New Texture mod WIP

[xander2077]

lol... well drat...

 

and to top it off i decided to ditch the ol teeth idea. when it comes to concepts i tend to think of things after the fact, and then i have to go back and change something all the way at the beginning. so im finding out now that the textures are working out differently, i may have to redo things that dont work visually again.

 

so now i may have to go back in and fix the mesh again just to get the mouth right. or i may have to have a screwed up mouth.

 

the problem was when i put the teeth in and started to detail them, it just made the mouth remind me of some fernghi from star trek, so i said heck noooooo...

 

or i could just leave the open mouth since it would make it easier to breath in armor...

 

by my great bronze beard... i guess i have to follow the gaping maw example of skyrim after all...

 

http://i.share.pho.to/c135e971_o.png

Edited March 4, 2016 by xander2077

[xander2077]

i dont think so... but anyway, that was an adventure and a half. that was now the third or fourth actual unwrap i did on this helmet. and while it does look a bit rougher now, i was able to salvage the texture by painstakingly moving the islands all around to apporximately where they were before. the problem was i made problems for myself by trying to adjust the mesh to fit the texture, and i failed miserably. so i ahd to unwrap again and again until i got something that worked without aving faces stretched between islands (what a mess) and finally got to this point where at least i like the mouth, and it doesnt look like mr dwemer is trying to make a baby laugh.

 

im sure somebody will make a meme out of that pic as well as modders making gnome textures for the vanilla-esque helmet... or a santa colored one, take your pick

 

http://i.share.pho.to/4b309468_o.png

 

im going to quit while i am a *head* and just try and relax for the rest of the evening...

Edited March 4, 2016 by xander2077

[RubberMan01]

Lol. Well yesterday much the same as today. SNOW!

 

The only building I'm doing this week is in Wings/ Maya/ Milkshape and 3Ds

 

Going to tick you off now..... I think the mouth looks better open *hides*

 

There is a Roman museum near me and there is a helm there not so unlike the Dwemmer one..... mouth open so easier to breath.

 

I actually thought the helm looked more Greek than Roman but who knows uh?

 

Going to try and mesh up the Bannered mare for something to do haha *avoiding dialogue again*

[xander2077]

the romand borrowed heavily from the greeks in design... they just refined things a bit... and of course had better technological advances in metallurgy. bronze is really no match for

 

while it does look somewhat greek, there is also some heavy influence from phonecian and babylonian style in there. you might not see it right away, but in some of the lines while orbiting around the mesh it is obvious. i also wanted to avoid the aztec look, because i think the dwemer are supposed to be more like the sumerians and the cultures that followed their style... if i was a bit more inclined to do so, i would add some detail to the beard instead of making it stylized. but perhaps i can do that on the vanilla-esque helm, since it will look babylonian more than this.

 

i would not mind the open mouth but like i said it reminds me of this

 

http://i.share.pho.to/1e99b137_o.jpeg

 

so if mr dwemeri warrior decided he wants to start peeking over the edges of cribs it is fitting... but not so much for battle...

 

there's japanese, mongolian, medieval, and other armor that got it right, even the dwemer from skyrim looks mean... but not the way i had it lol...

 

the drawback was it was hard to tell proprtions and where the texture was going to sit until i got there, and the mouth is one of those trouble spots unless you use a template while you are building the face or have something right there in front of you as a model/example. i just kind of did it freehand, and no mirroring, so it can be funky trying to get it all symmetrical and proportional. therefore the reason for having to edit the mesh several times and unwrap several times in a row.

 

i am sure not to make the same mistake with the other face helm mesh, but it will be somewhat easier since there is not a huge fin running down the center of that one...

 

that is also why the eyes look close together, but in reality they are about right... if they were wider set then you get the alien effect, and im trying to stay away from weird. there are enough weird armor mods as it is...

 

it is not snowing here, but rain is not giving me a break at all... but it is coooold. and just about the time i think it is going to warm up again, it snows or rains, then thaws, then snows or rains again. it is a weird mix this weather lately. since i was finally able to get tools and parts yesterday, i have to get out there in the mud and work on some vehicles. that is not my cup o' tea... it was just my luck for a truck to need a starter right now when it is not in a garage or on a concrete pad, but in the mud... and i cant just leave it there because business depends on it. and even though i hate using the creeper, it sure beats getting a soggy back any day... and no cardboard big enough to use. no plywood left over. particle board. nothing...

 

i guess i could use a beach towel but that is about like using a napkin right now...

 

you know one mod i also would like to do is dwemer furniture, so it doesnt look so much like stuff out of a sanford and sons junk yard, and more like something dwemer would actually have used at one point, instead of things dragged in there from the vvardenfell landfill by squatters, drug dealers and skooma heads. but if i do that then i will be tempted to do the machines and other things too...

 

if i dont watch it my already huge unification mod is going to get bigger than i can handle. just the textures alone are enough for most people to balk at... but that is what happens when people make proprietary texture folders with the same textures in them as what is already in the main folder, just with appended names... so instead of pointing to oh... lets say, tx_i_dwemer_wall01.dds, the modder did something like this, copied the exact texture from the main folder and named it like this DN_GDR_Tx_i_dwemerwall01.dds... or even change it further to confuse the issue and force you to use their outdated textures. not bad if you play vanilla morrowind with no better bodies or updates at all, but a huge clash when you have all kinds of texture replacers and model replacers installed.

[RubberMan01]

Um.... Furniture :D

 

Maybe I can mesh and you can texture them. Wouldn't mind remaking them all. I would need idea's though which is always the hard part lol

 

P.S. Try plaster board for lying on, it's great.

[xander2077]

well i would if it was thicker, but all i got is the thin stuff, and it was supposed to be used for another project. if i break it i have to get the guy new board, and im not really interested in that.

 

i would even settle for an old piece of paneling, but cant seem to find any laying around, and i know there was some...

 

if i have some time later i may whip up an example of what i think dwemer furniture should look like, but im basically leaning toward the more ornate angular version of the dwemer chest you find in ruins. that is to me a much more dwemeri lookiing chest than the other one which just looks like a normal trunk.

 

think of my puzzle cube texture.

 

think of the shape of the first box you pick the lock on in the chargen at the beginning of the game in the dining room...

 

everything is angular and very stout.

 

if i get up the nerve to redo the ruins buildings, then that will probably be the first really significant update to them since RR mods smoothed the meshes out without making them overly polygoned.

 

but the thing is once you start to remake buildings, in my eyes it is best for things like dwemer ruins not to be tiled. they need to be more like bilboards for each wall, and so the textures will be larger.

 

the trouble spot is always the doors, and lots of people make mods with doors that break the doors, so im looking forward to that one, but if all else fails i can always make the new exteriors with the old doors. but i know if i step over that threshold then i will want to make the interiors over as well...

 

im not sure if that requires making them available in the CS or you can just replace the mesh and texture and be done with it. i will have to experiment a bit and find out some day...

[xander2077]

you know most of the firniture is not too bad, but there seemse to be inconsistencies in the theme. even on one piece of furniture. so some need the detailing finished, and some need the legs redone, but the dwemer bed needs a complete makover.

 

im not too worried about the smoothness of the mesh, since they are supposed to be angular, so octagonal tabletops are fine. for longer tables a stretched octagonal top would be cool.

 

the legs however go from bent to stout, and this is what i mean by inconsistencies. i think the chair should be heavier and more solid instead of open back. the stools and benches should at least be in the same design family. the stove needs to be more imposing like a miniature blast furnace but akin to the better of the two dwemer chests. the dressers and desks are ok, but certain consistency needs to be there, like a beveled counter top. the shelves likewise with stouter more squared legs and perhaps an angular art deco style cage on each end from top to bottom.

 

that goes for detailing under the tables too. my vision is for them not just to have stout legs under them that are obviously made of stone and metal, but to also share the detailing of cages in openings between pedistals and crossmebers. and perhaps this smae theme could be shared with the bed.

 

as far as the other furniture goes, the machines, that is a bit more intensive simply because they need to be animated and not lose that animation. but i guess i could try that out before attempting to redo the dwarven centurions. the reason i would rather do the engines and such first is because they have no skin morphs, so it would be easier to do and if i fail there then it may be best to leave animations alone.

 

i also want to redo some of the tribunal dwemer stuff, but that is mainly interiors and lights. nobody has done anything with those at all. and they are due for an update when you consider there has already been an update of the regular dwemer interiors. but thematically i want to stick to the same as the furniture and what i wanted to do for regular dwemer stuff, just that there it would be on a grander scale.

 

keep in mind though that the outer dimensions of the furniture cannot change, or things will run into each other, so that will be a tricky thing to pull off, but a good rule is to follow where the outermost boundary of each piece is, so if the legs stick out more then there is room to expand higher up. if the sides are the furtnest out then that is the constraint, etc.

 

for things i will remake interior wise, i have to follow this same rule to a degree to avoid collision and clipping. the columns will be remade with this in mind.

 

for regular dwemer ruins, i have yet to figure out what would be good to change and what wont. but i wish i could make them grander than they appear normally. usually when you go into ruins of any kind there is a sense of awe and the tiny bits of grandeur that are left really are something to experience in real life, but dwemer ruins always kind of made me feel sort of "meh". especially after oblivion and the ayelids. and then again after LOTR.

[xander2077]

well i did not do much the other night, but this is an example of what i have in mind for dwemer ruins. more angular, more wrecked. there is a bounding box in the nif that i cant get rid of, but it shows where two objects used to protrude, and i gave them more damage there instead. i also removed the gables from the tower. now if i find there are other ruins with similar bounding boxes i could make it similar to a broken skywalk sticking out the side, but never really got the whole idea of random objects protruding from the towers. pipes are fine, and other features, but those need a makeover as well. what the vanilla design did was it made the ruins seem rushed, even though the concept art was great, but im not too keen on the concept of making them look like some sort of cartoon castle. it has the effect (on me at least) of making the dwemer seem strange and goofy as opposed to strange and mysterious.

 

http://i.share.pho.to/ec01861e_o.png

[xander2077]

http://i.share.pho.to/843aafe9_o.png

http://i.share.pho.to/d460b17f_o.png

http://i.share.pho.to/aafbcf5c_o.png

http://i.share.pho.to/7872c0e6_o.png

http://i.share.pho.to/1c398382_o.png

http://i.share.pho.to/1b370f03_o.png

http://i.share.pho.to/765c6e34_o.png

http://i.share.pho.to/d16440fd_o.png

 

thats what i did today on models. there are a couple im not sure if i am finished with yet. of course the stairs added to the platform ruin will be covered by mountains in some locations, but in a few they will be out in the open.

 

there is another one i forgot about taking a pic, the round yurt looking ruin, and i simplified the lines on it. sisnt finish it yet, the windows are not done yet. but i was having problems doing border select, and put it to the side to fix that. then forgot i was working on it. that is why my screens changed to windowed mode for wine, because of issues with the windows manager doing funky stuff to blender.

 

there are a few more to do, but i have to track them down. i forgot which ones they are and have to open them up to see which ones i need to do still.

[RubberMan01]

Stay off the wine while your meshing lol!!

 

Actually when I said the buildings I meant remaking them from scratch because the ones in the game are sh** !!! Any improvement is good though.