New head mesh for Oblivion

[Striker879]

I find that it is because the sliders for shape are linked that when you change A and it affects B and C. The thing you need to look out for if you decide to test with link unticked is you can't go very far on any slider before moving to the next (and then the next etc). It is far easier to end up with a totally messed up face than a good one with unlinked sliders.

 

I'm like Pellape in so far as I prefer to start with an vanilla face and then customise from that starting point. I even used the CS to create an NPC which I then used Wrye Bash to transfer the face to my character (at least in the CS you have the digital readouts on the slider positions ... I tend to take notes a lot when I'm doing stuff I have little talent at and they make it somewhat easier to undo something that doesn't work out).

 

Make sure you have Oblivion_Character_Overhaul.esp ticked when you are creating your own ESP for either your own character or an NPC. Then when you look at a vanilla NPC to see if they'd make a good candidate as a starting point you'll be seeing the OCO v2 head used, which is representative of what you'll see in the game.

 

If you are trying to make a good looking character with vanilla heads I wish you good luck ... all of those various heads (like Head06 etc) were created for a reason.

 

One other thing I've learned that is related to Pellape's comment about hitting the Advanced tab first ... I use the "tick on Preview" method myself. Once you have put the tick there you can use any tab without problems.

[Dimitrisgb]

I don't have any problem with the tabs, because I use the CS Extender.

Do you think it's about the textures?

[Striker879]

If you mean blotchiness and stuff like that on faces in my experience the smallest change in a face slider (chin, nose, eyebrows etc) can have an affect on things. The game is using the EGM files to attempt to reproduce what your slider adjustments are telling it, and it's doing that by combining a whole bunch of textures. There used to be an excellent illustration of the "problem" on one of the Seamless series pages, but sadly that piece of the Seamless family got deleted.

 

From my trials and tribulations when creating my current character (I was using OCO v2 at the time, but no assets from the Seamless series), which were mostly focused on minimising the neckseam I found you can't change one thing and expect it not to affect three or four other things you didn't want.

 

I became the master of 0.1 moves using the CS slider postion digital readouts. That equates to one hell of a lot of adjust -> save ESP -> load game -> exit sewer and check NPC under various lighting conditions -> rinse and repeat ad nauseum to get a guy who still shows neckseam under some lighting conditions (and this is after I started using Seamless assets, however I've never revisited making adjustments in the CS, so some improvements could probably be had).

 

There are users like Urrl who have made entire careers out of creating faces ... how deep down the rabbit hole are you looking to venture?

[Dimitrisgb]

I just wanted to create characters without changing everything. Yesterday I checked the race creation on the CS and it seems that this means very deep changes, which I don't think that I will do.

[Striker879]

True ... once you start editing races you are very near the deepest part of the rabbit hole. It's dark and a lot can go wrong.

 

Unfortunately we don't have a one or two button click and presto out comes a perfect face tool (until you create such a tool that is).

[Pellape]

Well yes, I agree, therefor most players use OCO2 with 2 million downloads and Blockhead these days and they suddenly looks MUCH better... My screenie I made for this post is proof enough and also check out the screenshots at the OCO2 page. So if you load OCO2 and Blockhead in CS, you will be able to make good looking NPC's. The thing is, when you feel they look OK and save your esp, it will not be a requirement to run your mod with those 2 mods but with 2M downloads, a majority of the players are using it so it is very likely they do see what you saw when you made them, otherwise they see vanilla faces. It is up to everyone if they wanna see good looking faces or not.

 

By the way, I do not think you do have any problems to create good looking NPC's. I visited the Ghost Town a week ago and the NPC's there looked fantastic. Do you wanna see how they looks like when I see them when I use OCO2?

Edited January 9, 2021 by Pellape

[Dimitrisgb]

Well yes, I agree, therefor most players use OCO2 with 2 million downloads and Blockhead these days and they suddenly looks MUCH better... My screenie I made for this post is proof enough and also check out the screenshots at the OCO2 page. So if you load OCO2 and Blockhead in CS, you will be able to make good looking NPC's. The thing is, when you feel they look OK and save your esp, it will not be a requirement to run your mod with those 2 mods but with 2M downloads, a majority of the players are using it so it is very likely they do see what you saw when you made them, otherwise they see vanilla faces. It is up to everyone if they wanna see good looking faces or not.

 

By the way, I do not think you do have any problems to create good looking NPC's. I visited the Ghost Town a week ago and the NPC's there looked fantastic. Do you wanna see how they looks like when I see them when I use OCO2?

Thanks for the compliments. I will test the OCO ome day. The thing is, what I was talking about is textures, not meshes.

[Striker879]

Races have textures assigned to them, but what you see in the game is that base texture plus the changes applied via the EGM file. The changes that the EGM file are affected by what you do with the mesh shape sliders.

[Pellape]

Dimitrisgb. I visited the Ghost Town on my second computer an hour ago and took a couple of screenshots. This is what your NPC's looks like on my comp with OCO2 and maybe the difference isn't that big but I do not know really. Well Jason lost his colors some but Olaf got himself a big face lift. The girls can't get more prettier than this I guess as they are comparable with the cute elves even. :D

 

From the Ghost Town Site:

 

 

The only thing that differ is the use of OCO2 and Blockhead. I never saw the DE elf with green hair... I will go there again but what I can see at your screenie, she looks cute. :wink:

 

Textures?? Well... You could always enhance them some maybe with some color on their lips maybe? But otherwise it is best to just keep them as they are as the colors are made with the face generator / editor. You can always try to make a new race with a complete new texture but then you must get the body to also have the same color and hues. But I really do not think you need other textures if you install OCO2. But that is what I think.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Pellape

[Dimitrisgb]

That Dark Elf there is a male. The witch is female.