Xaltar

Thanks :) I have moved my work in progress thread over to the Planet Vampire forums where most of the VTM:B community still hangs out: https://forums.planetvampire.com/bloodlines-modding/new-mod-under-way/ Loads of updates posted over there for anyone interested in following the process ;)

New Ventrue male under way :cool: Coming out a lot better than I expected :dance:

So, I got bored with all the current AAA games and decided to go back and play some of the classics. As usual that led me back to VTM:B and as usual it ended up with me starting a new mod.... So here is a little teaser of where I am at and what I am working on. Take a look here Another character: I am not sure how much time I will have to work on this but it all came streaming back as soon as I got the tools set up again. I am reworking the models and textures to get things looking a little less 2000s and more appealing in 2018. As you all know, there is still no way to get new models in the game so vert pushing is the only available way to change models up. I will post up some more teasers as I go and eventually some files for testing. Enjoy :smile:

Hey all. Its been a while since I was active on the modding scene. I have been looking at ME:A and honestly, it's shocking how far our once loved Bioware has fallen. This game doesn't just need mods, it needs a complete rewrite and character model rework. I have seen the writing described as "sub par", that is being extremely kind IMO. What bothers me more is the shift by Bioware away from supporting the modding community. I can forgive a bad game with official modding tools, I can accept a decent game without them, what I can't stomach is a game that should be good but isn't and leaves you no avenues to correct it. I have always loved a "fixer upper", hell I like modding more than playing anyway. I had hoped that ME:A would provide me with a creative outlet (definitely a fixer upper) but it seems Bioware have completely forgone modding tools since DA:O. I think the worst game is the one that does so much right yet ends up being so terribly lacking. What happened to the standard of writing from Bioware we all once knew and loved? So, enough preamble, I have a few questions: 1. I see mention of polly pushing mesh editing possibly being on the table, is this true or is there no consensus yet? 2. Will it be possible to rewrite portions of the dialogue/story? 3. Will it be possible to add missions, NPCs etc? If the answers to any of these is no, I guess I will be looking for another title to lose myself in :down:

I had a feeling it was going south, I stopped uploading there when I resumed my mod because I noticed I could not update any of my older mods or add new files... I would pretend to be sad about it but I never did like the feel of the community there. The rating system killed it for me, there were always the jerks who would vote you down because your mod was rated higher than theirs or because the wanted anime heads not realistic ones etc. Maybe it was just me but I always felt pressured uploading to the vault. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of great people hanging out there but the rotten apples really got under my skin. The endorsement system is way better and you don't have to post anything to vote so not so many spammed comments. Still RIP NWNVault I got a lot of great mods there :(

Well its been an age but I have finally created a new female head, yet again after a second hard disk crash :S Not sure if I will use it for my facelift mod or not at the moment though seeing as it is in a different style from my existing facelift models.

I am almost done building my new base head now, I lost my old one and really didn't want to use one of the heads I have uploaded here as a base. Using one of the exported heads means I would need to requadrify the entire head then return it to a neutral shape and begin making new heads based on it. Making a new head from scratch is by far quicker and easier so here is my new base now just waiting for UVs and textures. Still a long way to go before I am ready to release anything but at least I have a starting point now and a much better one than my previous head that was some 3 years old, I have learned a lot since I made it. Just a quick update :cool:

A picture is worth a thousand words as they say so put up a screenshot of you mdb cloner screen with your model. That way we can see if you are missing something. So far as I remember you need to rename the file in mdb cloner, make sure the textures are pointed to where they should be and for a replacing head you should not need a gr2 file seeing as it will use the one that the original head used. If it were a gr2 problem the head would look wrong in game but will show. Your problem sounds like it is in the mdb cloning stage.

Still on it but things are really slow atm. Time is not as easy to set asside now but I hope to have something ready in a few weeks.

OK, finally back to work on this after a busy holiday period. I don't have the same free time I did when I started the project so be prepared for slow updates :( I am currently working on the Orcs and when they are done I will decide what to tackle next. I will post up an update for the orcs in the next few days. Keep checking in periodically for updates ;)

Yeah it will run skyrim fine, maybe even on high with AA and AF set to off and low shadow quality and a few tweaks. Your FPS will likely dip into the low 20s at times but by and large you should be over 30 which is playable enough.

Intel + Nvidia = top performance for sure but it also means much higher cost. AMD offers a much cheaper solution that may not compete in benchmarks but usually out performs its competition hands down when it comes to performance per $. If you want any hope of playing new games (skyrim not withstanding) you will need a discrete card, that is the one thing you can not compromise on if you plan to use your machine for gaming. If you just want something that can sort of manage a few games and costs less then by all means go for the integrated gfx solution but I as a rule do not recommend this to people who want more than a work machine. It all boils down to getting the best bang for your budget. If you want to go cheap then AMD is your only real choice but if you want to fork out for a proper system then Intel i7+Nvidia 680 is your best bet both for performance and thermal footprint. I personally go for the AMD setup seeing as I rotate my PC and lappy quite often so forking out for a more expensive system does not make financial sense.

Both systems should run Skyrim well enough assuming they both have discrete 7670 GFX. Basically you will want to look at reviews of both units to determine things like battery life, thermal output and reliability. Buying a laptop takes research unless you want to end up with a lemon and in many cases, more features simply = more to go wrong. As a general rule when I want to replace my lappy I think about how I plan to use it and make sure to only worry about the features I will need, avoiding additional features that add to cost and are not strictly needed. Always go for the larger RAM and video memory provided the hike in price is not more than it would cost you to upgrade via 3rd party, it adds to the longevity of your machine and means you will have some degree of future proofing. Laptops are not something you will want to be replacing on a yearly basis and they can't be upgraded like a PC so always try to get one that is as beefy as possible spec wise from the outset (barring the stupidly priced "Gaming" rubbish obviously). If there is an option for a more powerful processor however, always check the reviews to make sure that the machine can handle the thermal output of the greedier CPU, a lot of the time the faster CPU ends up causing overheating in a machine designed for a lower thermal footprint. In other words, do the research and do it right, there is nothing worse than blowing a bundle on a new machine and having it fail to perform or worse, fail altogether a few weeks after it exceeds its warranty and ALWAYS get the extended warranty when buying a laptop if at all possible. Hope this helps.

Did you use a driver cleaner app when you removed your old card's drivers? I have found more often than not that when I have performance issues on a new card it is because the old drivers didn't uninstall fully and files get left behind that conflict with the new card. Especially the case when you switch Nvidia to AMD or vice versa. Driver Cleaner Pro is my go to cleaner app but there are many other free apps out there that can do the job. The regular uninstaller never does a proper job of it sadly.

With me its always the eyes, the eyelids either narrow or the eyes pop forward out of the sockets and if I equip a bow one eye closes partially and clips through the eye socket. Kelgar (who is still the vanilla head in my installation) has his eyes popping out all the time. I am not sure if its a patch issue or something messed up in my install. I have cleared my override folders and tried everything short of a full reinstall and nothing seems to fix it. I would do a fresh install but my disks are at home and we are staying with the inlaws atm :S

Does anyone else get weird animation ticks when they equip weapons? I have noticed that more often than not the eyes tend to bug out, at first I thought it was something wrong with my rigging but it seems to be the case on the vanilla heads for me too so I am guessing its a game bug but I would like to know if it is just me or if it happens to others too. It makes my headpack difficult to test which is why I am posting this here rather than the troubleshooting section. If it is indeed a bug then moderation please feel free to move this to the appropriate section. If not then I need look through my installation and rigging :S

Hehe it couldn't be small. I have been using 3ds max for almost 9 years ;) But I may write up something small about editing my sdk and making new variations ;)

My Christmas gift is now up. I will likely update the documentation once I have a little more time on my hands but the files should work. The head is a little different from my facelift pack heads in that it is designed more for realism than to fit in with the existing art style so the proportions and textures will look a little out of place next to the vanilla models and my facelift heads. Why? Because I wanted to showcase both what NWN2 is capable of as well as my own skills. I used Makehuman to create a base head and then used that in Zbrush to create the base for the head in the SDK. I then did all the work needed to get it into NWN2 and released the source files for you all to enjoy and have a poke around at :) This project actually took longer than making a whole headpack seeing as I was trying to cram every last little detail I could into it as well as starting with a fresh base without textures or useable UVs (Makehuman has the head on the same UV as the body which is not a good idea for NWN2). Now I will be on hiatus for a while with Xmas and new year but once things settle back to normal at home I will get back on the horse and finish up my Facelift pack :) Enjoy the little gift guys and have a lovely holiday :)

Soon hehe, I don't like posting updates at certain stages. There are phases in my workflow that can be misleading regarding how the finished model will look ;) I have put the mod aside for a few weeks for the holidays so I can focus on family but I will be uploading an Xmas gift for the community in the next few days but I don't want to ruin the surprise so I will say no more (it is not part of my Facelift pack).

It is going to take me a while for the next few updates, with Christmas coming I have a lot to do at home. The Half Orcs are coming along nicely but I am guessing they will likely not be ready for release before January. Rest assured this project is still going on and I am spending almost every free moment I have working on it ;)

Yup the half orcs are what I am working on at the moment. I am still working on the hair pack too, it is taking me a while because I am not too familiar with creating hair models, especially with only a 1bit alpha channel, it makes it hard to create smooth looking transparencies. I am quite pleased with my new orc design, it fits a lot better with the NWN concepts and does not use my orc concept I created for my Dragon Age module :) I will try and post up some more regular updates here now that I have my internet back :)

I do like Zbrush but the last revision of mudbox I used was hugely inferior to zbrush at the time. I don't know what its like now and I don't like changing tools ;)

1. I use 3dsmax 2011 and the tools work fine for me. I use Tazpn's 3dsmax tools. As for Zbrush I use 3.5 2. I create my textures after unwrapping UVs in 3ds max before I export my low poly into Zbrush and then I tweak the uvs on the new low poly in 3ds max after export from Zbrush to remove any ugly texture stretching my sculpting may have caused. 3. I typically build my textures in layers, starting with a base skin tone, then adding defects like darker spots, noise and a few other little details to create a decent skin-like look. Once I have my base skin tone I then render set up a basic 3 point light setup in 3ds max and render to texture with shadows and lighting. I overly my shadow map on top of my skin base in paintshop pro 7 (been using it since it came out and never bothered to change to PS seeing as I know PSP better). This starts to give me something resembling a texture and gives me an idea of where the details need to be. From there I go to my reference folder (pictures I have collected of faces, eyes, skin etc over the years) and start adding overlays to sharpen up the details. I use photo sourcing in conjunction with hand painting and multiply/overlay/lighting filters to create a high quality texture. Once I am done with my basic texture I then use my normal map that I baked to add in some shading where the normal map has deeper folds and creases to make the normal map pop. It has taken me years to develop this process and I have drawn on numerous tutorials and advice from more experienced modelers that I have come to know on various 3d art sites I frequent. Its a lot of work and takes a long time to learn but well worth the effort and not impossible at all if you stick to it ;)

Feel free to ask here, likely most if not all your questions will have something to do with how I made this mod ;) I would prefer to keep this to one thread.

Well I start out usually in Max, create my low poly then import that into Zbrush for sculpting. Once I have my high poly fleshed out to the detail level I want it I then drop to the lowest subdivision (my raw base mesh) and export that to be used as the low poly then export the highest subdivision and use that to bake my normals in Max. Then begins the arduous process of rigging the model to the nwn2 skeleton. Usually I will simply import an existing model that is similar to my own, attach my model to it in the poly/mesh edit interface and delete the original model leaving only my model. This tends to auto rig the model close enough to save a few hours of fiddling, then you need to fine tune the rig to get it to animate cleanly. It all sounds relatively simple but in practice I have often spent days rigging a single armor or head :S Alternatively, I sometimes start out in Zbrush with a box or sphere and sculpt my head from there and then retopologize it when I am done with the high poly to create the low. That takes more time but can yield better results. It is also useful for quick concepting and visualizing. I have been messing with 3ds max and Zbrush for years now and still often find myself stuck or in need of a tutorial with something. I have not touched the animations nor is it likely that I will seeing as I don't have 3dsmax 8/9 and the only exporter that works for animations requires it. The animations themselves are not all that bad but with the lower poly vanilla heads they did look a lot worse than with my heads. If you have any specific questions I would be happy to try and answer them.