Race Mod Projects

[vasbule]

On 10/23/2020 at 4:18 AM, NightroModzz said:

Thanks! Still learning and improving.  

It's always a good thing to strive to better oneself. Just make sure you take breaks every now and again so you don't burn out.

[encastra]

So, after your work with the Khajiit remakes (which look astounding, to be frank), what are you going to work on? Personally, I'm going to try my hand at making a rogue dungeon for skyrim after I finish my new computer. Here's hoping I don't mess it up!

[NightroModzz]

1 hour ago, encastra said:

So, after your work with the Khajiit remakes (which look astounding, to be frank), what are you going to work on? Personally, I'm going to try my hand at making a rogue dungeon for skyrim after I finish my new computer. Here's hoping I don't mess it up!

(As for modding) - Any of the following

Armor mod with a digitigrade version

Sergal Race

Fox Race

[1337DragonWolf]

Licking those bones clean will be so much easier with those tongue bristles. ?

[NightroModzz]

55 minutes ago, 1337DragonWolf said:

Licking those bones clean will be so much easier with those tongue bristles. ?

Lets just say they are softer than their feral counterparts and Khajiits earned the nickname dick ticklers. 

[encastra]

55 minutes ago, NightroModzz said:

Lets just say they are softer than their feral counterparts and Khajiits earned the nickname dick ticklers. 

This is hot.

 

2 hours ago, NightroModzz said:

(As for modding) - Any of the following

Armor mod with a digitigrade version

Sergal Race

Fox Race

 

Personally, I'm thrilled to hear Sergal is even a consideration. I've been looking forward to one for what feels like years. From my understanding though, doesn't another race cover a fox race already? I think on on the nexus. Though to be fair, I imagine yours would be far superior, as if I recall that one just features slightly modified fox heads from the critter.

[encastra]

Oh, also...how do you get rid of the mesh seem for armors? I'm working on a tattered rags and bandages armor set, but I can't seem to get rid of a seem where the mesh seems invisible in that area. If you feel like sharing from your experience.

[NightroModzz]

1 hour ago, encastra said:

Oh, also...how do you get rid of the mesh seem for armors? I'm working on a tattered rags and bandages armor set, but I can't seem to get rid of a seem where the mesh seems invisible in that area. If you feel like sharing from your experience.

If they were modified, the seems where the UVs were cut was probably split apart in the editing process and needs to be fixed in a modeling program. If you use a stitching/point snapping feature to fix it, your gonna have to copy/transfer UVs again from the unedited version to the fixed version. That, or you can try editing the normal map.

[encastra]

4 hours ago, NightroModzz said:

If they were modified, the seems where the UVs were cut was probably split apart in the editing process and needs to be fixed in a modeling program. If you use a stitching/point snapping feature to fix it, your gonna have to copy/transfer UVs again from the unedited version to the fixed version. That, or you can try editing the normal map.

I understood...so little of that. All I know is I hand make my meshes from scratch in Blender, and have tried merging UVs to align them, and make them aligned, and transfer them to cross each other. The last one had the best effect, but would be hard to do one more complicated models, but not impossible.

[NightroModzz]

59 minutes ago, encastra said:

I understood...so little of that. All I know is I hand make my meshes from scratch in Blender, and have tried merging UVs to align them, and make them aligned, and transfer them to cross each other. The last one had the best effect, but would be hard to do one more complicated models, but not impossible.

What do you mean by cross each other? Symmetry, stack, or overlap? Also, I suggest merging meshes then make UVs and separate the meshes afterwards if need be. I use RizomUV so I don't know much about Blender's UV editing process.

[encastra]

I can either "cut" the mesh (separate the vertices along the selected points) or mark the seam where I want the UV to be marked. Honestly, I only use blender because I have a VERY fixed income and it's free. And to answer your question, I mean cross as in overlap. Sorry, I'm not very good at articulating things.

[vasbule]

10 hours ago, NightroModzz said:

(As for modding) - Any of the following

Armor mod with a digitigrade version

Sergal Race

Fox Race

Personally, I feel like the Sergal (?) is more obscure, and thus, alluring. Does anyone know the lore on them?

 

1 hour ago, encastra said:

I can either "cut" the mesh (separate the vertices along the selected points) or mark the seam where I want the UV to be marked. Honestly, I only use blender because I have a VERY fixed income and it's free. And to answer your question, I mean cross as in overlap. Sorry, I'm not very good at articulating things.

Blender sucks. You should get 3ds max. It can export .nif files easier than blender, and can do animation better too.

[Blaze69]

11 hours ago, NightroModzz said:

(As for modding) - Any of the following

Armor mod with a digitigrade version

I'd be happy to help with that, but in that case the required rigging can't be too complex, e.g. no skirts or fancy pieces that need to move/bend in a special way to look good or anything like that. Unless you wanted to give a shot at rigging yourself (which AFAIK should be pretty universal as far as a concept/process goes? The skeleton/rig itself and maybe some specifics would be unique to Skyrim or whatever game/software it is you're working on, though).

Quote

Sergal Race

Fox Race

Honestly I think Sergals would be a better project, mainly because they haven't been made into a mod before and I don't think there's even that many other games where you can play as one, so I assume this fact would more than make up for the "niche-ness" and bring at least a bit more attention to the hypothetical race mod. (Though TBH I don't think sergals are that niche at this point).

 

Also reminder that depending on how the assets are built and how much work you're willing to put into them, Skyrim race mods can be ported to FO4 where there's currently only 3 proper custom race mods (one of which is a fox race, but none of which is a Sergal race. Just sayin' ).

9 hours ago, encastra said:

This is hot.

It kinda is, yeah.

Quote

Personally, I'm thrilled to hear Sergal is even a consideration. I've been looking forward to one for what feels like years.

(To N: See point above on Sergals being possibly a better choice ).

Quote

From my understanding though, doesn't another race cover a fox race already? I think on on the nexus. Though to be fair, I imagine yours would be far superior, as if I recall that one just features slightly modified fox heads from the critter.

There's currently 3 different fox races/assets: the original Fennec Race (not an actual Fennec), Bad Dog's CITRUS-based foxes (Bretons) from Yiffy Age, and theshiba's Lykaios-based Fox Race edit. First one is extremely outdated and pretty crappy by today's standards, and the YA foxes are the only race that haven't gotten an overhaul/redux yet so they ain't that good either, but IMO theshiba's ones are pretty good, so "good looking foxes" are covered already, at least to some extent.

9 hours ago, encastra said:

Oh, also...how do you get rid of the mesh seem for armors? I'm working on a tattered rags and bandages armor set, but I can't seem to get rid of a seem where the mesh seems invisible in that area. If you feel like sharing from your experience.

You'll have to be more specific and/or share a picture of the issue since your explanation is... vague. This is probably not the best place to discuss it, though (unless Nightro wants to, I guess?), so maybe making a thread in the Tech Support subforum or something like that would be better instead.

42 minutes ago, vasbule said:

Personally, I feel like the Sergal (?) is more obscure, and thus, alluring. Does anyone know the lore on them?

I haven't read through it yet, but the Vilous Wiki entry on them is probably the most "official" source (but then again I dunno if the English version was written by the Vilous creators, since they're Japanese):
http://www.vilous.net/wiki/Sergals

Quote

Blender sucks. You should get 3ds max. It can export .nif files easier than blender, and can do animation better too.

Blender doesn't "suck", it's just different. And also free and open-source, so you don't have to shell out thousands of dollars a month/year to Autodesk for a license or sail the high seas for a five-finger-discount copy.

 

Only thing Max is objectively better than Blender at is (rigged) nif files, as Max has an official nif import/export plugin while Blender does not (IIRC it does have one but it's extremely outdated).

[D C]

On 11/2/2020 at 3:43 PM, Blaze69 said:

I'd be happy to help with that, but in that case the required rigging can't be too complex, e.g. no skirts or fancy pieces that need to move/bend in a special way to look good or anything like that. Unless you wanted to give a shot at rigging yourself (which AFAIK should be pretty universal as far as a concept/process goes? The skeleton/rig itself and maybe some specifics would be unique to Skyrim or whatever game/software it is you're working on, though).

Honestly I think Sergals would be a better project, mainly because they haven't been made into a mod before and I don't think there's even that many other games where you can play as one, so I assume this fact would more than make up for the "niche-ness" and bring at least a bit more attention to the hypothetical race mod. (Though TBH I don't think sergals are that niche at this point).

 

Also reminder that depending on how the assets are built and how much work you're willing to put into them, Skyrim race mods can be ported to FO4 where there's currently only 3 proper custom race mods (one of which is a fox race, but none of which is a Sergal race. Just sayin' ).

It kinda is, yeah.

(To N: See point above on Sergals being possibly a better choice ).

There's currently 3 different fox races/assets: the original Fennec Race (not an actual Fennec), Bad Dog's CITRUS-based foxes (Bretons) from Yiffy Age, and theshiba's Lykaios-based Fox Race edit. First one is extremely outdated and pretty crappy by today's standards, and the YA foxes are the only race that haven't gotten an overhaul/redux yet so they ain't that good either, but IMO theshiba's ones are pretty good, so "good looking foxes" are covered already, at least to some extent.

You'll have to be more specific and/or share a picture of the issue since your explanation is... vague. This is probably not the best place to discuss it, though (unless Nightro wants to, I guess?), so maybe making a thread in the Tech Support subforum or something like that would be better instead.

I haven't read through it yet, but the Vilous Wiki entry on them is probably the most "official" source (but then again I dunno if the English version was written by the Vilous creators, since they're Japanese):
http://www.vilous.net/wiki/Sergals

Blender doesn't "suck", it's just different. And also free and open-source, so you don't have to shell out thousands of dollars a month/year to Autodesk for a license or sail the high seas for a five-finger-discount copy.

 

Only thing Max is objectively better than Blender at is (rigged) nif files, as Max has an official nif import/export plugin while Blender does not (IIRC it does have one but it's extremely outdated).

second life cough exists for sergal cough

[encastra]

On 11/4/2020 at 2:26 PM, D C said:

second life cough exists for sergal cough

You wanna go that route, almost every furry race is on second life, so........

[encastra]

If you DO end up wanting to do the Sergal race.....here is refence for the head from different angles from the author....

 

 

 

Oh, and I have a LOT more refs if you need em. Mostly females, but what can you do.

[vasbule]

How goes everything? Hope you're having happy holidays!

[Voldearag]

And hopefully having a happy new year too, I've been away.

On 11/1/2020 at 5:51 PM, NightroModzz said:

(As for modding) - Any of the following

Armor mod with a digitigrade version

Sergal Race

Fox Race

That's wonderful, I'd love to play a Sergal. Untied_Verbeger has a perfect 3D model of a female Sergal that they made free for anyone to use for anything, could this be of use to you?

https://mega.nz/#!Lp8nEKyB!e1IXxQFQNPxbOVBK5SnKHkscBfzJPZXX6WrTjdBYjHk

(and original login-required author submission) https://www.furaffinity.net/view/27129922/

 

 

[NightroModzz]

On 12/15/2020 at 4:22 PM, vasbule said:

How goes everything?

Let's see... I decided I wanted to do a full body texture with fibermesh fur which lead to me working on the body again, of which I made lot's of progress. Later I noticed that I focused too much on edge loops that would make adding a thin tail for antho/furry races very feasible in an anatomically correct position that I neglected thick tails for reptilian races. So I fixed that yesterday but still working on the waist/hip area.

I also managed to fix the topology in a way that greatly improved knee animation and looks very natural, lowered edge loops required for the genitals for various support on other models, and overall further optimized topology from the waist down.

Thinking of just skipping textures aside from the nose and mouth just to get a new version out sooner which I may do sometime soon.

 

 

On 1/1/2021 at 5:24 PM, Voldearag said:

That's wonderful, I'd love to play a Sergal. Untied_Verbeger has a perfect 3D model of a female Sergal that they made free for anyone to use for anything, could this be of use to you?

https://mega.nz/#!Lp8nEKyB!e1IXxQFQNPxbOVBK5SnKHkscBfzJPZXX6WrTjdBYjHk

(and original login-required author submission) https://www.furaffinity.net/view/27129922/

Yes, it would be a good reference when reshaping the khajiit head in Zbrush, as well as reshaping and making other meshes.

[encastra]

That sounds like a lot of frustration. I don't envy you the work, though it sounds fascinating.

[NightroModzz]

Khajiit Overhaul Progress Update

Okay, so what I have previously worked on.

 

1. getting rid of the textures aside from the mouth, lips, nose and eye area.

2. Morphs polygons on and around the lips and nose so that the polygon edges align with the lips and nose textures.

This was done on both the quad and triangulated meshes since a good amount of features can only be used with quad meshes in RizomUV.

3. Made new UVs. The whiskers were troublesome since After rectangularizing them and stacking them, half were upside down. I needed to figure out which ones and fip them in Zbrush using some polygroup trickery which was time consuming. Realized after that there was an easier way to do it in RizomUV. 

 

Anyways, here's the new UV (probably gonna edit the nose area a bit more)

 

Plans

1. Transfer UVs to Triangulated mesh.
2. Morph the vanilla khajiit head to match the shape of the new mesh as a recourse for texture projecting existing textures in Blender. The new "KO Texture Recouse" will contain the new new heads and vanilla morphed female and male heads in an obj format, as well as a color texture map only containing detail of the lips, nose and eye areas.

3. Probably just gonna pass along the texture work. 

4. Make the expression morphes, likely through a rig in Blender.

5. Create the male morph since the new female and male heads are gonna use the same mesh and UVs, as well as clean up any expressions morphs if needed.

[encastra]

From what little work I've done on working with UV's, I know how big of a pain all of that can be. You're doing grand work, can't wait for the next update!

[NightroModzz]

Khajiit Overhaul Progress Update

 

Had some trouble transfering the head UVs from the quad to triangle version with some areas tearing due to mushes overlapping such as the inner eye corner and whiskers. Won't go into detail but fixed that and is now done.

 

 

made a new eye mesh which is almost double the polygons compared to the previous one I made. Didn't want it looking blocky so it now rests smoothly against the eye lids. Thanks to the polycount, it can even support eye morphs, such as pupil/iris scale.

 

 

All that's left is the female vanilla khajiit morph so textures can be ported to the new mesh and some texture editing until it can be tested in-game without expressions. Probably within the month.

[encastra]

Those eyes look amazingly detailed, and I can't wait to see them fully textured. Honestly, you're doing the modding community a huge favor, as the khajiit have been neglected by so many mods.

 

[NightroModzz]

Well I've been having a bad month. 3-4 weeks ago my PC fans started making noise and can fix it by waiting a minute and tapping the center of the fan. Recently my office/desk chair's left arm broke and needed to order replacement arms, screws, and a bolt remover kit for my drill.

 

And now just 4 hours ago after playing a game (Halo Wars 2) through the Xbox app for a bit, went to Youtube and the videos encountered an audio error message telling me to restart my computer. After the restart the Youtube videos were working but no sound. Found out that my SoundBlaster X7 was no longer detected in sound settings or the control panel app companion. I know it's not the USB because I tried different ports and it interacts with driver updates just fine. Through my monitor output I also here the sound notification when I turn it off/on, so it's pretty strange. 

 

If it's not the game/xbox app's or the devices fault, then this is all that comes to mind.

 

Well If I can't find a solution within the next couple of days, I guess I'll upgrade to the EVGA NU Audio Pro 7.1 unless anyone has any suggestions via a solution or a better upgrade?

 

Well, 2 months from now will mark 5 years since I've had it. It has it's problems that annoy me but the audio is good and has had a lot of use. Maybe something did break and it's due for an upgrade. But out of everything else, I would least expect and audio device to break down.