Race Mod Projects

[Blaze69]

1 hour ago, D C said:

so i guess , the tail is ready to be released?

It is at least for females, though fitting it for males shouldn't take that much work either. Depending on how long it takes me to get off my lazy ass and start working on getting the update posted, I may either wait for the update itself or release a small patch that only adds the tails for now if it looks like the update will take too long to get there.

[D C]

28 minutes ago, Blaze69 said:

It is at least for females, though fitting it for males shouldn't take that much work either. Depending on how long it takes me to get off my lazy ass and start working on getting the update posted, I may either wait for the update itself or release a small patch that only adds the tails for now if it looks like the update will take too long to get there.

hey , one question , who's looking over the SE version currently? , i mean i never saw anything for se version from your side that's why i'm asking 

[Blaze69]

On 3/22/2020 at 1:25 PM, D C said:

hey , one question , who's looking over the SE version currently?

That would be @war11010, which posted their SE port of the mod here: The Selachii - Shark Race - (UNOFFICIAL) SSE Port.

 

I haven't had any news from them since they asked from permission to post it in the first place and I have no idea if they are still active in any way as of right now, so there's that.

[NightroModzz]

Update
Everything is now triangulated with UVs.

Head ✓
Mouth ✓

Eyes ✓

To-do list

1. Textures for the mouth, nose and eye area.

2. Create a morph recourse that matches the shape of the vanilla head for texture projection.

3. In-game testing.

4. Rig the face.

5. Create facial morphs with the face rig.

[encastra]

15 hours ago, NightroModzz said:

Update
Everything is now triangulated with UVs.

Head ✓
Mouth ✓

Eyes ✓

To-do list

1. Textures for the mouth, nose and eye area.

2. Create a morph recourse that matches the shape of the vanilla head for texture projection.

3. In-game testing.

4. Rig the face.

5. Create facial morphs with the face rig.

That's really exciting news.

[D C]

On 3/22/2020 at 5:25 PM, Blaze69 said:

It is at least for females, though fitting it for males shouldn't take that much work either. Depending on how long it takes me to get off my lazy ass and start working on getting the update posted, I may either wait for the update itself or release a small patch that only adds the tails for now if it looks like the update will take too long to get there.

hey , so my city got in 21 days lockdown (india , assam)

any way you would release the tail only patch soon , its getting bored here lol

[D C]

On 3/24/2020 at 1:02 AM, Blaze69 said:

That would be @war11010, which posted their SE port of the mod here: The Selachii - Shark Race - (UNOFFICIAL) SSE Port.

 

I haven't had any news from them since they asked from permission to post it in the first place and I have no idea if they are still active in any way as of right now, so there's that.

so , both way no news of updates i guess 

still thanks for replying

[Blaze69]

7 hours ago, D C said:

any way you would release the tail only patch soon , its getting bored here lol

As good as the new tail may be, especially compared to the old one, I seriously doubt it can provide much entertainment on its own, lol.

 

Still, I'll see what I can do. No promises, though, so there's that.

[D C]

5 hours ago, Blaze69 said:

As good as the new tail may be, especially compared to the old one, I seriously doubt it can provide much entertainment on its own, lol.

 

Still, I'll see what I can do. No promises, though, so there's that.

That hdt support has gotten me excited mostly

[Blaze69]

12 minutes ago, D C said:

That hdt support has gotten me excited mostly

Huh? What do you mean by HDT support? The current tails have HDT versions available already; they may not look as good as the new ones, but they still work.

[D C]

1 hour ago, Blaze69 said:

Huh? What do you mean by HDT support? The current tails have HDT versions available already; they may not look as good as the new ones, but they still work.

Well

The looks too 

And I wonder if I can port it to Skyrim SE by myself

Well guess I'll know once it comes out 

As far as I can

The overlays are working fine in SE

Except for the tail

Sad we don't have any stripes or customisation options for it

And please I do hope you release it the female version soon

As my new character is female already

[Blaze69]

28 minutes ago, D C said:

Well

The looks too

Oh, okay. That makes more sense, but it has nothing to do with HDT so that's why I asked, lol.

Quote

And I wonder if I can port it to Skyrim SE by myself

Normal tail probably yes, HDT tail nope unless you can convert HDT PE physics data to HDT SMP.

Quote

The overlays are working fine in SE

Except for the tail

Sad we don't have any stripes or customisation options for it

Blame it on expired for not enabling overlay support for tails in the RaceMenu code, or on Bethesda for making it impossible to add overlays to tails if it's not expired's fault.

Quote

And please I do hope you release it the female version soon

As my new character is female already

I just can't make any promises, getting all the files sorted out in the right sub-folders and archives and removing my dev stuff is straightfoward but tedious, and so is getting it uploaded and writing the changelog. Much as I'd like to, not feeling in the mood for releases lately.

 

Also again, this has moved on to discussing the sharks so if you have anything else to ask or share I'll be happy to reply but you should do it in the shark race thread so we don't clutter Nightro's own thread.

[D C]

10 hours ago, Blaze69 said:

Oh, okay. That makes more sense, but it has nothing to do with HDT so that's why I asked, lol.

Normal tail probably yes, HDT tail nope unless you can convert HDT PE physics data to HDT SMP.

Blame it on expired for not enabling overlay support for tails in the RaceMenu code, or on Bethesda for making it impossible to add overlays to tails if it's not expired's fault.

I just can't make any promises, getting all the files sorted out in the right sub-folders and archives and removing my dev stuff is straightfoward but tedious, and so is getting it uploaded and writing the changelog. Much as I'd like to, not feeling in the mood for releases lately.

 

Also again, this has moved on to discussing the sharks so if you have anything else to ask or share I'll be happy to reply but you should do it in the shark race thread so we don't clutter Nightro's own thread.

Roger that boss

[NightroModzz]

WIP Textures

 

This is my first attempt at textures and using Zbrush's Spotlight feature which usies images to paint over the model.

Spoiler

 

 

The paint/texture does appear darker than the image, but I think depends on the clay material you are using and may look different after baked with normal maps which is why I'm not using the default pink sculpting material.

 

Results of Spotlight

There's often an issue with white spots appearing on the images used, usually in black areas that will need fixing. I will also need to try and edit out the whiskers being painted on from the image. Quality of image projection could also be better but I think you still get pretty good results.

 

 

I'm using leopard images but the overall texture won't be used since I won't be doing body textures. Maybe someone else could make use of it? The important parts is the black area around the eyes, lips and the nose texture which can be blended over existing textures. There is also the entirety of the mouth textures.

 

 

If anyone wan't to help, you can post good quality leopard images in a spoiler, that would be great! Please take into account angle and lighting.

 

[Anonymus]

Try this:

https://x6ud.github.io/#/

Select leopard for the species, adjust the skull orientation to your liking and search. I think it's a pretty good tool, although sometimes it gets confused about the rotation.

Edit: If you click on an image result, on the top right there will be a link to a bigger version.

[NightroModzz]

57 minutes ago, Anonymus said:

Try this:

https://x6ud.github.io/#/

Select leopard for the species, adjust the skull orientation to your liking and search. I think it's a pretty good tool, although sometimes it gets confused about the rotation.

Edit: If you click on an image result, on the top right there will be a link to a bigger version.

Thanks! Managed to improve my small library of leopard images a bit and will come in handy in the future.

 

I'd say the only problem I have with it so far is that it makes you think the the images are focused on the head, but often aren't and often have lower resolutions than 1080p.

[NightroModzz]

Welp, it's been an interesting and painful learning experience.

 

Here are the current state of the things.

 

 

Still got a lot to do/fix, haven't touched the mouth, and need to learn how to add gloss effects around the eyes and lips/mouth.

 

 

I'm thinking of abandoning it and doing what I did before which is sculpting detail, but more than last time. Also a polypaint and image projection combo texture without spots or stripes. I'm thinking of just having a plain Khajiit texture with spots and stripes being overlay based, a future tail slider since overlays don't work on tails (if that's feasible), and future head morph sliders such as lion, tiger, cheetah, etc. Maybe also having the nose default to pink with a black nose option via overlay to avoid requiring another texture?

 

On the other hand, that would counter Bad Dogs already existing cat races. ?

 

 

 

Feel free to share your opinion on the matter.

[Blaze69]

1 hour ago, NightroModzz said:

Here are the current state of the things.

Alright, that looks pretty good! The front of the neck could maybe use a tiny bit of cleanup, but otherwise, great.

Quote

need to learn how to add gloss effects around the eyes and lips/mouth.

That will vary depending on which engine you do it for, but in the case of Skyrim best you can do is make that area bright in the specular so it's shinier ingame. Whether it actually looks glossy/wet (as I assume that's what you want, at least for the lips/mouth) or just "shiny" will depend on what ENB and/or ReShade is being used, if any, but that's as far as it goes.

Quote

I'm thinking of abandoning it and doing what I did before which is sculpting detail, but more than last time. Also a polypaint and image projection combo texture without spots or stripes.

Downside of not painting the diffuse is you would be missing a ton of detail. I know normal maps are supposed to have most of it, but without a diffuse to match they lose some of the effect.

Quote

I'm thinking of just having a plain Khajiit texture with spots and stripes being overlay based

That's certainly possible (see: the horse overlays, or the shark ones, for example) and should make things easier if it's keeping the patterns looking good that's giving you trouble.

Quote

a future tail slider since overlays don't work on tails (if that's feasible)

Nope, not that I know of. There's simply no way to change the player's naked skin (including tails) on runtime, other than maybe some obscure SKSE magic that would need to be scripted somehow.

 

The CaN Pony race went for a hackjob of having tails be headparts instead (brows, IIRC) so you could manually select them on the race menu, but that sounds like a whole can of worms so I wouldn't go for it.

Quote

and future head morph sliders such as lion, tiger, cheetah, etc.

Definitely possible, either as a RaceMenu injected slider (can't be used on NPCs unless you export FaceGen manually from RM, but doesn't need any vanilla morphs to be removed to make room for it) or replacing one of the "xxxxx Shape" vanilla sliders (the other way around).

Quote

Maybe also having the nose default to pink with a black nose option via overlay to avoid requiring another texture?

Skyrim is pretty good at lightening textures but not so much at darkening them, specially with some ENBs, so I'd try to keep things dark by default and lighten them with tints when they are supposed to have both options. It's true this goes on a case-by-case basis so it would be a matter of testing it out and see how it looks.

Quote

On the other hand, that would counter Bad Dogs already existing cat races. ?

Not really, assuming you stick to the "leopard" base skin. Leopards are basically the one major cat species not covered by BD. The Panther skin is meant to be based on leopards (as opposed to jaguars, which are the other species that are called Panthers when they have black fur), but all that remains is some faint spots on the back. A proper leopard skin would be a nice addition, and so would be a jaguar skin now that we're at it.

 

[NightroModzz]

10 minutes ago, Blaze69 said:

Nope, not that I know of. There's simply no way to change the player's naked skin (including tails) on runtime, other than maybe some obscure SKSE magic that would need to be scripted somehow.

What about tail mods that add tails to humans via item menu. Why wouldn't it be possible to swap tails the same way you plan to swap head fins for the shark race in the future? I guess the difference is that it would be via preset option.

 

14 minutes ago, Blaze69 said:

Skyrim is pretty good at lightening textures but not so much at darkening them

Going from black to pink doesn't seem feasible though, and is that without effecting the color of the rest of the body? Wouldn't an overlay over the nose be better via tattoo/makeup etc?

17 minutes ago, Blaze69 said:

Not really, assuming you stick to the "leopard" base skin.

That's going under the assumption that I go a plain color texture rout with different big cat head morph types and spots/stripes overlays. That way technically you can make a leopard, cheetah, lion, etc without the need for multiple races.

[NightroModzz]

22 minutes ago, Blaze69 said:

That will vary depending on which engine you do it for, but in the case of Skyrim best you can do is make that area bright in the specular so it's shinier ingame. Whether it actually looks glossy/wet (as I assume that's what you want, at least for the lips/mouth) or just "shiny" will depend on what ENB and/or ReShade is being used, if any, but that's as far as it goes.

I was thinking of baking the specular with the textures.

Spoiler

 

 

If it's best to add specular after the textures are baked, I guess we can go that rout.

[27X]

25 minutes ago, Blaze69 said:

Skyrim is pretty good at lightening textures but not so much at darkening them, specially with some ENBs, so I'd try to keep things dark by default and lighten them with tints when they are supposed to have both options. It's true this goes on a case-by-case basis so it would be a matter of testing it out and see how it looks.

two identical head nifs, differing emissive values, pick on through fomod at install, unless you want a range per race/pc, and then you use tintmasks, and yes you can do pink or black.

[Blaze69]

1 hour ago, NightroModzz said:

What about tail mods that add tails to humans via item menu.

Those are just wearable items, and while it would still be an option, it would have the downsides of them being wearable items, e.g. mods unequipping them on scenes or when stripping the player.

Quote

Why wouldn't it be possible to swap tails the same way you plan to swap head fins for the shark race in the future?

Because the head fins are head parts (currently brows, IIRC) while tails are part of the naked skin and thus basically the same as body, hands or feet as far as the game knows. The only way to change the tail is to change the NakedSkin itself to another one that has a different tail. It *might* be possible to override the tail only with some SKSE voodoo, but again, haven't seen anything like it yet so I don't think it will be easy or even possible at all.

 

I wish we had Blockhead from Oblivion available for Skyrim, that would help a ton with this kind of customization issues.

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Going from black to pink doesn't seem feasible though

Maybe not that drastic, but going from dark gray to pink should actually be feasible.

Quote

and is that without effecting the color of the rest of the body?

Yes, because...

Quote

Wouldn't an overlay over the nose be better via tattoo/makeup etc?

...exactly, that would be the point

Quote

That's going under the assumption that I go a plain color texture rout with different big cat head morph types and spots/stripes overlays. That way technically you can make a leopard, cheetah, lion, etc without the need for multiple races.

I guess in that case we could have two (or more) base diffuses with different colors for those and make them available in the Complexion slider.

[NightroModzz]

8 hours ago, Blaze69 said:

Because the head fins are head parts (currently brows, IIRC) while tails are part of the naked skin and thus basically the same as body, hands or feet as far as the game knows. The only way to change the tail is to change the NakedSkin itself to another one that has a different tail. It *might* be possible to override the tail only with some SKSE voodoo, but again, haven't seen anything like it yet so I don't think it will be easy or even possible at all.

 

I wish we had Blockhead from Oblivion available for Skyrim, that would help a ton with this kind of customization issues.

?Well, if the tail doesn't match the rest of the design (leopard, cheetah, tiger, etc), I guess there is no point in the overlays idea since the whole thing would look odd. So that's trashed, maybe accept for the nose overlay idea.

[poblivion]

On 4/9/2020 at 11:11 AM, NightroModzz said:

Welp, it's been an interesting and painful learning experience.

 

Here are the current state of the things.

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

Still got a lot to do/fix, haven't touched the mouth, and need to learn how to add gloss effects around the eyes and lips/mouth.

 

 

I'm thinking of abandoning it and doing what I did before which is sculpting detail, but more than last time. Also a polypaint and image projection combo texture without spots or stripes. I'm thinking of just having a plain Khajiit texture with spots and stripes being overlay based, a future tail slider since overlays don't work on tails (if that's feasible), and future head morph sliders such as lion, tiger, cheetah, etc. Maybe also having the nose default to pink with a black nose option via overlay to avoid requiring another texture?

 

On the other hand, that would counter Bad Dogs already existing cat races. ?

 

 

 

Feel free to share your opinion on the matter.

 

It looks great it's amazing work   I like it very much. 

 

I don't have much experience, but when I wanted to do a more shiny effect, I modified the texture of femalehead_s.

You probably know that, and I'll be here look like fool , but just in case.  In this texture, if you make nose and the area around eyes bright, they will appear shiny in the game. The more white they are, the more shiny the effect. I think it would be good for every race to create a new texture, but it will be laborious, but I think it will look better than overlapping textures.

 

 

[encastra]

Can't wait to watch this project develop.