? The Selachii - Shark Race

[Blaze69]

So, Northern Encounters...doesn't have any problem with the Follower plugin at this point. The two areas near the Sea of Ghosts where Kori/Vaynelle and Mizuno are...do not have any changes from NE. The closest thing would be an interesting Dragon-related addition off the coast near the Lover's Tent, but not nearly close enough to cause any problems. 

 

Otherwise, there is the Dolmen Ruins mod, which should not have any problems either, although it does place one of the titular Ruins near Mizuno's camp(close to the waterline, on the other side of the ice shelf, i.e not too close), and three Atronach's spawn there, the type depending on level. But since Mizuno is essential, it isn't a huge problem(or should not be, since I have not directly tested it with the Follower plugin). 

Good to hear incompatibilities are limited. It's not like I was going to change everything for one simple mod, but I may have thought about doing some minor edits as long as they are nothing drastic. This means less work for me. Yay .

 

Moku, Female, Riverwood - A simple, yet complex character. Meant to be an option for early game, or if one starts their game with the vanilla intro, OR in/around Riverwood. Similar to Mizuno, in that she is planned to have a dialogue with some more information about Selachii, which could be something specific to her, or the entire race, she is not really sure. This entails a problem she has with certain materials, like Furs. Wearing things like the Fur Armor set, or the Forsworn set, will cause her to have her Heath and Stamina decreased by 20. The idea is that her(or the race in general), possess an issue with animal furs, their skin getting massively irritated by it. Things like Leather or Hides, do not cause this problem, nor do things like plant-based fabrics. 

Huh, interesting. The more complex characters, the better, so that's nice. About that "fur" thing, I'm not so sure about it, at least not to a species-wide level.

 

You could find reasons for them to favour specific kinds of materials/clothing over the others, like for example going for water-resistant and form-fitting armors that don't limit their movements in water so they don't have to take off their clothes when going for a swim. Something similar to the Shrouded/Dark Brotherhood armor: protecting, yet comfortable, and you could say they are made of specially-treated leather or some other kind of material to obtain water-resistant properties. Also things like wetsuits/diving suits come to mind as well, as something that's actually worn in the water.

 

Fur is indeed something you don't want to wear when swimming, and since we've stablished that Selachii don't mind the cold as much as the other races (I'm thinking of adding a small frost resistance buff, but not sure if it would be a bit OP), fur would loose most of its purpose (aka protect from cold).

 

So, I would see them disliking untreated/standard fur and regarding it as useless due to the above reasons, but going from that to them being straight allergic to it is a bit too far-fetched. Nevertheless, I think it would fit for a specific character with that affliction, so it's okay. I'm not sure how I would go about adding that debuff, though. There may be a way to add a debuff spell to her that includes "Worn Armor has ArmorTypeFur" as a condition or something like that, but I would have to check.

 

Gaku(NPC Only), Male - A bit unsure of the exact location where he should be, or if it is even a good idea, but I think it is possible. So, obviously, he is a mentioned character in the "Legacy" book. The rest will be spoiler-ed.

 

His story will have a bit more detail to it, as part of Kaiyo's. But where Gaku ended up, is something Kaiyo does not know. That being, Gaku was of value to a certain Daedra for his knowledge. This is where the problem may start - since he is meant to be in Apocrypha. I figure if Bethesda has Miirak and Sahrotaar in those areas, along with the enemies there, it should not be a problem. Otherwise, he is meant to be a very knowledgeable character, to the point where his address to the player will be different, depending on joined and completed factions/quests, and perhaps the result of certain other quests(i.e Paarthurnax dead or not, the outcomes of some Daedric quests, etc). Though I may make this simple, and have a basic address to start(the PC being Dragonborn, after Miirak, etc), and have everything else he says about the PC, something needed to be specifically asked. 

 

 

Well, talking about complexity here  . I think this would take too much work, because setting up al of the dialogues and conditions and stuff is already tedious, but having to do so with all the conditions and checks and vanilla quests... *shrugs*.

 

Unfortunately it's not something I would give a high priority, though it's not a bad idea either. I'd say we leave it as "possible", but I'd rather focus on some other more feasible characters for now. Not to say the whole overhaul with the new heads, which I'm not sure how much will take me once Nightro finishes working on them.

 

Also, I think there may be a small problem with the base plugin - both the Beast Schlong and Human schlong, are set as Male Only - i.e it can't be changed in the MCM. 

Yeah, I was testing that on the last update. There is no way to tell SOS to have a schlong set as "Both Genders" enabled but with "Male only" selected by default. I always have to set it to Male and remove it from my character whenever I start a new game, so I left it like that to remove the need for it.

 

Female NPCs that are supposed to get a schlong will still get it thanks to the SOS Faction workaround, and if you want your character or any other NPC to get one, you can just use the Player/NPC tab in SOS' MCM menu to assign it (ignoring the warning popup because both schlongs are properly set up to work fine on females). Still, if it is that much trouble, I can restore it back in a minute, no problem.

[Kuroyami]

 

Good to hear incompatibilities are limited. It's not like I was going to change everything for one simple mod, but I may have thought about doing some minor edits as long as they are nothing drastic. This means less work for me. Yay .

 

 

So, I would see them disliking untreated/standard fur and regarding it as useless due to the above reasons, but going from that to them being straight allergic to it is a bit too far-fetched. Nevertheless, I think it would fit for a specific character with that affliction, so it's okay. I'm not sure how I would go about adding that debuff, though. There may be a way to add a debuff spell to her that includes "Worn Armor has ArmorTypeFur" as a condition or something like that, but I would have to check.

 

 

Yeah, I was testing that on the last update. There is no way to tell SOS to have a schlong set as "Both Genders" enabled but with "Male only" selected by default. I always have to set it to Male and remove it from my character whenever I start a new game, so I left it like that to remove the need for it.

 

Female NPCs that are supposed to get a schlong will still get it thanks to the SOS Faction workaround, and if you want your character or any other NPC to get one, you can just use the Player/NPC tab in SOS' MCM menu to assign it (ignoring the warning popup because both schlongs are properly set up to work fine on females). Still, if it is that much trouble, I can restore it back in a minute, no problem.

 

 

There could be things I did not spot, but I would think that what would cause issues, would be easily seen. I'll still be checking certain areas though, like around Broken Oar Grotto, Northwatch Keep, etc. 

 

Yeah, it being specific to her, is perhaps better.

 

I did have the thought, briefly, considering the point about Selachii going insane, that it would be an issue for the PC in certain locations(Soul Cairn, the Azura's Star Interior, Apocrypha, etc), it would decrease your skills while there, but since there are not too many areas like that(and places like Sovngarde and Apocrypha do have water, even if it is a technically for Apocryha), and it would be more annoying than interesting - i.e something akin to how Oblivion or Morrowind handle sun damage for Vampires. But more to the point, I don't think something like this needs to be added. 

 

Possibly he could just have a basic dialogue to start, that just goes for the most relevant details, that being the current events of Dragonborn. Maybe some possible details about him, the only differing lines being, if you've read the "Legacy" book, and perhaps Kaiyo's journal, though these can wait too. 

 

It isn't a huge problem, I just find it a little, odd.  I get what it is for, but I think it would be better just to leave it set as a Both, and either suggest in the Description/Readme for players to set it to Male Only themselves if they don't want things to be off for certain characters, or add a version of the No Schlong for Females addon for the Selachii race, so it could apply to NPCs/Followers and the PC. I know it might not be the best idea to add another addon, but it would allow things to be just as specified for female characters. I personally don't think this mod adding three addons is a problem, if that route is chosen. 

[Blaze69]

There could be things I did not spot, but I would think that what would cause issues, would be easily seen. I'll still be checking certain areas though, like around Broken Oar Grotto, Northwatch Keep, etc. 

 

Yeah, it being specific to her, is perhaps better.

 

I did have the thought, briefly, considering the point about Selachii going insane, that it would be an issue for the PC in certain locations(Soul Cairn, the Azura's Star Interior, Apocrypha, etc), it would decrease your skills while there, but since there are not too many areas like that(and places like Sovngarde and Apocrypha do have water, even if it is a technically for Apocryha), and it would be more annoying than interesting - i.e something akin to how Oblivion or Morrowind handle sun damage for Vampires. But more to the point, I don't think something like this needs to be added. 

 

It isn't a huge problem, I just find it a little, odd.  I get what it is for, but I think it would be better just to leave it set as a Both, and either suggest in the Description/Readme for players to set it to Male Only themselves if they don't want things to be off for certain characters, or add a version of the No Schlong for Females addon for the Selachii race, so it could apply to NPCs/Followers and the PC. I know it might not be the best idea to add another addon, but it would allow things to be just as specified for female characters. I personally don't think this mod adding three addons is a problem, if that route is chosen. 

Then let me know if you come across any incompatibility. Again, I'm not going to start from scratch, but if for example moving something a small distance away would fix stuff, I can do that.

 

Yeah, I don't think it has to be added either. It's good for flavour and lore and stuff, but translating it into gameplay would mean a debuff spell with a long list of conditions conditions set to "IsInCell == whatever OR (...)". Not really worth it, only a nuisance.

 

I may think about adding the "No Schlong Addon", but for now it's going to stay as-is. Want to get the heads done and implemented first.

[Blaze69]

Okay, small update on the hair porting. I've been tinkering with the current head to see how hard it will be to port the hairs. I haven't done anything about textures and such yet because I want to be 100% sure it will work as intended so I will wait untill I have the heads to do so, but since the shape is already done (unless Nightro makes some last-minute changes, which I would not mind if he considers the appropiate), I figured I could check things in advance.

 

As previously mentioned, things like bangs or hairs that cover the forehead clip into the face and they are hard to fit. From my testing, it seems most of mod-added hairs like KS Hairdos or Apachii have this problem, barring the ones that are tied back and so. Vanilla hairs do seem to be more feasible to port, and while none of them will look perfect, they should be acceptable enough. Things like the elven tied-back hairs and similar should be easy to port, though the forehead region may look a bit odd due to them having to be tweaked for human-style foreheads instead of elven ones. Other regular human hairs (like Lydia's) are promising as well, though I didn't test that many.

 

That would also help with immersion IMO, because seeing the regular NPCs (be it from vanilla Skyrim or from Yiffy Age) having the vanilla hair styles and then the sharks with the supermodel KS hairs is weird (even if you use vanilla hair texture replacers, there is still quite the difference with KS and the like). Specially considering the background and overall theme for the Selachii as a Proud Warrior Race. It's not like they would completely neglect their aesthetics and looks, but I don't see them spending three hours a day to get their super fashion hair style done, lol  . At least not in general, though specific individuals can do so just fine.

 

Nevertheless, I'll see about porting some of the current KS styles for the sake of customizability, but it is not a high priority. Mizuno's hair is an exception, though, at least for females. I know it's not exactly lore-friendly (not lore-breaking either, mind you), but turns out the original version that included some buzzcut-like hair on the shaved part of the head (and which I originally skipped in favour of the regular-hair-only version for obvious reasons) looks pretty good on the new head and seems more fitting and seamless than some hair just randomly coming out of the top of the head and nowhere else, so I wanted to keep it. One of the other perviously-unused Calyps hairs is going in as well, but the ones already included (barring Mizuno's) look like they would be really hard to port. I still have to check the sidehawk and mohawk hairs from Nuska, but they should be feasible as well.

[NightroModzz]

I'm not sure how much I can or should change about the forehead, but I made the snout more slender and looks a bit more like a shark when you look at it from the underside. I got most of the shape done but still got a ways to do on the ears and have yet to start on the gills. Some stuff came up before so it might take a bit longer. It should look a bit better though. Also, this time I only moved the position of the eyes and mouth with no rotation, so it should be easier to reposition the mouth and eye mesh.

 

I also want to ask, If I edit the seems on my Khajiit head to match the human neck seems, would it be easy to get them in game with the same method you are using to get the sharkmer head in without rebuilding neck weights?

[Blaze69]

I'm not sure how much I can or should change about the forehead, but I made the snout more slender and looks a bit more like a shark when you look at it from the underside. I got most of the shape done but still got a ways to do on the ears and have yet to start on the gills. Some stuff came up before so it might take a bit longer. It should look a bit better though. Also, this time I only moved the position of the eyes and mouth with no rotation, so it should be easier to reposition the mouth and eye mesh.

 

I also want to ask, If I edit the seems on my Khajiit head to match the human neck seems, would it be easy to get them in game with the same method you are using to get the sharkmer head in without rebuilding neck weights?

Really good to hear it's going to look better, looking forward to seeing the end result. That bit about the mouth and eyed is nice as well, and should make things easier.

 

BTW, going by what I saw when generating textures for the previous head, there is no need to put a lot of detail into the gills. It's a good idea to have them modelled, but the ultra-small level of detail confuses the renderer and it ends up looking a bit wonky when you auto-generate the normal map. So, yeah, I'll leave the specifics up to you, but no need to go crazy on the detail there.

 

Theoretically, yes, it should make things easier. About "5 minutes to get it done" kind of easier (though I won't know until I actually try). The problem is, I'm not sure how it would play with the neck seam at the lowest weight and its corresponding morph.

 

Not sure if you noticed, but instead of fitting the neck seam, the vanilla Khajiit head has an extra semi-transparent layer over the "default" neck seam that simulates fur. This removed the need for the default seam to be a 100% match because the fur thing covers it, so if you take out the fur part, there will be a gap between the "real" neck and the body.

 

I'm not sure if the CITRUS head fixed that neck part, because the only mentioned edits are tweaks to vertex alpha for the fur layer, but nothing else. You would probably have to either restore the original neck + fur layer position or to start from scratch without touching the neck to minimize the chace of it looking weird. That, or you would need to first fit your head as-is to the _1 body seam, and then do the same for the _0 one and inject the latter edited mesh into the .tri as the low weight morph.

[NightroModzz]

What do you mean about the gills looking wonky? Do to poly limit, there is about 2-3 row of poly from up to down per gill. I only did what I could work with so I cant really say I put a lot of detail in it.

 

Yes, the Citrus Khajiit does have 2 mesh layers on the neck still. So your saying that the layer that is covered by the bottom layer doesn't need to match? I could just bring in the default Citrus Khajiit and match it to the bottom seem while still being edited right?

[Chosen Clue]

So I noticed something about the shark race.

 

It all started when I wanted to do this:

 

 

I saw that the armor race was set to default, which I thought that the shark head was more similar to the argonian head size, so setting it to what is in that image, ArgonianRace, would be more fitting.

 

But when I tested it in the game, I got this:

 

 

I suspect that you might already know this was going to happen with helmets. I think it's because of the way the skeletonshark.nif is set up for the race. It has a bone that just seems to be there for scaling the head, probably to make the neck and head look proper on the character. Might be from the original mod. Is there any plans on making the helmets a little bit smaller?

[Blaze69]

What do you mean about the gills looking wonky? Do to poly limit, there is about 2-3 row of poly from up to down per gill. I only did what I could work with so I cant really say I put a lot of detail in it.

 

Yes, the Citrus Khajiit does have 2 mesh layers on the neck still. So your saying that the layer that is covered by the bottom layer doesn't need to match? I could just bring in the default Citrus Khajiit and match it to the bottom seem while still being edited right?

Well, it seemed to have problems with the mesh normals and telling what was covered and what wasn't in order to generate the normals, but it might have been a one-time bug or something like that. Just do the gills the way you see fit and that's it

 

About the Khajiit head, I said I'm not sure how it will look. You can try just fitting the actual neck to the neck seam and that's it, I can work with that. If I test it and it turns out to not look good, we can see what other options you have.

[Blaze69]

So I noticed something about the shark race. It all started when I wanted to do this:

shark race armor data.png

 

I saw that the armor race was set to default, which I thought that the shark head was more similar to the argonian head size, so setting it to what is in that image, ArgonianRace, would be more fitting. But when I tested it in the game, I got this:

Helmets of unusual size.png

 

I suspect that you might already know this was going to happen with helmets. I think it's because of the way the skeletonshark.nif is set up for the race. It has a bone that just seems to be there for scaling the head, probably to make the neck and head look proper on the character. Might be from the original mod. Is there any plans on making the helmets a little bit smaller?

Yeah, that was done in the original version in order to get the headwear to (kinda) match the cartoony big head. There was little I could do about it, so I kept it like that. I actually thought of setting up Argonians as ArmorRace without the scaling, but it didn't look right when I gave it a try.

 

The new heads should properly fit with a fair share of the headgear without the node scaling due to the human-like shape on the top and back, so while there will be issues and clipping and such, it will be better than what we have right now IMO.

[NightroModzz]

If it's a problem that might effect textures I can make them less inwards, but textures might have to compensate for it in case in game shadows don't cover it correctly. The purpose of it being more realistic or inwards which is causing that error was so textures that imitate shadows wouldn't have to be made.

 

When you tested the head in game, how did the gills show up? Were certain areas invisible or did it show up fine? If fine, then I'll just do it the same way.

[Blaze69]

If it's a problem that might effect textures I can make them less inwards, but textures might have to compensate for it in case in game shadows don't cover it correctly. The purpose of it being more realistic or inwards which is causing that error was so textures that imitate shadows wouldn't have to be made.

 

When you tested the head in game, how did the gills show up? Were certain areas invisible or did it show up fine? If fine, then I'll just do it the same way.

Well, then I guess it didn't make sense for me to be baking an Ambient Occlusion map in the first place, lol. It's the only thing I could think of to improve the head diffuse and not have it be all the same color. Unless anybody with more texturing experience/skills wants to help me with it, that's as far as I can go for now (as in, before you help me. I'm aware you intend to create new textures, but that may take a while).

 

The AO went crazy with it, putting black (occluded areas) all over the gill region regardless of if it was actually occluded or not. The normal wasn't as bad, but it was a bit wonky as well. I think I still have the generated textures laying around somewhere, so I may be able to post them for you to see.

 

BTW, I wouldn't want to rush things, but do you have a rough ETA on the head? I still have some stuff to to during the weekend 'cause that busy period I'm in now extends up to Monday (but OTOH as soon as it's done I should be good to go for a long time). I would like to plan things ahead if it's possible.

 

No need to be definitive, I know you can't be certain about this things, but if for example you know for sure it won't be done before Monday, knowing that would help me organize stuff.

[NightroModzz]

Likely Sunday mid day. Monday at the latest. The base head shape is easy to trace over, but the gills and ears require time and need to detail the ears separately after a certain point. Well. I'm already at that point.

[Blaze69]

Likely Sunday mid day. Monday at the latest. The base head shape is easy to trace over, but the gills and ears require time and need to detail the ears separately after a certain point. Well. I'm already at that point.

That would be like from 9 PM Sunday to sometime during Monday here. Huh. Then it will probably have to wait until Monday evening at best before I can start working on it. Nothing wrong about that, I guess I can focus on getting stuff done first so Monday stuff ends as soon as possible. I can work with that, thanks.

[Goose2]

Just wanna jump in and say how groovy it is that you guys are working so persistantly on this. Kudos.

[Kuroyami]

So it looks like Northern Encounters does add some things around Northwatch Keep, though it is this mod, Imperial Stone - Forts of Skyrim Redone, that changes a lot about the exterior of the Keep. However, for the possible Shiro character, the only change the follower plugin would be the Selachii character within the Keep, and possibly an added Thalmor Justiciar(or the one that is already there, which means nothing about them would need to change). I have not checked the interior, so I'm not sure if any changes are made there.

 

It is also true that the Predator Vision mod works for Selachii Vampires, though perhaps that would be expected. I would imagine Bat Travel should work too. I did load up Royal Bloodline, which it only effecting the Vampire Lord Perks should mean no problems.

 

 

[NightroModzz]

Thought I would experiment and thought, Why the hell not. It's very easy for me and only took me half an hour to make the dragon head look like this so far. So likely I can finish one of these in a day and start/ finish them after the Sharkmer heads. It's very easy and I don't have to make anything complicated like fin ears and gills. (lots of poly manipulating and stretching) The back end of the fin ears was twice as troublesome as before.

 

I don't want to use one of those Dragonian meshes though, because they don't look proper with a humanoid body and can't be fixed with the way the mouth is. If need be, I can edit the teeth on the Argonian mouth mesh. You can also make a request to the HDT Dragon Tail's author to use an edited tail mesh. Don't expect me to make textures for it, but is a possibility in the future. The sharkmer mesh is difficult to make while the dragon is easy, but for textures it's the other way around.

[Blaze69]

Thought I would experiment and thought, Why the hell not. It's very easy for me and only took me half an hour to make the dragon head look like this so far. So likely I can finish one of these in a day and start/ finish them after the Sharkmer heads. It's very easy and I don't have to make anything complicated like fin ears and gills. (lots of poly manipulating and stretching) The back end of the fin ears was twice as troublesome as before.

 

I don't want to use one of those Dragonian meshes though, because they don't look proper with a humanoid body and can't be fixed with the way the mouth is. If need be, I can edit the teeth on the Argonian mouth mesh. You can also make a request to the HDT Dragon Tail's author to use an edited tail mesh. Don't expect me to make textures for it, but is a possibility in the future. The sharkmer mesh is difficult to make while the dragon is easy, but for textures it's the other way around.

That's... actually pretty good! I like that design a lot. It's not a 1:1 match of the vanilla dragon heads as I pictured it could be, but it's nice nevertheless. I see why you wouldn't want to use the Dovagonian-style heads, as I said myself they are flawed. I never thought of using modified Argonian heads, though. That removes the need to create morph, which in turn makes the race actually feasible to create. That's great .

 

If this does lead somewhere, I'd rather go for regular tails first. HDT Tails may be good as an optional thing, but their tendency to get stuck or to randomly spazz out is a problem IMO. But that may be just me.

 

The problem here would be textures, then. I can't create such textures from scratch to save my life, but using slightly tweaked Argonian textures (which would be the most I could do) would not be good enough IMO. I guess I can just go ahead and ask BD for help, but seriously, I think that would be going too far, lol. I guess we'll see.

[NightroModzz]

 

That's... actually pretty good! I like that design a lot. It's not a 1:1 match of the vanilla dragon heads as I pictured it could be, but it's nice nevertheless. I see why you wouldn't want to use the Dovagonian-style heads, as I said myself they are flawed. I never thought of using modified Argonian heads, though. That removes the need to create morph, which in turn makes the race actually feasible to create. That's great .

 

If this does lead somewhere, I'd rather go for regular tails first. HDT Tails may be good as an optional thing, but their tendency to get stuck or to randomly spazz out is a problem IMO. But that may be just me.

 

The problem here would be textures, then. I can't create such textures from scratch to save my life, but using slightly tweaked Argonian textures (which would be the most I could do) would not be good enough IMO. I guess I can just go ahead and ask BD for help, but seriously, I think that would be going too far, lol. I guess we'll see.

 

Oh, I just meant the tail mesh. HDT is in the name of the mod. Can't you just replace the Argonian tail mesh with that and no HDT? Those already look better, and if it has a higher poly count then I can add more detail. As for the dragon head, that was just me getting started. I can still do much more to it and add a 3D scale appearance with only a slight tug per poly and thorny ones in certain areas. Reptilians, especially dragons come easy to me and don't need any pictures or research, unless needed a certain way.

[boo]

 

I'm not sure how much I can or should change about the forehead, but I made the snout more slender and looks a bit more like a shark when you look at it from the underside. I got most of the shape done but still got a ways to do on the ears and have yet to start on the gills. Some stuff came up before so it might take a bit longer. It should look a bit better though. Also, this time I only moved the position of the eyes and mouth with no rotation, so it should be easier to reposition the mouth and eye mesh.

 

I also want to ask, If I edit the seems on my Khajiit head to match the human neck seems, would it be easy to get them in game with the same method you are using to get the sharkmer head in without rebuilding neck weights?

Really good to hear it's going to look better, looking forward to seeing the end result. That bit about the mouth and eyed is nice as well, and should make things easier.

 

BTW, going by what I saw when generating textures for the previous head, there is no need to put a lot of detail into the gills. It's a good idea to have them modelled, but the ultra-small level of detail confuses the renderer and it ends up looking a bit wonky when you auto-generate the normal map. So, yeah, I'll leave the specifics up to you, but no need to go crazy on the detail there.

 

Theoretically, yes, it should make things easier. About "5 minutes to get it done" kind of easier (though I won't know until I actually try). The problem is, I'm not sure how it would play with the neck seam at the lowest weight and its corresponding morph.

 

Not sure if you noticed, but instead of fitting the neck seam, the vanilla Khajiit head has an extra semi-transparent layer over the "default" neck seam that simulates fur. This removed the need for the default seam to be a 100% match because the fur thing covers it, so if you take out the fur part, there will be a gap between the "real" neck and the body.

 

I'm not sure if the CITRUS head fixed that neck part, because the only mentioned edits are tweaks to vertex alpha for the fur layer, but nothing else. You would probably have to either restore the original neck + fur layer position or to start from scratch without touching the neck to minimize the chace of it looking weird. That, or you would need to first fit your head as-is to the _1 body seam, and then do the same for the _0 one and inject the latter edited mesh into the .tri as the low weight morph.

 

 

The Citrus heads for Khajiit and Argonians have an unresolved seam at the join.

 

[Blaze69]

Oh, I just meant the tail mesh. HDT is in the name of the mod. Can't you just replace the Argonian tail mesh with that and no HDT? Those already look better, and if it has a higher poly count then I can add more detail. As for the dragon head, that was just me getting started. I can still do much more to it and add a 3D scale appearance with only a slight tug per poly and thorny ones in certain areas. Reptilians, especially dragons come easy to me and don't need any pictures or research, unless needed a certain way.

Nope, HDT tails are rigged to a completely different set of bones in order to be animated by the Physics system, so they can't be used as they are. It may be possible to just take the meshes and right them to the vanilla tail config, but I'm not completely sure about that. Anyway, in the meantime the ones from the "Wearable dragon horns and tails" should work.

 

Honestly, the idea of HDT tails is not that bad; the loss of all animation in favour of only physics/gravity makes them seem a little fake or not organic, but it does fix situations in which you have tails clipping through everything or in a position that would be unnatural and/or really uncomfortable. The thing that breaks it for me are the HDT bugs, but there's nothing that can be done about it because the Havok Physics system implemented in the engine was never meant to be used like this in the first place  .

 

Yeah, I see how you could improve it even more. What are your plans for horns, though? Because following the vanilla-style thing I mentioned, I think it would be good to have them based on the vanilla dragons, for consistency. It would also offer more options when creating your character. You know, the standard pair of horns from regular dragons, that thing with the membrane from green/forest dragons, that sideways 4-horn set from boss/tundra dragons, and so on. Though it may require tweaks to the head mesh to properly blend into the skull now that I think about it.

 

Going by vanilla races, it may even be possible to have a single head mesh per gender and then create different dragon races with their corresponding textures/colorations and head shapes (and horns). All vanilla humanoid races use the same head mesh, but Orcs look like Orcs while elves look like elves, because there are some base shape morphs applied on a race basis by default.

 

I guess a standard set created either from scratch or by modifying existing Argonian horns based on the "horn roots" you have already set up would work just fine, that was just my two cents.

Edited January 22, 2017 by Blaze69

[NightroModzz]

Okay. When I continue it, I'll look into some vanilla dragon pictures for the horns. But I'm trying to keep the top part of the head as is accept for detail and scale-like horns so some Argonian hair might fit.

[Blaze69]

Okay. When I continue it, I'll look into some vanilla dragon pictures for the horns. But I'm trying to keep the top part of the head as is accept for detail and scale-like horns so some Argonian hair might fit.

Neat, that sounds like a good idea.

 

Really like where this is going. Whaddayaknow, we may indeed turn out to get a playable anthro dragon race sometime in the future. Looking forward to it  .

[NightroModzz]

 

The Citrus heads for Khajiit and Argonians have an unresolved seam at the join.

Any pictures so I can try to fix it? By join, you mean the connection to the neck right? I could just mimic the seem from the human or default vanilla mesh.

[boo]

 

 

The Citrus heads for Khajiit and Argonians have an unresolved seam at the join.

Any pictures so I can try to fix it? By join, you mean the connection to the neck right? I could just mimic the seem from the human or default vanilla mesh.

 

 

Yeah, they have a fairly prominent gap on the neck connection. I can try and take pictures later.