I was chatting with the creators of MMM the other day...

[BFG99]

Bump! (Still hoping to find out a few more details on what Slof has in mind.)

 

EDIT by LHammonds: Bumping is against the rules...see SPAM

[Beefyh]

This is a great idea. Looking forward to it :D

[BFG99]

Thanks LHammonds for not locking the thread--obviously I need to reread the rules :) That'll be the only bump you see from me!

 

Anyway, I mentioned this thread to one of the MMM authors so it will be interesting to see what if anything comes of this.

[Yamcakes]

Waalx Animals & Creatures does a pretty good job of this. I particularly like the female imps. And despite Atronachs being considered genderless, I think different genders would be neat. I made a storm atronach female for myself a while ago, based on the flame one, but I lost it in an HD crash. It was pretty neat with the animated lightning textures.

[BFG99]

Thanks Yamcakes - I took a look at Waalx and while it's very ambitious, I don't think it's for me :)

 

Slof, just wondering if there was any update on the work you and Rebel are doing?

[Ferryt]

I don't have a problem at all with "Oblivion Sexualized Monsters". I use the nude versions of Robert's male and female bodies, after all, and there's nothing purient about it. I like realism in my game and since Oblivion is set in an essentially Medieval time-frame there shouldn't be underwear, which was very much frowned upon back then, especially for women because of perceived hygenic issues. We probably shouldn't delve further into that particular topic, though. Basically, the only time I really see a nude body in this game is when my own character removes his/her clothes to sleep (I use a mod that shows the PC sleeping) -- all part of the immersive role-playing I like about Oblivion, but I wouldn't mind seeing anatomically correct monsters. I'd expect that in real life, and I think it's reasonable to expect that in a game like this one.

 

One of the first things I, as an equine enthusiast, noticed was that all the horses in Oblivion are geldings -- even Shadowmere, which is distinctly referred to as female by her owner, Lucien Lachance. I have a degree in biology and worked in the animal health technology field as a veterinary assistant for years. I'm used to seeing naughty bits and I just automatically notice if they're missing (or wrong, for that matter), but that's just me, I suppose.

 

So, yes ... lets see all of Oblivion's creatures with male and female counterparts where it makes sense. Atronachs? I don't know about those, since I'm not really familiar with the lore behind them, but any creatures which at least theoretically propagate by biological means (or look like that they should, such as Imps, for example) should come in dual genders. Like the body replacers, though, dangly parts should probably be optional. Let the player decide whether or not to add them at mod install time. For simple animals, though, a profile of a mare which obviously looks like a gelding, is immersion-breaking for me. Frankly, people are used to seeing the difference in real life on domestic animals, anyway. It's the humanoid-style creatures that definitely need the option of whether or not they're anatomically correct. Mere beasts? I don't really think anyone's going to mind.

[BFG99]

I too don't mind the idea of anatomical correctness (it probably has to do with the fact that I'm a fan of realism, and grew up in a farming community so how been around livestock most of my life). So I agree that adding those extra parts to the animal models should be a non-issue, particularly if done tastefully (i.e. realistically, or as Slof put it, "you'd have to look for it to know it was there"). Similarly, I agree that biped/humanistic creatures such as Goblins, Grummites, and Minotaurs should be optional. Furthermore, for the sake of realism, I do NOT think creatures that already wear clothing (goblins, Ogres, Xivilai, etc.) should have that clothing removed.

 

But really the point of this request wasn't so much to have anatomically correct creature models, as to have more models that could be introduced into MMM or another such environment, to increase animal and monster diversity in a realistic manner. Just building a bulkier (male) and streamlined (female) version of the same model would be enough.

 

The authors of Mart's Monster Mod have stated that they don't intend to introduce different-gendered creatures into their mod, but this is really only because high quality models aren't available. (As proof to this: Slof's Horses have different genders and is in MMM. By contrast, the Clannfear Matriarch and Clannfear Patriarch in MMM appear to use the same model but have different stats--they could really benefit from this request.) If the new models were created by a talented modder such as Slof, it could double the diversity of creatures in MMM or Vanilla--in both appearance and stats.

 

I tried the "Sexualized Creatures" mod because I thought it might enhance realism but found it a bit over the top. I didn't like how it removed clothing from creatures that used to have it (like Ogres and Xivilai), and how the "extra parts" were, IMHO, cartoonishly large in several cases. Not to mention the...erections. And, besides that, it didn't change common animals like Wolves at all. Still, the concept of more diverse models is there.

[Yamcakes]

Many mods aren't for everyone. It's always great to pick&choose what you want from them, though. As I agree some mods are over the top. I mod the crap out of everything I have. :3

I retextured most of what I got from that mod, and/or swapped models when necessary.

Female Frost Atronach:

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/1088/nifskope201009221225331.png

[Ferryt]

BFG99: I, too, grew up on a farm, which is one of the reasons I don't have a prudish outlook on anatomical realism. I do agree, though, that some of the things I saw in Sexualized Creatures was way over the top, and those things would have to be "fixed" before I'd consider actually using that mod. It can be done tastefully, as Slof has done with her horses, and as Robert has done with his male body replacement.

 

Goblins and Ogres? Why not have naked versions of them? I'm not saying this out of a desire to make Oblivion more "erotic". They are, after all, ugly as sin. :) However, there are mods available (which I consider cheat mods, by the way) that give a PC the ability to totally disarm a character by removing all equipped items, including armor (which is clothing, as well). Let players do this. I was actually surprised the first time, playing one of my characters whose "mark" was to leave her dead victims totally stripped of everything they own, that it didn't work on goblins. You can't remove their clothing. I'd rather see the clothing of such creatures as inventory items.

 

This would go a long way to making one thing which I think is missing in this game possible. There's talk in another thread, I think on this site, but I'll have to check, later, about a tribalism mod -- new stuff related to tribal culture. Goblins have a sort of tribal culture and I would think that they would wear tribal items. They would have to be strippable in order to do so, I think. If that's the case, then anatomically correct nude meshes should be at least optional (I'm seriously thinking about the possibility of a playable Goblin race, here). The same logic, if it's really logical, anyway, applies to Ogres. What I don't want to see, though, is exaggerated naughty bits, any more than I want to see exaggerated breasts on female creatures.

 

Speaking of which, Yamcakes ... I mostly like that female Frost Atronach. I have a real problem with the mesh, though. If you notice, at least in the image, her left breast is smaller (much smaller) than her right one, which is the size of her head. I actually draw a distinct line in my ability to ignore non-realism at that point. When breasts reach the size of the character's head or bigger I just keep on looking for something else, especially if it's on an average or slim-proportioned frame. That kind of stuff is OK for hormone-induced mania in a thirteen-year old kid, but I think adults generally want to see something more realistic -- at least those of us who have been around the block often enough to know that women aren't generally built like that. Even so, I think it's probably a good bet that most overly-endowed female characters you'll see in any game are being played by guys and models depicting that sort of thing are created by guys -- at least from what I understand by talking to gamers and role-players who I know are women, IRL.

 

Very good work with the texturing, though. It almost makes it possible for me to ignore the faults in the mesh.

[Deleted1848331User]

maybe its supposed to be smaller lol. Imagine a genderized Mehrunes Dagon *shivers at the thought*