Argies-Finishing touch - My Race Overhaul

[Myst42]

Hey... it's me again...

Sorry to post so often about so many things... I'm so freaking disperse but I promise, I'm doing my best to actually release stuff...

Just finished an outfit cosplay mod I'll be releasing soon

 

But... This Race overhaul of mine

Long time going

90% complete. Stuck for a very long time

 

Argonians are the buggers preventing me from finishing

 

Here's the thing:

-Wanted "Skyrimized" version so I started making textures of my own

-Discovered the real problem why Oblivion argonians are not as sexy as Skyrim's, is the head

-So I took upon the mission of remodeling the head but now I need one final push

 

Vanilla argonian heads be like:

And I remodeled it to be like:

 

Problem now is in game it looks like a bunch of crazy lines spreading to infinity and beyond

I know it has something to do with morph files but I'm not sure exactly how to proceed, can you guys help?

 

The rest just needs work, I'll leave pictures of skin just for sharing... female is done, need to finish male, I'm on it:

 

I leave the file too in case you wanna take a look:

HeadArgonian2.nif

[ger4]

I don't know anything about morph meshes, but those body textures look really nice , what resolution were you planning?

[myuhinny]

Doesn't lines spreading to infinity mean incorrect skeleton or maybe weightpaint is incorrect? I know if you use the wrong skeleton both in oblivion and skyrim not sure on fallout series you can get the stretching to infinity thing till you get the correct skeleton needed for the body.

 

Head and body look great!

[Myst42]

I don't know anything about morph meshes, but those body textures look really nice , what resolution were you planning?

I went obscenely High Res with everything so... 4096

But I plan on giving alternate 2048 just because we can...

 

Doesn't lines spreading to infinity mean incorrect skeleton or maybe weightpaint is incorrect? I know if you use the wrong skeleton both in oblivion and skyrim not sure on fallout series you can get the stretching to infinity thing till you get the correct skeleton needed for the body.

 

Head and body look great!

Thks!

Nope. Not a skeleton issue.

Should've added spreading lines and freaky triangles

Heads are complex. One needs egm and tri file. Conformulator can create egm files but I'm not sure how to use it for heads, I've only used it for headgear.

tri files, I've no bloody idea how they work or how to make one

Worst case scenario, vertex data or something is already corrupt... it happens too, specially with heads...

[ger4]

 

I don't know anything about morph meshes, but those body textures look really nice , what resolution were you planning?

I went obscenely High Res with everything so... 4096

But I plan on giving alternate 2048 just because we can...

 

Doesn't lines spreading to infinity mean incorrect skeleton or maybe weightpaint is incorrect? I know if you use the wrong skeleton both in oblivion and skyrim not sure on fallout series you can get the stretching to infinity thing till you get the correct skeleton needed for the body.

 

Head and body look great!

Thks!

Nope. Not a skeleton issue.

Should've added spreading lines and freaky triangles

Heads are complex. One needs egm and tri file. Conformulator can create egm files but I'm not sure how to use it for heads, I've only used it for headgear.

tri files, I've no bloody idea how they work or how to make one

Worst case scenario, vertex data or something is already corrupt... it happens too, specially with heads...

 

Thanks, we don't have enough really high rez skin textures out there for the default races  .

 

Have you tried parenting the head to a skeleton in blender and then posing it? That might help narrow down the causes.

 

 

PS - Do you have any pics of some of the other races out of curiosity?

[Myst42]

Your comment makes me wanna cry XD

It's not the skeleton. I know it's correctly parented/boneweighted, unless I've fell into a mistake I've not fallen in years. thks for suggesting anyways.

 

I hope for the sake of everything it's something that can be fixed with the Conformulator... I'm off to real life now... enough modding for today

 

Have some pics:

Human races (Imperial)

Presented by Evelyn:

 

 

Khajiit

Presented by Khajiit Girl (Still no name for her but she's gonna be important...)

 

 

 

I maintain my plea if anybody knows exactly what to do when remodeling an argonian head...

I barely made it into the nif since copy/paste NiTriShapeData into a vanilla argonian head gave nothing but an ugly smile mocking at me

Had to use a Head06 to tolerate the copying...

[junkacc]

Make sure you have the exact vertex count on the new argonian head before and after. Make sure the vertex order is the same before and after.

 

Use gerra tools:

1. "Modify Normals"

OR

2. "Alternate Blender importer"

 

And cross fingers blender doesn't mess up

 

Personally, I like the more colorful Argonians of Oblivion compared to the drab of Skyrim

 

 

EDIT: Yup, I had a look at your head, it has 1911 vertices. The vanilla has 1918. Blender removed 7

[Myst42]

I actually used another head, not vanilla, found in Nuska's mod (OCO) who gave permission to modify and use as assets (yaaay!!)

Then tweaked it some more

Only used sculpt to edit, AND I kept the pre-export file in .blend format

Not that I can't re-do my work, but it would be a bit tedious...

 

So where exactly are these tools?

Found the kg tools page but tools have different names so I'm guessing, which one?

 

And more important... solutions please???

[junkacc]

Nuska uses the same tri files as vanilla. I'm guessing she took vanilla and modified it, the same as you.

 

Just grab one of the recent ones. They all have the "modify normals" tool in them. The alternate import script is in the LL modders resource section.

 

You will have to redo the head unfortunately.

[ger4]

Try importing an argonian head (either the OCO or vanilla version) and just making a really basic, obvious tweak to it (like making the nose ridiculously long). Since these can of changes can be done in just one click with proportional editing, you could just keep re-doing the export/editing process with these test models so you know how to do it correctly when you come to do the final head.

 

This is probably a bit much, but would you perhaps consider releasing OCO compatible versions of your skins at some point? The default ones made by Nuska aren't particularly high res, so it would be nice to have some higher res skins for them, although I don't know how much work this would involve.......

[Myst42]

It's impossible

 

Figured if It's gonna keep things compatible, I should be able to copy the tweaked head's NiTriShapeData into the original without it screwing it up right?

Well I can't

The only reason the head I posted is visible is because I pasted it into a head06 model otherwise

This is what happens:

 

Tried importing a vanilla head, then exporting it with zero tweaks. Did nothing to it

It happened

 

Still not sure which tool is this "alternate importer" or how to use the "modify normals"

 

By the way... I got my hands on a version of 3dsMax... any chance that program could stop these annoying episode once and for all?

Still no idea how to use it though...

 

--------------------------------

 

OCO v2 is a wonderful mod as it's nice to have choices

My goal was to make something more "simple"

Having less alternate races, no Imperial M Imperial F Imperial Bearded etc...

Textures in OCO If I remember correctly are for normal head UV map, mine is for head06

In general, from the screens it looks awesome but a bit "rougher" in facial features than my mod... (edgy facial angles, etc)

My thoughts... it's awesome, but everyone has their own version of preferences, mine, is mine

 

TLDR: I could release the textures alone, but you would have to put them in place yourselves since it's a different mod

[kingkong]

it seams  like the vertex are in side out   !       open your blender  save  and see if it is set to double sided ,       second  try  to 'recalculate outside'   (in edit mode  in  normals options ).

 

But normaly  if it has no probleme  when replacing with head06      it should not have any probleme  with original vanilla  !!!      anyway you do not need the original vanilla ( it is almost the same nif structure )  you will need to morph  the head   ( and i do not know if you can copy the morph animations to the new head  ,  and if there is a argonianhead.tri  you will have to use coformulator   due to new vertex positions.

 

i have made a ogre head  but did not have time to morph it yet  .    and when you will finish your mesh  , you might be the one giving me some tips on head morphing.

[junkacc]

Blender removes any double vertices on import if they happen to have the same normal. The f-uped thing is it's supposed to put them back on export but sometimes it doesn't. What you need to do is destroy the normals so that doubles no longer have identical normals.

 

In the "Modify Normals" tool, select only "Damage UV Seam Normals" option, then in the "File" drop down, select your argonian head mesh, and the destination folder you want the results to go in. Run the tool, et voila. But this can be tedious because when later you want to edit the head you have to run the tool again. This is when the "Alternate importer" comes in handy. That one you use by replacing the import script in the Blender directory.

 

 

 

[gerra6]

Here's the modified Blender import script.

 

It's just an experiment at this stage, a method to eliminate the automated vertex purging that niftools performs when you import nifs into Blender.

 

Just copy the contents into your /.blender/scripts/import folder

 

Note: This will prevent niftools from eliminating vertex doubles along UV seams during import. This is a *good* thing if you are working with head meshes or anything else that requires vertex index preservation, because it will allow you to import/export nifs without changing the vertex order in any way.

import_nif.7z

[junkacc]

Hey elalquimista, I found something you might find interesting

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45625

 

Might make the complaints about your combat stances being too feminine go away.

[Myst42]

@kingkong: sadly conformulator was messed up with argonian tri files... at least the previous version with messed up vertex index

 

@gerra6: thanks! I just hope one of these methods work... my life just got a bit complicated these days so I hope I can actually do something on the next days...

 

@junkacc: XD nice found... I'll see what I can do once this head odyssey is over... If i got it right, it adapts a few animations to be used by blockhead functionality... hope it's not too much work to use it... then the work would be to adapt some anims to more manly position... separate arms a bit does most of the trick for it.

[Myst42]

I Think...

We

Have

A Go, Ladies and Gentlemen...

 

Tested the alternate importer script

I was able to export safely and paste into a normal argonian head without it messing it up like before

Works in game too

Tried minor modifications to test behavior, no problems yet

 

Only problem is I left Skyrim Argonian head in my other PC, so I'll have to wait before doing the modifications again...

But If this keeps right, it's possible and I'll resume operations ASAP

 

   

 

@gerra6: you just made it to legendary tier of awesomeness, many thanks!

[Myst42]

Ok

Think I found the final boss now:

 

tri and egm files

 

Conformulator can create both, but if I do this the way I want, head is slightly above the original position

That means messed up animations.

Mouth doesn't open, and eyes do not blink

When speaking, the neck moves...

 

If not egm and tri files, I got too stretched animations and weird looks when speaking

 

Could try to re-do (...again...) the thing

But seriously can't I change those freaking morphs?

Have a taste of what could be... if only animations weren't messed

 

ArgonianHead.rar

(Old version - messed up morphs)

 

EDIT: found something here

Allows to edit tri files and expression...

However I'm stepping on new ground here... anybody ever worked with these?

[junkacc]

ahaha tri and egm are indeed the final boss. I tried it out with the vanilla tri and egm, the mouth moves and the eyes blink.

 

Regarding the eyelid blink distortion, I think it's hardcoded. All you can do in the tri file is denote which vertices are involved in the blink. You'll have to get a hexeditor and edit that (010 editor + scripts supplied by throttlekitty). Or get your eyelids to look like the vanilla, double rowed and angular.

 

[gerra6]

There are a couple of additional ways to work with tris and morphs.

 

Here's the tri import/export script for Blencder 2.49b: tri_import_export.7z

 

It's a bit primitive...I think the exporter exports everything as morphs and doesn't re-generate the modifiers.

 

For egm import/export you should be able to just use the niftools import/export tool.

 

Now, as far as modifying tri and egm files outside of Blender, I can probably toss something together that uses my framework. Tri and Egm files aren't too nasty to deal with.

 

What would you like to do with them?

 

I can probably toss together a few quick and dirty tools with some basic functionality.

 

One of the tools that I've been meaning to write for a few months now would be a replacement for the conformulator. I can probably take a stab or two at that.

[Myst42]

Ok folks...

 

I had some trouble altering Blender versions

2.49b works with the .tri script

2.66a is the one which can copy morphs from one head to the other so I wouldn't had to manually make everything again (I wouldn't know how anyways...)

So after copying animations, problem was to get it reopened in 2.49b, but thanks to @Sunspot2 I was able to bypass that and export the new .tri file

 

Then, It got messy, I took a leap of faith trying to use the Conformulator to generate egm's and tri's

It needs an active egm besides the tri to work, so I used the old one to generate the new one without even know if it would work

In the end it did, and all the rest of the meshes came out naturally

 

The final race overhaul is not ready cause I still need to finish the textures for'em

In the meantime...

I'm proud to present my tweaked Argonian head

And what an Odyssey it was, but here it is:

ArgonianHead.rar

 

I saw people talking with it, say my char open it's mouth when attacking so it should work...

Only problem is I think eye blinking no longer happens, but we can live with that, am I right?