WIP Head07

[throttlekitty]

Hi, I've been doing some thinking about how I want to go about new heads for FNV, and thought I'd get some input from everyone. Right now it's looking like this:

 

Head07 will be two heads, male and female, default age only, no old or young. As with Head06 for Oblivion, it will be higher poly, I think the shading in FNV on the default heads is too distracting anyway. I intend to address frustrations with creating faces a player wants, I found the games' facegen sliders too limiting and frustrating to use.

 

It will use the same UV layout as the existing heads, but I'm not sure how I want to handle the ears. I'd like to make them more detailed, but that creates problems using Head07 as a replacer for NPCs because of the texture layout that more detailed ears would require.

 

 

 

But here's the first big one I'd like feedback on. I've a mind to mostly bypass FaceGen in lieu of an advanced facial rig in Blender to customize faces. This rig would be easy to use; sliders and other shape controllers would be manipulated to get the look that you want. I'd give finer control over shapes that facegen doesn't offer, like lips or better control of jaw shape. Depending on Blender, I should be able to offer an easy way to store your own snapshots as you work, along with the usual undo functions.

 

Here are some examples of facial rigs if you're unfamiliar:

http://treadster.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/facialRig.jpg

http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=6%3Baction=display%3Bthreadid=30544

http://www.timsportfolio.co.uk/index.php?id=portfolio (scroll down to "Poses - Rig Test")

 

Exporting your finalized head is a simple process, H07 will include an easy guide for doing so.

 

So, in mostly bypassing facegen I mean this: All shape morphs for the face would be zeroed out, only keeping ones that affect the overall head and brow shape. This would be the final tweak once you get back in-game, and ensures that hats and hair still fit the head, regardless of slider positions. Facial hair and eyebrows make this more complicated, but should still be plausible.

 

 

 

And here's the second big one: Face Shape. I'm still undecided if I should change the shape from the default heads, or keep the overall shape and just do high poly versions of them. The Fallout heads are a little less than generic, and have a couple of pronounced traits. I will probably work from those and make newish base faces from those, I need to keep the boundaries of the heads intact for compatibility. Is there any huge problem anyone has with the shapes as is? I'm also considering making the skull higher poly for a smoother shape, which also requires that tight fitting headwear and hair need to be fixed accordingly. If I do, could I conscript someone to handle that load?

 

 

Having said all that, I will produce a 'normal' facegen version of the heads that work as normal. It will be part of the process anyway, but I'm less likely to do massive cleanup to the shape morphs. Unless everyone thinks the Blender route is a terrible idea, then I'll just stick with this option.

 

 

Also, it looks like Type 3 is pretty much the body of choice, yes? I don't think any of the variations do anything with the neck. I'm figuring I'll do some extra work to eliminate the neck seam in the model, texture and facegen textures at some point, probably not with the initial release.

 

Also, progress won't be rapid on this. I've several things going on, and I'm jumping around on projects at my whim. Fair warning :)

[throttlekitty]

Oh, secondary thoughts that I forgot to mention. The face rig idea might break blinking and looking around. I'll have to do some experiments to see if I can change how those work. Also, new expressions should also be possible, and I'll need some UI advice on making a new menu for managing expressions, rather than the usual console method. Which in turn requires skeleton edits, causing more compatibility problems. Are there any ragdoll tweak mods in FNV yet?

[throttlekitty]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/throttlekitty/WIPstuff/wip_Head07_fem1.jpg

 

Nothing amazing to show yet, working out geometry, not a whole lot of shape just yet.

[scruples]

Have you made many faces for this engine?.

[throttlekitty]

Just one new head, this will be my second. Head06 was just the sixth in a series of tests that I had done for Oblivion, so I figured I'd keep up with the naming.