Who Here Wants Hotter Argonians?

[IGotBored]

So what I've gathered is that, we would have to make a completely new model with a complete new head mesh and then make it all compatible with the general stuff like armors, BS, cbbe/unp? 

[tm2dragon]

4 hours ago, Luna Daro'ki said:

So what I've gathered is that, we would have to make a completely new model with a complete new head mesh and then make it all compatible with the general stuff like armors, BS, cbbe/unp? 

Not really, no.  I think we have enough stuff for the BODY to be workable.  We can already alter things like texture, body proportions, tail size, claw length, etc. through currently existing mods.  Things could be BETTER, but for now we've got enough to work with.  The biggest issue that remains would probably be the face.  Still, I think we could us the default head model (or one of the tweaked ones) as a base.......the trouble is giving it an overhaul MASSIVE enough to conform it into something more pleasing to the eye.  Maybe shorten the snout, fiddle with the eye placement, alter the mouth shape, smooth out the rough corners, etc.  It would be time consuming and frustrating, lots of trial and error, keeping in mind it still has to be able to blink, follow things from the eyes, and have the mouth move realistically when it talks.  It wouldn't need to be very expressive though, as the current models aren't exactly trying hard to convey emotions as is.  It would be a job for an artist, one with a lot of patience.  Maybe one of those SFM modelers could give it a go, especially the ones in the furry community, as they'd have some experience sculpting non-human faces in a 3D environment?  Their models are also made for video use, so they'd know a bit about non-ridged 3D models.  I've actually SEEN a few SFM Argonian models, and though some of that work may just be ripping files from the game, some serious extra work must have gone into them in order to make them move more fluidly and the textures pop so well.  I think. No too sure how that works, honestly. ^_^;

Edited November 22, 2017 by tm2dragon

[Taven]

Yeah, I agree face-wise anyway, because I(when my laptop was still in working order..><) predominantly play beast races, for some reason I barely find the other races(Besides Selachii) interesting enough to play. For the body, I actually do like the feminine argonian textures, because it achieves the 'Smooth scaled lizard' look for me, but I wish it could be somewhat done better for the face, almost like in that pic in the first page of this forum. 

[tm2dragon]

51 minutes ago, Taven said:

Yeah, I agree face-wise anyway, because I(when my laptop was still in working order..><) predominantly play beast races, for some reason I barely find the other races(Besides Selachii) interesting enough to play. For the body, I actually do like the feminine argonian textures, because it achieves the 'Smooth scaled lizard' look for me, but I wish it could be somewhat done better for the face, almost like in that pic in the first page of this forum. 

That's quite a decent point, actually.  Would smoothing out the scales (maybe removing most of them, leaving some for accents) and making the head seem sleeker help?  Maybe a lot of these issues could be alleviated by re-texturing the head, making it less crocodilian?

Edited November 23, 2017 by tm2dragon

[IGotBored]

ugh tfw you dont know how to do any of this stuff 

[NightroModzz]

New Head

 

1) Reshape the Argonian Citrus heads to the desired shape.

 

2) Change the eye scale and position if the eye area on the head was repositioned.

 

3) Edit the mouth mesh if the snout was reshaped.

 

4) Use BodySlide&OutfitStudios to auto morph the phonmes (tri morph files).

 

5) Test.

 

Head For Normal Map Detail

 

1) Use the edited head as a base. Close all seams by snap to vertex in Blender, or zmodeler brush>stitch in Zbrush.

 

2) Convert the tri polygons into quad polygons.

 

3) Mask most of the head except the lower jaw leading to under the ears. Then soften the mask and rotate the lower jaw open.

 

4) Divide with multiple subdivisions.

 

5) Continue to add detail.

 

6) rotate the jaw back with the base mesh as a guide.

 

7) touch up the detail in the jaw area.

 

OPTION 1

Use pictures of your preferred scales from your preferred lizard to create alpha maps for use as a brush.  Then make textures with the normal maps as a canvas.

 

OPTION 2

Add scale detail by projecting textures from existing pictures of lizards.

 

 

Based on my experience from working on the Shark/Selachii heads, Yiffy Age cat heads, and Khajiit overhaul.

 

Edited November 23, 2017 by NightroModzz

[Floopy]

On 11/23/2017 at 2:54 PM, NightroModzz said:

New Head

 

1) Reshape the Argonian Citrus heads to the desired shape.

 

2) Change the eye scale and position if the eye area on the head was repositioned.

 

3) Edit the mouth mesh if the snout was reshaped.

 

4) Use BodySlide&OutfitStudios to auto morph the phonmes (tri morph files).

 

5) Test.

 

Head For Normal Map Detail

 

1) Use the edited head as a base. Close all seams by snap to vertex in Blender, or zmodeler brush>stitch in Zbrush.

 

2) Convert the tri polygons into quad polygons.

 

3) Mask most of the head except the lower jaw leading to under the ears. Then soften the mask and rotate the lower jaw open.

 

4) Divide with multiple subdivisions.

 

5) Continue to add detail.

 

6) rotate the jaw back with the base mesh as a guide.

 

7) touch up the detail in the jaw area.

 

OPTION 1

Use pictures of your preferred scales from your preferred lizard to create alpha maps for use as a brush.  Then make textures with the normal maps as a canvas.

 

OPTION 2

Add scale detail by projecting textures from existing pictures of lizards.

 

 

Based on my experience from working on the Shark/Selachii heads, Yiffy Age cat heads, and Khajiit overhaul.

 

Now that's a good start with step by step. Just need a little trial and error. Best everyone who attempts it try to submit what you have and have so some of the more experienced could give you and myself pointers.

[ChaosZen]

Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible to make all races much more appealing. Imagine if Argonians looked more like a perfect human shape, and only the skin texture changed to look like reptilian scales, and then add a nice "tail", and some claws. Perhaps their "fangs" could look more like a vampire than a Velociraptor as well.

 

Imagine if Khajiit, instead of having cat-like heads, had the head, face and form of "Nekos" in the sexy style of those in "Second Life". A woman with soft, silky fur for skin, and assorted tiger stripes, calico, or cheetah rosettes. And a tail, of course. 

 

I think Bethesda makes it a point to make their characters ugly and homely. I try to give the benefit of doubt, but find it hard to believe that any developer could really be that bad at making characters reasonably attractive. In all of the old mythos and lore, whether Tolkien, Gygax, or elsewhere, "Elves" are described as slender, sometimes androgynous, beautific beings, slightly smaller than humans on average. In nearly all role playing games involving elves, they are born with a bonus to charisma and/or comeliness. So why in the world does Bethesda feel a need to make them look like creepy aliens? I'm not even a fan of WOW style elves with their "handlebar ears" and ball-shaped heads, but certainly a big fan of how elves are portrayed by Liv Tyler in "Lord of the Rings". 
 
I wonder if there is any way to simply replace the body models of these races completely, using the more attractive Nord, Breton, and Imperial body options offered by replacers and mods, and then simply change the skin textures, and add teeth, tails, and ears where needed.

 

 

[Blaze69]

1 hour ago, ChaosZen said:

Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible to make all races much more appealing. Imagine if Argonians looked more like a perfect human shape, and only the skin texture changed to look like reptilian scales, and then add a nice "tail", and some claws. Perhaps their "fangs" could look more like a vampire than a Velociraptor as well.

 

Imagine if Khajiit, instead of having cat-like heads, had the head, face and form of "Nekos" in the sexy style of those in "Second Life". A woman with soft, silky fur for skin, and assorted tiger stripes, calico, or cheetah rosettes. And a tail, of course. 

Well, you see, while that would be an improvement for you, it would actually be a serious downgrade for me (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). I want my Khajiit and Argonians to be anthros, not "humans with *insert animal here*'s tails and ears/claws/whatever". So that would make them much more appealing to you, but would take away most of their appeal for another portion of the users.

 

Now, that doesn't mean I think their current looks cannot be improved (they are waaay far from the best they could be), but I would prefer that to be done in a way that doesn't get rid of what made them what they are now i.e. being not-human. If I wanted to play as a human with cat ears, I would play some JRPG like Final Fantasy or any of the several others that exist or whatever. If I want to play as an anthro (as I do), there's Elder Scrolls and that's it. There are no other games that offer that possibility period. So the last thing I would want is for them to be turned into some lame neko and "human with scales" things.

 

Fortunately for me (and those that may have the same tastes), going by what's done in Elder Scrolls Online, seems like Khajiit and Argonians are going to remain anthros for now. Khajiit even got a serious visual upgrade (at least when compared to Skyrim's Khajiit), unique beast feet and hands, and a lot of great customization options. Thank the Nine for that!

1 hour ago, ChaosZen said:

I think Bethesda makes it a point to make their characters ugly and homely. I try to give the benefit of doubt, but find it hard to believe that any developer could really be that bad at making characters reasonably attractive. In all of the old mythos and lore, whether Tolkien, Gygax, or elsewhere, "Elves" are described as slender, sometimes androgynous, beautific beings, slightly smaller than humans on average. In nearly all role playing games involving elves, they are born with a bonus to charisma and/or comeliness. So why in the world does Bethesda feel a need to make them look like creepy aliens? I'm not even a fan of WOW style elves with their "handlebar ears" and ball-shaped heads, but certainly a big fan of how elves are portrayed by Liv Tyler in "Lord of the Rings". 

The thing is, Elder Scrolls is not LOTR, and that's the point. While arguably drawing heavily on general fantasy tropes (which franchise doesn't, anyway?), one of the good things about ES that sets it apart from any other generic fantasy LOTR clone is its unique and deep lore. Part of that lore is the one that concerns "elves", which should not be taken as literal elves from LOTR.

 

They look like "creepy aliens" because that's what they are. Sorta. Hell, do you even know the lore about Wood Elves? They were shapeless beings that wandered hopelessly until Y'ffre found out how to lock said spirits into static and defined forms by seeing Azura do so with Khajiit (BTW Wood Elves and Khajiit were practically the same thing until Azura made Khajiit feline and Y'ffre made his followers "elven"). They can still regress into their primal state in times of need through the Wild Hunt ritual, and from the few lore sources we have about it, is a last-resort no-return thing that's freaking terrifying (and deadly) for those on the wrong end of the thing.

[tm2dragon]

3 hours ago, Blaze69 said:

Well, you see, while that would be an improvement for you, it would actually be a serious downgrade for me (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). I want my Khajiit and Argonians to be anthros, not "humans with *insert animal here*'s tails and ears/claws/whatever". So that would make them much more appealing to you, but would take away most of their appeal for another portion of the users.

 

Now, that doesn't mean I think their current looks cannot be improved (they are waaay far from the best they could be), but I would prefer that to be done in a way that doesn't get rid of what made them what they are now i.e. being not-human. If I wanted to play as a human with cat ears, I would play some JRPG like Final Fantasy or any of the several others that exist or whatever. If I want to play as an anthro (as I do), there's Elder Scrolls and that's it. There are no other games that offer that possibility period. So the last thing I would want is for them to be turned into some lame neko and "human with scales" things.

 

Fortunately for me (and those that may have the same tastes), going by what's done in Elder Scrolls Online, seems like Khajiit and Argonians are going to remain anthros for now. Khajiit even got a serious visual upgrade (at least when compared to Skyrim's Khajiit), unique beast feet and hands, and a lot of great customization options. Thank the Nine for that!

The thing is, Elder Scrolls is not LOTR, and that's the point. While arguably drawing heavily on general fantasy tropes (which franchise doesn't, anyway?), one of the good things about ES that sets it apart from any other generic fantasy LOTR clone is its unique and deep lore. Part of that lore is the one that concerns "elves", which should not be taken as literal elves from LOTR.

 

They look like "creepy aliens" because that's what they are. Sorta. Hell, do you even know the lore about Wood Elves? They were shapeless beings that wandered hopelessly until Y'ffre found out how to lock said spirits into static and defined forms by seeing Azura do so with Khajiit (BTW Wood Elves and Khajiit were practically the same thing until Azura made Khajiit feline and Y'ffre made his followers "elven"). They can still regress into their primal state in times of need through the Wild Hunt ritual, and from the few lore sources we have about it, is a last-resort no-return thing that's freaking terrifying (and deadly) for those on the wrong end of the thing.

Honestly, both sides have thier points. Your basic “humans with animal bits” thing is vastly popular, especially for otaku! Nekos are here to stay, and power to you if that’s your thing. Lucky for you, there ARE mods that can accomplish this to a degree (though they could be better, and can’t really fix the grating voices). 

For many of us however (myself included) this would be a serious downgrade! We LIKE oue Anthros. I may be in the camp of “elves should be pretty “, but I understand that this goes against the lore, and would bug a lot of folks it Bethesda went down that route.  For the beast races though, I’d like them to STAY beasts....I just happen to be in the camp that anthros can look like animals and still be sexy! XD And for that, we need better mods...hence thia thread, to help us brainstorm various ways to accomplish this. That was MY intention at least, but there’s no reason we can’t discuss ways to make them appealing to those not into anthros! Feel free to discuss!!!

 

P.S Sorry for any nonsensical sentences, bad formatting, or grammatical errors. Quickly typing this post from my smartphone while being told “we have to go!” from the other room. Would have loved time to go into more detail. You know how it is. (; More tonight!

[NightroModzz]

On 11/29/2017 at 8:17 AM, ChaosZen said:

Imagine if Khajiit, instead of having cat-like heads, had the head, face and form of "Nekos"

Umm... Neko literally means cat. So you want a cat to look more like a cat? I think your looking for the anime humanized version referring to a nekojin, which means cat person. Same applies to all human races as well, such as Japanese = Nihonjin (日本人), and American = Amerikajin (アメリカ人).

 

On 11/29/2017 at 8:17 AM, ChaosZen said:

I think Bethesda makes it a point to make their characters ugly and homely. I try to give the benefit of doubt, but find it hard to believe that any developer could really be that bad at making characters reasonably attractive. In all of the old mythos and lore, whether Tolkien, Gygax, or elsewhere, "Elves" are described as slender, sometimes androgynous, beautific beings, slightly smaller than humans on average. In nearly all role playing games involving elves, they are born with a bonus to charisma and/or comeliness. So why in the world does Bethesda feel a need to make them look like creepy aliens? I'm not even a fan of WOW style elves with their "handlebar ears" and ball-shaped heads, but certainly a big fan of how elves are portrayed by Liv Tyler in "Lord of the Rings". 

 

 

I think the idea is to just differentiate them from humans. Just adding animal ears or being very similar to humans is unrealistic. That kind of idea is best kept in an anime game. Game makers who want to create their own world and life try and do so in a way that makes sense, not copy and paste stuff that doesn't. Especially when you think about how evolution works. The only way all those mythology and otaku humanoid races would make sense is if they were created and spliced in a lab.

 

Bethesda is just lazy and bad at making them look appealing. The game is also kind of old and had less expectations for beautifying non-human bipedal races with a competing intelligence.

[Blaze69]

5 hours ago, ChaosZen said:

[...]

25 minutes ago, tm2dragon said:

[...]

My point about this was, it's fine to want to make beast races more humanoid and match the "neko" character design or whichever you prefer. But wanting them to be humanoid from the start and not be beastly at all (i.e. having Bethesda create them simply as humans with animal tails from the start) is just wrong. Why, you say? Because while making beast characters more human is easy, making human characters more beastly is not.

 

If the game doesn't include built-in systems to support beast races from the start (i.e. beast/non-human heads, tails, clawed/beast feet, different gear for different races, etc), adding them back becomes extremely hard or even outright impossible, while making beast races more human is much easier because there will always be humans in the game and thus there won't be any problem with lack of support for human or human-like characters.

 

Just as an example, while in Skyrim all beast races can have tails just fine because there is a tail system for bipedal races in place in the game already (built by Bethesda because it was needed for Khajiits and Argonians), adding tails to characters in, say, Fallout 3 or NV is very difficult because there isn't any such thing and all you get is fake tails that look like part of a costume. Tails are just an example, as the same could be said of race-specific gear or support for beast heads and shapes and so on.

 

TL;DR: it's fine and dandy to want less beastly/more human beast races, and you are more than welcome to achieve such thing through mods (because people eventually make mods to remove anthros from their game 'cause they don't like them). But please, for the love of Talos, leave vanilla Khajiits and Argonians alone and let them be as beastly in the vanilla game as they are already, if not more.

 

Elder Scrolls is practically the only game/franchise in which proper anthros can be played (more or less) seriously if at all, don't take that away from us.

[tm2dragon]

2 hours ago, Blaze69 said:

 

TL;DR: it's fine and dandy to want less beastly/more human beast races, and you are more than welcome to achieve such thing through mods (because people eventually make mods to remove anthros from their game 'cause they don't like them). But please, for the love of Talos, leave vanilla Khajiits and Argonians alone and let them be as beastly in the vanilla game as they are already, if not more.

 

Elder Scrolls is practically the only game/franchise in which proper anthros can be played (more or less) seriously if at all, don't take that away from us.

I don’t think anyone would really argue about making drastic changes for the DEFAULT game. The lore and such is great as is. This is a MOD forum, howevet, and part of the fun of modding is to change things to suit your tastes, even if it goes against lore and immersion. If you want immersive mods, that’s great! For some of us, we don’t mind breaking things a bit for the sake of making things pretty. :D

[ChaosZen]

My previous comment was pre-coffee, so my vocabulary had not yet kicked in, so much of what I had said is understandably misunderstood. 

I was not meaning to suggest simply painting the human bodies to look like feline or reptile textures. In re-reading what I had said, I do not deny saying that, but it was not what I had meant. To me, the current models seem disproportionate, as if their heads are a little too big for the bodies. To me, Khajiit just seem a little too cat-like, and not really anthropomorphic enough, or rather, they look more like cats walking around bipedally, and wearing clothes.  
 
"Anthropomorphic" is a better term for what I had intended to say, but my idea would be for them to look significantly more human in shape (body and head proportions/size), but not entirely the head shape. I did not mentioned the example I had in my mind, because it's based on an obscure movie that a majority may likely have never heard of, and that movie was a cartoon, so very basic and lacking any detail ("Rock and Rule") . Perhaps best explained would be to imagine somewhere halfway between their current facial features, and that of a human face. Failing that, I certainly would not mind if Khajiit, more closely resembled pictographs and hieroglyphics images of the Egyptian Goddess, Bast, human bodies, cat's head, then add tails and matching skin colors. 

 

Argonians, much the same, more anthropomorphic and more balanced proportions. I do not mean for their face to be flat (such as the contrast between a human face and a reptile face in the real world), to the contrary, I think snakes and lizards are really cute. I do not share such affinity with dinosaurs, which are how current argonians look to me.

 

In regard to Neko, I thought I had said " ...in the sexy style of those in Second Life ", which I had thought would be clear enough to convey that we weren't just talking about the definition of the word itself, but rather one form of interpretation. Anime style are also a different interpretation, but also much closer to the anthropomorphic middle ground that I personally would like using, except that it's a bit difficult to translate anime style to non-cartoon realism in a believable, or immersive manner.

 

As for being consistent with the lore, forget about it.  Could any of us really use "Lore" as a basis for debate or reason why something should not be, especially if we've used or contributed to such things as bikinis, evening gowns, sunglasses, shotguns, or "Modern Clothing"? Forget the lore, and instead, let's pretend we're talking about mods, which are created to provide personal options.

 

My idea of how I would want Khajiit to look in my gameplay would be closer to this:

(Image credit goes to PRDart at Deviant Art.)

[Blaze69]

54 minutes ago, ChaosZen said:

My previous comment was pre-coffee, so my vocabulary had not yet kicked in, so much of what I had said is understandably misunderstood. 

I was not meaning to suggest simply painting the human bodies to look like feline or reptile textures. In re-reading what I had said, I do not deny saying that, but it was not what I had meant. To me, the current models seem disproportionate, as if their heads are a little too big for the bodies. To me, Khajiit just seem a little too cat-like, and not really anthropomorphic enough, or rather, they look more like cats walking around bipedally, and wearing clothes.

Huh, what? With due respect, what are you talking about? Khajiit don't look like "cats walking around bipedally" at all. They look like someone took a human body with a fur texture, pasted a tail and a (arguably ugly) cat head on it, and called it a day. Which is exactly what Bethesda did, mind you. Even their "paws" are only a side product of the fact that vanilla feet meshes are horribly bad and low-poly; if Beth had gone for actual toes instead of blobs, Khajiit would have had those as well. And don't get me started on the "beast hands" that are simply vanilla human hands with longer nails.

54 minutes ago, ChaosZen said:

"Anthropomorphic" is a better term for what I had intended to say, but my idea would be for them to look significantly more human in shape (body and head proportions/size), but not entirely the head shape. I did not mentioned the example I had in my mind, because it's based on an obscure movie that a majority may likely have never heard of, and that movie was a cartoon, so very basic and lacking any detail ("Rock and Rule") . Perhaps best explained would be to imagine somewhere halfway between their current facial features, and that of a human face. Failing that, I certainly would not mind if Khajiit, more closely resembled pictographs and hieroglyphics images of the Egyptian Goddess, Bast, human bodies, cat's head, then add tails and matching skin colors.

I think our idea of what "anthropomorphic" (in the context of beast races, that is) is far from being the same. For one, I wouldn't call a mostly human face with a snout added to it (as the characters in the film seem to be, judging by the pictures) "anthro" at all. That's just, well, a human with a snout. Just like "elves" are humans with pointy ears.

 

Now, I'm with you on the fact that (Skyrim) Khajiit heads are a bit off and could use some work. But I think the issue was fixed just right in ESO. This is how Khajiit look in that game:

Spoiler

   

Razum-Dar / Hainab / Zulana / Harrani

(Click on the names for higher-res pics, because for some reason trying to post the images themselves straight away uses a low-res thumbnail instead)

Those are just some quick examples I came up with (and the NPCs whose name I remembered), but you can check out more pics or even give a shot at the character creator yourself (IIRC this weekend you will be able to play for free).

 

Now, that I think is an improvement, because it keeps the heads as true to real felines as they can be considering the different position and body configuration, but tweaks the proportions to be better suited for their bodies (and also makes them less ugly). Also that's really anthro, at least for me.

54 minutes ago, ChaosZen said:

As for being consistent with the lore, forget about it.  Could any of us really use "Lore" as a basis for debate or reason why something should not be, especially if we've used or contributed to such things as bikinis, evening gowns, sunglasses, shotguns, or "Modern Clothing"? Forget the lore, and instead, let's pretend we're talking about mods, which are created to provide personal options.

You mentioned Bethesda seemed to actually go for "ugly" character designs for elves instead of adhering to the typical generic fantasy elf as seen in LOTR where they are all beautiful and gracile and stuff. I simply mentioned they are not supposed to be like that because they are not generic fantasy elves. I thought you meant to suggest Beth should make elves more beautiful, which would be wrong and wouldn't match the lore.

 

That was all assuming you meant the changes should be done on Beth's side for the vanilla game and design, which I obviously think is wrong (in the case of beast races, for the reasons stated in my previous post). But when it comes to mods, yeah, then I don't have a problem with that, do as you please with those races, and make them look the way you want. It's your game after all, you can choose how you want to play and what things should look like.

 

EDIT:

Quote

My idea of how I would want Khajiit to look in my gameplay would be closer to this:

Spoiler

 

To me, that face looks like an elf with feline-like features and ears. Certainly better than "human head with cat ears", I'll give you that, but still not feline enough IMO. Rest of the body looks fine, including hands and paws.

 

Put a head like the one from the ESO Khajiits I showed (so an actual feline head) on top of that body instead of the one it has, and I would be all for that.

[tm2dragon]

I suggest we get back on topic. Long posts spent countering each other’s points just makes us go in circles, and can leave several parties feeling frustrated. I think the take-away from the past few posts is that different people have different tastes on how we would go about this, and differering thoughts on how far we should go “humanizing” the races. All well and good, and if we’re lucky, we’ll eventually have mods to satisfy all camps.

On topic, I think shrinking the heads a bit like Chaos suggested could be a decent experiment to try.  Maybe we can even take it a step further! I once saw an in-game model that shrank and streamlined a Khajiit head and enlarged the eyes using nothing more than a few eye and texture mods and advanced character edit, and the results were SPECTACULAR! The resulting Khajiit kept all her feline features, but was also legitimately cute as a button. Maybe one of the things that make these races seem offputting really does come down to something as simple as proportions? Perhaps a similar feat could be attempted with an Argonian, shrinking the head to make it less intimidating and offputting, while tweaking the eye size to make them seem more innocent and vulnerable? Replace the eyes with some of the prettier ones from mods for elves and humans, add some pretty lashes? Wierd for a lizard, true, but this is just a race that LOOKS like lizards, so we’ve got wiggle room even if we WERE dead set on maintaining immersion (which many aren’t). It seems to work in a lot of anthro artwork, maybe it would work here? We might be able to come up with a solution that doesn’t require us to completely reshape the head at all!  It’s worth looking into at least.

[ChaosZen]

I think mainly proportions, that and better smoothing of the vertices, less "blocky". 

 

I really am trying hard to find any sort of pictures or examples of what I would have in mind, but even in the closest I can find, the parts that do not quite fit, but I ignore because it's not too terribly far off, are the specific points that seem to turn others completely against the whole concept. It sounds like Blaze and I are thinking close to the same as far as body, hands, feet, and possibly tails go, but the difference is that I cannot find any examples of what I would consider "ideal", and Blaze wants more lion and tiger style overall head shape, while I would prefer facial features and head shape to more closely resemble more domestic felines. Not short nosed domestic breeds, but more like that of "American Shorthair", "Bengal", "Bombay", etc, with smooth and less pronounced cheeks (compared to lions and tigers), narrow chin, and somewhat smaller (but not shorter) noses.  As far as the body goes, just widen the neck a bit, while narrowing the shoulders, so that something like a domestic cat shaped heat would fit more proportionately. 

...though I also respect the opinions of those who would prefer more muscular lions, tiger, etc, large cat species and bigger noses in head appearance.
 
Also, I was not aware that we were talking about what Bethesda should do, I thought we were talking about mods.

 

[tm2dragon]

33 minutes ago, ChaosZen said:

I think mainly proportions, that and better smoothing of the vertices, less "blocky". 

 

I really am trying hard to find any sort of pictures or examples of what I would have in mind, but even in the closest I can find, the parts that do not quite fit, but I ignore because it's not too terribly far off, are the specific points that seem to turn others completely against the whole concept. It sounds like Blaze and I are thinking close to the same as far as body, hands, feet, and possibly tails go, but the difference is that I cannot find any examples of what I would consider "ideal", and Blaze wants more lion and tiger style overall head shape, while I would prefer facial features and head shape to more closely resemble more domestic felines. Not short nosed domestic breeds, but more like that of "American Shorthair", "Bengal", "Bombay", etc, with smooth and less pronounced cheeks (compared to lions and tigers), narrow chin, and somewhat smaller (but not shorter) noses.  As far as the body goes, just widen the neck a bit, while narrowing the shoulders, so that something like a domestic cat shaped heat would fit more proportionately. 

...though I also respect the opinions of those who would prefer more muscular lions, tiger, etc, large cat species and bigger noses in head appearance.

 

 

Good thoughts, but maybe the wrong thread for them. I BELIEVE Khajiits have thier own thread elsewhere (I know Orcs do). This thread is primarily about Argonians. ^_^; Perhaps we should create a thread for discussing Beast races in general?

[NightroModzz]

3 hours ago, ChaosZen said:

Also, I was not aware that we were talking about what Bethesda should do, I thought we were talking about mods.

 

Previous  post:

On 11/29/2017 at 8:17 AM, ChaosZen said:

I think Bethesda makes it a point to make their characters ugly and homely. I try to give the benefit of doubt, but find it hard to believe that any developer could really be that bad at making characters reasonably attractive. In all of the old mythos and lore, whether Tolkien, Gygax, or elsewhere, "Elves" are described as slender, sometimes androgynous, beautific beings, slightly smaller than humans on average. In nearly all role playing games involving elves, they are born with a bonus to charisma and/or comeliness. So why in the world does Bethesda feel a need to make them look like creepy aliens? I'm not even a fan of WOW style elves with their "handlebar ears" and ball-shaped heads, but certainly a big fan of how elves are portrayed by Liv Tyler in "Lord of the Rings". 

 

Ummm.... Then how about not starting a debate on what they shouldn't have done in your own opinion? Although, probably unintentional. But you should have caught that by now.

 

-------------------

 

Back on topic, I do plan on making a lizard anthro from scratch, but far down the line and likely won't be compatible with Skyrim skeletons. Also, not going for the cutesy anime look, but better looking than Argonians overall.

 

Now back off topic; Dear mother of f*n G**! Out of town right now and borrowing a laptop. Track pads are torture!

[tm2dragon]

1 hour ago, NightroModzz said:

 

 

Back on topic, I do plan on making a lizard anthro from scratch, but far down the line and likely won't be compatible with Skyrim skeletons. Also, not going for the cutesy anime look, but better looking than Argonians overall.

 

Now back off topic; Dear mother of f*n G**! Out of town right now and borrowing a laptop. Track pads are torture!

On topic, happy to hear you have projects in the works, but not too sure how they’ll apply here? Best of luck, but if it’s not an Argonian overhaul or even compatable with a Skyrim skeleton, not too helpful. Looking forward to the seeing what texture stuff you come up with though!

 

OFF topic....youch, that kinda sucks. I’d feel more sympathetic...but I’ve been out of state on a family vacation with no computer, no laptop, not even a tablet for the past WEEK! Been keeping up my part in these discussions, along with others both here and on Nexus, via phone. :P Try being an OCD Grammar-Nazi desperately trying to format and grammer check multi-paragraph posts via touch-type on a finicky little smart-phone while your mother is constantly nagging you to “stop staring at ypur phone already!” behind your back. THEN YOU SHALL KNOW MY PAIN!!!!

 

....dear God I’d kill for a proper keyboard and mouse right now. T_T

[Guest]

I personally like the Male Argonians better, and I'm not even gay IRL (If you would count the Masculine Argonian Textures mod)

 

 

[tm2dragon]

3 hours ago, Vethex said:

I personally like the Male Argonians better, and I'm not even gay IRL (If you would count the Masculine Argonian Textures mod)

 

 

Oh, no arguments here! Ironically enough, the MALE Argonians have some AWESOME mods, and decked out properly make for some great eye-candy! XD The fact that we have yet to manage this with the FEMALE Argonians is actually pretty hilarious, considering where our priorities as a modding community usualy lay. :P

[Floopy]

Well using the textures from the shark race mod it looks very good on argonians. This makes them look more amphibian than lizard like.

Spoiler

 

[Guest]

On 12/1/2017 at 11:47 PM, tm2dragon said:

Oh, no arguments here! Ironically enough, the MALE Argonians have some AWESOME mods, and decked out properly make for some great eye-candy! XD The fact that we have yet to manage this with the FEMALE Argonians is actually pretty hilarious, considering where our priorities as a modding community usualy lay. :P

Well, Zenimax made the Male Argonians (might as well just say both genders) significantly uglier than Skyrim. Which actually worries me. Because if Bethesda takes the ideal appearance of the Argonians for TESO than the previous elder scrolls. We won't have very appealing Characters. Which I should not too get attached My (Hot) male Argonian since Bethesda always drastically change them, every elder scrolls game. 

[Blaze69]

3 hours ago, Vethex said:

Well, Zenimax made the Male Argonians (might as well just say both genders) significantly uglier than Skyrim. Which actually worries me. Because if Bethesda takes the ideal appearance of the Argonians for TESO than the previous elder scrolls. We won't have very appealing Characters. Which I should not too get attached My (Hot) male Argonian since Bethesda always drastically change them, every elder scrolls game. 

Yeah, I noticed that as well, Khajiit got a significant update while Argonians... not so much. Not really sure what they went for, but they are just ugly overall. Took some time to find out because I hadn't actually checked them out in the character creator (went straight for Khajiit) and you don't really get to see any of them for a while in the initial Almeri Dominion areas. Yo do get to see plenty of Khajiit, though, as the starter/tutorial island is in Elsweyr.

 

Anyway, at least the voices are better. No longer do Argonians (or Khajiit, for that matter) have all the exact same voice, and on top of that the different voices they have in the game are not nearly as bad as they were in Skyrim. No more 90-year-old-heavy-smoker-grumpy-lady beast race voices, so I'm all for that.