GingerArcher

You'll need Nifskope to edit the .nif files, (Specifically the BSLightingShaderProperty) and change the specular settings/color.

Sooooo..... The weekend is coming to an end. I bet you guys are wondering about my progress? :laugh: Well... I'll just leave this here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52564/? To sum things up: The mod isn't *completely* finished yet: I still need to do the size 1 female conversion for both the square/round set. (kinda a pain in the rear) Still needs open-faced helmets. Still need to get the damn burning effect on the sword to look better. (Probably the toughest remaining fix) Lastly the tail armor turned out to be a little more troublesome. It turns out I'll need to add it as a separate armor piece, and add some conditions to the quest to give the extra piece if the player is using a beast race character. After digging through a few other beast mods, it seems that there's not really any easy way to have the game automatically add the tail armor as an included piece of the body armor. :down: So it's not quite finished, but it's completely playable. I know you guys have been VERY patient about waiting for this, so I didn't want to make you wait any longer. :laugh: Please, enjoy! If you find any bugs/glitches, please let me know so I can address them. I'm hoping to have those last few things ironed out in the next few days, with any luck. Though those sword effects are still confounding me. :laugh: :sick:

Ok, just so you're not thinking I've vanished... :laugh: Yea, I'll do something with that bump on the lower chest. You're right that it seems odd now. I think we're pretty close to having the female bod ironed out though now, eh? I've been working on the enchantment thing. I misinterpreted that mod's description though, and it turns out he used racial perks to apply his bonuses rather than the faction system. So I won't be able to *directly* use his system for our needs. I did, however, learn quite a bit about how he got the effects to work and managed to get a bit closer to a working version of this one. :cool: I need to do some testing on it with characters of different levels just to be sure it's continuing to work up the line, but it should be good. I also learned a few other tricks that I'm debating on throwing into this mod, but I wanna test those first too before I spill the beans. :devil: All in all, I think we're getting really close to a release now! so when will we expect a release? also after this could you try garland from the original final fantasy? Hey guys :cool: That's *technically* correct. I've got 2 other mods I'm working on at the same time, that are also very close to finished, so I'll be wrapping those up once I'm done with this one. After that though, Kain's gear is next on my agenda, and someone had asked if I could try doing Golbez's as well. I'd have to see what kind of references are out there for Garland, but it's certainly a possibility. As for a release date: It depends on how much my kids distract me over the next few days, but I'm *hoping* to have it finished up by this weekend. :devil: It's awfully close now.

Ok, just so you're not thinking I've vanished... :laugh: Yea, I'll do something with that bump on the lower chest. You're right that it seems odd now. I think we're pretty close to having the female bod ironed out though now, eh? I've been working on the enchantment thing. I misinterpreted that mod's description though, and it turns out he used racial perks to apply his bonuses rather than the faction system. So I won't be able to *directly* use his system for our needs. I did, however, learn quite a bit about how he got the effects to work and managed to get a bit closer to a working version of this one. :cool: I need to do some testing on it with characters of different levels just to be sure it's continuing to work up the line, but it should be good. I also learned a few other tricks that I'm debating on throwing into this mod, but I wanna test those first too before I spill the beans. :devil: All in all, I think we're getting really close to a release now!

Alrighty then, I'll see about doing an open-faced helmet as well. :laugh: I did tweak the female stomach, but it's very subtle. I'll add a pic here for you to check out. I'm still not 100% sold on it, but it's better. http://i.imgur.com/74QG664.jpg I wish I had known about that vamp mod earlier. I haven't started tearing into the files yet to confirm it, but based just on reading the description, I think I figured out how he managed it. It sounds like he created a faction that advances the player's rank based on the # of bites, and each new rank increases the stat bonuses. Very, very clever. If I'm interpreting that right, it should be cakewalk to create a similar system for our needs. Wish I had thought of it. :laugh: Fingers crossed. :cool:

Yea, I can upload the separate Argonian helmet as an optional file, like the planned CBBE patch. That'd be easy. Oooo I haven't tried that vamp overhaul yet, so I'll take a look at it and see how it works. Might shed some light on the issue at least. Hmmm.... Possibly... I'm not sure how it would look without the mask on the front. (They *are* separate meshes, so it'd be easy enough to at least attempt) Lots of food for thought tonight. :laugh:

Yea, unfortunately, scaling the helmet up enough to make the snout not an issue makes it HUGE, and looks even goofier. :mellow: If you don't like the way it's working out, we can drop the snout as you said. The enchantment's proving to be a serious pain. I've even looked at custom enchantments people have made for other mods, but none have the repeating/constantly increasing type of thing we're looking for. At this point, I'm thinking it would be a lot easier if I create multiple versions of the gear, (easily done in the CK), and create a set of quests to "trade up" after set #'s of kills. Would that be a decent enough substitute if the enchantment proves to be un-doable?

Ok, so I made some changes. Put the eyes back in the head where they belong, and added some plating on the snout to try and hide the "stretched" look. Let me know what you think of this look: http://i.imgur.com/tURKS6m.png

Ok, I'll put a little twist on the Khajit horns. :laugh: On the Argonians... I tried to keep the stretching to a minimum as much as I could, while still accounting for the longer snout. Looking at those pics, I can see the eyes got stretched far too much though, so I'll definitely be adjusting those back a bit. Maybe that will help. I think I'll try a really subtle crease down the centerline, to simulate a female's typically flatter stomach/navel. Maybe that'll be enough to break up that solid plate without going overboard.

Fair enough. Here comes a flood of pics. :laugh: First up, new female stomach plate: http://i.imgur.com/6kJyaQd.jpg Next, the Argonian helmet, from 2 angles: http://i.imgur.com/p46GJG1.jpg http://i.imgur.com/mooBoSr.jpg And last, the Khajit helmet, 2 angles again: http://i.imgur.com/9YdFJjl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/YSjrBM2.jpg (Note that I haven't added tail armor yet, but it's coming) So... thoughts? Good? No?

That's a possibility. I'll have to browse around and see if there's anything similar out there.

Aaaaaaand with that, it's bedtime. Let me know what you think. :devil: http://i.imgur.com/YibFJ5C.png

Ok, so... I'm ignoring the enchantments tonight. They pissed me off. :laugh: Back to modeling instead. Here's the example of the female set with a flat stomach plate instead of the imitation 6-pack. I like it, but it almost looks just a little too plain now, like it's missing something. Thoughts? http://i.imgur.com/3rtdw6p.png Also... It's been a few days since I posted any visible update to whet the tastebuds, so I suppose I'd better do that. :laugh: Say hello to the kitty helmet! :devil: http://i.imgur.com/PcGjhnX.png Since the ears were the biggest obstacle, I figured what better way to hide them, than turn a couple horns into "caps" the ears can hide in. :laugh: What ya think? Feline enough, without being hugely different from the original? Currently working on the lizard helm, hoping to have it done tonight as well. :devil:

Thanks for the assist, any help is welcome. :cool: In both cases, the enchantment is *supposed* to be increasing a stat on the player (attack power on the weapon, defensive power on the armor) based on the # of people they've killed. This is actually a (global) misc variable that skyrim already keeps track of, so it was simple to attach it on the enchantments as a condition. Essentially, Enchantment becomes active when: peoplekilled >= 5. Since this is a global variable specific to the player, the fact that the armor isn't the item doing the killing shouldn't really make a difference. The confusing part is that from what I can understand looking through them, the weapon one only working once then stopping makes some sense, because the enchantment fires off as soon as that count of 5 is reached. Apparently the further conditions to increase it at 10, 15, 20, etc are therefore never reached. The armor one confuses me more though, because it seems like it *should* be working correctly. Armor enchantments are considered a "constant effect," whereas weapon enchantments are called "fire and forget" where they only cast when the weapon is used in an attack. It makes me wonder if the armor enchantment being a constant like that is basically "locking" the enchantment at the initial stage where the kills are still 0. Ugh, frustrating. :laugh:

Hey guys! I could use some help/tips with a couple of enchantments I'm trying to set up for a mod. I'm currently at work so I don't have any screenshots, but here's what I'm trying to do: The concept is a custom weapon and armor set that needs an enchantment to increase the gear's effectiveness, based on the # of people the player has killed. I found the PCmiscstat for "People Killed" and used it as a condition successfully. The enchantment worked correctly on the weapon at first, adding to MeleeDamage after the player's 5th kill. The armor enchantment, however, did not seem to work. There was no change on the armor regardless of kill count, even though the enchantments are set up the same way. Is this because the armor enchantments are constant rather than "fire & forget"? The other issue, is that the enchantment needs to continue improving the gear as the kill count rises. I tried a few different things to make this work, but the 10th kill, 15th, 20th, etc had no further effect on the weapon. Is MeleeDamage the stat I should be improving with the enchantment? Or is there a way to specifically have it raise the damage of the sword itself? (This would actually be preferred, as the enchantment should not be in effect if this custom gear isn't equipped) Same goes for the armor, if I can get a similar enchantment working for it. Preferably only when the entire suit is worn. Any help or advice that could be offered would be appreciated! :cool:

Ok, that makes sense. I'll mock something up tonight after work along those lines. I think you're right that it'll help make it look a little more feminine. So, I'm gonna go ahead and start a thread over in the troubleshooting section to get some tips on the enchantments. I spent a good chunk of yesterday fighting with the CK trying to get them to work correctly. They seemed to be working at first, but further testing showed otherwise. :mellow: The sword gained power as intended, after killing 5 people... but further kills did nothing. The armor didn't gain anything. I've learned by playing around that weapons & armor have to use different enchantment types, so that might be part of it. As far as I could tell from everything I had set up, however, the enchantment *should* have been working, and repeating itself every 5 kills. I got so frustrated with it I ended up taking a break the rest of the day. :laugh: But I'll ask for some assistance with that part, and get back to modeling tonight. :cool:

Ok, sorry for the absence the past few days. Daughter's party was a huge hit though, so that's a plus. :laugh: Hmm... I'll try removing the 6-pack just to see, but that would basically leave her stomach bare. Worth tryin I guess. The gloves are on my to-do list, but that's honestly a really simple fix so I haven't made it a priority. Don't have anything to show in pics, but work has resumed. To give a run-down, here's where we're at: Human male armor: Essentially done, unless any further necessary tweaks are found. Human female armor: Unless we decide to eliminate the 6-pack, the size 0 set is done. Both with square and round options. I've started the size 1 conversions. Beasts: Khajit helmet is almost done, and I've got the Argonian one planned out. I did some research and found that tail armor should actually be pretty easy to implement, so I'll tack that on after the helmets. :devil: Shield: I'd say 95% done. It's fully functional and everything, I'm just still not 100% satisfied with the texture. I'll probably revisit it a little more towards the end. Sword: Still need to fix the alpha settings and try to get the flame to have more substance. BUT: That said... Had a big breakthrough on the enchantments tonight. I just spent some time in-game doing a mass-murder spree for testing purposes, and so far the weapon enchantment seems to be working. :devil: As long as I don't find any bugs with it, I'll create the matching armor enchantment later and that part will be good to go! Laters! :cool:

I also had a hard time finding good tuts for weapon modding with Blender. But through a lot of web searching, mixed with trial & error, I found that weapon modding is actually much easier than armor/clothing since you don't have to worry about bone weighting or any of that other stuff. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to actually making a real tutorial, but in the meantime, here's the method I use: (In addition to Blender, you need NifSkope, and a good graphics editing program for the textures. Photoshop, Gimp, etc. You'll also need a decent understanding of the Creation Kit) 1: Find a .nif file for the type of weapon you're wanting to make, from the vanilla files, other mods, whatever. Open it in NifSkope. (If all you have is vanilla, you'll probably need to use NMM, MO, or another program to extract the files from the .bsa archive) I recommend immediately doing a Save As and saving the file in a new location with a new name, so you don't accidentally screw up the vanilla file. 2: Click the little arrow symbols to expand the Block List, so you can see the different branches of the file. It should look something like this: BSFadeNode (name) . BSXFlags BSX . NiStringExtraData (position where weapon gets sheathed) > bhkCollisionObject > NiTriShape Blood object 1 (Bloody overlay for weapon) > NiTriShape Blood object 2 (same as above) > NiTriShape SCB (Scabbard/sheath) > NiTriShape (name) (actual weapon mesh) If all you're wanting to edit is the weapon itself, you can ignore the other TriShapes. Personally I recommend changing the scabbard & blood objects to match though. 3: Expand the NiTriShape you want to mod, and click on the NiTriShapeData so it's highlighted. Click File > Export > Export .OBJ and save the .obj file somewhere easy to remember/locate. Do the same for the other TriShapes as you see fit. 4: Go into Blender, and click File > Import > Wavefront (.obj), and load up the file you exported from NifSkope. You don't *need* to keep it or use it in your actual new weapon, but it's helpful to know the proper sizing/orientation that the weapon should have to sit properly in NifSkope. (You can always change these settings in NifSkope if they're not right, but I personally find it easier to do in Blender) 5: Either edit the weapon mesh as you see fit, or create a new one from scratch using the imported one as a template for proper size. (Tons of tutorials out there for how to use Blender, so I won't go into detail on that) 6: Once your weapon is modeled, be sure to do a UV unwrap on it and export the UV template so you can make a texture later. (Again, tons of tutorials out there on doing this in Blender) 7: When you've got the UV unwrapped, and you're sure you're done editing the mesh, it's time to export it. First, be sure you delete or otherwise get rid of the one you imported as a template. You don't want to export 2 weapons taking up the same space. With your new weapon mesh highlighted/selected, click File > Export > 3d Studio (.3ds) and export it to a new file. ** Note: You CAN export as a wavefront .obj again if you prefer, but in my experience at least, the UV layout data tends to get lost and/or corrupted in the process. I've had much better luck with the .3ds format. At this point you have 2 choices: Either import this new mesh into the .nif, or open the UV template to make your texture. You'll need to do both eventually, but you can do them in whatever order you want. Just know that if you do the .nif first and try to test it in-game, it will probably be using whatever textures the original vanilla weapon used, or will be untextured. 8: Open Gimp/photoshop, and load up the UV template you saved. I recommend creating a new layer to do the actual texture work on, using the template as a higher layer with lowered opacity so you can still see the layout as you work. There are about a million tutorials out there on making textures so I'll leave that to you. When you're happy with your texture, save it as a .DDS. 9: Go back to the .nif file you had in NifSkope (the one you saved under a new name, right? :cool: ) Click/highlight the NiTriShape specific to the mesh you've created. (Weapon, scabbard, etc) Click File > Import > Import .3DS. Hit "OK" on the pop-up, and select the file you exported from Blender. You should now see your new mesh in the NifSkope render window, in place of the original one. Do the same for the other NiTriShapes if you modified/created replacements for them. (NOTE: It's important that you have the TriShape selected before importing. If you don't, the imported file will be added to the .nif instead of replacing the original) ** NOTE: It doesn't happen to me every time, but for some reason I'll sometimes find that the imported .3ds mesh has been severely shrunk. Scrolling down the NiTriShape to the Scale entry, and setting it to a higher value (7-10ish usually) corrects the issue. Just make sure that if this happens, you use the same scale for all the meshes. 10: Expand the NiTriShapes and further expand the BSLightingShaderProperty within them. You'll see an entry called BSShaderTextureSet. Click on it, and expand it in the lower window so you can see the list of used textures. As with any other mod, you should have your texture saved within the skyrim\data\textures path somewhere so that you can put a general path to it here in the .nif file. You don't want to use a specific "c:\program files\steam\etc\etc" path, as the textures wouldn't work for anyone who has their game installed elsewhere. Replace the listed texture entries with the one(s) you've created. You can tweak the other shader settings as necessary if you want your weapon more/less shiny, etc. 11: Save your .nif file, and open up Creation Kit. At this point, you should be able to create a new Weapon entry, point it towards your new .nif file, and test it in-game. (The tutorials out there all cover this process in-depth) If you're happy with it, congrats! If not, you can go back to Blender to change the model more and export it again, change the shaders in NifSkope, or whatever you need to do. But provided you haven't changed the other stuff in the .nif file like the BSX or collision stuff, your weapon should work. I guess it's debatable whether this is really easier than modding armor or not, since you have to import/export all the different formats rather than just importing the .nif directly. I personally find it easier though, as you don't have to worry about tweaking all the user versions, dismemberment info, etc in the .nif file prior to and after the process. You're simply exporting an existing weapon as a reference, building a new one, then replacing the original within the .nif. Hopefully this sets you in the right direction! :cool:

Ok, so I'm attaching a pic from Blender that shows the female armor with both versions of the chestplate, so you can compare them. They both look good and work fine, but I guess the biggest issue I have personally with the square ones is that they pretty much eliminate any feminine qualities of the armor. It's essentially the male armor, slimmed down, but with wider hips and a curvier back. Since a helmet is included, if someone is running around with multiple people wearing the armor, it would be really difficult to tell any of them apart. :laugh: (I know, not everybody runs around with an army of followers) The rest of the armor is pretty form-fitting, and representative of the body beneath it, (even including a simulated six-pack on the stomach), so in my mind it stands to reason the big square chest plates are representative of male pectoral muscles. For that reason, it seems odd to put the same square ones on a woman. But again, just my opinion. Hell, for that matter, since I and many others use CBBE and other bodies, I'll be doing a patch for other bodies anyway. I could always include both versions and let people pick & choose. :laugh: (Note that the straps are removed in this pic so you can see the full plates) http://i.imgur.com/wbQCpmi.png Anyway, I'll look into the tail armor idea, and I'm working on the beast helmets. I think I've got a pretty good concept going for the Khajits, so I'm excited to see if it works. :cool:

Hmmm, you mean the Armor Addon was set to use the Body (32) slot, as well as something else, like the Calves, Forearms, etc slots? Are any of the parts in the nif file set to use something other than slot 32? Generally it's been my experience that if the dismemberment parts in the nif file dont match the slots in the CK exactly, then the armor wont even appear in game. But then, stranger things have happened.

Have you opened the 2 nif files side-by-side to compare them? Specifically, I'd look at vertex count or anything related to the mesh itself. If they dont have exactly the same # of vertices/faces it can cause all sorts of goofy things to happen.

No worries! :cool: I'll post up a pic tonight with the square plates, easily done. I actually set the straps to bend the other way on purpose, just to give a little more variation between the male/female versions. If you're wanting them to look more alike though they can easily be moved back. I've kept them as a separate mesh on purpose. :laugh: Actually, since I haven't built custom helmets for the beasts yet, that's exactly how it works right now. They replace the beast heads with the human helmet when equipped. I'd rather add custom versions though, just to complete the set. Or at least make the attempt. :devil: Is there any armor in the game that adds armor to the tails? As I said before, I haven't messed with them much, so I don't know if the game has a way to add different tail meshes based on the armor worn. Definitely something I can look into!

It depends on how much you're wanting to separate, to be honest. You can have multiple NiTriShapes within a .nif file and assign a separate texture to each, so that it still appears as a single item in the CK. As far as assigning multiple textures to the *same* part of a mesh, like overlaying them, then no I don't think it's possible.

Ok, not a problem. I'll whip up a new texture for the gloves to make them match better. Ok so the (human) female helmet is a little shorter/smaller, and a decent amount narrower than the male. Otherwise, however, it's the same. Funny thing is, in-game you can't really tell the difference unless you have the 2 standing next to eachother. :laugh: Also, I was right. I had used a CBBE chest to get the general shape of the breasts. I've been using CBBE for so long, I had forgotten how... uhh.... flat, the vanilla model is. :laugh: I re-shaped the armor to match vanilla better, and moved the straps so they're more centered. Let me know if this is more what you were wanting. http://i.imgur.com/Gkcj6Nt.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/aSOLKhF.jpg I actually haven't played around much with the beast races yet, so I totally spaced the tails. I'll tinker with that a bit before bed to see how it looks. As for the helmets, I've got the beast heads imported into Blender, and the biggest issue I can see is simply the fact that they're considerably larger than the human heads. I've got a pretty good idea what to do for the Argonian one, but the Khajit ears have got me a little stumped. I'll come up with somethin good though. Edit: Actually, the tails couldn't look much better! Turns out that little round notch on the top rear of the 'bottom' armor is almost exactly where the tails attach. Almost looks meant to be. :laugh: http://i.imgur.com/U7MumVw.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IEzmNnd.jpg

Gotta keep the suspense up! :laugh: The hands are currently using the same texture as the undersuit/bodysuit beneath the armor, so when I changed it to solid black, it made the hands darker automatically. I can lighten it back up a little, or maybe just separate the hands to a different texture if you'd like. ....Now that you mention it, I was building this on the vanilla body, but the vanilla body actually doesn't HAVE breasts. (There are holes in the chest where they should be, that get covered by armor/clothes. I was using another piece of armor to get the general shape right, but all my armors have been patched for CBBE, yes. So I think I inadvertently used CBBE breasts as a basis for the shape. :laugh: I'm headin to bed, but I'll load up a vanilla armor set tomorrow and see about re-shaping them back to that. :cool: On a side note: For the moment, I narrowed and slightly shrunk the helmet to use on human females, to make it look a little more size-appropriate. Did you want any actual changes to the way the face looks or anything? Also, anything specific you were wanting on the beast versions? Take care!