Considering Switching to CBBE Body, Any Tips?

[entro]

Okay, I got restless and decided to test CBBE, curvy.  I removed all the UNPB stuff and loaded in the CBBE.  I thought I had everything done correctly but no physics.  I think the hang up is the bodyslide business.  I'm not familiar with it and don't understand the phrase from PSB, "drop the files on top of bodyslide".  Where is it?  How do you "drop the files"?  I read some threads but can't find any clear answers.

 

As a static body without physics I'm not too impressed at the moment and much prefer UNP... having physics active would make a difference.  I think.

 

This whole bodyslide business adds an extra layer of complication for me.  I understand why it's good so I'm not knocking it, just dont' know what I'm doing.

 

By the way, I tried SevenBase to, funky, the legs look really trippy to me.  Overly sculpted for my tastes and the boobs look like bad plastic surgery.  Don't mean to offend fans of the body.  Just not for me.

If you're gonna use cbbe make sure you use the CBBE HDT body (it comes with bodyslide2). As far as collision, you would need too ask someone more experience than myself for that as I don't use collision.

[GrimReaper]

Okay, I got restless and decided to test CBBE, curvy.  I removed all the UNPB stuff and loaded in the CBBE.  I thought I had everything done correctly but no physics.  I think the hang up is the bodyslide business.  I'm not familiar with it and don't understand the phrase from PSB, "drop the files on top of bodyslide".  Where is it?  How do you "drop the files"?  I read some threads but can't find any clear answers.

 

As a static body without physics I'm not too impressed at the moment and much prefer UNP... having physics active would make a difference.  I think.

 

This whole bodyslide business adds an extra layer of complication for me.  I understand why it's good so I'm not knocking it, just dont' know what I'm doing.

 

By the way, I tried SevenBase to, funky, the legs look really trippy to me.  Overly sculpted for my tastes and the boobs look like bad plastic surgery.  Don't mean to offend fans of the body.  Just not for me.

 

'Simply download the file, and extract it using 7-zip to a location on your hard drive. Recommended location is in the Skyrim/Data/CalienteTools folder, but it will work from anywhere.'

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49015/?

 

Pls. The installation instructions are right under your nose. I don't know which threads you've read, but how about you start with the mod page?

 

[crudo]

I was reading the PSB thread here on LL.  Apparently NMM placed the file for me, just like you wrote Grim, right under my nose.  I'll give it another go.  See what I can figure out.

[crudo]

I finally got physics to work using the bodyslide program, thanks, Grim.  What a time sink, and I mean that in the most positive way.  I got it working around 10:30 last night and kept playing around with bodyslide until 3:00 in the morning.

 

For anyone who hasn't tried it I recommend giving it a go, especially if you like customizing your character.  It's just a fascinating program to work with and once it is set-up it's pretty seamless integration into Skyrim and fairly intuitive to use.

 

I've always used ECE for creating characters because the last time I used Race Menu I didn't have all the body sliders I wanted.  Using Bodyslide I can manipulate everything ECE does and more.  I still like the elegance of ECE but that is another topic entirely.  The reason I bring it up is because I had some deformations on my current character at the hips, shoulders and legs that got exaggerated when I modified my CBBE body.  Once I set those to "0" in ECE the body shaped up real nice.

 

Now after lumping all that deserved praise on Bodyslide I have to admit that there is something off about the CBBE body in general.  I wish I knew how to explain better but it moves funny and that shouldn't be the case, it's the same animations as UNP/B.  The arms and torso seem odd, maybe it's the CBBE core model... I'm not sure.  The best way to explain is that the upper body and lower body were modeled separately and then fused together.  I'm going to play around with the different presets in Bodyslide to see if it will make a difference, I'm still really early into this.

 

Also, the Fair Skin texture that looks great on UNP/B looks plasticy and fake on CBBE.  I don't mean to be taking pot shots but it's possible the UNP body variant is a better base model overall and the Fair Skin texture does nothing to hide flaws.  It makes the character doll-like.

 

For anyone reading this who hasn't tried CBBE and Bodyslide I recommend that you do, at least on a test basis.  Especially if you like creating characters, Bodyslide is one of the neatest programs out there for character creation.  My favorite character creator is from Saint's Row III and this is a step closer to that program.

 

I'll still play around a bit before I start my next new game and decide at that point which direction I will take it.  Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.

[Aguijon]

Well, it looks like im not the only one having nightmares of indesicion about which freakin body mod to use.

Upload a picture of the new results if you can.

[GrimReaper]

I finally got physics to work using the bodyslide program, thanks, Grim.  What a time sink, and I mean that in the most positive way.  I got it working around 10:30 last night and kept playing around with bodyslide until 3:00 in the morning.

 

For anyone who hasn't tried it I recommend giving it a go, especially if you like customizing your character.  It's just a fascinating program to work with and once it is set-up it's pretty seamless integration into Skyrim and fairly intuitive to use.

 

I've always used ECE for creating characters because the last time I used Race Menu I didn't have all the body sliders I wanted.  Using Bodyslide I can manipulate everything ECE does and more.  I still like the elegance of ECE but that is another topic entirely.  The reason I bring it up is because I had some deformations on my current character at the hips, shoulders and legs that got exaggerated when I modified my CBBE body.  Once I set those to "0" in ECE the body shaped up real nice.

 

Now after lumping all that deserved praise on Bodyslide I have to admit that there is something off about the CBBE body in general.  I wish I knew how to explain better but it moves funny and that shouldn't be the case, it's the same animations as UNP/B.  The arms and torso seem odd, maybe it's the CBBE core model... I'm not sure.  The best way to explain is that the upper body and lower body were modeled separately and then fused together.  I'm going to play around with the different presets in Bodyslide to see if it will make a difference, I'm still really early into this.

 

Also, the Fair Skin texture that looks great on UNP/B looks plasticy and fake on CBBE.  I don't mean to be taking pot shots but it's possible the UNP body variant is a better base model overall and the Fair Skin texture does nothing to hide flaws.  It makes the character doll-like.

 

For anyone reading this who hasn't tried CBBE and Bodyslide I recommend that you do, at least on a test basis.  Especially if you like creating characters, Bodyslide is one of the neatest programs out there for character creation.  My favorite character creator is from Saint's Row III and this is a step closer to that program.

 

I'll still play around a bit before I start my next new game and decide at that point which direction I will take it.  Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.

 

Well, all I can show you is what I made with bodyslide. Looks preddy gud to me, but you have to decide if it's worth to ditch UNP for CBBE. That being said, I've used the new fair skin for CBBE for this screenshot and I am not really happy about it.

 

 

 

 

But yeah, since UNP has more polys than CBBE, UNP will look better out of the box in most cases. UNP has shitty weighting, though. I made a post comparing the weights on the knees and arms on both CBBE and UNP deformed really bad in those areas. Doesn't matter if you are a screenarcher, though. Pretty easy to hide the arms and knees when making screenshots.

 

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/35747-new-cbbe-revival-of-the-cbbe-maybe/page-2?do=findComment&comment=907366

 

here's the post comparing UNP elbows and knees to CBBE elbows and knees if anyone is interested.

[myuhinny]

@ritualclarity

 

Mesh rigger adds BBP/TBBP to armors if you use a CBBE body that has TBBP you can add it quite easily. You can also use a TBBP skeleton as the template. If you use a body that doesn't have matching UV maps like trying to add 7BASE TBBP to a CBBE body then you would want to turn UV map off or it might change the form of the body some. If you have a bunch of bodies that are the same type and body size you can do all of them at the same time.

 

It works on many body types. 

 

The main problem with mesh rigger isn't usually the template body but the actual armor itself. Older armors use that old buggy skeleton that has many many bugs and errors in it. Like improper rotation matrix errors and skin deformations and things like that. Getting one of those ones to work in it without the armor blowing up is tricky. But Gerra6 is working on a way to remove those bad things from the nif during conversion so hopefully it will work and those problems will be a thing of the past.  Some bodies are like this like dimon's body mod was used with this skeleton and when ran through mesh rigger to add TBBP the body will actually shift forward. But with anything it is trial and error the easiest way to see if a body in a armor or template body will work is to make a copy of the armor nif delete the armor out and use that for the test run as the smaller the nif file the faster it will run and after it is done look at the end result if the body came out nice throw the armor into mesh rigger and run it.

 

Mesh rigger works on fallout NV oblivion and skyrim.

[crudo]

That's a nice image, Grim.  No, I'm not a poser, screenarcher?, I like to play the game.  The most important aspects to me for a body is that it looks good in motion, that's why I like all the physics, breasts, butt, belly and hair, it just brings the characters to life.  I even have some weapons that sling back and forth when sheathed.

 

I agree with you that UNPB has subpar node scaling for mods like Estrus Chaurus, Milk Mod Economy and the like, at least that seems to be the case.  I don't know if it's UNPB in particular or the available preg meshes, of which I can only find two.

[GrimReaper]

All UNP variants are based off of petrovich's original UNP body. You'd expect that for all the praise and popularity the UNP family receives, someone would step up and fix those weighting problems. I mean, there are pretty talented modders who exclusively mod for UNP bodies. Meanwhile, the often ridiculed CBBE body receives more updates than ever. Not only that, but thanks to bodyslide you can have any armor that supports bodyslide use your own custom crafted body. Also, I already posted it but in case you didn't see the link:

 

http://www.loverslab.com/files/file/1496-bodyslide-caliente-body-reweights/

 

That improves the HDT body in bodyslide further. Just drop it in your bodyslide folder and overwrite when asked (windows will ask you if you want to replace files, if it doesn't, you've done something wrong). You need to hit that create body button in bodyslide again to get the improvements.

[Guest]

All UNP variants are based off of petrovich's original UNP body. You'd expect that for all the praise and popularity the UNP family receives, someone would step up and fix those weighting problems. I mean, there are pretty talented modders who exclusively mod for UNP bodies. Meanwhile, the often ridiculed CBBE body receives more updates than ever. Not only that, but thanks to bodyslide you can have any armor that supports bodyslide use your own custom crafted body. Also, I already posted it but in case you didn't see the link:

 

http://www.loverslab.com/files/file/1496-bodyslide-caliente-body-reweights/

 

That improves the HDT body in bodyslide further. Just drop it in your bodyslide folder and overwrite when asked (windows will ask you if you want to replace files, if it doesn't, you've done something wrong). You need to hit that create body button in bodyslide again to get the improvements.

And yet Petrovich's original meshes still manage to look better unadulterated than CBBE meshes look after you've thrown the kitchen sink at them. Anybody who disagrees, take screenshots with base CBBE and base UNP and come back to us. 

 

edit: and if you can provide credible evidence that CBBE receives better weight treatment than a plethora of UNP variants have done historically, I'll eat my shorts. 

[GrimReaper]

 

And yet Petrovich's original meshes still manage to look better unadulterated than CBBE meshes look after you've thrown the kitchen sink at them. Anybody who disagrees, take screenshots with base CBBE and base UNP and come back to us. 

 

edit: and if you can provide credible evidence that CBBE receives better weight treatment than a plethora of UNP variants have done historically, I'll eat my shorts. 

 

 

I did exactly that, literally just a few posts earlier: http://www.loverslab.com/topic/35747-new-cbbe-revival-of-the-cbbe-maybe/page-2?do=findComment&comment=907366

 

Look for yourself. The weightpainting on CBBE may not be that great, but UNP is just horrible in that regard.

[Guest]

Yeah okay Grim

 

[GrimReaper]

I don't know what I should make out of that. :v

[crudo]

Not to rain on the CBBE parade but after playing with bodyslide, which is very cool, for a day I think I'm heading back to UNPB.  I'm going to try and make some comparisons between the two in case anyone is interested.

 

Really, this is not about mine is better than yours.  I legitimately wanted to try it out.  I still think there is something there I just haven't unearthed yet but my clunky attempts leave me wanting.  I was really dissappointed in the belly scaling on preg mods, it had an odd shape.  Narrowish is the best way to describe, not full and round.  I didn't like how the model moved but maybe I just need to download some animation mods.  What comes packed with UNPB is just about perfect for my tastes.  I only looked on the Nexus but didn't see many skin textures I liked, I tried three of them, Fair Skin, Real Girls and whatever is packed with CBBE.

 

At least I tried and I have the basic set-up if I want to revisit in the future, which I probably will.  Now my main goal will be to try and find a better UNP preg mesh.

 

Thanks to everyone with helpful info.  I learned a lot.

[Duoleb The Chosen]

In CBBE's case, caliente hears and improves it sometimes

[Sdesser]

I used UNP for about 900 hours of my current 1150+ hours and it was good and all, but now I'm using CBBE HDT with BodySlide and I'm loving it. You can pretty much make the kind of body you like, that's what I did. And with BodySlide, you can just convert any armor to fit that body. It's amazing really.

 

Here's a snapshot of my current character (NSFW Warning):