racemenu and, unfortunately, I can't seem to get it to point to the virtual director that MO creates.

 

Aw dude... you're doing what I tried to do for the longest time.

 

My suggestion: forget using it in mod organizer. I tried to get it set up right. then when I had what I thought was copacetic, the compiling and output was piss poor... I mean SOMETIMES it would compile. Then, it would put SOME assets in Overwrite, SOME in ./skyrim/data, and SOME in the MO mod that i built specifically for it and I'd go around cobbling everything together. It clearly does not follow some rules somewhere for directory access, otherwise MO would give it everything it needed.

 

By just using it on it's own, it puts a /data tree in it's own directory. 

 

If you need help getting compiling working, ask away.

[Malystraza]

 

 

 

Are any of you using Mod Organizer with the vwr Racemenu tool?  If so, what do you have your game folder set to, so that the script generates correctly?  I set it to my game folder, but then it can't find Racemenu and, unfortunately, I can't seem to get it to point to the virtual director that MO creates.

 

Aw dude... you're doing what I tried to do for the longest time.

 

My suggestion: forget using it in mod organizer. I tried to get it set up right. then when I had what I thought was copacetic, the compiling and output was piss poor... I mean SOMETIMES it would compile. Then, it would put SOME assets in Overwrite, SOME in ./skyrim/data, and SOME in the MO mod that i built specifically for it and I'd go around cobbling everything together. It clearly does not follow some rules somewhere for directory access, otherwise MO would give it everything it needed.

 

By just using it on it's own, it puts a /data tree in it's own directory. 

 

If you need help getting compiling working, ask away.

 

 

 

 

Thanks!  I'm glad to hear it isn't just me.  I guess my main question is how do I set it up?  It looks like I need to point it to the data directory, but it can't find Racemenu or the scripts.  Do I just need to fake it (ie dump all the required / missing files into the included data directory) or is there some other trick?

 

Also, I noticed on the forum in Nexus that it might be broken with the new version of Racemenu?  If that is the case, do you know of a workaround?

 

Thanks again!

 

PS - btw, I love your Tit Kit mod!
 

[Malystraza]

So with some assistance from Monsto Brukes I was able to get my script compiled and working in Skyrim. Basically, I needed to leave Mod Organizer out of the equation completely and then copy the Modders Package from Racemenu into the actual Skyrim data folder before compiling would work. Once it compiled successfully, I was able to see the tattoo in the overlays tab of Racemenu.

 

Unfortunately, that's where I ran into my next problem (and here's where my digital artistic inexperience shows) - the background color is showing up in addition to the tattoo. The tattoo portion is the only thing that actually receives color, so I know that is working correctly; but I cannot get the background to not show up. I've tried pure black and pure white and neither seemed to work. I thought generally at least one of those two colors were ignored? Or is that a bad assumption?

[b3lisario]

So with some assistance from Monsto Brukes I was able to get my script compiled and working in Skyrim. Basically, I needed to leave Mod Organizer out of the equation completely and then copy the Modders Package from Racemenu into the actual Skyrim data folder before compiling would work. Once it compiled successfully, I was able to see the tattoo in the overlays tab of Racemenu.

 

Unfortunately, that's where I ran into my next problem (and here's where my digital artistic inexperience shows) - the background color is showing up in addition to the tattoo. The tattoo portion is the only thing that actually receives color, so I know that is working correctly; but I cannot get the background to not show up. I've tried pure black and pure white and neither seemed to work. I thought generally at least one of those two colors were ignored? Or is that a bad assumption?

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/986216-the-coenaculi-tattoos-and-tans/page-5&do=findComment&comment=8914664

[Malystraza]

 

So with some assistance from Monsto Brukes I was able to get my script compiled and working in Skyrim. Basically, I needed to leave Mod Organizer out of the equation completely and then copy the Modders Package from Racemenu into the actual Skyrim data folder before compiling would work. Once it compiled successfully, I was able to see the tattoo in the overlays tab of Racemenu.

 

Unfortunately, that's where I ran into my next problem (and here's where my digital artistic inexperience shows) - the background color is showing up in addition to the tattoo. The tattoo portion is the only thing that actually receives color, so I know that is working correctly; but I cannot get the background to not show up. I've tried pure black and pure white and neither seemed to work. I thought generally at least one of those two colors were ignored? Or is that a bad assumption?

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/986216-the-coenaculi-tattoos-and-tans/page-5&do=findComment&comment=8914664

 

Thanks!  That did the trick for getting it to show up.  One more question, does anyone else have a problem where it looks like the overlay they are creating is stretched from bottom to top (and/or squished from side to side) on the character in game?  It isn't a lot, but enough to be noticeable.  if so, is there some known way to compensate for it?  Not sure if it matters, but I'm using a CBBE body with the Hourglass preset (and I'm using a CBBE skin texture to align things).

[Monsto Brukes]

are you using photoshop or some other graphics program?

[Malystraza]

are you using photoshop or some other graphics program?

 

I'm using Photoshop.

[Monsto Brukes]

 

are you using photoshop or some other graphics program?

 

I'm using Photoshop.

 

 

Great.

 

go to nexus > tit kit > get my photoshop source file.

 

In that file, is a cbbe body. start with these directions here. I dunno if it will help, but if you follow those directions you'll at least have a better understanding of how it works.

 

In your case, you can use it to look at the body and gauge the scale and placement of the tat. 

 

And if you're using PS, but not extended, check with your 'vendor' i'm sure you can get it.

[kowaretatenshi]

just an odd request for a tattoo, some full body stitches like a frankenstein type thing or a zombie bit. like these

[Dave0000]

Hey people how exactly i should save dds in photoshop with dds plugin... there are so many option and i need save alpha dds...

[rahrahrah]

Hey people how exactly i should save dds in photoshop with dds plugin... there are so many option and i need save alpha dds...

 

I would use uncompressed ARGB (8:8:8:8)

as the alpha channel is the most important part of tattoo overlays.

[Dave0000]

 

Hey people how exactly i should save dds in photoshop with dds plugin... there are so many option and i need save alpha dds...

 

I would use uncompressed ARGB (8:8:8:8)

as the alpha channel is the most important part of tattoo overlays.

 

 

but if im not flatten the image it says too many channels to save or it wont save cause of plugin error.

but if i flatten the image it gets white background so no alpha? what should i do?

[Monsto Brukes]

dxt1 for bits without alpha, like msn or spec map, or even a diffuse where the entire surface is used.

 

dxt3 for bits with hard-edged alpha, like hardline spec or glowmap. In my exp, this leaves pixellated edges. 

 

dxt5 for smooth edged alpha, like overlay areola (=

[Mez558]

I'm trying to do something that should, in theory, be really simple.

 

I want to edit an existing overlay from a mod. I can open the DDS in PS, I can edit and save it and the mod will use the edited overlay but without seeing it on a 3d model the edit I have done obviously looks shit.

 

So how do I get to see the DDS on a model so I can edit it properly?

 

I've exported a body mesh to a .obj and I can open that with PS but wrapping the texture file around it... I am failing epically.