? The Selachii - Shark Race

[Kuroyami]

 

Neat. The next version of the mod (whenever that happens) will have the uncut schlong by default, with the cut option being available for generation in Bodyslide since they use the exact same textures. As for males, I could use BadDog's uncut mesh for them, though setting up the whole swapping scripts would be hard, so if I go for it I'll just use the standard non-erect meshes (with the foreskin completely covering it). It may look a bit odd in sex scenes, but I guess it's better than the uncut one. We'll see.

 

 

If not Leito's meshes, I'd suggest Bad Dog's uncut p3 mesh as the default, and maybe having the full covered one(the p0 mesh) as optional. 

[Blaze69]

If not Leito's meshes, I'd suggest Bad Dog's uncut p3 mesh as the default, and maybe having the full covered one(the p0 mesh) as optional. 

Huh, looks good enough in NifSkope. I'll do a quick test ingame, and if it does look good, it will be included in the next update.

 

As I said before, it's going to be at least two weeks untill I can get some modding done. I *may* have some free time during the weekend(s), but I wouldn't count on it, and I will also wait for Nightro to be done with the heads to try to get them into the next update, so things will probably take a little more time than that.

[Kuroyami]

So, I have added a "Behavior" section to the book. The first part it describes is obvious, that the race may be somewhat predisposed towards war and fighting, but that is not all they are capable of. Next, I describe something, interesting. The possibility that, being away from water for too long, causes a sort of mental degeneration in Selachii, driving them insane. The effect being similar to the Fighter's Guild quest in Oblivion where a corrupted Hist tree is involved. 

 

 

 

[...]Many of us have taken to paths of knowledge, becoming artists, musicians, painters, and poets. Others take the value of lives to heart, seeking to cure the sick. Even our refuge in Black Marsh was not taken as a burden by the Argonians, who were accepting of us. The people of Black Marsh were welcoming, but the land itself, was not entirely so. The Marsh rewards those who can survive within it, and makes those who cannot, pay a price for trying. The Argonians connection to the Hist, a sacred tree, whose sap is consumed by them, means that their connection to the land is strong, yet it still makes them struggle to survive it, where many others must struggle harder.

 

 

 

 

 

Our race has always had a connection with water, with the ocean. Old tales, true or not, suggest that may be our origins, even if such a thing may be obvious. Most of these tales suggest that we were once a race possessing our own brand of magic, which has since been lost to us. But this link to the ocean, to water, may be something significant. In that, if a Selachii is away from water for too long, we are driven insane. The outcomes may vary, but they may indeed make us a dangerous race to all others. 

 

 

 

 

 

Considering the maps, I would say that a province like Cyrodiil would be fine, although the Colovia region, and the areas around the city of Skingrad, would be a mistake for Selachii to settle. These areas may have lakes, rivers, and ponds, but some places may be a far enough distance to cause the mental degeneration. At this point, I cannot definitively say if it is temporary, or not.

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps as a side effect of it's climate, Skyrim would also be safe. I am not sure if snow counts, though Skyrim has a large number of rivers, and a few lakes. The coastal region near the Sea of Ghosts would be one of the safest places for our people, even the marshes of Hjaalmarch would be ideal as well. So to, would the geothermal region of southern Eastmarch, where the heated pools of water are used as hot springs in some places. There seems to be no region of Skyrim that would be dangerous for our people. Even the Reach, a region mostly known for craggy rock and tundra, still has an abundance of water sources. 

 

 

 

[NightroModzz]

So this is the little I've done so far.

 

https://gyazo.com/be6ddb8962bed79a2a4689d8c1502360

https://gyazo.com/ea2811c143b4c68c71945cf596bd2dc2

 

I did some stuff but mostly focused on mimicking the human head. So far I can only do the back and top. This means no hair with bangs or hair pulled back would be preferred. The way you want it would require me to move the eye location and mouth location down to human chin level or close to it. I can do this without changing the exact poly placements around the mouth and eyes by masking off an area and dragging the rest down. Overall it would still require changing the eye and mouth mesh position if you are capable of doing it, but wouldn't this also require doing work on the facial expressions?

[Blaze69]

So this is the little I've done so far.

 

https://gyazo.com/be6ddb8962bed79a2a4689d8c1502360

https://gyazo.com/ea2811c143b4c68c71945cf596bd2dc2

 

I did some stuff but mostly focused on mimicking the human head. So far I can only do the back and top. This means no hair with bangs or hair pulled back would be preferred. The way you want it would require me to move the eye location and mouth location down to human chin level or close to it. I can do this without changing the exact poly placements around the mouth and eyes by masking off an area and dragging the rest down. Overall it would still require changing the eye and mouth mesh position if you are capable of doing it, but wouldn't this also require doing work on the facial expressions?

Oh, okay, let's see.

 

That thing about having the heads close to human ones was just in case it was feasible, wouldn't want the actual head shape to suffer due to a design flaw. If you can achieve it, that's nice, and if you can't, well, that's still good. Also, it doesn't necessarily have to be a 1:1 match, it was more focused on the overall configuration. You see, I can move and scale hairs just fine, and some minor shape edits are OK as well; the problems come when it's about changing the very basic configuration of the hairstyle.

 

Having said that, if it can be done, that would be nice. On to your question, yes, I can move the mouth and eyes. It would obviously be better if you could move them alongside the masked parts of the head to get the placement as exact as possible, but I think I'm familiar enough with Blender and/or 3DS Max to manage. As long as they have an option to mirror translations/rotations along the bisection (so the eyes don't end up placed asymmetrically), it shouldn't take much work. Worst case scenario, I can place one of the eyes right, mirror it, and delete the other old one, and then do the "mirror" thing with the .tri files so they match. EDIT: Nope, Blender does have an "X Mirror" option, so things should go smooth if we get to that.

 

As for the facial expressions, we won't actually know for sure untill it's working ingame, but I'd say it's not that much of a problem. Khajiit snouts are short and the mouth is placed around the middle of the mouth area, but you have races like the Lykaios or the Vaalsark that lengthen the snout into a muzzle and lower the mouth by a fair amount and they still work acceptably enough with the morphs, so I guess we have room to work here.

 

If morphs turned out to look bad or something like that, we could always forget about that human-like thing and just try to get the Argonian heads to look as shark-y as possible without caring about anything else. I'm sure I could manage in that case. Of course, I'd say it's better to try this first in case it's possible; the only downside is that you could potentially be wasting some of your time if things don't work out in the end and we have to opt for Plan B  . So I guess it's up to you.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Blaze69

[NightroModzz]

 

 

 

That's fine. When it comes to other races, you may be right. pulling down the face and maybe angling it a bit from the head might not mess it up in game. We can test out the female first and if it's a success, I'll continue on the male. If not, then It's plan B then.

 

But since the eyes are treated as separate pert of the body in Skyrim and not a merge down to the head mesh, don't the eyes need to be positioned in Nifskope, not Blender? Or is it because of the Nifskope plugin for Blender?

[Blaze69]

But since the eyes are treated as separate pert of the body in Skyrim and not a merge down to the head mesh, don't the eyes need to be positioned in Nifskope, not Blender? Or is it because of the Nifskope plugin for Blender?

The thing is, NifSkope can only go so far, it's editing tools are very limited. You can move an entire mesh around, but you can't edit specific parts of it, it's all or nothing.

 

For the mouth it would probably be enough, but since the eyes have to be symmetrical, I would need to use an actual modelling program like Blender to place one of the eyes right, and then use X-mirror so that the other eye (part of the same single mesh as well) gets properly placed.

[NightroModzz]

 

But since the eyes are treated as separate pert of the body in Skyrim and not a merge down to the head mesh, don't the eyes need to be positioned in Nifskope, not Blender? Or is it because of the Nifskope plugin for Blender?

The thing is, NifSkope can only go so far, it's editing tools are very limited. You can move an entire mesh around, but you can't edit specific parts of it, it's all or nothing.

 

For the mouth it would probably be enough, but since the eyes have to be symmetrical, I would need to use an actual modelling program like Blender to place one of the eyes right, and then use X-mirror so that the other eye (part of the same single mesh as well) gets properly placed.

 

I would offer to just place the eyes myself but unlike other applications, I don't think Zbrush handles space position and sizing like most others. Whenever you open an obj, you need to drag it out which creates a new size. The grid is also different. example, Zbrush is the floor but in NifSkope, the right side of the wall seems to be the floor. I'm not sure how Blender handles it though. Unlike the khajiit head I modified, I didn't change the position to match Zbrush's grid, but you will likely have to fix the size/scale.

 

If you take the eye mesh from Skyrim, you don't need to mirror an object to create a copy on the opposite side. It should already come with 2 spheres. With symmetry on, if you move one, the other will move in the opposite direction.

[Blaze69]

I would offer to just place the eyes myself but unlike other applications, I don't think Zbrush handles space position and sizing like most others. Whenever you open an obj, you need to drag it out which creates a new size. The grid is also different. example, Zbrush is the floor but in NifSkope, the right side of the wall seems to be the floor. I'm not sure how Blender handles it though. Unlike the khajiit head I modified, I didn't change the position to match Zbrush's grid, but you will likely have to fix the size/scale.

 

If you take the eye mesh from Skyrim, you don't need to mirror an object to create a copy on the opposite side. It should already come with 2 spheres. With symmetry on, if you move one, the other will move in the opposite direction.

Yeah, no problem. Obj import/export already screws up scale sometimes, at least with armor/clothing meshes, so fixing that is not a problem. I can even use Outfit Studio/Bodyslide for that. It also has a function to transfer weights from one mesh to another as long as they match in vertex count, so I can just load the original CITRUS head .nif and transfer the weights to the new head without the need to manually paint them.

 

Also, yeah, X-Mirror doesn't actually mirror the mesh but rather the edits themselves, so it is indeed like the "symmetry" you mention. Tried loading the eye meshes and selecting just the right eye polys with X-Mirror on, and the translations and rotations done to the right eye were applied symmetrically to the left eye.

[NightroModzz]

 

Yeah, no problem. Obj import/export already screws up scale sometimes, at least with armor/clothing meshes, so fixing that is not a problem. I can even use Outfit Studio/Bodyslide for that. It also has a function to transfer weights from one mesh to another as long as they match in vertex count, so I can just load the original CITRUS head .nif and transfer the weights to the new head without the need to manually paint them.

 

Also, yeah, X-Mirror doesn't actually mirror the mesh but rather the edits themselves, so it is indeed like the "symmetry" you mention. Tried loading the eye meshes and selecting just the right eye polys with X-Mirror on, and the translations and rotations done to the right eye were applied symmetrically to the left eye.

 

Oh okay. Just making sure. Because in Zbriush, there is a term called "mirror and weld" (great for making something from scratch) which refers to making a copy of one mesh and duplicate it to the opposite side. For symmetry, it's just referred to as "symmetry mode" by pressing the [X] key.

 

Great to hear that the weights can be easily transferred, so it might not take too much work to get a heavily modified head in game.

[Kuroyami]

 

I could have missed something, but I did not see any obvious problems. Well, other than the slight issue that isn't related entirely to this mod - i.e the Female Hoodies add-on for YA, seemingly supporting males, but since there are no meshes for them(at least not likely that the mod specifies), if Ko'Maru gets that one? Yep. Not a huge problem though, since it's easily changed if that happens. 

[Blaze69]

I could have missed something, but I did not see any obvious problems. Well, other than the slight issue that isn't related entirely to this mod - i.e the Female Hoodies add-on for YA, seemingly supporting males, but since there are no meshes for them(at least not likely that the mod specifies), if Ko'Maru gets that one? Yep. Not a huge problem though, since it's easily changed if that happens.

Oops, I think I may have tagged the Female Hoodies AddOn wrong as "Male and Female" instead of just "Female". It's a matter of changing a single Global variable, so I *may* be able to post a fix soon (though I can't promise anything). In the meantime, make sure to go to SOS' MCM and change the gender of the addon to Female.

[Kuroyami]

After seeing it in-game, I made a few fixes to Vaynelle's journal. Mostly fixing some simple issues.

 

Entry 13

 

 

While prevalent, it was not present in everyone I met. Some, could judge by actions, attitudes, and personality, not only race, gender or affiliation.

 

 

 

Entry 18

 

 

I spoke with her today. I was nearly red-faced when I told her, fearing her response. But she said nothing, other than to slightly blush and smile. I know, I know.

 

Kori is also a Selachii, like Mizuno, and she seems a bit, different. But I do not care. Every sense I have to say no, is drowned out by a feeling that, I do not have to. That I can, perhaps, with her, rest for once.

 

 

 

Also, I've settled on a story idea for one of Ko'Maru's books. It involves a mage at the College, about one-hundred years before the game's events, who makes the attempt to summon a Daedra with a more involved ritual than just a simple summoning spell. But the ritual requires ingredients like blood, organs, etc - and this mage is not so keen on using things like that. So he perhaps easily obtains some animal blood from the College's alchemy stores, he also chooses to substitute some of the ingredients. The end result is a Daedra appearing that, is not what this mage expected. Also, what this mage is after, is not what this Daedra expects, either. Not entirely, at least. 

 

Given what the base idea behind Ko'Maru is, it can be easily guessed that it is involved here. No cats though - perhaps the second one will involve them. 

 

[Blaze69]

After seeing it in-game, I made a few fixes to Vaynelle's journal. Mostly fixing some simple issues. [...]

 

Also, I've settled on a story idea for one of Ko'Maru's books. It involves a mage at the College, about one-hundred years before the game's events, who makes the attempt to summon a Daedra with a more involved ritual than just a simple summoning spell. But the ritual requires ingredients like blood, organs, etc - and this mage is not so keen on using things like that. So he perhaps easily obtains some animal blood from the College's alchemy stores, he also chooses to substitute some of the ingredients. The end result is a Daedra appearing that, is not what this mage expected. Also, what this mage is after, is not what this Daedra expects, either. Not entirely, at least. 

 

Given what the base idea behind Ko'Maru is, it can be easily guessed that it is involved here. No cats though - perhaps the second one will involve them. 

As always, really good to hear. Looking forward to reading it once it's complete.  That "unexpected summon" thing sounds really interesting. I'm hyped already. 

 

Now, I wanted to bring up the existance of this: SabreKhajiit. It's a Khajiit retexture that uses the vanilla Sabrecat textures as a base and even includes modified sabre teeth for them. It's not exactly nude-body-compatible but I could make it so with some edits, and it's also free to use.

 

Just saying for that second one, you know. I guess if someone were to try that summoning ritual using only or mostly sabrecat blood/organs/whatever from the alchemy stores, the Daedra would look a little... sabry  . And he/she (probably better if it's a she because a male would require custom SOS textures and that's too much) could be made into an actual ingame NPC. Just my two cents, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Kuroyami]

 

Just saying for that second one, you know. I guess if someone were to try that summoning ritual using only or mostly sabrecat blood/organs/whatever from the alchemy stores, the Daedra would look a little... sabry  . And he/she (probably better if it's a she because a male would require custom SOS textures and that's too much) could be made into an actual ingame NPC. Just my two cents, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

 

 

Well, the idea is more towards the vanilla idea of Daedra, just with a differing appearance. Which there really are not any mods for at this point, though I was not really thinking about adding any new characters in-game, because of the story. The book may have some differing text for YA though, since the story can work with it, even if the use of different ingredients than what the ritual calls for just results in a different summoned entity than expected. Basically a Daedric/Dremora Femboy for the vanilla, and the Dremora/Panther for YA(like a Dremora version of Ko'Maru). 

 

But both characters are male. 

[Blaze69]

Well, the idea is more towards the vanilla idea of Daedra, just with a differing appearance. Which there really are not any mods for at this point, though I was not really thinking about adding any new characters in-game, because of the story. The book may have some differing text for YA though, since the story can work with it, even if the use of different ingredients than what the ritual calls for just results in a different summoned entity than expected. Basically a Daedric/Dremora Femboy for the vanilla, and the Dremora/Panther for YA(like a Dremora version of Ko'Maru). 

 

But both characters are male.

Oh, I see. I will probably still tinker with those textures and see what I can come up with. I recently learned my Autodesk access license also covers Mudbox (a 3D painting/sculpting tool), and I want to try and see if I can use it to fix the seams in the textures. If I can manage to fix the sabrecat skin, I can probably fix anything, lol. 

 

Well, as you say, adding said Dremora as a NPC would not be easy, at least for the non-YA version of the mod (which I will create and upload sometime once the follower plugin is close to v1.0. I swear, I really will, but not yet, lol  ). The YA version would be easy, though; just clone Ko'Maru and swap his race to Dremora aka Panther. Still, there is no need to add all of the characters ingame, so there's no problem here.

[NightroModzz]

Just giving an update on the progress. Well not the ears since those are actually located as small holes behind the eyes, but the head fins seems to be doable on the heads. I could remove them if you actually like them as a separate mesh with more detail, but having them as part of the head mesh wouldn't leave an outline around the ears.

 

https://gyazo.com/f1a44eaf080fc902fe46771c17a80577

https://gyazo.com/a56b195c6a759932bee5057bb8da61ec

 

This is getting close to how you want it right? Any changes you would like?

[Blaze69]

Just giving an update on the progress. Well not the ears since those are actually located as small holes behind the eyes, but the head fins seems to be doable on the heads. I could remove them if you actually like them as a separate mesh with more detail, but having them as part of the head mesh wouldn't leave an outline around the ears.

 

https://gyazo.com/f1a44eaf080fc902fe46771c17a80577

https://gyazo.com/a56b195c6a759932bee5057bb8da61ec

 

This is getting close to how you want it right? Any changes you would like?

Okay, looking pretty good already! Is it a 1:1 match or close to the humanoid head shape? Because it looks like so. That shape will probably work fine with hairs with minumum or no work required, that's great. Though the head may look a bit odd when not using any kind of hair, but I don't think it's that much of a problem.

 

I'd say you could try tilting the snout a bit upwards, to give that "pointy shark head" feel. No need to go overkill, just raising up the tip of the nose and mouth a bit will probably do it.

 

Not so sure about the ears. I kinda like the current ones because of the lagbones and the shape cutomizability, so I would say to take those off so I can reuse the current ones. There would indeed be an outline around the point where they meet the head, but as I said it will probably be best to always have hair on the characters to cover the overall head shape, so it will be barely visible if anything at all.

 

Really nice work! Now let's just hope the morphs work acceptably enough on it when they are finished and ported ingame. 

[NightroModzz]

The human head compatability should work pretty good, but no long bangs that rest close against the forehead and due to the large jaws, hair might fuse into the mesh around the ears. But like you said, some races have longer snouts, so it might be possible to shorten it from the back more towards the snout to fix that. Of course that would require further editing to the teeth mesh but no big deal.

 

But about the current ears, personally the design seems kind of upside down-ish to me. It has a thick line from the bottom and a tear from the top. I was trying to go for the one on the picture I based the feet off of.

[Blaze69]

The human head compatability should work pretty good, but no long bangs that rest close against the forehead and due to the large jaws, hair might fuse into the mesh around the ears. But like you said, some races have longer snouts, so it might be possible to shorten it from the back more towards the snout to fix that. Of course that would require further editing to the teeth mesh but no big deal.

Wait, how extensive are your edits to the mouth area? Because translations and rotations of the whole area are probaby okay, but anything more complex may pose some problems. Scaling it along X,Y or Z to make it wider/narrower along that axis should be fine as well provided it's symmetric, but actually touching the relative placement of the polys adyacent to the mouth and eyes would probably make things harder.

 

Though if you have indeed done what you planned and moved the whole mouth area with a mask so the relative shape/placement is retained, things should be okay. Have you done so?

 

Just wanted to know in detail, so there are no surprises when the head is done and I have to edit mouth and eyes.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Blaze69

[NightroModzz]

 

The human head compatability should work pretty good, but no long bangs that rest close against the forehead and due to the large jaws, hair might fuse into the mesh around the ears. But like you said, some races have longer snouts, so it might be possible to shorten it from the back more towards the snout to fix that. Of course that would require further editing to the teeth mesh but no big deal.

Wait, how extensive are your edits to the mouth area? Because translations and rotations of the whole area are probaby okay, but anything more complex may pose some problems. Scaling it along X,Y or Z to make it wider/narrower along that axis should be fine as well provided it's symmetric, but actually touching the relative placement of the polys adyacent to the mouth and eyes would probably make things harder.

 

Though if you have indeed done what you planned and moved the whole mouth area with a mask so the relative shape/placement is retained, things should be okay. Have you done so?

 

Just wanted to know in detail, so there are no surprises when the head is done and I have to edit mouth and eyes.

 

I've only done what I said. What I mentioned was just a suggestion. The outline or geometry of the edge inner lips are exactly the same. I masked, rotated, and pulled in or out is all I've done.

[Blaze69]

I've only done what I said. What I mentioned was just a suggestion. the outline or geometry of the edge inner lips are exactly the same. I masked, rotated, and pulled in or out is all I've done.

Oh, okay, good to hear. So indeed translations, rotations and symmetric scaling, then. As I said, I wanted to know the kind of edits I will have to do. It may be a bit difficult because I will have to basically guess what the exact placement is, but I think I can manage.

 

And about the ears, yeah, now that you mention it they are similar to the ones in that pic you used for the feet (the one with the "Rei" character, right?). It may just be the perspective or the lack of hair, but going by the picture I'd say you should maybe move the ears a bit further back on the head. Though as I said, it may just be the perspective, so if you consider their current placement to be the best, then by all means leave it like that.

[NightroModzz]

The eye position has been moved as well, but what isn't masked in the picture has not been touched.

 

https://gyazo.com/788422a7d6ee2d54f8f551dfdc7c8f46

 

And do you want me to keep the ears I have on then? Really I still need to mess with it. It's early on still and am focused on getting an even poy in that area. It requires a good amount of time moving them in that area. Pretty difficult without re-meshing. I can probably put more detail at the top of the head too so it looks good without hair.

 

Yes it's Rei.

[Blaze69]

The eye position has been moved as well, but what isn't masked in the picture has not been touched.

 

https://gyazo.com/788422a7d6ee2d54f8f551dfdc7c8f46

 

And do you want me to keep the ears I have on then? Really I still need to mess with it. It's early on still and am focused on getting an even poy in that area. It requires a good amount of time moving them in that area. Pretty difficult without re-meshing. I can probably put more detail at the top of the head too so it looks good without hair.

Oh, okay. Then it should be a matter of trial and error untill I get the mouth and eyes to match in placement. Boring, but manageable, and the outcome will be worth it.

 

Honestly, you're the artist here, lol. I was happy with the current ones, but you were right about them not looking like the best option. Just carry on with them however you think will look best and that's it, I'm confident it will look good. It kinda looks good enough already, it was just that placement thing.

 

And as for more detail on the top of the head, I guess it's okay as well. As long as it doesn't differ that much from the humanoid head shape so the hairs match as good as possible, adding some detail would help with mohawks and similar hairstyles that show part of the scalp, as well as with no hair at all. The only reason I could think of to not touch that area would be to use the human hair lines (the ones with very short hair, like a buzzcut) to improve the look of hair, but the shape is probably different enough already for the hair lines to not match, so go ahead.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Blaze69

[NightroModzz]

It was quick, but are these the edits you were looking for?

 

https://gyazo.com/72a345323dc93b4ab15407db8ccc6e9a

 

Edit: Huh? 8:56 to 9:43? Could have sworn it was only 15 minutes at the latest.