New Children Mod

[megageeklizzy]

I'm working on a new child mod, but I don't know how to make the vanilla children races use adult (meaning those used by adult races, not explicit) bodies. If you know how to, please explain it to me. If it is impossible, please let me know so I can stop trying to make it work. THIS MOD IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SEXUAL, I JUST WANT TO REPLACE THE POTATO CHILDREN. The rest of this message is just about what I am doing with the mod. If you just want to help me and move on, feel free to skip the rest of the post.

 

I'm not promising that this will be done at any point in the near future, but I thought that I'd put my ideas online to see if there's really any demand for this kind of mod and maybe get some help.

 

While screwing around in BodySlide trying to make a new female body shape, it occurred to me that the smaller body sizes were reminiscent of Skykids, the mod that I currently use for children. I've been messing around a bit, and I've made two children bodies with slightly different shapes, one with a bra for girls, and one without a bra for boys. Both have underwear. I may try to replace the underwear for the boys with the vanilla male one.

 

Right now, I am trying to think of the mod in stages. I am currently working on another mod, so development might be slow, but I think I'll be more likely to work on this if I make a post about it so people can nag at me and give me ideas. Anyway, here are the stages, each of which would be a fully standalone plugin(each stage will include all previous stages):

 

1. Adds replacer bodies and heads for children, converts child clothes to new bodies.

 

2. Creates child and child vampire races for all vanilla races, optionally makes children playable.

 

3. Adds some new child NPCs, some of which are followers, and allows adopted children to be followers.

 

4. Makes vanilla and DLC jewelry and hats playable by children.

 

5. Adds child versions of basic vanilla armors.

 

6. Adds child versions of basic DLC armors.

 

7. Makes jewelry and hats from popular mods playable by children.

 

8. Adds child versions of armor added by popular mods.

 

9. Adds smithing recipes to convert child armor and additional materials to adult armor, and vise versa.

 

10 - ?. Makes requested changes.

 

Quite possibly I'll get to stage 2 or 3 and then get bored and give up, but I am at least going to try to get far enough to release. The more people who seem interested, the more motivated I will be. Let me know what you think. Thank you for reading.

Edited July 17, 2015 by megageeklizzy

[fore]

Children race with female body shape, eh?

 

I don't think this is a good idea. At the adult site wit the 2 L this is an definite no no. I don't think that should be possible here.

[megageeklizzy]

Er...I didn't mean to sound like a pervert. They don't have breasts or anything. It isn't intended to be sexual in any way. Maybe I need to re-word my opening post.

[Rabbit1251]

Er...I didn't mean to sound like a pervert. They don't have breasts or anything. It isn't intended to be sexual in any way. Maybe I need to re-word my opening post.

...and NO nudity for children!! This will get you banned pronto. Remember to give the bodies underwear.

 

Are you planning to do male, female and beast races?

 

 

Rabbit

[megageeklizzy]

 

Er...I didn't mean to sound like a pervert. They don't have breasts or anything. It isn't intended to be sexual in any way. Maybe I need to re-word my opening post.

...and NO nudity for children!! This will get you banned pronto. Remember to give the bodies underwear.

 

Are you planning to do male, female and beast races?

 

 

Rabbit

 

Yes, they have underwear. I now realize that I didn't explicitly say that, sorry.

 

I am planning to do male, female, and beast races.

[ToppDog]

The reason the bodies you made look similar to SkyKids is because that's how they made that mod. The body meshes are not really the problem with the vanilla children. It's the ugly body textures & the heads that all look the same, along with not having enough clothes & hair options, etc. There are already about five or so children overhaul mods out there, & many of them suffer from the same problems - the faces don't look like they belong in this game, & the children still all end up looking the same. Of all the ones out there, the most promising one that seems to add in a variety of faces without straying too far from vanilla is Skyrim Child Overhaul.

 

As the creator of a boarding school mod for Skyrim, I would love to see a decent child overhaul mod that will help me add variety to the looks of the close to 100 students I have running around. So, if you're serious about going forward, please keep the following in mind for me & other modders like me who may want to use your mod:

 

1. Don't change the body meshes too much - many of the animations used in the game by children will only look correct if the current body size/shape/scaling is maintained.

 

2. Come up with multiple face types for every single type of child in the game, so there will not be too many kids that look the same.

 

3. Make them compatible with the various hairstyle mods out there.

 

4. Include every elf & beast race child type. I cannot stress how badly this is missing from the game.

 

5. Instead of changing all the children to be a new race, replace ALL the child meshes/textures etc. so that any other vanilla child NPC created in the CK will also use the same meshes/textures, so all the children still look similar. Or, release your mod as a resource so other mods can create child NPCs that look similar. Neither of these things has been done by any of the previous child overhaul mods to my knowledge.

 

6. Lots of outfits! There are a few mods that allow kids to wear adult outfits, but many are too buggy to mess with. There are also a couple mods that have a bunch of child replacer outfits, but they only replace the five default outfit types, instead of adding to them, so the children still end up looking all the same. The mod creators either aren't very active, or don't speak English well enough to communicate effectively with. It's a shame really, because these are some of the best retextures of the default child outfits I've seen, & they cannot all be used simultaneously.

 

7. I know the kids are supposed to have underwear by default, but how about having options as to style or color? For example, my mod has kids using a large swimming pool that uses an undress/unequip script to change them from their normal outfits to their underwear when entering the pool. I would rather the girls look like they're wearing a one-piece instead of a bikini, & I would like the boys underwear to look a little longer, like swimming trunks.

 

I can't think of anything else right now, but good luck!

[megageeklizzy]

The reason the bodies you made look similar to SkyKids is because that's how they made that mod. The body meshes are not really the problem with the vanilla children. It's the ugly body textures & the heads that all look the same, along with not having enough clothes & hair options, etc. There are already about five or so children overhaul mods out there, & many of them suffer from the same problems - the faces don't look like they belong in this game, & the children still all end up looking the same. Of all the ones out there, the most promising one that seems to add in a variety of faces without straying too far from vanilla is Skyrim Child Overhaul.

 

As the creator of a boarding school mod for Skyrim, I would love to see a decent child overhaul mod that will help me add variety to the looks of the close to 100 students I have running around. So, if you're serious about going forward, please keep the following in mind for me & other modders like me who may want to use your mod:

 

1. Don't change the body meshes too much - many of the animations used in the game by children will only look correct if the current body size/shape/scaling is maintained.

 

2. Come up with multiple face types for every single type of child in the game, so there will not be too many kids that look the same.

 

3. Make them compatible with the various hairstyle mods out there.

 

4. Include every elf & beast race child type. I cannot stress how badly this is missing from the game.

 

5. Instead of changing all the children to be a new race, replace ALL the child meshes/textures etc. so that any other vanilla child NPC created in the CK will also use the same meshes/textures, so all the children still look similar. Or, release your mod as a resource so other mods can create child NPCs that look similar. Neither of these things has been done by any of the previous child overhaul mods to my knowledge.

 

6. Lots of outfits! There are a few mods that allow kids to wear adult outfits, but many are too buggy to mess with. There are also a couple mods that have a bunch of child replacer outfits, but they only replace the five default outfit types, instead of adding to them, so the children still end up looking all the same. The mod creators either aren't very active, or don't speak English well enough to communicate effectively with. It's a shame really, because these are some of the best retextures of the default child outfits I've seen, & they cannot all be used simultaneously.

 

7. I know the kids are supposed to have underwear by default, but how about having options as to style or color? For example, my mod has kids using a large swimming pool that uses an undress/unequip script to change them from their normal outfits to their underwear when entering the pool. I would rather the girls look like they're wearing a one-piece instead of a bikini, & I would like the boys underwear to look a little longer, like swimming trunks.

 

I can't think of anything else right now, but good luck!

I actually asked the creators of Skykids if the body meshes were made using CBBE, and they told me that wasn't the case. CBBE textures work perfectly on them, so I know there has to be some connection. Anyway, the reason I want to make my own body is that basing one off of CBBE instead of the vanilla child body allows users to choose from any of the countless CBBE skin textures for the children. I also think it would be nice to have a working weight slider.

 

I liked the Skyrim Child Overhaul that you mentioned, but the author has decided to quit modding. I should check to see if that has changed or if maybe he gave permissions. However, using his assets would lead to a much different final product - children using the default child body. The primary issue with this is that beast race children would end up looking weird compared to the other children. It would also mean that there couldn't be weight slider support, and I'm not sure if there could even be custom facegen data(just a few different faces to choose from, instead of different noses, mouth shapes, etc.). It would also require its own textures. It just seemed like going with the vanilla child body posed too many issues. That's why I want to make new ones in BodySlide. Basing children on adults will also allow for the use of hairs, eyes, and other facial features by children.

 

Obviously there are pros and cons to both using an adult(from adult character assets, not explicit) body and using a child body. It's a difficult decision for me, honestly.

 

1. The body meshes I came up with aren't too far from the vanilla child mesh. The lightest weight is a little smaller than vanilla children, and the heaviest is bigger. They don't look anorexic or obese at either end of the scale. There might be a little bit of clipping with the biggest kids, but I kind of doubt it, as they aren't really that much bigger than vanilla. My main concern is that their necks look way too long and thin, but of course that is a part of the head mesh, which I am not going to mess with. Obviously, if I go with the vanilla child body, animations won't be a problem.

 

2. If I go with the adult-based body, children will have facegen data just like adults. I can make several presets, if you would like. If I go with the vanilla child body, I'll probably only be able to use what I can find in existing mods that change children.

 

3. If they are based on adults, I believe that they will automatically have all hairstyles that are available to the adults of their race. If they are based on vanilla children, I believe they are limited to the child hairstyles. I think there are four or five. I'm not sure how I would convert other hairs for them.

 

4. I agree very strongly, and this is one of the reasons that I feel compelled to make this mod. I will absolutely include beast and elf races. This will be far easier with adult-based children, as the head will not line up properly with a child body. I may be able to find a way to work around it, though. I'm not sure.

 

5. This is where the adult-based idea falls flat. There is no way (that I know of) to make the vanilla child races use adult bodies(or any bodies that have weight sliders). Therefore, it would be necessary to convert all existing children to the new race in order to have them affected by this mod. A new vanilla-style child body would be able to overwrite the original, and would automatically affect all existing children, including children in mods. Adult-based children would have to be patched for mods that add children.

 

6. I plan to make children clothes and adult clothes work on children by making new child versions of adult stuff. Child armor would be hard to find because most kids stay in their cities, and kids wouldn't be able to wear adult armor because it wouldn't fit.

 

7. I would have no idea how to go about doing this on the child-based body, but an adult-based body could easily have any of the countless underwear or skin texture mods applied to them. There's probably a one-piece and swim trunks for CBBE somewhere on the internet, but I'm honestly too tired to look at the moment.

 

Anyway thanks for the interest. Oh, and thanks for being the first person to not think I'm a pervert. I think based on the pros and cons that I'm leaning toward adult based children, but I'll have to think about it. Let me know if you have any other thoughts/recommendations/concerns. Thanks again.

[ToppDog]

 

I actually asked the creators of Skykids if the body meshes were made using CBBE, and they told me that wasn't the case. CBBE textures work perfectly on them, so I know there has to be some connection. Anyway, the reason I want to make my own body is that basing one off of CBBE instead of the vanilla child body allows users to choose from any of the countless CBBE skin textures for the children. I also think it would be nice to have a working weight slider.

 

I liked the Skyrim Child Overhaul that you mentioned, but the author has decided to quit modding. I should check to see if that has changed or if maybe he gave permissions. However, using his assets would lead to a much different final product - children using the default child body. The primary issue with this is that beast race children would end up looking weird compared to the other children. It would also mean that there couldn't be weight slider support, and I'm not sure if there could even be custom facegen data(just a few different faces to choose from, instead of different noses, mouth shapes, etc.). It would also require its own textures. It just seemed like going with the vanilla child body posed too many issues. That's why I want to make new ones in BodySlide. Basing children on adults will also allow for the use of hairs, eyes, and other facial features by children.

 

Obviously there are pros and cons to both using an adult(from adult character assets, not explicit) body and using a child body. It's a difficult decision for me, honestly.

 

1. The body meshes I came up with aren't too far from the vanilla child mesh. The lightest weight is a little smaller than vanilla children, and the heaviest is bigger. They don't look anorexic or obese at either end of the scale. There might be a little bit of clipping with the biggest kids, but I kind of doubt it, as they aren't really that much bigger than vanilla. My main concern is that their necks look way too long and thin, but of course that is a part of the head mesh, which I am not going to mess with. Obviously, if I go with the vanilla child body, animations won't be a problem.

 

I don't think you would have to necessarily go with vanilla bodies as long as the ones you create have similar skeletons & are scaled the same so animations look correct.

 

2. If I go with the adult-based body, children will have facegen data just like adults. I can make several presets, if you would like. If I go with the vanilla child body, I'll probably only be able to use what I can find in existing mods that change children.

 

This sounds really good.

 

3. If they are based on adults, I believe that they will automatically have all hairstyles that are available to the adults of their race. If they are based on vanilla children, I believe they are limited to the child hairstyles. I think there are four or five. I'm not sure how I would convert other hairs for them.

 

Yes, you are correct, the vanilla options are very few, basing the heads on adult heads is probably the way to go.

 

4. I agree very strongly, and this is one of the reasons that I feel compelled to make this mod. I will absolutely include beast and elf races. This will be far easier with adult-based children, as the head will not line up properly with a child body. I may be able to find a way to work around it, though. I'm not sure.

 

Maybe there is a way to use the adult heads on a new body that is the correct size etc. when compared to vanilla that has a shorter & thicker neck so they will match up. This is probably the biggest trick to overcome, but once you find a way to match up the adult heads with a body that works, you will probably be able to use many of the existing textures to create child versions of every adult race in the game pretty easily.

 

5. This is where the adult-based idea falls flat. There is no way (that I know of) to make the vanilla child races use adult bodies(or any bodies that have weight sliders). Therefore, it would be necessary to convert all existing children to the new race in order to have them affected by this mod. A new vanilla-style child body would be able to overwrite the original, and would automatically affect all existing children, including children in mods. Adult-based children would have to be patched for mods that add children.

 

This sounds really good, & is what I believe not many of the other child overhaul mods have done yet, as many players have told me they tried using various child mods & they do not change the children in my mod from vanilla to whatever mod they are using. I made my children be vanilla on purpose so that using a child replacer mod could change them, so that the players could have the freedom to use whichever overhaul mod they liked. But many, if not all of them, didn't actually replace the actual default meshes as part of their mods, so only the NPCs they created were altered, & any new NPC's would still revert to default. You would be way ahead of everyone else if your mod also did this, as everyone in Skyrim wouldn't have to ask you for a patch or for permission to use your assets as a resource.

 

6. I plan to make children clothes and adult clothes work on children by making new child versions of adult stuff. Child armor would be hard to find because most kids stay in their cities, and kids wouldn't be able to wear adult armor because it wouldn't fit.

 

If you have to end up ditching the child clothes to get the adult clothes working, that's a tradeoff I'm sure many would be okay with. There are only five child clothing sets as it is, & they are all exactly the same except for the textures, so no big loss there.

 

7. I would have no idea how to go about doing this on the child-based body, but an adult-based body could easily have any of the countless underwear or skin texture mods applied to them. There's probably a one-piece and swim trunks for CBBE somewhere on the internet, but I'm honestly too tired to look at the moment.

 

Well, I think the main thing when creating children races, is that their bodies with zero clothes on can't have genitals & have to have a texture that looks like they are wearing underwear. It has to be built into the body texture instead of being an actual clothes item. This should be relatively easy to do & you might even be able to use the existing vanilla textures for this part. My thought was that maybe since you have to do this anyway, maybe there could be a few different options for color etc. I don't know what mod I have that's doing it, but all my NPCs including children have their underwear colored blue. So, for example, maybe the mod can be offered with a few underwear color or style options. These would all be different colored modifications to the body textures only, so, for example, I might choose to download the file for children with rustic tunic colored underwear, vs. white, black, red, etc. But, hey, if you end up making a mod that has everything else but this, I'll love you forever anyway, so this is just a wishlist item :smile:

 

Anyway thanks for the interest. Oh, and thanks for being the first person to not think I'm a pervert. I think based on the pros and cons that I'm leaning toward adult based children, but I'll have to think about it. Let me know if you have any other thoughts/recommendations/concerns. Thanks again.

 

 

It's a huge project in an area I don't really know how to mod, but I do know that many people would like it. My mod, Dragons Keep, currently adds in an additional 78 child NPCs to the game's original 42. And, I would really like to be able to have a variety of child races, with different appearances & outfits roaming around. So, if you design your mod so other modders can use it to create NPCs, or just want some other modders to include your creations in their mods, I would definitely be interested.

Edited July 19, 2015 by ToppDog

[megageeklizzy]

I have the child bodies looking how I want, but I'm having some serious issues with the faces. They're...gross. I'll link a screenshot. If anybody knows why the faces are doing that, I'd be very grateful. All I did was take the Custom Races mod ( http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8720/? ), changed the bodies(which worked fine), and replaced the head meshes with those of female adults. The girls' faces are a little lighter than the rest of the body, but look normal otherwise. Beast races are fine, male and female.

 

Here's the image: http://i.imgur.com/Kb2m8kT.jpg

[ToppDog]

I have the child bodies looking how I want, but I'm having some serious issues with the faces. They're...gross. I'll link a screenshot. If anybody knows why the faces are doing that, I'd be very grateful. All I did was take the Custom Races mod ( http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8720/? ), changed the bodies(which worked fine), and replaced the head meshes with those of female adults. The girls' faces are a little lighter than the rest of the body, but look normal otherwise. Beast races are fine, male and female.

 

Here's the image: http://i.imgur.com/Kb2m8kT.jpg

 

The chest & nipple areas still look off. Kids are completely flat chested, & their nipples are lower & more towards the center. If this is only a texture, then it is easy to fix, but if it is mesh with breast contour & nipple shape, then it may be harder to edit out. It will look weird on boys, but probably not matter too much for girls since they will have a textured on bra. Not sure what is going on with the face textures. Maybe they did not reposition/stretch themselves with the changes that were made to the face meshes?