? The Selachii - Shark Race

[Blaze69]

lol, I know. I kinda thought it should be fine for Substance painter, but was wondering if it was for Photoshop etc since it relies on the UVs and not the model and Nuclearcooki3 wants to make textures as well. So I'm assuming he going to use Photoshop since he never stated. I don't want his textures he worked hard on to be ruined.  So for those none 3D texture artists, I'm going to have to make new UVs.

 

But you haven't answered my question on whether you had trouble with the white face paint. For some reason, it looks per polygon restricted and uneven. Or was that intentional?

Well, I'm not 100% sure because I've never used Photoshop (only Mudbox, and even then I mostly just used the Clone tool to blend seams), but from what I've seen from tutorials and stuff I'd say there won't be any problem with that because PS does indeed load the 3D model and then translate to the UV map/canvas. What would be the point of "3D Painting" software if it wasn't able to render the 3D mesh as it actually is, anyway?

 

As for face paints, I haven't really worked on those. I just took the vanilla Argonian paints (well, HD/2048x2048 versions of them, because they looked like crap otherwise), tested them on the shark head, and implemented the ones that looked acceptable enough. The difference in shape between the original Argonian head and the shark one is probably the cause of the issues you mention. If we ever get to that, creating shark-specific tints by painting directly on the new head mesh should look way better than what we have right now, with none of the drawbacks.

[NuclearCooki3]

lol, I know. I kinda thought it should be fine for Substance painter, but was wondering if it was for Photoshop etc since it relies on the UVs and not the model and Nuclearcooki3 wants to make textures as well. So I'm assuming he going to use Photoshop since he never stated. I don't want his textures he worked hard on to be ruined.  So for those none 3D texture artists, I'm going to have to make new UVs.

 

But you haven't answered my question on whether you had trouble with the white face paint. For some reason, it looks per polygon restricted and uneven. Or was that intentional?

 

 

I use a combination of Paint.net and gimp to create body markings

 

also I should state I am female lol

 

Here's the concept I am working on. It's still a WIP because the white belly doesn't match up with the legs yet :3

 

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http://i.imgur.com/0ZkHZXE.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/qpXyiwx.jpg

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I thought the Images were too big to be embedded here

Edited February 26, 2017 by NuclearCooki3

[Blaze69]

[...] Here's the concept I am working on. It's still a WIP because the white belly doesn't match up with the legs yet :3

Well, that's good so far, but I have some notes. First, I assume this skin is the leopard shark one; I'm going to base my thoughts on that, so let me know if I'm mistaken and it's supposed to be a different/non-conventional skin.

 

The transition from dark skin to white skin on the front/belly looks pretty good IMO, but maybe you should extend it to the neck area as well, where it loses that "airbursh" style and returns to a noticeable line transition. A consistent airbrush style everywhere would look better, even if you make it less marked (but still present) in some areas like that one. BTW, love the white area around the mouth. It helps with the head look, that's nice.

 

Is that green color part of the texture or is it applied through a skintone? From the pics I've seen so far, it seems like leopard sharks do have a gray-greenish color, but not that saturated with green. I think it's better to have the base skin be just grey so that the actual color can be set using the skintone slider; it would also allow for more variety in color. Also, the white areas may look a bit better if you shift them to be a little darker/greyish. Again, from the pics, leopard sharks have a light underbelly, but pure #FFFFFF white may be too much.

 

The spots/markings are a good start, but I think there is still plenty to do there. I'm using these pics for reference: Leopard_shark and Triakis_semifasciata_back (I can probably find thousands of better pics using Google Images, but for now these two from Wikipedia should be enough). The way I see it, the markings should span most of the body, with the back of the torso and the tail having the big stripe-like patches alternating with the smaller spots as shown on the second pic; and arms/legs having the same desing but to a smaller scale (and maybe a little more faded). That second pic is a good reference overall IMO. Just my two cents, though; but now that it has been brought up, turns out I do like the leopard shark markings (I didn't even know they existed before  ).

 

BTW, what is up with the schlong textures? Not the sheath, but the schlong itself; It seems to be painted in black, red and orange stripes (like the German flag, lol ). I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure they are like that.

[NightroModzz]

On second thought, If I change the UVs, how will that effect the other 47 head morphs (expressions)?

 

@Nuclearcooki3

 

http://i.imgur.com/DWwa6ee.jpg

 

http://www.sharksider.com/images/leopard-shark-facts.jpg

 

For the main skin, try using a golden brown, then layering that with a soft grey. Use a brush with a soft white effect for the belly, maybe 2 layers then slightly brush the edges of the main skin color with the white for a good transition. Your only going to want to use a soft or spray paint kind of effect for this type of design. No solid or dark colors accept for dark brown for the outer layer of the ring spots.

 

Umm... did you paint on the belly button? I don't know if that's face paint or part of the texture. But if you plan on making it for everyone, I would avoid the unnecessary stuff like the red colors and black PP. Just my personal opinion, but I would leave the nipples a pinkish color as it is more natural for most animals which relates to the color of flesh. Although not true for some mammals, apes and races of humans. Maybe a whitish pink for good transition.

[Blaze69]

On second thought, If I change the UVs, how will that effect the other 47 head morphs (expressions)?

Well, that is a good question. As far as I know, the only thing the game cares about when looking at .tris is vertex position (hence the "matching vertex count and order" thing), and it doesn't care about UV data or any other stuff. So we should be fine on that aspect.

 

Worst case scenario, I can open the .tri file in Blender and use the "transfer UV maps" option using the new heads as a base; it should work fine then. Still, make sure you save a backup of the new heads before you make the new UVs if it's possible. Just in case.

[NightroModzz]

 

On second thought, If I change the UVs, how will that effect the other 47 head morphs (expressions)?

make sure you save a backup of the new heads before you make the new UVs if it's possible. Just in case.

 

Yeah, I was going to export it before I do that last part. The UVs.

[NuclearCooki3]

 

[...] Here's the concept I am working on. It's still a WIP because the white belly doesn't match up with the legs yet :3

Well, that's good so far, but I have some notes. First, I assume this skin is the leopard shark one; I'm going to base my thoughts on that, so let me know if I'm mistaken and it's supposed to be a different/non-conventional skin.

 

The transition from dark skin to white skin on the front/belly looks pretty good IMO, but maybe you should extend it to the neck area as well, where it loses that "airbursh" style and returns to a noticeable line transition. A consistent airbrush style everywhere would look better, even if you make it less marked (but still present) in some areas like that one. BTW, love the white area around the mouth. It helps with the head look, that's nice.

 

Is that green color part of the texture or is it applied through a skintone? From the pics I've seen so far, it seems like leopard sharks do have a gray-greenish color, but not that saturated with green. I think it's better to have the base skin be just grey so that the actual color can be set using the skintone slider; it would also allow for more variety in color. Also, the white areas may look a bit better if you shift them to be a little darker/greyish. Again, from the pics, leopard sharks have a light underbelly, but pure #FFFFFF white may be too much.

 

The spots/markings are a good start, but I think there is still plenty to do there. I'm using these pics for reference: Leopard_shark and Triakis_semifasciata_back (I can probably find thousands of better pics using Google Images, but for now these two from Wikipedia should be enough). The way I see it, the markings should span most of the body, with the back of the torso and the tail having the big stripe-like patches alternating with the smaller spots as shown on the second pic; and arms/legs having the same desing but to a smaller scale (and maybe a little more faded). That second pic is a good reference overall IMO. Just my two cents, though; but now that it has been brought up, turns out I do like the leopard shark markings (I didn't even know they existed before  ).

 

BTW, what is up with the schlong textures? Not the sheath, but the schlong itself; It seems to be painted in black, red and orange stripes (like the German flag, lol ). I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure they are like that.

 

 

1. The pattern is from the Tiger Shark. I used google to find a Tiger shark with a clearly visible pattern.

2. the Green color is applied through a skin tone, I kept the original grey textures. :3 The shark I am basing the skin off of also has an almost pure white underbelly.

3. I dunno. I just wanted to make a schlong texture... I wanted to make it black tipped.. but I guess I should start over and make it more gradient XD

 

also 4. These textures are VERY WIP.. thanks for the constructive criticism. I also need to work on the belly button area too, because the skin tone apparently likes to apply to the belly button...

 

 

Lastly 5. I don't know how I am going to go about making tail textures if there is no good guideline to do so.. :/

[boo]

 

On second thought, If I change the UVs, how will that effect the other 47 head morphs (expressions)?

Well, that is a good question. As far as I know, the only thing the game cares about when looking at .tris is vertex position (hence the "matching vertex count and order" thing), and it doesn't care about UV data or any other stuff. So we should be fine on that aspect.

 

Worst case scenario, I can open the .tri file in Blender and use the "transfer UV maps" option using the new heads as a base; it should work fine then. Still, make sure you save a backup of the new heads before you make the new UVs if it's possible. Just in case.

 

 

.tri objects don't contain UV data.

[Blaze69]

1. The pattern is from the Tiger Shark. I used google to find a Tiger shark with a clearly visible pattern.

2. the Green color is applied through a skin tone, I kept the original grey textures. :3 The shark I am basing the skin off of also has an almost pure white underbelly.

3. I dunno. I just wanted to make a schlong texture... I wanted to make it black tipped.. but I guess I should start over and make it more gradient XD

 

also 4. These textures are VERY WIP.. thanks for the constructive criticism. I also need to work on the belly button area too, because the skin tone apparently likes to apply to the belly button...

 

Lastly 5. I don't know how I am going to go about making tail textures if there is no good guideline to do so.. :/

Oh, my bad about the pattern. Still, I think my feedback will still stand if/when you get to work on the leopard shark skin.

 

I see your point about the white color, but the thing is, the Skyrim game engine is not exactly prepared to properly deal with that kind of colors on character textures (or any bright/pure color, for that matter). It just doesn't look natural, at least in my opinion. Even if the real thing is pure white, when creating the texture for the game you have to put some grey on it and reduce the contrast with the darker grey of the main body color so the blending is a little softer/smoother (but not completely smooth) or else it doesn't look organic.

 

In fact, the original textures had a pure white belly, but when I created the 2.0 textures using Fair Skin as a base I shifted it to be darker and closer to the body color (though still noticeably lighter) for this very reason.

 

As for the schlong textures, I'm not really sure about them. It's true that many designs like to depict anthro male/futa sharks as having black schlongs (not sure why, though), and I think it's not a bad idea and when properly done it can look pretty good. But all of those usually go for a consistent color for the schlong; I'm not sure you can get a gradient from red ath the base to black at the tip to look natural. Not saying you shouldn't try, it may turn out to look good, but it will probably be harder than making it a single color (be it red or black).

 

Also, I have to agree with Nightro on this:

Umm... did you paint on the belly button? I don't know if that's face paint or part of the texture. But if you plan on making it for everyone, I would avoid the unnecessary stuff like the red colors and black PP. Just my personal opinion, but I would leave the nipples a pinkish color as it is more natural for most animals which relates to the color of flesh. Although not true for some mammals, apes and races of humans. Maybe a whitish pink for good transition.

I'd say those are indeed face paints, but yeah, I think there is no need to paint the belly button for the base texture. Same goes for the color for the nipples and genitals; I think it's better to leave them with a pinkish color so they look "fleshy" and organic. Probably with some level of white mixed in so it indeed still looks natural but also blends better with the white/light grey belly.

 

Alternatively, those areas could be painted black or dark grey. This is also common with drawings of anthro sharks, and would look better and blend more nicely if you opt for an all-black schlong. I would only ask for that to be left as an extra option once the main texture is done with the pink privates, since some people may prefer the latter over the black style and I can pack all the optional textures you want into the download (I may even look into creating a custom FOMOD/NMM/MO installer with the different options if there are enough variations).

 

BTW, you may want to give a shot at Nightro's advice. It sounds like a good idea to me, so I think you could use his ideas at least as a base. Again, just my two cents, but his advice is pretty solid, so there's that:

 

For the main skin, try using a golden brown, then layering that with a soft grey. Use a brush with a soft white effect for the belly, maybe 2 layers then slightly brush the edges of the main skin color with the white for a good transition. Your only going to want to use a soft or spray paint kind of effect for this type of design. No solid or dark colors accept for dark brown for the outer layer of the ring spots.

 

About the tail, well... it does look like it's not going to be easy. You can export the UV layout/wireframe for the tail using NifSkope if you want to have a reference of what part of the texture goes where; just select the tail mesh, right click, Texture->Export Template and choose your settings. The file should be exported as a PNG either in the same folder the tail .nif is in or in NifSkope's install directory (wherever the NifSkope.exe is located).

 

That is as good as it gets, though; the only way to get a better view of the mesh and to ease the texturing process would be to use some kind of 3D painting software, but getting a good program for that may be difficult.

 

Blender is supposed to include some kind of painting tool, but I could never get it to work properly and I think it's pretty limited. Sculptris does have painitng tools as well, and you can load an already-finished mesh and go straight to the "Texturing" mode, but it seems to be limited as well (though I think it's worth looking at, just in case you can use it). I don't know of any other free program that can do that;

 

All of the other options would require licensed software like Mudbox and such, and those are very expensive. Autodesk does offer a free 3 year student license for many of its programs (including Mudbox), but you would have to be an actual student to have access to those; a few years ago it used to be easy to "cheat" and get the student license without actually being a student by registering with a fake/made up university/institution, but they changed it and now you require some kind of authentication (like an university email account or something like that).

 

Of course, there are ways to get those programs for free on the Internet by going the "Jack Sparrow" way, if you know what I mean, but I don't know if you would be okay with that  .

 

EDIT: After doing some quick research, there may be another option for 3D painting: Mari, created by The Foundry. It looks really good and professional, and most important of all, there is a non-commercial version available for free, and none of the limitations it has actually affect the process (it has no watermark, max texture size is 4K which is more than enough, export formats include PNG which is lossless and can easily be converted into DDS, etc.). Since we are not doing commercial work or services and nobody is getting any profit out of this, I'd say we are clear to use it if it does turn out to be useful.

 

There is no need to actually try and use this program, I'm just posting here in case it may be of use. I will probably check it out myself when I get the chance.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Blaze69

[NuclearCooki3]

Thanks everyone

 

I'm glad you are all so supportive :3

[NightroModzz]

This is something I found out a while back, but just want to give the heads up. I'm not sure about the default mesh, but the Citrus heads are off if the X axis to the right from the screen or left of the mesh, about 200-ish. That may explain why I have some issues of polies not moving in complete symmetry. It can also explain why there are also small seems on one side of the Citrus neck seems.

 

I'll give you the new heads on the 0-X axis. If there is an issue, I'll put it back. I think I may redo the female khajiit  head too with 2 versions. 1 with the neck untouched and 1 with the neck edited.

 

When I'm done with that, I'll put it in my recourse for modders file. Bad Dog can also put it into his Complete Khajiit mod if he wants. It will also be part of the Khajiit body mod. (In game version). I'll do everything besides the getting it in game part, so I might need your help with that one. All new meshes (v2.1) will be available before hand though.

 

It will have the genitals, but won't be doing any bone or HDT stuff. Will likely need help with bones to get it in or if it can work in game from Bad Dog or Boo. I will note that any HDT stuff or extras can be added by the community when available. Either included on my mod page with credits, or their own mod with mine as a requirement. However, I did already offer use of my bodies to HeroedeLeyenda. I may take down the recourse page or modify it when or if it is done and available.

[Blaze69]

This is something I found out a while back, but just want to give the heads up. I'm not sure about the default mesh, but the Citrus heads are off if the X axis to the right from the screen or left of the mesh, about 200-ish. That may explain why I have some issues of polies not moving in complete symmetry. It can also explain why there are also small seems on one side of the Citrus neck seems.

 

I'll give you the new heads on the 0-X axis. If there is an issue, I'll put it back. I think I may redo the female khajiit  head too with 2 versions. 1 with the neck untouched and 1 with the neck edited.

 

When I'm done with that, I'll put it in my recourse for modders file. Bad Dog can also put it into his Complete Khajiit mod if he wants. It will also be part of the Khajiit body mod. (In game version). I'll do everything besides the getting it in game part, so I might need your help with that one. [...]

Yeah, I noticed that too when loading the .tri file into Blender. It shouldn't cause any problem, because as far as I know the morphs are calculated relative to the base position of the vertices, so even if the actual head mesh is at (0,0,0) or something like that, the morphs should still load fine (as they do already).

 

And yeah, anything you need just let me know and I'll do my best to help you  .

[NightroModzz]

Besides the gills, you can probably consider the males finished.

 

https://gyazo.com/ecd5a6d7fd66944a650677da919e649a

 

I didn't add the tear in the head fins like the females have due to a lower poly-count and prioritizing the smoothness of the fin rails. So maybe you can make that out to be a female thing. kind of like getting your ears pierced.

[Blaze69]

Besides the gills, you can probably consider the males finished.

 

https://gyazo.com/ecd5a6d7fd66944a650677da919e649a

 

I didn't add the tear in the head fins like the females have due to a lower poly-count and prioritizing the smoothness of the fin rails. So maybe you can make that out to be a female thing. kind of like getting your ears pierced.

That's great! At last now males will look as good as females do. Boys also deserve some love, after all  . Looking pretty good, nice work!

[Kuroyami]

So, two more entries for Izumi's journal are done, and here is a link to everything done for it by this point: link. Probably One or Two more, and it will be complete. 

 

However, it does bring up a few things, mostly the last two entries. 

-Once re-added, Haru may make trips to Riften to work on the docks, on a bi-weekly basis, i.e he would first leave for Riften about a week after the game starts(24th of Last Seed). 

-Kanet, the Redguard/Tigeress, is meant to use the Female Beast Schlong option in YA. I know, I know, this will cause a few issues for the vanilla version of the plugin. I've already thought of a few ways around that, which there are a few, probably obvious ones. 

-Also Kanet is meant to be a bit, promiscuous, so she might need a small change to be quite friendly to the player by default, if she isn't already. 

-Jena, the Imperial/Vaalsark, is a bit of a prude, in spite of the fact that she spends most if not all of her time at the camp naked. Which is to say all the time in-game. Also, she is quite friendly with Fenran, though she tries to keep this a secret, yet does not care if anyone finds out. 

 

Also, a new NPC, which can vary a bit. I'm not too sure of which gender they should be, since the story can work either way. 

 

Shoku

A very friendly Selachii living in Markarth. Possesses a very unusual appearance for a Selachii, that being a pale pink. Known to be somewhat friendly with a few other residents of Markarth, namely the Lisbet, Hogni Red-Arm, and Banning. 

 

[Taven]

I've noticed something, while Selachii now have claws to show for their buff to unarmed damage, unfortunately..wearing anything that takes up the hand slot that is supposed to either partly or entirely show those claws(Like hide bracers, or thieves guild gloves, or anything fingerless) reverts the claws back down to human nails. ><

[Blaze69]

So, two more entries for Izumi's journal are done, and here is a link to everything done for it by this point: link. Probably One or Two more, and it will be complete. 

 

However, it does bring up a few things, mostly the last two entries. 

-Once re-added, Haru may make trips to Riften to work on the docks, on a bi-weekly basis, i.e he would first leave for Riften about a week after the game starts(24th of Last Seed). 

-Kanet, the Redguard/Tigeress, is meant to use the Female Beast Schlong option in YA. I know, I know, this will cause a few issues for the vanilla version of the plugin. I've already thought of a few ways around that, which there are a few, probably obvious ones. 

-Also Kanet is meant to be a bit, promiscuous, so she might need a small change to be quite friendly to the player by default, if she isn't already. 

-Jena, the Imperial/Vaalsark, is a bit of a prude, in spite of the fact that she spends most if not all of her time at the camp naked. Which is to say all the time in-game. Also, she is quite friendly with Fenran, though she tries to keep this a secret, yet does not care if anyone finds out. 

Good about the journal, I'll take a look at it and I may start working on getting it ingame. Though I'm not sure whether to place it in one of my trademark Knapsacks™ (a bit too repetitive, but since it's static and doesn't respawn, the contents are guaranteed to be there) or just leave it laying around somewhere in the camp (more "organic" and it's easier to justify the player reading it because it's precisely laying around, but since it's a moveable object it may disappear if there is any Havok bug or whatever).

 

I'll look into making the required AI package for Haru. Shouldn't be that hard to do; if I managed to get Kori and Vaynelle to move to the Lover's Tent on the weekends, I think I can manage that as well.

 

About the YA schlong for Kanet, manually adding it to her would require making the YA plugin an actual dependency for the Follower plugin, but I think it's a fair tradeoff since it's supposed to be used with YA in the first place. Once I'm happy with the Follower plugin, I will work on the non-YA version and we'll see how we deal with that.

 

Note that while I do intend to work on it, the non-YA version is a low-priority not only because the main (YA) plugin is not even done yet but also because I don't think I will ever run a playthrough without YA again, so I don't have that much main personal motivation to work on it at the moment. For anyone that may be interested in the non-YA plugin, sorry for the inconvenience and hope you understand  . Again, I want to make it happen, but not yet.

 

But anyway, back on topic, love the idea of giving her a schlong. A futa tigress sure does sound interesting, lol  . And yeah, I'll probably make her a friend with the player from the start, which in turn would mean she is a potential follower and spouse right away. She is not OP or anything similar that I know of, so the follower aspect should be fine as far as balance goes; plus, the vanilla game only includes a single Redguard spouse, Senna from the Temple of Dibella, and her AI packages force her to remain in the Temple and don't allow the whole marriage stuff like moving to the player's home and stuff so she isn't a "full" spouse anyway. Having an extra marriage option is always good IMO, specially if it complements a lack in the vanilla game, so she will be marriageable from the start.

 

As for Fenran and Jena, they will stay as they are: they have the requried marriage and follower factions, but they lack the required relationship with the player. It's up to the player to intimate with them somehow to get the required relationship (Tip: using SLEN and bedding them until they like you enough is a valid method as far as I'm concerned ). Good idea about their relationship, I like that.

 

Also, a new NPC, which can vary a bit. I'm not too sure of which gender they should be, since the story can work either way. 

 

Shoku

A very friendly Selachii living in Markarth. Possesses a very unusual appearance for a Selachii, that being a pale pink. Known to be somewhat friendly with a few other residents of Markarth, namely the Lisbet, Hogni Red-Arm, and Banning. 

Sounds good. As always, once you are happy with the RaceMenu preset and the NPC data for him/her, just let me know and I'll work on it . 

 

EDIT:

I've noticed something, while Selachii now have claws to show for their buff to unarmed damage, unfortunately..wearing anything that takes up the hand slot that is supposed to either partly or entirely show those claws(Like hide bracers, or thieves guild gloves, or anything fingerless) reverts the claws back down to human nails. ><

Yeah, that is the downside of the modeled claws; they look great when not wearing anything on the hands, but since gloves/gauntlets include the hand mesh itself as well and those are standard human hands, you loose them as soon as you put anything on. Technically possible to fix, but it would take a lot of work and would be incompatible with any other mod editing the gauntlet armor entries, so I think it's going to say as it is for now. Sorry about that  .

Edited March 2, 2017 by Blaze69

[Kuroyami]

 

I'll look into making the required AI package for Haru. Shouldn't be that hard to do; if I managed to get Kori and Vaynelle to move to the Lover's Tent on the weekends, I think I can manage that as well.

 

About the YA schlong for Kanet, manually adding it to her would require making the YA plugin an actual dependency for the Follower plugin, but I think it's a fair tradeoff since it's supposed to be used with YA in the first place. Once I'm happy with the Follower plugin, I will work on the non-YA version and we'll see how we deal with that.

 

Note that while I do intend to work on it, the non-YA version is a low-priority not only because the main (YA) plugin is not even done yet but also because I don't think I will ever run a playthrough without YA again, so I don't have that much main personal motivation to work on it at the moment. For anyone that may be interested in the non-YA plugin, sorry for the inconvenience and hope you understand  . Again, I want to make it happen, but not yet.

 

But anyway, back on topic, love the idea of giving her a schlong. A futa tigress sure does sound interesting, lol  . And yeah, I'll probably make her a friend with the player from the start, which in turn would mean she is a potential follower and spouse right away. She is not OP or anything similar that I know of, so the follower aspect should be fine as far as balance goes; plus, the vanilla game only includes a single Redguard spouse, Senna from the Temple of Dibella, and her AI packages force her to remain in the Temple and don't allow the whole marriage stuff like moving to the player's home and stuff so she isn't a "full" spouse anyway. Having an extra marriage option is always good IMO, specially if it complements a lack in the vanilla game, so she will be marriageable from the start.

 

As for Fenran and Jena, they will stay as they are: they have the requried marriage and follower factions, but they lack the required relationship with the player. It's up to the player to intimate with them somehow to get the required relationship (Tip: using SLEN and bedding them until they like you enough is a valid method as far as I'm concerned ). Good idea about their relationship, I like that.

 

Sounds good. As always, once you are happy with the RaceMenu preset and the NPC data for him/her, just let me know and I'll work on it . 

 

It might be a good idea to have him as essential too, since he may decide to take the route to Riften that leads through Fort Greenwall. Also, he is meant to leave Riften for the Eastmarch camp the following Loredas(Saturday) morning. So in full, it would be that he leaves the first time on the 24th of Last Seed, works during the day for the week(perhaps spending nights in the Bee&Barb), then returns to the camp on the 30th of Last Seed. Then goes back on the 7th of Hearthfire, etc...

 

I was thinking YA was already required, or making it so would not be too much of a stretch, at least for the current version of the Follower plugin. Also, though she may not get too many changes, here are some possible ideas, at least if perhaps giving her a custom hair is wanted(or even something vanilla that is close) - Jailbird, oouna.

 

Also the game does not have many Redguard followers, save for Rayya with Hearthfire. It is also a point, although unrelated, that technically way too many of the Housecarls are Nords, and males at that. Granted, it makes sense, though it makes part of the Thane quests be a bit Meh for me(I have used mods that make more of them female, though). I am almost tempted to check the list of Housecarls, and possibly change one of them to a Selachii. Maybe. But not right now. 

 

It is mentioned in Izumi's journal, but Fenran is also a little obsessed with mead, perhaps a little more than sex even. So maybe it might be that normally he is not interested in Jena at all, but after a few bottles of mead, why not? Not sure how I would introduce that fact, though. 

 

As for Shoku, I am somewhat torn. Mostly since I almost can't do a male character at this point, although if I make it a female character, I'll be basing it somewhat off this image, bourbon., and changing a few details. May or may not be futa, I'm not sure - mostly since there is technically only one full female NPC/follower at this point, at least concerning the Selachii. Also, the image would be basically what she looked like before something caused her to change. 

[Blaze69]

It might be a good idea to have him as essential too, since he may decide to take the route to Riften that leads through Fort Greenwall. Also, he is meant to leave Riften for the Eastmarch camp the following Loredas(Saturday) morning. So in full, it would be that he leaves the first time on the 24th of Last Seed, works during the day for the week(perhaps spending nights in the Bee&Barb), then returns to the camp on the 30th of Last Seed. Then goes back on the 7th of Hearthfire, etc...

He's already protected. In fact, all of the NPCs added by this mod, including the hunters, are at least protected, and some of them are also essential. So no worries about any other critter or bandit or whatever killing them.

 

I'll have to look at the way AI packages can be set up by date, because I think you can set them to happen on a specific day or the month/year and such, but so far I haven't touched that functionality yet. The only thing that worries me are Haru's clothes, or more specifically the lack thereof.

 

As he is right now, he has neither an assigned outfit not any clothes on his inventory, and that makes sense considering where he is, but I'm pretty sure he would have to wear something while staying in Riften. I'll see if I can somehow force the game to apply a custom outfit while a specific AI package is active, but I'm not sure if there is any native function for that. Of course, it can probably be solved with scripting, but I would prefer not to have to add that kind of scripts to the mod.

 

I was thinking YA was already required, or making it so would not be too much of a stretch, at least for the current version of the Follower plugin. Also, though she may not get too many changes, here are some possible ideas, at least if perhaps giving her a custom hair is wanted(or even something vanilla that is close) - Jailbird, oouna.

Yeah, no problem with that; in fact, it's better that way. And I was also thinking about tweaking the hunter's appearances now that they are going to be relevant NPCs, not only for the plot but also to the player as well due to them being potential followers/spouses.

 

In the case of Kanet (which I think it's the one that would benefit the most from new looks), it so happens that due to the way you set up her character, she is pretty close (almost a perfect match, even) to how I pictured my own original tigress character to be. Meaning in personality and behaviour and such. She wasn't supposed to have a schlong, though, but I'd say it's a nice improvement  .

 

So I think I'm going to use my own preset for Kanet's new appearance, not only to improve her looks but also to have the chance to somewhat "integrate" my tigress into other playthroughs with my other characters so I can have them interact with each other. And in case you are wondering, as I said you pretty much nailed her, so you don't have to make any changes to your vision of Kanet or anything like that. Just continue her story as you intended, and I'm sure I'll be really happy with it  .

 

Here, have some pics of the new Kanet . I think she will be good as she is right now, but I'm also open to tweak her appearance if you have any ideas for that.

 

 

 

 

 

As for Fenran and Jena, they would probably benefit from some appearance tweaks as well, but I don't have any presets suitable for them: my only male Lykaios character is too unique for him and doesn't fit, and I deleted my female Imperial preset (which would have suited her) by mistake. I can give a shot at creating the new presets myself, but if you want to try to do it yourself, that would be good as well.

 

It is mentioned in Izumi's journal, but Fenran is also a little obsessed with mead, perhaps a little more than sex even. So maybe it might be that normally he is not interested in Jena at all, but after a few bottles of mead, why not? Not sure how I would introduce that fact, though. 

Huh, you know what, I could give him the MaleDrunk voice (which still supports follower/marriage dialogue, so it would work fine) and maybe even give him the dialogue line to give him alcohol that other NPCs like Embry have. It would help represent him ingame, and it would also add a native way to get the required relationship increase to get him as a follower or spouse. After all, if Jena can get him with some mead, it's only fair to offer that option for the player as well, right ?

 

Jena would still require an external mod like SLEN or something like that (or the use of console commands, but that wouldn't be as immersive), but I think it's fair because while the other two are willing to follow/marry you from the start and after giving him booze, respectively, that doesn't mean she has to be that easy to get. Just my two cents, though.

 

As for Shoku, I am somewhat torn. Mostly since I almost can't do a male character at this point, although if I make it a female character, I'll be basing it somewhat off this image, bourbon., and changing a few details. May or may not be futa, I'm not sure - mostly since there is technically only one full female NPC/follower at this point, at least concerning the Selachii. Also, the image would be basically what she looked like before something caused her to change. 

Whatever you think it's best, I'll be happy with it. Perhaps it would be best to wait for males to be finished and make him a male, to have a balance between males and females. I like them both and I don't want to neglect any of the two, lol. If you have problems creating the preset, I can take care of that myself. Still, if you want her to be female or futa, that would be good as well. Your choice  .

Edited March 3, 2017 by Blaze69

[Blaze69]

Okay, Kanet has been successfully updated to her new looks, and I think she looks pretty good. Also tweaked her stats a bit, and gave her an Alik'r specific class and combat style (copied from Kematu). Not completely sure what the difference is with the default CombatWarrior1H class and combat style, but I thought it would fit since she's a Redguard warrior, and the Alik'r are the most prominent Redguard warriors and the most likely source of training for her.

 

The thing is, since the NPCs start naked and with an empty inventory but chances are they would have some equipment handy, I thought about adding some items like armors or weapons laying around the camp and make them specific and tailored to each NPC and their class/combat style.

 

Incidentally, I would set them to be owned by the specific NPC they are supposed to belong to so they can pick them up and wear/use them when you get them as followers. There are some weapons around the camp already (a bow, an axe and a sword with a shield), but they belong to the "POIHunters" faction and taking them will count as stealing and would make the NPCs hostile. On the other hand, making their ownership NPC-specific would mean you would be able to take them (and potentially give them to their original owners so they have something to wear/wield) as soon as you have the required relationship rank with said NPC; since any NPC gets set to rank 3 once they are recruited as followers, it should work fine.

 

For example, Jena is still supposed to be a hunter as far as I'm concerned, so she would have a bow and some fur/leather armor somewhere; Fenran would have some leveled light armor and greatsword/battleaxe, and Kanet would have a 1H weapon (perhaps a scimitar) and some light armor as well.

 

With this, the idea grew into giving them some backstory just like with the other NPCs added by the mod, but I don't have anything specific for any of them, except for maybe Kanet (and in her case it would only be that she was born and raised in Hammerfell and she is in Skyrim for some reason I have not though about yet).

 

Fenran now also has the MaleDrunk voice and the matching "Here, have some booze" dialogue line, which will grant the required relationship increase to unlock him as a follower/spouse. Same rules apply as with the vanilla NPCs that have that dialog: speak to him, give him one alcoholic beverage (or more, but one is enough), wait for him to play the "drunken singing and drinking" idle, and then he will be good to go. I changed his appearance around a bit, but I only used vanilla assets because I don't think there is any custom hair that would fit him. Feel free to let me know if you think otherwise, though.

 

As for Jena, I simply tweaked her appearance a bit, but nothing drastic; I would want to do something more for her, though. Any ideas or references would be more than welcome. The thing is, I'm not really sure about her backstory and such, so I don't have any "background clues" as to what she may look like, and while I've done some research on Jackal characters on our most prolific character source (aka e621  ), I don't have anything yet.

 

(Somewhat Off-Topic): what I have learnt so far from my research is that it seems to be common to design jackal characters as having black or dark/midnight blue fur and then adding golden details, be it with things like jewels, rings, piercings and such or with stuff like markings and patterns (and even making the naughty bits golden, which turns out looks way better than I would have thought ). It draws heavy inspiration from Egyptian mythology and more specifically Anubis, as evidenced by the designs themselves (many Eyes of Horus and Anhks and such) and the e621 tag itself ("Anubian jackal").

 

I kinda fell in love with those designs, so I would be willing to do something like that, but I'm not sure if it would fit with a character like Jena. Anyway, since I will probably at least try to create an original player character like that, I'd say I can try taking the Panther body textures from Yiffy Age and tweaking them to fit the Vaalsark meshes. Nothing sure for now, though, but it's likely to happen; just throwing the idea around in case you like it and it's worth looking into integrating it into the mod. I can always leave Jena as-is and she doesn't look that bad, but I wanted to mention this idea I had  .

 

(BTW, am I the only one that thinks this pic looks awesome?: avias (SFW). Shame there isn't any hair like that available for beast races in Skyrim yet, though ).

[NightroModzz]

Have you ever made the new neck weights for the female and how did it go? Because your defenitely going to have to do it for the male.

 

https://gyazo.com/4d35b54d3e4a59abab3d08cfad54f7dc

 

As you can see, due to the lower poly-count, I'm pulling off the extra poly from the lower jaw. The lower jaw however has an extra high poly-count. However, I did do this to the female as well, but only one row of poly. But am doing multiple rows on the male. Like maybe 4 or 5 to try and keep things even.

[Blaze69]

Have you ever made the new neck weights for the female and how did it go? Because your defenitely going to have to do it for the male.

 

https://gyazo.com/4d35b54d3e4a59abab3d08cfad54f7dc

 

As you can see, due to the lower poly-count, I'm pulling off the extra poly from the lower jaw. The lower jaw however has an extra high poly-count. However, I did do this to the female as well, but only one row of poly. But am doing multiple rows on the male. Like maybe 4 or 5 to try and keep things even.

Well, I did have to reweight the neck region, specifically the gills, and I think it came out acceptable enough; so I don't see how males would be a problem on that aspect. What worries me is that the polys you used may turn out to be moved around by the morphs whenever the mouth opens, in which case the result will probably look bad. We won't know until I get the head ingame, though  .

 

Worst case scenario, we can not model the gills on the mesh itself but rather leave the neck smooth (as shown on your previous pic) and then paint them on the diffuse and normal maps. In fact, when generating the normal maps for the female heads, I had problems with the modeled gills due to the renderer not being able to work on such small scale as required by the gills and creating a buggy texture with the wrong lighting, so it may no be a bad idea after all, and it will probably make things easier for you. I would want to hear your thoughts on it first, though.

[NightroModzz]

Well as far as normal go, it's best to use a higher poly version of the lower poly version. This is much easier to do with the humans because they don't have seems running across the skull. However, when you try to increase the poly for the other races, the seems on the head start to separate. So new normal might be lower quality than the original.

 

We can try putting it on the textures only, but I wonder how good it would really look.  

 

So if you want, we can try the gills first, or get rid of them now.

[Blaze69]

Well as far as normal go, it's best to use a higher poly version of the lower poly version. This is much easier to do with the humans because they don't have seems running across the skull. However, when you try to increase the poly for the other races, the seems on the head start to separate. So new normal might be lower quality than the original.

 

We can try putting it on the textures only, but I wonder how good it would really look.

 

So if you want, we can try the gills first, or get rid of them now.

Wait, would using a mesh with the modeled gills as the "hi-poly" source work during traditional normal generation?

 

Because that way you can take a mesh with the gills modeled (but which will probably have issues ingame) and another head without the gills (which will work better) and with a smooth neck but otherwise identical to the first one and transfer the gills to the normal map. The best of both worlds, I guess.

 

So the idea would be to build the head without the gills; then, when the head (mesh A) is done, you duplicate it and add the gills (mesh  and use the Hi-Poly->Low-Poly normal map baking technique to transfer to modeled gills from B to the normal map of A. Though I'm not sure what option is best: to remove the gills now and add them back once the head is finished or to keep them for now and remove them at the end; that would be up to you because you are the one building the heads. Whatever is easier for you.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Blaze69

[NightroModzz]

 thought of that many times before. The high poly mesh is still a none human head. So making it high poly would still split the skull and I doubt I can perfectly align them back. That work is too delicate. Unless you want me to make a low res normal.

 

EDIT:

 

Example https://gyazo.com/e0ae418d469fc7ed90d021566a33019e

 

Plus I think making normal are more preferred with a high poly quad mesh before the low poly tri conversion.

 

I can "make poly mesh 3D" which would get rid of the seems on the skull, but the also fuses half of the mouth together. I can open up the mouth to fix that then put it back after. However, I don't know if the new normal map would throw up any errors without the seems matching up.