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Yet Another Beautiful Body WIP


littlejohn

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The Goal: 
Create a new female body replacer for Skyrim/SE. 


Limitations/Experience/Expectations/Reasons etc:
I've always thought that the original body models in Skyrim, were made by people who have never looked at a naked body on the 'internet', or indeed in real life. This is especially true when it comes to the female body, you know, bo*bs flow to the side and down naturally, especially big b*obs ... they don't jut out like cannons... unless you are watching some cookie cutter american p*rn. The natural 'sag' for a better word, is what is most alluring. Maybe that's not what people like, and I'm the odd one out.

Reasons
I've literally just started 3D sculpting (a week) and thought I'd see if i couldn't change some of the aspects that have bugged me, and generally add femininity.

 

Hands - King gong would be proud of those hands
Feet - Can they even be called feet, I've seen more attractive feet on an elephant.
Bo*bs - see above
Butt - two round comically large hemispheres does not a butt make.

 

I couldn't understand why some experienced modeller hasn't added a truly nice replacer... until I started looking into the work flow myself. To say that it is a pain in the proverbial, is akin to saying North Korea can be a bit mean to it's people. It's just not fun.


Experience
There are my limitations of modding experience, and the limitations of the tools to streamline the addition of wholly new meshes. I know enough that most body replacers are as they are (using bodyslide etc), not because of technical limitations but universal acceptance... unfortunately this constrains what you can do model-wise. 


Limitations
My body replacer will not be compatible with any other skin texture because it will use a custom optimised uvmap
The idea is to keep the body very close to UNP,  I've only been sculpting for a week, and although I can already see the anatomical stance of the skyrim model is wrong, I'll work around that for compatibility (XPMSE etc). I first tried sculpting just the body, sans feet/hands but the extra time needed to make a perfect match to existing extremities ( e.g snapping vertex ), I decided to sculpt the whole thing. 

 

I've already had the body, or a variant of it, working with the new physics for SSE, and was surprised how well it worked. I will initially stick to one size, i.e 100 (femalebody_0 and _1). I did use a size 0 and size 100 but that complicates the mesh making process. Unless you are really careful, you get the mesh explosion in-game, even if the vertex count and order are the same. It can work but it necessitates double checking at each stage of the workflow. 

 

The hands, oh god the hands! I made some changes there but since I'm worried about in-game issues, I've kept the fingers the same length, slightly reduced the actual sausage'ness but mostly sculpted to mimic shapeliness, without really going hard on the dimension reduction. I hated the original thumb, so that is definitely smaller. It's a trade off, I will need to adjust the bone positions.

 

The feet should work with existing footwear.. comprehensive testing of the whole project, will tell me more. The toes are spaced apart for now, as it makes it easier for sculpting purposes.

I get the argument that lore friendly (not something the community here probably minds much) might mean a seasoned female fighter will be bulky, well, I'm going for the strong athletic, form over force that could be used for other characters as well.

 

I probably wont (at least initially) manually retopo. I had an auto generated version working without issue in SE... the purists out there might curse a pox on upon my heretic backside but hey, you can't please everyone. 


What this wont be, is a traditional highly game friendly optimised model. Oldrim has a limit of 65k tris. SE, although you can convert the mesh to nif without issue,  the limit is still their, as nifskope later throws an error. You can split the body into partitions giving you greater flexibility but it's not really designed for that purpose. E.g. You get invisible legs when still wearing boots, until you take them off etc. Anyway, I will target 65k tris, as this worked without problems.


End Product
Initially:
Body Model
Body Textures
Later:
Custom built outfits


Thoughts
This is where you guys/girls come in, any (critical but) helpful comments are welcome. To be honest, with the interchangeability of existing body types, I expect there wont be enough interest, so it will likely be a personal project, even if I eventually upload a fully working documented mod.


Question. (hopefully some kind sole might take the time to answer)
If I create a completely custom body mesh at say size 0, I think I can import (nif or obj) into OS, and make some presets to go with my mod. I've never used bodyslide but if that does work, presumably people should be able to adjust outfits to fit the preset?

 

I'm not familiar with the head making process. Does anyone know of a workflow where I can also add custom heads, and then generate Skyrim compatible morphs/facegeom etc

 

 

Finally, is it worth making a completely custom body replacer. Why don't we see more variants (that are not just bodyslide changes), is it the reasons I suggest above. i.e pain in the butt, and universal compatibility.

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Mods - Apologies, I thought I'd picked a thread that wasn't specifically a downloads section. There are images but can this count as a download, bearing in mind the usefulness? Shall I delete this, and find a more appropriate section, or does it need moving?

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This looks absolutely amazing. I've told people that someone may decide to pick up UUNP type mod and here we are. Wow, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this. 

 

Now I have a question if you don't mind. Are you planning on building any male models, or are you just sticking with female at the moment? 

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Nice start.  It's good seeing other people digging into this stuff.  Two small things of note - the toes are a tiny bit flat feeling, and it's easier to look at zbrush screen shots when you turn on perspective (at least for me).

 

The head making process I've been poking around a bit with recently and it seems like it's a pretty heavy load depending on how much you want to change.  

 

My summarized notes so far ( and feel free to correct me on anything I've gotten wrong )

Sculpt your head, retopo, bake out object space normals.  

 

Things to keep separate from the head but grouped together in the low poly
teeth, tongue, mouth sock
eyes, eyelashes

 

The eyebrows and scar overlays are done on separate pieces of geometry that are mostly alpha'd out. I'd grab the faces that the eyebrows would be painted onto then invert the selection and delete everything else.  

 

Export your head geo as a NIF from max.  All of my tests the NIF exporter always reorders the verts on export (I've tried 3dsmax 2013 and 2018 so far).  If anyone knows of a way to avoid this it would save me a headache.  

 

Export that head geo as an obj and bring it back into your modeling package.

 

If you want the face to move during speech or work with any of the character generation sliders you'll need to create 3 tri files.  The tri files are just lists of blendshapes that will need to be made off of the obj that was exported from nifskope.  <-- this is the step I kept missing and kept exploding my meshes in game because I was building blendshapes off of the unexported meshes.  

 

At this step it seems like you would want to have the mouth, eye, and brow type accessories in the scene while creating the blendshapes - as they need their own tri shape files otherwise they won't animate or deform with the face.  

 

That should cover the basics of getting a bald head ingame and animating.  In theory it would be possible to match the top and back of the skull to the old skyrim meshes in order to avoid having to recreate all of the hairstyles yourself.

 

Hope that helps.  

 

 

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Thank you both for your kind comments and helpful input. Armed with the info I will take a closer look at the head making process, seems a lot of extra work. The only reason I contemplated it, being that the existing heads are the least bad looking part, was to prevent me having to manually align neck seams, and/or sculpt a better neck line. The aligning of the top and back of the skull for hair compatability, is a clever idea.

 

I haven't tested enough to say whether this really made the difference but I had trouble with exploding meshes until I started adding a unwrap uvw modifier, before the skinwrap modifier/stage, even if the uvmaps already existed. Not sure if this helps to keep the order.

 

The 3DS nif importer/exporter works quite well, apart from the almost guaranteed crash when using it... but that could just be max. I haven't worked out a way to keep/add the BSSLightingShaderProperty node in max. I add it in nifskope but wanted to see if I can cut that stage out. One oddity I found with more complex meshes, is that when you have finished and exported a nif, quite often if you check in nifskope, it has a few missing polygons, or it thinks they are flipped. If you re-import the nif you just made in max, and then simply export a second time, everything is fine in nifskope. 

 

I'll have another look at the feet but often when you see people standing in a dynamic pose or with their full weight, the toes are squashed flatter than they would normally look. I need to put the toes in their final position as well, I've kept them spread out for sculpting ease, also once I see more of how it works in-game, I can adjust to make it more anatomically correct.

Edit: looking again, you were right - I've pushed down where the toes join the main foot and lifted up the knuckles, which I think is more accurate. 

 

 

@DykkenTomb Yeah I'm planning on doing males if the female version goes well.

 

 

Only small refinements to musculature/feet/buttocks-back. 

 

 

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27 minutes ago, littlejohn said:

Hi there cheekygirl. Thank you :smile:

 

I'm currently not uploading anything, as there is still a lot to do, although the plan would be to release a mod.

Oh okay thank you for the reply. :b please dont get disappointed because you think there wont be much interest, ill follow this thread to see how you do, id love to use it i like its shape :smile: and converting armors is not hard too :b

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Interesting variation. Although that accusation you made there in the beginning is questionable. Caliente is married with children. I'm sure he knows what a naked body looks like. Everyone has their own ideals and.... Im willing to bet he has a bit more modeling experience than just a week. 

 

Looks promising but the initial condescending tone seems a bit off putting. Good luck though. I also recommend setting smaller proportions as the default to make it easier to convert armors. 

 

Initial opinions though, your body doesn't hit the realism mark either. Thigh gaps are uncommon and your initial present has huge breasts so it will be less armor friendly for conversions. Thigh gaps are from slimmer body frames most commonly seen in Asia. That body doesn't hit that mark. 

 

In regards to your question about is it worth it that's up to you. One of the reasons there's only 2 bodies for Skyrim is because conversions become hassle which may add extra work on people who do outfits. I mainly do things for CBBE and I get daily messaged asking to port stuff to UNP  and old CBBE. I think in order to drive your own success better you should probably thinking about making initial ports of the vanilla armors to your body. Something UNP and CBBE do. Old Skyrim had more than 50 body types and you can imagine the night mare of dealing with incompatible armors. 

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On 15/03/2018 at 8:08 PM, SunJeong said:

Interesting variation. Although that accusation you made there in the beginning is questionable. Caliente is married with children. I'm sure he knows what a naked body looks like. Everyone has their own ideals and.... Im willing to bet he has a bit more modeling experience than just a week. 

 

Looks promising but the initial condescending tone seems a bit off putting. Good luck though. I also recommend setting smaller proportions as the default to make it easier to convert armors. 

 

Initial opinions though, your body doesn't hit the realism mark either. Thigh gaps are uncommon and your initial present has huge breasts so it will be less armor friendly for conversions. Thigh gaps are from slimmer body frames most commonly seen in Asia. That body doesn't hit that mark. 

 

In regards to your question about is it worth it that's up to you. One of the reasons there's only 2 bodies for Skyrim is because conversions become hassle which may add extra work on people who do outfits. I mainly do things for CBBE and I get daily messaged asking to port stuff to UNP  and old CBBE. I think in order to drive your own success better you should probably thinking about making initial ports of the vanilla armors to your body. Something UNP and CBBE do. Old Skyrim had more than 50 body types and you can imagine the night mare of dealing with incompatible armors. 

Thank you for your comments SunJeong, appreciated :smile:

 

I'm sorry you took my words as condescending but you misinterpreted the tongue-in-cheek nature of them, it certainly was not an accusation. The context is also important. I was mostly referring to the original models that came with Skyrim, and obviously those design decisions were not about accuracy but getting a working asset out the door. I also made lighthearted reference to different features, so I hope most take it as it was intended. Equally, as you said, everyone has their own ideals and opinions, which means similarly I'm free to state mine.

 

The body types (50) you mention, were they based on the original base meshes, i.e changed via tools like outfit studio (or adjusted in max), or new meshes made from scratch in something like zbrush? I don't know how Caliente made his designs but yes I'm sure he could do a better job of sculpting in zbrush, than I could. I can almost guarantee he wouldn't be offended because I suspect his aim wasn't sculpting for sculpting sake but getting a mod that best fits into the Skyrim eco system.

 

I don't know what is achievable using tools like bodyslide but if you are using for a template, the original models, changing it via sliders to morph the mesh, aren't you constrained by the initial meshes?

 


Ref the critique given. I would say this. At the start of the thread I mention my aim of somewhat sticking to UNP. It's early days, later down the line I intend to check things* like wider compatibility but at the moment, my model isn't meant to be a replacement for something like Caliente, or conform to what people perceive as a particular racial type. I can always adjust design decisions, as I gain further experience.

 

As to the realism of proportions, my reference is from a real person (small thigh gap included) but understand your point about the armours. Compared to Caliente and some others I've seen, mass-wise the breasts are not that much different but left as is, it would necessitate either a change of the model, or the armour. I had envisioned adjusting vanilla armours, depending on the final project direction.

 

*I'm not sure it's possible, I'm hoping I can import the mesh and then maybe build presets/make simple adjustments via outfitstudio, giving another way to adjust for compatibility, without re-sculpting the highpoly version. If so, then smaller proportioned variants could be made.

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Small update:

 

I'll just come out and say it....Lady parts, now I've got that over and done with, I can apologise to one half of the population everywhere, for butchering what is beautiful but very much less so on my model. 

 

I added it for completeness, it's only meant to be crudely simple for ease of such things as retop etc. I modified a few other areas, like the belly button.. I could fiddle ad-nauseam but essentially most of the shape is blocked in. I could go to town and add a lot more skin folds/greases, is it worth it...maybe maybe not. I'll probably add a skin pore layer though, purely for later texture purposes.

 

 

The current stumbling blocks for me are

 

1) I want to add the head part.

Not to make any real changes, except for the neck sculpting and making it easier to keep things aligned between head & body meshes. Armed with the info provided by slaen, I started digging - The tutorials I found so far for modifying head parts, assumes you are keeping the original meshes, i.e keeping the vertex count and order, and making very minor changes. Since I would have an entirely new mesh, I haven't worked out how I could use the existing morph targets, to ultimately make new .tri files etc. I found one tut that I think uses Rich Colburns Surface Follow plugin, that basically converts morph targets to shapekeys in blender. I hope there is something along the same lines in Max. The added difficulty is that I believe Beths opted for a propriety system, making it a royal pain for modders.

 

Edit: Scratch that, didn't think it through to the logical conclusion - even if I get everything working, it would mean people's custom looks wont work against the new mesh. 

 

 

2) Creating a preset in outfitsudio.

To create your own presets, my understanding is you need a starting point (an existing preset) to then convert to a new preset. Again, if the mesh is new, I'm not yet sure where to start, even if that scenario is possible.

 

 

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Update:

 

Added layers for skin pores and lower frequency undulations/bumps etc, plus one for very fine wrinkles, mainly to break up the final finish. Hands and Lady parts get some attention. Most are subtle but I've added some images anyway. 

 

Veins will be sculpted at the same time I start the texture process, since I can't think of a way that I could retain precise control to colour them, after the actual process of sculpting.

 

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Amazing work! This is the reason I was always using Vanilla body in Fallout 4, it's just more realistic than CBBE. I was hoping for realistic body in Skyrim for a long time.

with CBBE you can't do chubby body because it looks like everything is built with muscles instead of fat. This looks promising, keep it up!

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The body is pretty close to UNP bar the breasts, the idea was for it to be compatible with the systems for physics to work. I'm about as new to modding as sculpting but I did skin it with matching weights and ran a quick test. The breasts & butt, with the newer HDT SSE physics, worked nicely. I was not concentrating on the belly, and had toned it down in the xml but that was also responding. At some point I might try and add collision bounding areas because even with a quick test, I could see the breasts quivering to followers brushing by. 

 

Sorry, I'm not familiar with V genies, but guess that's the Lady parts? I haven't looked into that as yet. Presumably it's an additional mesh part. I've used the same A-frame pose dimensions, so imagine it 's a case of moving around vertex, to make it fit whatever body type that is out there. 

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On 11. 03. 2018. at 6:46 PM, littlejohn said:

 

Hands - King gong would be proud of those hands
Feet - Can they even be called feet, I've seen more attractive feet on an elephant.
Bo*bs - see above
Butt - two round comically large hemispheres does not a butt make.

 

Not sure ive ever seen elephant boobs... if i have probably didnt find them atractive enough to remember :smiley:

 

Nice work on a body. Looks like sexy mature woman's body. Can you show what it looks like in game?

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Kinky, icanglqueen, TheCrow1983 Thank you for your kind words. :smile:

 

Haha, yeah, I'm sure she does, and really there will be far more people who do, than my own perspective. I kinda regret saying it but it was just meant to be a dig at the awful Skyrim ones, and if I'm not wrong, most of the existing body types use an original base mesh as a starting point, and then modify it in outfitstudio, or blender/max. Meaning you are limited with what you can do. Maybe with my lack of experience, I've misunderstood the workflow people are using to create the body types.

 

I've also taken note of @SunJeong advice about smaller proportions (i.e breasts) but showing an initial concept sets a level of expectation...

 

 

Kinky  I just worked out what I did :smiley:

 

I haven't got any textures yet - for testing I had a uniform white gray set, or an existing texture that was skewed by unmatched uvs. I also did the testing with an older iteration of the body (sans feet and hands version), to see if the concept would actually work. I read that some people were having trouble with higher polycounts but I didn't see anything wrong.

 

I'm at the stage where I'm deciding the workflow for the textures. Either via something like painter with it's versatility to produce lots of variations once you've got the base done... but so far, the examples I've seen come across rather plastic looking. Or use more mainstream material design/projection mapping of real skin....or combination of all three. 

 

 

 

What I haven't tried yet, since this is key for wider usability, is how to create a preset in Outfitstudio with a mesh that is entirely new (i.e not converting from an existing one, to another). At some point I'll import into OS but prefer not flailing around wasting effort, if it's not possible. 

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8 hours ago, icanglqueen said:

I like the look of this body and would consider using it if it gets enough support.  Also this is irrelevant, but Caliente is female, so I'm sure she's familiar with what a woman's body looks like. :tongue:

:classic_blink:

Why does everyone think Caliente is female? Do me a favor:

Go to his CBBE mod page, press the button to donate to him, take a note of the email associated with his paypal, google that email, and you'll find his real name and a few tidbits about his life. He's a married man over 40 with 2-3 kids.

:classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh:

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On 24/03/2018 at 3:10 PM, SunJeong said:

:classic_blink:

Why does everyone think Caliente is female? Do me a favor:

Go to his CBBE mod page, press the button to donate to him, take a note of the email associated with his paypal, google that email, and you'll find his real name and a few tidbits about his life. He's a married man over 40 with 2-3 kids.

:classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh:

 

That's some serious sleuthing. :cool:

 

 

Male or female, mineral or vegetable, I never thought my first comment was controversial enough that we would end up debating Caliente's gender...also does he she live in the UK... it's all the rage to self-certify, or at least that's a policy some MPs, with entirely too much time on their hands, wish to make law. 

 

The other day we had a lady declaring herself a man, just wearing bottoms and a shower cap... so she could swim in a men only club.... I don't feel most men would object, it's the other way around the problems start.

 

 

 

 

Edit:

Haven't updated in a while, one of my pets was poorly and finally passed, so haven't felt much like working on it.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/24/2018 at 11:10 AM, SunJeong said:

:classic_blink:

Why does everyone think Caliente is female? Do me a favor:

Go to his CBBE mod page, press the button to donate to him, take a note of the email associated with his paypal, google that email, and you'll find his real name and a few tidbits about his life. He's a married man over 40 with 2-3 kids.

:classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh::classic_laugh:

I assumed Caliente was female due to this interview, that was up on the article section of the nexus site a few years back. They kept referring to Caliente as "she". If I've been misinformed then a bunch of others have been too due to this interview.

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