Looking to make an cumtec mod, need some help

[Polistiro]

Hello, i need some help on the best way to make a cumtec-like mod for make it usable in other mods. (Cumtec mod is not findable)

 

I've already done  some tries with overlays (like looksmenu body tatoos). This working well. By this way overlays can be added ones over others but it is usable with other mods?

 

 

Here are my questions:

-For face "painting" , do i need to use This method ? or there is an usable face slot? (i'm using slot 3 for body overlays in json)

-With body overlays, i encounter a problem: "paints" tend to glowing in dark in interior. In exterior with the sun light painting become near transparent (here is my bgem file NearOk.bgem)

 

Otherwise transparency, glossy and textures works good. Thanks in advance

[AWP3RATOR]

I recently created a nail polish mod using Looksmenu overlays.  Similar to what you're doing here, in the mechanics.  The guide I followed was using BGEM files, but I found that the textures were showing as black - and I frankly couldn't follow the author's suggestions regarding "Photoshop gradients" - I have PS CC and know it well, but didn't know what they were referring to, insofaras the "gradient" and how it applies to the BGEM file.

 

I opted to switch to using BGSM files, and these show colors, without any special editing - however, as you noted the colors are very bright and tend to glow in the dark (they have an extremely high luminosity).  I "solved" that by cheating a bit and muting the colors.  A pale yellow for instance in game, is actually a very dark yellow in Photoshop, and so on.

 

Note that the overlays I created for the nail polish are using the Body>Overlays in Looksmenu, and not the ones in the face section.  In the .json, slot 4 is body, slot 3 is hands.  I haven't attempted to see if a slot 1 or 2 would apply to faces - so not sure there.

 

https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/5151-looksmenu-nail-salon/

 

[Polistiro]

Thanks, i will do some tests with bgsm. (In body overlay tutorial, the author says bgsm don't support alpha channel).

In my tests slot 2 for face don't work (bgem) maybe slot 1...

[AWP3RATOR]

I just checked a mod that adds face tattoos to see how they did it.... LooksMenu Customization Compendium

 

In that mod, they have altered the HumanRace record to add additional options to the chargen "other" menu - for facepaints/tattoos, etc.  I haven't attempted a facepaint myself yet, so unsure if there is a better way.

 

The other facepaint mods on Nexus all seem to be doing it the same way, however: making edits to the HumanRace chargen section, to allow the ingame menus to use the overlays.  No .json involved, and seemingly LooksMenu not required either.

[Polistiro]

i've tried bgsm files to prevent glowing in dark and disappearance in sun light but i loose transparency . I think bgem files are required. If some one know how to avoid glowing in dark / near invisible in light effects I'm interested.

 

I still have to try slot 1 in json file but i think there is only slot3 for the body and slot4 for the hands...

 

Nudity in this spoiler, example with bgem

 

I don't know if i can post this kind of pictures here to show my results...

[AWP3RATOR]

I pretty sure you can post the pics.... have you seen the ad banners on every page of the site?

 

BGSM files do not support alpha.  BGEM files do, but their implementation is a bit more involved.  In fact, I had a question out to the person who wrote this guide on overalys, inquiring about the use of colored overlays with BGEM files - no response as yet.

 

There are unclear steps involved in the guide, with regard to colored BGEM overalys, photoshop gradients, etc.  I'm pretty capable in PS, but the instructions don't make much sense o to me.

 

Quote

Colored Overlays
These requires some knowledge of using a photo editor. You basically need to make a
greyscale overlay, add a color gradient (Photoshop required), save this gradient to a dds file,
and add it in the greyscale part of the material file (read along to learn how). Save as a project
file in your separate overlays folder.

... more text unrelated...

 

Material Files
BGSM
These files are used for normal everyday texturing. They don’t support alpha channels though,
so we want to avoid these. However they are the only ones supporting skin tinting, which is a
new feature of LooksMenu. Go and pop the path in for you diffuse texture, and save it with the
same name as the corresponding texture file, however without the “_d” part. Save it into the
material path you created before.
BGEM
These are essentially effect textures, but will do the job for now. You need to put settings into
the “effects” tab in Material Editor. Here you will put in the path to your texture file in “base
texture”, and if you do in fact have a gradient for coloring this texture, put it in “greyscale”. Save
it into the material path you created before.

 

[Polistiro]

I've read lot of tutorials and like you i can't make colored overlays but these kind of dds ,once compressed in ba2, are weightless.

For objects, the method of color Remapping with Index exists (CK "material swap" section) but unusable for this.

 

If there is some needed colors and naming convention tell me

 

New topic in adult section opened. [WIP]

[AWP3RATOR]

LooksMenu author notes that body overlay color swapping is not yet a feature, but it is planned.  When I did the nail polish mod, I created 12 texture sets for fingers and toes - for 24 total.  It would have been nice to have one file with material swaps - but that's a function of .esp's, not F4SE LooksMenu, at the moment.

 

I'll check out your WIP - thanks for making this!