Character Heads

[Markosias]

Ok, I've seen and actually done a couple of the build your own race/head type tuts, but there's something else I'd like to try that I don't know how to do, or if it's even possible. What I have are some low poly models of some creature heads (like were-wolf, aligator, dog-face, etc) that I'd like to use as a mold to wrap a high-poly mesh around (like the argonian head) in order to quickly build a new character head. Is this possible? I think I've got most of the tools needed, but haven't figured out how to put it all together (Blender (w/Nif Tools), NifSkope, Conformulator, Gimp(for dds texturing)) etc.

 

What I'd like to see is a step-by-step, for example:

 

1. Import the low poly model

2. import the high-poly model

3. do such-n-such to wrap the high-poly around the low-poly

4. export as such-n-such

5. import into conformulator and do this

6. plop that file into this folder and open up the TESCS

7. Do all these steps to get the new head/race created

8. Go into oblivion and tilde into the control panel type whatever to spawn your new race a few paces in front of you...

 

Actually, I'd expect it's probably closer to 30-50 or (many?) more steps, depending on how verbose you want to get.

 

Most of this process is addressed in disparate tuts, the main thing I can't find is how to use a low-poly mesh as a kind of "injection mold" to successfully wrap an existing character head around. Or even to do something like re-mapping a character head to something like the daedroth's head to make some kind of savage Argonian off-shoot race.

[Markosias]

The main reason I want to do this is to maintain the proper vertex/face count for character heads so that they'll import into the game properly. I guess I could just subdived the existing head until the vertex count is correct? Dunno - I've tried a few things with disasterous results. I'll keep plugging away at it and let y'all know if I figure out a decent workflow for this kind of modding.

 

The latest attempt was just to use the low-poly mesh as a model and then I used a lattice to morph the high-poly head to a rough approximation, however the export from blender (as .obj) then into conformulater to reestablish/maintain vertex order and create the .tri & .egm files, and then into nifScope to re-position and assign .dds textures. However, it didn't work for some reason. The result from conformulator when I imported into nifSkope was an empty mesh with no verticies for some reason. Gonna try it again with just a vanilla head to make sure I'm doing everything right (trying to follow throttlekitty's tut on head creation)