"Proper" khajit and argonian bodyshapes/animations

[MarkInMKUK]

Apologies for any annoyance I caused to any modders with what I said - maybe I should just shut up and let you people get on with it as you are managing just fine without my attempts to put both of my feet in my mouth at once.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Nah, I don't think so. Your idea to also introduce gender-distinction "when" going the route of different skeletons and animations per race was really valuable. I was just warning not to immediately jump on this specific bandwagon before we even know if it's possible.

 

This last sentence was just making me worry how it will come across and I tried to take the wind out of its sails by explaining why I for one am doing my foldernames this way intentionally. One has to be overly careful with wording and how sentences come across in online discussions. No hard feelings and no cause for any.

[Faelrin]

Dx I just read this whole thread and its like 7am for me. I gotta get to bed...>.> but anyways...I think this is turning out really well and can't wait to see the finished result. I do have some experience with the construction set, but nothing for this sort of thing I would think (I made a castle for myself, companions, and a custom demon race), so I doubt I'll be able to help out, then again it seems like you all are doing well enough so far. Personally I don't play the khajiit but I would prefer to see them looking far more 'natural' then they are now, which is the same reason I use drake's argonian beautification mod.

 

Also this is a bit off topic, but I'm curious since google helped none in helping me figure this out, but the nexus forums load really slow for me, and only for them, I think I might have had this problem before with gmail, but I was able to change that to a simpler layout or whatever it was that made it load faster, and I'm unsure of how I'd get that applied here. So does anyone know how I would go about fixing that? I would really like to be able to post more here and check out more threads. :l

 

Edit: >.< Never mind all that. D: I just saw the dark and white option....and switched it to white and it loads way faster now.

Edited April 8, 2011 by Faelrin

[DrakeTheDragon]

Hmm, it's been a little quiet around here lately.

 

I made some progress investigating the approach with different skeletons + animations on a per-race basis and wanted to let you know, so far everything was working as expected. This really seems to be an approach going to work out. I was able to get my dragon race working without mesh distortions flying all over and its very own custom set of animations just by using 'SetPlayerSkeletonPath "characters\DrakeDragon\_male\skeletonbeast.nif"' shortly after loading the game. I never replaced the skeletons in "characters\_male" with mine on this install so it should be 100% conflict-free so far. "characters\DrakeDragon\_male" is the folder I put all animations into and replaced certain ones with custom ones. Now after the skeleton switch on the fly only I was using those animations and only those.

 

I think this is a very promising approach and will now fully switch my dragon race mod to using it. I can even use several different sets of animations without restricting them to 1 per race. Think about a different set when walking on all fours, or when flying, or... and I'll just switch to them via this command at every time.

 

There's a similar method to change an NPC's skeleton (and animations then) as far as I know. So I think fully customized motion for beasts isn't that far away from becoming reality anymore now.

 

Just a heads up.

[MarkInMKUK]

Thanks for the update, Drake. That sounds incredibly useful, it would mean custom skeletons would be possible for each beast race ... wonder whether different ones for male and female would be possible too, as current setups compromise on body proportions a bit (ignore me if that sounds like cloud-cuckooland stuff).

 

Optimised skeletons would ultimately lead to possibly enhanced races - imagine retractable claws on Khajiit paws rigged to an additional set of bones ...

 

Darn, you lot are clever. All I do is spout ideas, and you make them HAPPEN.

 

Shame I can only give one kudo to each, and I already did that.

 

Mark

Edited April 14, 2011 by MarkInMKUK

[DrakeTheDragon]

Your idea of gender distinction this way is of course also possible now. There can always be only 1 player in the game and this one can only be of 1 gender. So assigning a different skeleton by gender actually is amongst the easiest things in the world. For NPCs one can determine the gender and then assign the proper skeleton as well.

 

The thing with retractable claws was already done in my Anthro-Dragons, just without animations to retract them it was not used yet. Additional bones in skeletons was something which could always be done, but of course, in its current state my mod is very conflict-prone as there can only be 1 mod replacing the default skeleton ever. I'm so relieved I can get away from this restriction now with the new approach! The only drawback I see would be animation replacers not affecting the custom races with their own skeletons and isolated sets of animations. But then, at least for my dragons, such custom animations won't look right on their unique anatomy anyways, so I'd have to adapt them first for compatibility by all means. I can imagine the same will be true for custom-anatomy Argonians or Khajiit likewise then.

 

Darn, you lot are clever. All I do is spout ideas, and you make them HAPPEN.

Ah, come on. Look at it from my side... people like You always give me new ideas when I am running out of them. Without ideas I couldn't make "anything" happen. Never underestimate your own value!

Edited April 14, 2011 by DrakeTheDragon

[MarkInMKUK]

Watch out - my ideas can get dangerous!

[MarkInMKUK]

We're having a slightly related discussion over on our realism thread Keeping it "real" - discussing Khajiit and Argonian eyesight and senses. While not directly related, if you are remaking the Khajiit physically, an addon that adjusts their night-eye shaders to a "more catlike" effect might be relevant, and Argonians might have a reptilian heat sense - as might the Dragon Anthro race that Drake's making

[Semtex]

There is a possibility to create several races that have "not human" part of the lower leg - from the knees down. I think that such a race can be created as a "system" - like a puzzle or a meccano.

 

There are at least two versions of the feet for khajiits (by Razorpony), there are feet and legs for the race argonians and Drakan/Dragon (by DrakeTheDragon), I am committed hooves (remade from Divine Avenger's and AlienSlof's models), which are further adjusted by geechan, the alien models by AlienSlof I also modified to the legs and feet (with claws) for demons. Certainly there are also other similar races.

 

In most cases, the geometry of the feet such that are unsuited to the standard trousers, greaves and boots, and must be modified or re-create. It also requires a complex scripts, and at all such work in creating a plug-in is complicated.

 

DrakeTheDragon invented a very interesting, although complicated, script that allows direct models substitution. This gives, after adjusting the script, very imaginative ways to create new races without excessive time consumption.

 

 

My idea is as follows:

standard lower body slit in the knee - thigh above the knee leave as standard body parts for all races, the calf and foot, from the knees down, are individualized for each race. So the thighs are labeled as "lower body", calves and feets together are labeled "foot".

Such a solution will facilitate the preparation of models and scripts. Most similar races may use the same parts of clothing and armor for the upper part of legs and thighs. Shoes, boots and other parts of the clothing and armor for legs from the knees down must be made ​​individually for each type of calf and feet. This is not inevitable, even with another lineup of the body. Calves and feet are always closely linked and are the major distinguishing feature for different races.

 

First, a quick and dirty experiment with my existing models - they are not prepared for this purpose, it is only putting in Nifscope. The upper part of legs, from the knees up, is the same in all three configurations

 

Edited May 2, 2011 by Semtex

[MarkInMKUK]

Hi Semtex,

 

Those models certainly look promising. The hoof version, in particular, looks better proportioned than the version I'd already seen on the net, which only modified the foot area and hence had an "odder" leg geometry. I think Razorpony's latest feet are now a little higher at the heel than the khajiit ones you show. Of course, whatever we do has to work with as much vanilla lower-body stuff if possible to minimise the needed mesh work - it would be SO much easier if they had selected a more Elizabethan look for mens' lower bodies with knee-length trousers and hose. I very much like the idea of a "system" which can be used to expand the number of race variants - that was partially Drake's aim with his scropting I believe. I also know there are different "hand" models around, which it would be nice to be able to use in any scripted setup.

 

Whatever we do, it would be useful for the script to be expandable to use "other" split points - the waist it an obvious one. Thar would allow some future modeller to create Centaur, Mermaid, Drider or Naga models. Of course, then you're into major animation changes too, but I think you clever people are busy proving that with Drake's script basis, and the skeleton change moids, there are far fewer limits to the Oblivion body system than was previously thought.

Edited May 2, 2011 by MarkInMKUK