Collab on my mod, high quality battle armor (with a difference)

[ruddy88]

Hey guys, I have been working on this mod for awhile and am starting to get a bit overwhelmed. I know what needs to be done but I am hoping to get someone else on board as a collab project, in particular, I need someone capable of creating new meshes out of vanilla assets, but it MUST have correct weights applied. Read on to clarify what I mean.

 

I've uploaded a very early alpha here:

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/9746/?

 

The issue I am having is that the method I used to make the meshes was to export out of outfit studio as an OBJ, modify the meshes in blender, import back to outfit studio with the vanilla reference and export as NIF. The problem being is that OS doesnt quite accurately copy weights and skin data correctly, it gets close, but the result for me is that the meshes warp a little, creating some rather unsightly shoulder pads, and some off clipping in places.

I need someone who can use 3DS max, and knows how to correctly copy skin modifiers and bsubindex modifiers to the new mesh. There are 7 stages to this armor (as opposed to the usual lite, sturdy and heavy), and I am wanting to have each stage as a single NIF (so arms, legs, torso etc all combined) if possible, but not essential, this is just the cleanest way to do it to minimise the amount of loose files, as well as the amount of armor addons required in fo4edit.

 

A quick rundown on the mod.

It is an armor mod, you will find it very early in game in its most basic version. The textures will be rusty and scratched and all round beat up, the protection will be limited, you find this pre-war prototype battle armor but to restore it to its former glory you have your work cut out.

As you progress in level and in perk ranks, you will begin to understand how to better maintain and repair your armor. There are currently 7 upgrades, each one will (when its complete) upgrade the mesh to include more of the final armor, just as in the vanilla game lite, sturdy, heavy options, but with many more stages to it. You will also learn ways to use what's around you to clean your armor up, a bit of steel wool to remove light rust, abraxo cleaner and cloth to polish the various components getting a bit more of a glean to it, perhaps some adhesive and steel shavings mixed together to create a gum to patch some of those scratches. You get the idea. This will be done by duplicating the textures with varying stages of rust and decay and using material swaps on the OMODs to swap what texture is applied, also changing the specular maps when necessary.

Read on for more future updates, but first...

 

At this stage, I have the following:

 

1. A full set of clean textures @ 4K resolution, including diffuse, spec maps and normals.

 

2. Rough version of the meshes to be used, these need work however as the weights are all off. Since it only uses modified vanilla files it is perfectly possible to get it working right, unfortunately my 3DS max keeps crashing before I can get anything done, im still troubleshooting this but I would GREATLY appreciate anyone putting their hands up to help out with this, someone who knows how to import new NIFs in to game the correct way (using skin wraps through 3DS and not just copying bone weights in Outfit Studio).

3. A rough ESP file that allows for the different armor version to be upgraded at an armor workbench, as well as a seperate crafting menu for swapping out decals.

 

What I still need to do:

 

1. Fix the aforementioned meshes so that weights are copied correctly, I assure you my normal and diffuse maps are fine, it is the weights that are causing the sort of warped look in game.

 

2. Create duplicates of all the textures with varying stages of rust and decay applied as well as experiment using NiAlphaProperty to put holes in some armor parts.

 

3. Update the ESP to apply conditions for each upgrade (level and rank requirements as well as crafting components). This step will come last, as it is easier to troubleshoot without the conditions applied.

 

4. Update ESP to apply armor ratings buffs to each armor "rank", these need to be balanced and provide adequate protection from early game (level 5ish) all the way through to the end game (level 60+?). I have a plan drawn up to do this based off the vanilla levelled lists however I had originally intended there to be 10 stages of armor, so I just need to rework the list to accomodate only 7 stages, unless someone can help with the meshes and possibly get another few stages in between that still make sense to the game.

 

5. As an additional idea, Id like to add a small set of miscellaneous mods that can be applied to the armor that help boost different playstyles. This will be a 'choose one' sort of deal, where depending on your playstyle you can choose one mod to be applied to your armor that will provide a more unique effect, such as a 'detect life' mod for a sniper style, or a 'muffled' effect for sneaksters, so on and so forth. I know how to do all of this, its just a matter of investigating the vanilla effects and picking which ones I wish to use.

 

6. Further updates will aim to give this mod more of a story line to it. This is obviously limited at the moment until GECK comes out and we can create quests with scripts, but for the moment I was thinking of creating a new component that will be given as a death item to a new legendary NPC enemy, or perhaps on an existing unique character. This component would be required to craft the aforementioend misc mod, and only drops once, making this a one time only, important choice (unless you spawn more of the component in with console). This aspect needs to be ironed out a bit more but I do like the concept.

 

 

Anyway, Thats the basic jist of it, really hope this catches someones attention, I have spent a lot of time on this mod already remaking 4k textures from scratch, wasting countless hours on creating new meshes off vanilla parts (to no avail) and single handedly scraping through all of the levelled lists and vanilla armors to create a balanced levelling system (which still needs to be re-worked), I am not after any shortcut modders, no offence to any of you we all start somewhere and I am by no means a 'pro' myself, but I do demand a high calibre of work for this.

I am happy to do textures, though ill take help if offered, but my real requirement is someone who is capable of handling the 3d meshes.

The textures so far are based off the combat armor and leather armors, I would like to keep it to this vibe but I would be happy to hand over creative freedom to you to add in some other elements, its not that hard for me to translate the textures to a new uv wrap as I have kept everything in layers with masks.

 

 

Cheers in advance

 

Ruddy88

[tomomi1922]

I can't help with 3DMax. But I guess I am writing here to offer some support and encouragement :)

[ruddy88]

Thanks man. I got someone on board helping with textures to lower the work load now, so fingers crossed a helping hand comes along with meshes soon