Masochistic Re-meshing and UV mapping.. of bodies..

[iClustaFlux]

Looking for some input from more experienced modders around here.

 

..first a little bit about the journey.

 

Basically i decided to pick up skyrim again a couple of weeks ago and decided to look at visual enhancement mods, got myself a few general HD texture and lighting mods making everything look a bit prettier, and then turned my attention to body/armour beautification.

 

I didn't want to break away to far from the vanilla content, and started going over the female body mods and vanilla armour re-fit mods.

 

The only female body mod that a found to be really pleasing realistically is the UNP mod by DIMONIZED, which also helpfully has an armour re-fit mod by exeter.

 

Got both mods plugged in and running nicely, but quickly started noticing some nasty weighting issues and clipping as i played. So my first reaction was to see if there was anything i could do as far as fixing this, so i ended up installing (*cringes*) blender 2.49 and everything i needed for extracting/tweaking skyrims .nif files

 

...before i go any further, It should be noted im NOT knocking these guys - both have put a good deal of time and effort, and done a pretty damn good job.

 

Anyhow..

 

Upon getting both a vanilla female body mesh and a UNP mesh into blender, getting the corresponding textures loaded in and taking a moment to analyse the UV maps (before i even started looking at armours) i started to see problems, problems that could most likely be solved and also be a benefit to future modders.

 

Now, for some strange reason, i actually enjoy UV unwrapping, which means i also pay a HUGE amount of attention to how space is used, and how much distortion is going on. ..so i got totally side-tracked..

 

 

What im contemplating doing (and where your experience, wisdom and possible interest comes in) :

 

1) Create a base body mesh with better topology, far lower poly count than currently available body mesh mods yet retain detail in crucial areas ...i know how people love their perfectly smooth boobies for example but i can easily model that feature with a far lower count than the current options while retaining that perfect silhouette (something like this should put less strain on the CPU with a boob physics mod?)

 

2) Break down UV maps into better proportioned peices, this would lead to being able to get more detail into the maps and it would be more uniform with less stretched/squished poly's. Moving tail textures into their own files would free up a tonne of space for the torso to give more resolution (and less wasted space in non beast-race torso textures) I would of course re-bake all vanilla textures to the new map(s) so that they could be worked with. I'm aware this would cause a lot of incompatibility with other mods, but at the same time it should probably give artists something better to work with?

 

3) kinda a side note.. but.. make damn sure all the correct vertex group partitions are there so the engine can swap items out as and when needed properly (prevent nasty clipping with booties and gloves)

 

4) lastly, re-fit vanilla armours to my resulting body, and ensure they are properly weighted and create derivative variants in the like of bandit (fur) armour - i don't think i've seen anyone else do this? but then i haven't been around here very long..

 

 

To summarise my intentions:

 

- Properly optimised high quality, or "HD", base mesh.

- Greatly optimised UV maps for higher possible texture quality.

- Proper vertex group partitioning.

- Lore friendly vanilla armour re-fit (with eventual derivative variant options)

 

 

So what are your thoughts / critiques / interests on any / all points?

[hoodoo_man]

I don't think it's a bad idea. I would definitely take a look at it. There is no "standard" body replacement for Skyrim yet, although it's getting harder and harder to get one noticed. The vanilla armor convert is a must, and custom armors will boost your popularity, too. Actually, what would probably be most in demand is not a body that improved performance as fps hits don't seem a big deal to that many players, but rather a mod that was easy to create or adapt existing armors for. Being as your character almost never walks around naked (YMMV), a nice body mod is good--but it's usually more a question of which one has the most/best armor/clothing mod support--and your personal aesthetics. I, for example, still like "Muscular Women" but I'm a freak ;)! I just wish there was a way to give separate body AND armor meshes to different races. Good luck if you do decide to proceed!

 

BTW., you like uv-unwrapping? I thought I was freaky. Isn't there an app for that :P?

 

Hoodoo_Man