CBBE (bodyslide) vs other body replacers

[XDA]

All things equal - Why do we need other body replacers than CBBE?
With bodyslide you, to my understanding, you can make anything you could ever imagine. Why do we have to have 50 different bodies, and then some perosnal edits of all of those?

Reason I'm asking is that I don't see the benefit of the other bodies?

It only makes it more work, having to convert armor, clothing and textures from one to the other, instead of just having one body that we can all benefit from?

I'm no modder, so maybe there IS a critical reason,other than people like their EGO's, which is fair when you put alot of time into developing the mods, but why even start in the first place?

Please, enlighten me, because I'm confused :/



 

[dje34]

Mmmkay...

 

Let's say what you see is not always what you get, and what you have is not always to the likes of everyone...

 

Now you have 30+ body replacers for these reasons.

 

This is the easiest way to explain why.

 

 Now if you wanna talk about triangles, shadows and animations I think you should talk to blabba or groovtama...

[blabba]

1. Vanilla BodySlide doesn't come anywhere NEAR the level of customization or mimicry as shapes of other bodies.

 

2. CBBE is the lowest poly body of all the replacers out there.Which means lower quality skinning (how the body looks when animated) lower quality morphs (less vertices means not as morphable as say a higher poly body) etc... The good thing is that performance impact is virtually nill.

 

3. People's opinions, Some people just really like their body of choice. It might not be the highest poly body available, not might have the best skinning (animation quality) but something about it makes them happy/content and you won't ever change their opinion.

 

4. Outfits, Not all outfits are CBBE bodyslideable, and making outfit conversions to cbbe bodyslide using OS just isn't as quality as the people who've made the conversions using 3dsmax/Blender.(9/10 times, you can easily tell the difference between an OS conversion vs. a quality 3dsmax/Blender job) This might not necessarily be because OS is a bad or 'less' quality program it's just the nature of it's slider control doesn't allow as much fine tuning as a full software program, as well as usually the users who use it are usually complete begginners.

[XDA]

1. Vanilla BodySlide doesn't come anywhere NEAR the level of customization or mimicry as shapes of other bodies.

 

2. CBBE is the lowest poly body of all the replacers out there.Which means lower quality skinning (how the body looks when animated) lower quality morphs (less vertices means not as morphable as say a higher poly body) etc... The good thing is that performance impact is virtually nill.

 

3. People's opinions, Some people just really like their body of choice. It might not be the highest poly body available, not might have the best skinning (animation quality) but something about it makes them happy/content and you won't ever change their opinion.

 

4. Outfits, Not all outfits are CBBE bodyslideable, and making outfit conversions to cbbe bodyslide using OS just isn't as quality as the people who've made the conversions using 3dsmax/Blender.(9/10 times, you can easily tell the difference between an OS conversion vs. a quality 3dsmax/Blender job) This might not necessarily be because OS is a bad or 'less' quality program it's just the nature of it's slider control doesn't allow as much fine tuning as a full software program, as well as usually the users who use it are usually complete begginners.

1. What do you mean it doesn't come near? And what do you mean when you say "Vanilla bodyslide" ?

 

2. Fair enough, I'd love a higher poly model, but CBBE is just so easy to customize

 

3. But you can pretty much make the exact same body with bodyslide (escept for polycount ofc.?)

 

4. This is the problem - If there only was one, it wouldn't be and we would have a HUUUUGGEEEE selection of armor mods made to work perfectly for one body.

Instead we have 5 popular, but different bodies with a (not really decent) selection of armor/clothing. This gets especially challenging when you start to look at getting BBP/TBBP compatible models.

 

I guess bodyslide wasn't there when the "race" started. But It's kind of sad it wasn't because now we are here, and time and time again, trying to make a "UNIVERSAL FINAL THIS IS IT - body"

Which is all fine and good, but just adds another body into the mix that needs supporting :/

 

 

Don't take this the wrong way, especially not you blabba because I think it's pretty obvious that you put alot of work into your mods.

But it really is sad that it have to be this way :/

[blabba]

Look at it this way:

 

Choices are always good, and competition is always better. You don't want a single monopoly of a body, it'd stagnate, no progress would be made.

You wouldn't have new talent rising up and trying to make conversions for their body of choices.

 

I know I for sure wouldn't have started modding if I just stuck to using cbbe or UNP

[kofman77]

As a dyed in the wool CBBE user myself, I understand why we have all these body replacers. It's a little thing I'd like to call personal taste. Having dabbled in some of the UNP bodies myself, I actually get why someone would prefer that body over CBBE. Really I do (UNPB's got one shapely ass)! While yes you can bodyslide the CBBE body to just about any shape you like, it's still the same CBBE body with the same limitations (e.i. lower poly-count compared to other bodies), so it won't quite look like a certain body type your trying to imitate.

 

You may not see the benefit but I do and I'm sure it has little to do with their ego. The benefit is that we have to option to chose our ideal body type. You and me, we prefer CBBE. For some others, its UNP. For a select few, its CHSBHC.

 

Plus I like the idea of having options on what body we can chose. If we all used the one body that we'd all benefited from as you say, things would to start feel all samey to me and we would lose much of the beautiful diversity I see when people show off their characters. Plus people's tastes in bodies change over time, I see no reason for us just to have one.

 

Well I guess the shortest way I can put is "different strokes for different folks". We got ours, lets not worry about theirs eh?

 

Just my 0.02.

 

 

 

[dTd]

I've run the gambit of most all body types and have now settled on Dream Girl. Why you ask? It's because I personally prefer the shape and there's no denying it's the best morphing and weighted body around. It's also very close in shape to UNP so most all of those armors work just fine and the plus is they are super easy to convert with Outfit Studio. I realize things would be simpler with less choice, but I like choice. Who knows, I may change to another body sometime and it would be a shame if there weren't any others.

[GrimReaper]

The UNP-family bodies have horrible weighting, though. They look really good in screenshots, but if you know where to look, they deform horribly in even the most simple animations.

[Sarathis]

2. CBBE is the lowest poly body of all the replacers out there.Which means lower quality skinning (how the body looks when animated) lower quality morphs (less vertices means not as morphable as say a higher poly body) etc... The good thing is that performance impact is virtually nill.

This is really the only answer that matters. I've got a ton of mods and I'm working on a six year old machine, so I love CBBE. My characters and NPCs look beautiful, the game runs pretty well even with 100+ mods, and I've got a ton of customizable, HDT compatible armors for them.

 

That being said, sometimes I'll browse the Show Your Skyrim Counterpart thread and be simply blown away at how gorgeous and realistic the UNP users' characters look. As happy as I am with my own game's performance I do get a little envious of what people can do with decent rigs, a high performance ENB and a higher poly body. Of course, I'm able to run my game with my ENB on and play through the questlines normally even with SexLab running with little to no lag or stuttering, so there's that.

 

It's a matter of taste, really. You can emulate the basic body shape of UNP, Dream Girl, etc... using BodySlide2 but you can't really get the same quality. Because of that, choosing a body type is really a trade off and it's up to the individual modder to decide if he or she wants a higher poly body with a lot of custom armors or a more customizable body with a larger selection of armors, vanilla replacers, etc...

[bbdlqek1]

 

2. CBBE is the lowest poly body of all the replacers out there.Which means lower quality skinning (how the body looks when animated) lower quality morphs (less vertices means not as morphable as say a higher poly body) etc... The good thing is that performance impact is virtually nill.

This is really the only answer that matters. I've got a ton of mods and I'm working on a six year old machine, so I love CBBE. My characters and NPCs look beautiful, the game runs pretty well even with 100+ mods, and I've got a ton of customizable, HDT compatible armors for them.

 

That being said, sometimes I'll browse the Show Your Skyrim Counterpart thread and be simply blown away at how gorgeous and realistic the UNP users' characters look. As happy as I am with my own game's performance I do get a little envious of what people can do with decent rigs, a high performance ENB and a higher poly body. Of course, I'm able to run my game with my ENB on and play through the questlines normally even with SexLab running with little to no lag or stuttering, so there's that.

 

It's a matter of taste, really. You can emulate the basic body shape of UNP, Dream Girl, etc... using BodySlide2 but you can't really get the same quality. Because of that, choosing a body type is really a trade off and it's up to the individual modder to decide if he or she wants a higher poly body with a lot of custom armors or a more customizable body with a larger selection of armors, vanilla replacers, etc...

 

 

high poly means nothing.. you can make high poly body through 3ds max whenever you want.

[pinky6225]

 

2. CBBE is the lowest poly body of all the replacers out there.Which means lower quality skinning (how the body looks when animated) lower quality morphs (less vertices means not as morphable as say a higher poly body) etc... The good thing is that performance impact is virtually nill.

This is really the only answer that matters. I've got a ton of mods and I'm working on a six year old machine, so I love CBBE. My characters and NPCs look beautiful, the game runs pretty well even with 100+ mods, and I've got a ton of customizable, HDT compatible armors for them.

 

That being said, sometimes I'll browse the Show Your Skyrim Counterpart thread and be simply blown away at how gorgeous and realistic the UNP users' characters look. As happy as I am with my own game's performance I do get a little envious of what people can do with decent rigs, a high performance ENB and a higher poly body. Of course, I'm able to run my game with my ENB on and play through the questlines normally even with SexLab running with little to no lag or stuttering, so there's that.

 

It's a matter of taste, really. You can emulate the basic body shape of UNP, Dream Girl, etc... using BodySlide2 but you can't really get the same quality. Because of that, choosing a body type is really a trade off and it's up to the individual modder to decide if he or she wants a higher poly body with a lot of custom armors or a more customizable body with a larger selection of armors, vanilla replacers, etc...

 

 

I've been through the same thread and thought pretty much the same but then you have to consider whether they are actually playing like that since as it says in one of the threads about making pretty characters FPS doesnt matter when you are just taking a screenshot.

 

Its rather important when you actually want to play however

[blabba]

high poly means nothing.. you can make high poly body through 3ds max whenever you want.

 

I would just like to shatter this sort of thinking right now.

 

High Poly != You taking the mesh into 3dsmax and using tessellate/subdivide. All that does is create big useless mess. Kinda like this:

 

 

Before:

After:

 

 

In short don't be an elewin....

 

High poly = You taking a mesh, retopoing it for better topological flows, re-weighting/skinning it for better quality animations, adjusting UV maps etc...

[bbdlqek1]

 

high poly means nothing.. you can make high poly body through 3ds max whenever you want.

 

I would just like to shatter this sort of thinking right now.

 

High Poly != You taking the mesh into 3dsmax and using tessellate/subdivide. All that does is create big useless mess. Kinda like this:

 

 

Before:

After:

 

 

In short don't be an elewin....

 

High poly = You taking a mesh, retopoing it for better topological flows, re-weighting/skinning it for better quality animations, adjusting UV maps etc...

 

 

Dude.... use turbo smooth.

There is no need to be reskinned if the original mesh is skinned properly and you set the hierarchy properly before you collapse it.

 

 

BEFORE (Original CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

After TurboSmooth (TurboSmoothed CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

 

Skin weights(Before)  (Original CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

 

Skin Weights (After TurboSmooth) (TurboSmoothed CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

By the way, what does elewin mean?

 

 

[blabba]

 

 

Dude.... use turbo smooth.

There is no need to be reskinned if the original mesh is skinned properly and you set the hierarchy properly before you collapse it.

 

 

BEFORE (Original CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

After TurboSmooth (TurboSmoothed CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

 

Skin weights(Before)  (Original CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

 

Skin Weights (After TurboSmooth) (TurboSmoothed CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

By the way, what does elewin mean?

 

 

 

A video on how to properly use turbo smooth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9IrEDiyMxw

pay attention to 7:46

 

I guess what I'm trying to get across here, is that it's not only the raw poly count that's important. A lot of other factors are also equally important (topology, skinning, UV's etc...)

 

 The difference between cbbe and other body mods isn't just a poly count as many others naively point out, it's also got UV issues, weighting issues due to some awkward topology etc... (Every mesh has these, not just cbbe. They all make trade-offs for certain things) You making it higher poly via simply slapping on a turbosmooth does NOT improve it in anyway. And since you didn't convert to quads first what you have actually done is DEGRADE the quality of the mesh in terms of morphability and animation weighting. (Your last picture shows everything being an n-gon which is the most undesirable thing you would ever want in a mesh...)

 

Basically elewin was a modder who did ridiculous stuff like what you just did and try to market the mods as a feasible 'higher poly' head or some rubbish that was supposed to be 'high quality' better morphable heads.

 

The thing is, I probably would have done the same thing as you did in the past and thought "yea, your above mesh is higher poly and it's gotta be better than the original". But it's not until I started educating myself and figuring out why meshes that are to be edited should be kept in quads and why game ready versions are kept in tri's etc... that the above method is terrible. So to truly understand the level of error made and naive thinking that goes into higher poly via terrible subdivisions = better would require some google searching and maybe experimentation on your own.

[27X]

 

 

2. CBBE is the lowest poly body of all the replacers out there.Which means lower quality skinning (how the body looks when animated) lower quality morphs (less vertices means not as morphable as say a higher poly body) etc... The good thing is that performance impact is virtually nill.

This is really the only answer that matters. I've got a ton of mods and I'm working on a six year old machine, so I love CBBE. My characters and NPCs look beautiful, the game runs pretty well even with 100+ mods, and I've got a ton of customizable, HDT compatible armors for them.

 

That being said, sometimes I'll browse the Show Your Skyrim Counterpart thread and be simply blown away at how gorgeous and realistic the UNP users' characters look. As happy as I am with my own game's performance I do get a little envious of what people can do with decent rigs, a high performance ENB and a higher poly body. Of course, I'm able to run my game with my ENB on and play through the questlines normally even with SexLab running with little to no lag or stuttering, so there's that.

 

It's a matter of taste, really. You can emulate the basic body shape of UNP, Dream Girl, etc... using BodySlide2 but you can't really get the same quality. Because of that, choosing a body type is really a trade off and it's up to the individual modder to decide if he or she wants a higher poly body with a lot of custom armors or a more customizable body with a larger selection of armors, vanilla replacers, etc...

 

 

high poly means nothing.. you can make high poly body through 3ds max whenever you want.

 

umm, no.

 

While weighting and topology are far more important, polycount absolutely matters, and CBBE falls very, very short.

 

it's also weighed horrendously and has the flatest topology of any of the custom bodies, and the UV mapping is sloppy as hell.

 

Turbosmooth isn't remotely a blanket fix, and never has been, and anyone who thinks it is hasn't been modeling very long.

[GrimReaper]

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/35747-new-cbbe-revival-of-the-cbbe-maybe/?p=907366

 

I posted some pictures here that show how horrible the weighting on UNP bodies is. So if CBBE already is trash when it comes to weighting (next to UV issues and being low poly) than UNP is actually a lot worse in the weighting department.

[bbdlqek1]

 

 

 

Dude.... use turbo smooth.

There is no need to be reskinned if the original mesh is skinned properly and you set the hierarchy properly before you collapse it.

 

 

BEFORE (Original CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

After TurboSmooth (TurboSmoothed CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

 

Skin weights(Before)  (Original CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

 

 

Skin Weights (After TurboSmooth) (TurboSmoothed CBBE CT77 Body Mesh)

 

 

By the way, what does elewin mean?

 

 

 

A video on how to properly use turbo smooth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9IrEDiyMxw

pay attention to 7:46

 

I guess what I'm trying to get across here, is that it's not only the raw poly count that's important. A lot of other factors are also equally important (topology, skinning, UV's etc...)

 

 The difference between cbbe and other body mods isn't just a poly count as many others naively point out, it's also got UV issues, weighting issues due to some awkward topology etc... (Every mesh has these, not just cbbe. They all make trade-offs for certain things) You making it higher poly via simply slapping on a turbosmooth does NOT improve it in anyway. And since you didn't convert to quads first what you have actually done is DEGRADE the quality of the mesh in terms of morphability and animation weighting. (Your last picture shows everything being an n-gon which is the most undesirable thing you would ever want in a mesh...)

 

Basically elewin was a modder who did ridiculous stuff like what you just did and try to market the mods as a feasible 'higher poly' head or some rubbish that was supposed to be 'high quality' better morphable heads.

 

The thing is, I probably would have done the same thing as you did in the past and thought "yea, your above mesh is higher poly and it's gotta be better than the original". But it's not until I started educating myself and figuring out why meshes that are to be edited should be kept in quads and why game ready versions are kept in tri's etc... that the above method is terrible. So to truly understand the level of error made and naive thinking that goes into higher poly via terrible subdivisions = better would require some google searching and maybe experimentation on your own.

 

 

 

 Okay interesting to know that skyrim engine turns poly to tris so export-ready models need to be in tris to be optimized.  I see your points and the things I've done wrong. That's good and I'll work on it. But Blabba, even though you see what elewin has done wrong, don't mock elewin and use his username to mock someone else

 

 

[Madisonx]

I've run the gambit of most all body types and have now settled on Dream Girl. Why you ask? It's because I personally prefer the shape and there's no denying it's the best morphing and weighted body around. It's also very close in shape to UNP so most all of those armors work just fine and the plus is they are super easy to convert with Outfit Studio. I realize things would be simpler with less choice, but I like choice. Who knows, I may change to another body sometime and it would be a shame if there weren't any others.

 

Just wanted to say thanks - Just tried Dream Girl and it seems great! Really nice balance compared to many other options. Very easy to adjust, and still looks great!

 

[nitrobum]

Umm...What they said.

[Coopervane]

Please, enlighten me, because I'm confused :/

 

Because Bodyslide or no, CBBE will always be CBBE, Bodyslide just makes it a differently proportioned CBBE. Sliders cannot sculpt with intent and care, they can only nudge and scale things around a bit.

 

I do not like CBBE, i am just not the intended target audience for that thing, quite the opposite, and Bodyslide cannot fix all the things that i intently dislike about it.

 

 

Yes i tried it, no it did not work for me.

[XDA]

Thanks everyone, great to have some input on this - Now I have a better idea of why...
But please, do keep on discussing - I'd personally want to see what it would actually take to make a "perfect", <-- yeah right, body.

But one which's high detail, good"enough" waighting, uv-mapping and all of that - how come we don't have one that does everything?
Different knowledge for different minds? 

[ousnius]

Thanks everyone, great to have some input on this - Now I have a better idea of why...

But please, do keep on discussing - I'd personally want to see what it would actually take to make a "perfect", <-- yeah right, body.

 

But one which's high detail, good"enough" waighting, uv-mapping and all of that - how come we don't have one that does everything?

Different knowledge for different minds? 

 

It's pretty rare for one (or more) person(s) to have maximum motivation, maximum skill, maximum time and maximum knowledge of all aspects involved in his creation at the same time, especially when there's no money involved.

 

Thus, no released body is truly perfect yet for everyone (for everyone because good sliders) (yeah yeah I know the "everyone has a different taste" stuff).

[tm2dragon]

Honestly, I've been sticking with CBBE for one simple reason: ease of use.  The mod provides just about everything you need in one download, altering not just the body, but prettying up all the NPC faces while it's at it.  I've tried other body mods, but every time I end up with some horrendous mesh of gorgeous HD bod and a generic NPC head stitched on top.  I've found face and eye packs and such, but trying to juggle 5 or six mods to come out with a decent looking female is difficult for the less savy of us mod users.  

 

Of course, I'm probably missing something simple, and there might actually be plenty of mods that provide the full package that I just haven't figured out yet. ;  I trashed my save game a few times trying to switch body types without knowing exactly what I was doing, and I've been a bit hesitant to experiment again due to that.

[Mister X]

So I would say, yet the best way would be:

• Update CBBE, so there are two versions, only different in polys (for slower and faster computer)
  • Maybe tweak the weightings a bit, but GrimReaper mentioned it already, its way better weighted than UNP (prooved with pics of him)
  • Maybe add a vagina, like UN7B has, but no have-to
• Update Bodyslide, so it has more options
  • More sliders to use, so you can customize your body better
  • A better option to export the sliderset, so you can share your body with the world
  • Maybe an area with non-usable sliders that may be altered only by mods (sth like pregnancy belly slider ...) and are visible, but not usable by hand/in Bodyslide

I know, it's just a dream

But it would solve nearly any points that were mentioned here: the polys, the weightings, the customization thing and the amount of fitting armor mods.

Everyone could build up his/her dream body by sliding around in Bodyslide (were are more options ...), even could share that body by sharing the sliderset, and armor creators would not have the problem that have either to create only for one body or convert it for the others.

[Mewwt]

 

2. CBBE is the lowest poly body of all the replacers out there.Which means lower quality skinning (how the body looks when animated) lower quality morphs (less vertices means not as morphable as say a higher poly body) etc... The good thing is that performance impact is virtually nill.

Slightly offtopic: What's the highest poly body around?

 

 

Ontopic: CBBE gives women a "regular" body, while UNP makes them look more like a model. Everything is a matter of preference, if CBBE's creator isn't interested in making model-like women, people who prefer them wouldn't be able to have them, that's why there are different bodies, even if CBBE has a lot of customization.