? The Selachii - Shark Race

[Blaze69]

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

I didn't actually notice, it seemed to be pretty seamless. Might have been hidden by the texture seams themselves, though; I have so far been unable to find any kind of seamless Argonian set.

 

BTW, how is the head going, Nightro? I'm finally done with all the stuff I had to do, so while it's not like I'm going to be free 24/7, I should at least have plenty of time to work on this and, you know, actually play the game. Let me know as soon as you are done and I'll get down to it  .

[NightroModzz]

 

BTW, how is the head going, Nightro? I'm finally done with all the stuff I had to do, so while it's not like I'm going to be free 24/7, I should at least have plenty of time to work on this and, you know, actually play the game. Let me know as soon as you are done and I'll get down to it  .

The ears gave me more trouble than origonally planned but both sides are now finished. Now I need to finish the gills and re-add sonme detail. I should be done late tonight.

 

[NightroModzz]

Give me about an hour to finish the detailing.

[Blaze69]

Give me about an hour to finish the detailing.

Sure, no rush. I can wait. In fact I'm going to be setting up the new version of Yiffy Age, so it's not like I'm sitting here staring at the ceiling and waiting for you, lol .

[NightroModzz]

I'm done but would like to try a few more experiments.

 

https://gyazo.com/cc35f6fa5162a65a4068f79b1c217f7a

[NightroModzz]

Here's the new female sharkmer head. I changed the head design a bit and there is more forehead space. The gills are seperated and slightly less angled. The snout is also a little more stealthy looking.

 

I also found this. I actually plan to make something similar far in the future as an enemy, but a little more piranha like and less wrinkles.

 

EDIT:

 

Thought I would post a picture of the final version so those who want can see it.

 

https://gyazo.com/932617c385d5d6cf77bcb3df37941ba6

 

I made a slight edit to the head detail which is an indent along side the head rail fin or whatever you want to call it. So if you haven't done much or like the added detail, you can update it if you want. Tell me if there's a neck seem because I didn't do anything to it.

Female Sharkmer Head.rar

[Blaze69]

I can't seem to quote your post for some reason. Anyway, I only got to download your file before I had to leave, so I haven't started working on it yet. As soon as I get home I'll download the updated file and get down to it.

[Blaze69]

[...]

Okay, good news! Looks like this time you nailed it  .

 

As soon as I tried to import your .obj into Outfit Studio with the base CITRUS Argonian head loaded as a reference, it realised the import had the exact same vertex count and order as the base shape and asked me if i wanted to update it to match the .obj. Lo and behold, weight paints and head partitions are preserved as they were, but the head got the new shape. The gill area deforms a bit weirdly when your character turns around due to the new placement not being in line with the original weight paints, but I'll take a shot at tweaking the weights once everything else is set up.

 

I managed to get the mouth to match on my first try, and it's looking good. Now I have to get working on the eyes (which may require Blender tweaking since they seem to have been moved symmetrically inwards and OS doesn't support that kind of editing). Once that is done, then on to set up the eye parts and the hairs.

 

For now I'm going to use Argonian meshes and textures as placeholder for males, so that when those are done as well they are easier to implement. BTW, if you manage to get the male mouth region to match the female one or at least be close, that would remove the need to edit new mouths for them, and same goes for eyes. Vanilla male and female Argonians use the exact same unisex meshes for eyes and mouth, so it's feasible. Just a suggestion, though; if you need to give males different eye/mouth placement for the heads to look good, then go ahead .

[NightroModzz]

 

[...]

Okay, good news! Looks like this time you nailed it  .

 

As soon as I tried to import your .obj into Outfit Studio with the base CITRUS Argonian head loaded as a reference, it realised the import had the exact same vertex count and order as the base shape and asked me if i wanted to update it to match the .obj. Lo and behold, weight paints and head partitions are preserved as they were, but the head got the new shape. The gill area deforms a bit weirdly when your character turns around due to the new placement not being in line with the original weight paints, but I'll take a shot at tweaking the weights once everything else is set up.

 

I managed to get the mouth to match on my first try, and it's looking good. Now I have to get working on the eyes (which may require Blender tweaking since they seem to have been moved symmetrically inwards and OS doesn't support that kind of editing). Once that is done, then on to set up the eye parts and the hairs.

 

For now I'm going to use Argonian meshes and textures as placeholder for males, so that when those are done as well they are easier to implement. BTW, if you manage to get the male mouth region to match the female one or at least be close, that would remove the need to edit new mouths for them, and same goes for eyes. Vanilla male and female Argonians use the exact same unisex meshes for eyes and mouth, so it's feasible. Just a suggestion, though; if you need to give males different eye/mouth placement for the heads to look good, then go ahead .

 

That's good! I'm gonna take a 3-4 day break from this. Need a rest day and wanna work on some other stuff.

[Blaze69]

That's good! I'm gonna take a 3-4 day break from this. Need a rest day and wanna work on some other stuff.

Sure, whatever you need  . Thank you very much for this!

 

The eyes took some work, though. You remember how I said that morphs are relative and if you edit the base mesh, then the morphs should apply to it as they would to the original one? Well, eyes don't work like that, at least not the .tri file that controls the "LookUp/Down/Left/Right" morphs. I had to manually open the .tri in Blender and move the vertices for each and every Shape Key. Luckily for me, there were only like 4 of them .

 

Here is the head already ingame:

 

   

 

As I said, I'll probably have to tweak the neck weights a bit to reduce the weird deformation there, but it's not that much of a problem so i'm not going to go crazy about it, at least for now. The chargen sliders work acceptably good, which is neat, and same goes for mouth and eyes. Not 100% perfect, but it will do.

 

The problem right now is texturing, though. The auto generated normal is okay-ish, but the bland texture just doesn't do it. I'm going to need some help with this. Since you said you won't doing textures just yet, I guess I'll ask BD for advice on what I can do to improve them.

 

Now, off to editing vanilla hairs to fit the head. Yay. 

[Minik435]

This is just simply great. So far I think the eyes could look a little bit "sharper" and bigger, but that's probably just my thought... and the lack of sleep. Nah, eyes are cool, I wasn't just looking close enough. GL with the hair.

[NightroModzz]

Actually, I also think the eyes could be a bit bigger and some detail didn't come out quite as intended. I think the eyes would look better 1/3 bigger with dilated eye textures. Or this and this. I could possible scale a masked area so it's the same, just bigger. I can also edit the curve between the forehead and snout, make the center head rail a bit bigger, and thicken the scrunch between the forehead and snount. Some black makeup with a bit of design around the eyes with the texture would help a lot too I think.

 

Also, it truly looks like it's High Res counter part. BTW, What's the bottom gear that your character is wearing?

 

UPDATE:

 

You can try this if you want, but would require more eye adjustments and scaling. I also tried fixing  the seem problem that you can see on the second picture with the black mark. 

 

https://gyazo.com/e4084e6d4855605b74997d61e95fddfa

 

https://gyazo.com/6398540bd384c239b16f47368de2a5b0

 

 

 

This is just simply great. So far I think the eyes could look a little bit "sharper" and bigger, but that's probably just my thought... and the lack of sleep. Nah, eyes are cool, I wasn't just looking close enough. GL with the hair.

 

I would like to do more, but because the left eye lid is out of place, there is a bigger limit of what I can do around the eyes. Not to mention that there is already enough poly stretching and would cause and is already causing a wrinkle like appearance in some areas.

 

New Female Sharkmer Head.rar

[Blaze69]

 

Actually, I also think the eyes could be a bit bigger and some detail didn't come out quite as intended. I think the eyes would look better 1/3 bigger with dilated eye textures. Or this and this. I could possible scale a masked area so it's the same, just bigger. I can also edit the curve between the forehead and snout, make the center head rail a bit bigger, and thicken the scrunch between the forehead and snount. Some black makeup with a bit of design around the eyes with the texture would help a lot too I think.

 

Also, it truly looks like it's High Res counter part. BTW, What's the bottom gear that your character is wearing?

 

UPDATE:

 

You can try this if you want, but would require more eye adjustments and scaling. I also tried fixing  the seem problem that you can see on the second picture with the black mark. 

 

This is just simply great. So far I think the eyes could look a little bit "sharper" and bigger, but that's probably just my thought... and the lack of sleep. Nah, eyes are cool, I wasn't just looking close enough. GL with the hair.

 

I would like to do more, but because of the left eye lid is out of place, the is a bigger limit of what I can do around the eyes. Not to mention that there is already enough poly stretching and would cause and is already causing a wrinkle like appearance in some areas.

Well, I'll give this updated mesh a shot. Let's just hope placing the eyes is easier this time around.  The other tweaks sound good, though, so there's that. I'll see what I can do about the textures as well, but they are going to stay on a "early WIP" state until either you help me or I manage to get some texturing skills. The latter is unlikely, though, lol  .

 

The belt comes with the outfit, which is included in Remodeled Armor for UUNP as an extra. It's called "Leather Bikini" IIRC.

[NightroModzz]

 

Well, I'll give this updated mesh a shot. Let's just hope placing the eyes is easier this time around.  The other tweaks sound good, though, so there's that. I'll see what I can do about the textures as well, but they are going to stay on a "early WIP" state until either you help me or I manage to get some texturing skills. The latter is unlikely, though, lol  .

 

I would like to do more, but because of the left eye lid is out of place, the is a bigger limit of what I can do around the eyes. Not to mention that there is already enough poly stretching and would cause and is already causing a wrinkle like appearance in some areas.

 

The belt comes with the outfit, which is included in Remodeled Armor for UUNP as an extra. It's called "Leather Bikini" IIRC.

 

Oh okay. I have that but seems like it's been updated since I stopped playing.

 

I have a lot planned and stuff I need to finish so I might not start texturing until another 2 or 3 months, but might give it a shot in between that time if I'm in the mood. Or maybe when BD finishes the feet.

[Blaze69]

Oh okay. I have that but seems like it's been updated since I stopped playing.

 

I have a lot planned and stuff I need to finish so I might not start texturing until another 2 or 3 months, but might give it a shot in between that time if I'm in the mood. Or maybe when BD finishes the feet.

Sure, no pressure. I'll see what I can do in the meantime .

[Kuroyami]

Added entries 8 and 9 for Mizuno's journal. 

 

Entry 8 - 15th of Evening Star, 4E 199

 

 

I had done some research into Skyrim's traditions, and of course, the culture. Some of it was just casual, or more to the point, some other students who knew them by heart, doing various things, which I found unusual, but could still appreciate. I woke up a few days ago to find that the College grounds had been decorated in a much different fashion than usual. A spiral of various colored orbs floated in place around the font in the center of the Courtyard. Similar decorations were all around the College. 

 

 

 

 

 

But today was a little more eventful than the College being decorated for the coming holiday. One of the teachers, Vaynelle, had been taking a student who was doing some heavy experiments outside the College, food, supplies, etc. Well, it seems today she came back to the College after having fallen into the freezing Sea of Ghosts. Yisra, the student mentioned previously, was with her, and she spoke of the one who saved Vaynelle – Kori, a Selachii like me. 

 

 

 

Entry 9 - 25th of Evening Star, 4E 199

 

 

 

Ko'Maru stood at the edge of my bed, almost completely nude. I say almost, because he had wrapped lengths of red ribbon, which had gold trim on the edges, around himself. Not even to the level where this, “Outfit”, could be considered...decent, since he was still exposing himself. 

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the day was, still fun, but more casual. Exchanging gifts, games, and fine meals at lunch and dinner. As much animosity that existed at the College, it seemed to be forgotten, if only for the sake of the festivities. Not that I had any towards anyone. 

 

 

 

Also added a few lines for Mizuno's dialog, for if the player is naked. He takes it rather well.   Not sure if that will conflict with the voiced lines. Also, I believe I added more of an explanation of, his fun with the sea life. 

[Blaze69]

Added entries 8 and 9 for Mizuno's journal.  [...]

 

Also added a few lines for Mizuno's dialog, for if the player is naked. He takes it rather well.   Not sure if that will conflict with the voiced lines. Also, I believe I added more of an explanation of, his fun with the sea life. 

Oh, are those references to Saturnalia? i think I've seen that thing with the magic orbs in a mod somewhere. Nice detail! 

 

I'll make sure to check out the document and the new dialogue, but I'll probably wait for the whole race to be updated to work on the followers. They are going to be recreated with the new assets, though.

 

Anyway, time for an update. I got the new head imported and managed to fit the eyes to it. Kinda. They sometimes clip through the eyelids when they are closed, but I couldn't get rid of the clipping without sinking them too much into the head.

 

I also had to remove the "LookUp/Down/Left/Right" morphs because otherwise I would have to manually adjust all of them and that is too much work. They don't even look that good with the vanilla Argonian eyes IMO (Khajiits and humans have it better, though). Chargen sliders and expressions work fine on them, which is neat.

 

I also got to do some work with the textures. Basically, I desaturated the Fair Skin head texture, painted over details like eyes and mouth so they weren't visible, and blended it with the base shark head texture. This means there is now some skin detail like roughness and spots, though they are not that noticeable. This also caused some UV seams to appear due to the jump from human UV to Argonian one, but they are not that much of a problem. I'll see if I can fix them later. I used some trickery to generate a normal map out of the diffuse and thus keep that roughness and contours included in the normal as well, which while not perfect, is better than a plastic-like flawless surface.

 

So, this is the current state of the head:

 

  

 

And this are some hairs I managed to port, more or less. They could use some tweaking, but I guess it's good as a start:

 

        

 

EDIT: Disregard the weird white/grey shape on the sides of the forehead, it's caused by the old tintmasks because I haven't touched them yet and they are set like that by default. I'll fix them later.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Blaze69

[NightroModzz]

Definitely getting better. For the dragon, I should probably bring in the body for head to body proportions so I can see what it looks like with the entire body. But for the shark, that's probably the best I can do with a human shaped head.  I see the hair fits on fine though.

 

When I do the textures I'll add plenty of detail to make up for it. I was thinking of 2. A great white or tiger shark and blue with faded uneven white stripes with a black makeup design around the eyes for both. Like around the eyes and curve marks around the eye socket for a sharper look.

 

BTW, I did this a few days ago. It is the horn shape you wanted right? It's based off of someone else's work, but matches most of the designs I've seen after typing in "Vanilla Skyrim dragon."

[Blaze69]

Definitely getting better. For the dragon, I should probably bring in the body for head to body proportions so I can see what it looks like with the entire body. But for the shark, that's probably the best I can do with a human shaped head.  I see the hair fits on fine though.

 

When I do the textures I'll add plenty of detail to make up for it. I was thinking of 2. A great white or tiger shark and blue with faded uneven white stripes with a black makeup design around the eyes for both. Like around the eyes and curve marks around the eye socket for a sharper look.

 

BTW, I did this a few days ago. It is the horn shape you wanted right? It's based off of someone else's work, but matches most of the designs I've seen after typing in "Vanilla Skyrim dragon."

Good to hear about the textures, looking forward to it (whenever it happens). Same goes for the dragons, though in that case I just won't be able to do the textures, so I guess we will have to look for someone else to take care of that. I should still be able to do the mesh porting just fine, though.

 

About that design, well... Not quite. it's not bad, but it appears to me that design doesn't exactly follow Skyrim's own one. See, here are some pics of the actual ingame meshes for dragons (I used the meshes from the Female Dragons mod so I didn't have to extract the vanilla ones from the BSA but the head and horn shapes are exactly identical, so they should provide a good reference):

 

 

    

 

 

Again, just a suggestion, you don't need to create a 1:1 match or anything like that. Just thought it would help with consistency, and also because I like those designs . I wanted you to have some actual reference, but you can do with it as you please. And let me know if you need/want more pics or something like that.

[NightroModzz]

 

 

Good to hear about the textures, looking forward to it (whenever it happens). Same goes for the dragons, though in that case I just won't be able to do the textures, so I guess we will have to look for someone else to take care of that. I should still be able to do the mesh porting just fine, though.

 

About that design, well... Not quite. it's not bad, but it appears to me that design doesn't exactly follow Skyrim's own one. See, here are some pics of the actual ingame meshes for dragons (I used the meshes from the Female Dragons mod so I didn't have to extract the vanilla ones from the BSA but the head and horn shapes are exactly identical, so they should provide a good reference):

 

 

Skyrim_Dragon_Forest.png Skyrim_Dragon_Frost.png Skyrim_Dragon_Odahviing.png Skyrim_Dragon_Regular.png Skyrim_Dragon_Tundra.png

 

 

Again, just a suggestion, you don't need to create a 1:1 match or anything like that. Just thought it would help with consistency, and also because I like those designs . I wanted you to have some actual reference, but you can do with it as you please. And let me know if you need/want more pics or something like that.

 

Okay. I'll plan on giving it similarities with my own touch.

[Blaze69]

Okay, not really an update, but I was doing some tests, and I got the tintmask thing solved.

 

I took a shot at using some Argonian tints for the sharks, and well... There's like two or three tints that actually look good, and the scale/spots tints somehow fit as some kind of skin pigmentation or face paint. Obviously not as good as custom-tailored tints would be, and as I said there's like 3 of them, but it will do for now.

 

Also, as I expected, while headwear is not perfect, it's way better than what it used to with the old heads. See the mage hood here:

 

 

 

A little too obstructing, but still acceptable IMO.

 

Also have some pics showcasing my current character WIP and the repurposed Argonian tints:

 

  

 

Came out better than expected, to my surprise. Liking it already . Not perfect, but again, way better than we had before IMO. Great work, Nightro! 

[NuclearCooki3]

WOW.. Nice.

 

Can't wait for the new sharkmer heads!

 

Also i can't wait for an anthro dragon race in skyrim

[NightroModzz]

Looks good with the hair and especially with the mouth open. The white face paint is a nice touch too.

[Taven]

Wooo...that looks incredible! ALTHOUGH..one thing..how does circlets fit on this new head? Currently wearing one impales their foreheads with it. ><

[NightroModzz]

Wooo...that looks incredible! ALTHOUGH..one thing..how does circlets fit on this new head? Currently wearing one impales their foreheads with it. ><

They may need to be modded a bit in order to fit properly. On the bright side, custom helmets would look bad ass on this head and armor can be made to run along side of the upper part of the head fins. But that may depend on the popularity of the mod. Besides custom armor, something as simple as a single circlet may take me 15 minutes. Although it would be up to someone else to set it up for Skyrim and I'm not sure how it would effect other races. I may do it, but only after male version is finished.