Custom Race Tutorial Needed

[RangerBoo]

I have looked everywhere but I can't seem to find any good tutorials out on the web for making a custom race. Is there any tutorials that you know of that will teach me to make custom race textures as well as the normal maps for them?

[Jokerine]

http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62261/?

 

Have you seen this? :)

Edited October 30, 2016 by Jokerine

[madmongo]

That tutorial is missing info about custom textures, which is what RangerBoo is looking for. If you follow the steps in the tutorial you'll also wipe out any custom mods you have for the vanilla race that you copy as the GECK is stupid and marks the race that you copy as changed even though you didn't change anything. I posted info about both in the comments section of that mod. The author hasn't updated the tutorial with the new info but it's there in the comments. Pay attention to what files you need because if you are missing files your custom race mesh/texture won't work properly.

 

If you want to create custom meshes for your race, you'll need a 3d modeling tool like Blender, what I use because it's free, or 3dsMax, which I don't use because the version that works with FNV is not free. If you choose Blender, there's a version here somewhere on the Nexus that has all of the nif tools you'll need with all versions that work together (it's an older version of Blender). If you try to use a newer version of Blender the nif tools won't work properly.

 

If you are just doing a custom texture, you can usually use the existing skin and normal map textures. You can edit normal maps by hand, though it is a bit of a pain in my opinion. I've had the best luck by creating a regular texture then converting that to a normal map in Paint.Net (requires a plugin). Normal maps can also be created by your 3d modeling tool. Normal maps are basically used to create more detail where none is present in the mesh, so you can just use a pretty well blank normal map created in Paint.Net and it will at least work in game, it just won't give you any additional detail. For example, if you have a gun and you want engraving on it, the mesh might just have a flat rectangle where the engraving is but the normal map will have the engraving, which makes it look 3 dimensional, especially when combined with the actual texture used. Same thing for body parts, though most folks don't typically engrave body parts, but you know what I mean.

 

GIMP and Paint.Net (which is not MS Paint that comes with windows, but it's a free download) can both handle dds textures and normal maps. The latest version of Paint.Net comes with dds support built in. I think GIMP still requires a dds plugin. Both programs will need a plugin to work with normal maps.

[RangerBoo]

Thanks guys! These are very helpful. :smile: