Creating new BBB Stock clothing/armour replacers

[Richard123]

Hello all,

 

I've recently begun making a complete overhaul of the races and clothing/armour in Oblivion. At the moment, this is just for me, but once I'm done (assuming I can make it work), I think I would like to publish it.

 

Here's the problem: All the body replacer or stock clothing/armour replacer mods currently affect all races unilaterally. You want DMRA Imperials? Well, you're gonna see DMRA on Argonians and Khajiit too. (aside from the bizarreness of having reptiles with mammary glands, why are the Khajiit's mam's on their chest? Shouldn't they be at their navel? But I digress...)

 

Here's the premise: Different body types for each race. Applying different types to each NPC is doable, as near as I can tell, but I'm not ready to do that much work. So, Imperials with DMRA, Argonians with AA-cup's, Khajiit have C's, etc.

 

The concept is achievable. I've already confirmed that I can assign a different body-shape to each race. So long as the NPC is unclothed, you can see the different meshes and enjoy a little variety. However, I don't enjoy seeing every NPC in the game naked 100% of the time. So, I thought to myself, "Well, I'll go through TESNexus and download every stock replacer I can find." And that's where things went wrong...

 

Despite my best efforts, I have only been able to find three (relatively) complete libraries of stock clothing/armour replacers. We have:

• the various DMRA replacers by Edhildil, BBB'd by Saaya. (I won't list each mod here, that'll just take too much space...)
  
• The HGEC E-cup stock replacer by the EVE Project (again BBB'd by Saaya).
  
• and the C-cup stock replacer by Nikoli Grimm.
  

Now, although those by themselves do give me a fair bit of variety, I was hoping for a few more:

• A or AA cup, which I don't think would actually need the BBB enhancement
  
• H-cup, and K-cup
  
• more Bouncing Butt meshes
  

And that just covers the women!! The most recent version of Robert's Male Body (V5), gives up to eight different body types, from a massive "Ahnold-at-his-bulkiest" type (Orc, anyone?), to an ultra-nerdy wimp (hmm... Altmer? Breton?). AlienSlof even has on his page at Hall of Torque a nude replacer for Robert's Male Body (hey, I'm a purist. Ladies naked? Then men naked too). But, I run into the same problem as above. Having an unclothed body conform to a particular type does no good if I can't find clothing meshes to match that body type. Thus far, I haven't been able to track down any stock replacers for males...

 

So, I've decided to bite the bullet and at least attempt the modification of all these libraries myself. I've just finished a project where I took a bunch of shoe and boot mods and fixed them so that they didn't truncate the calf, and the heel actually extended below the 0-line on the Z-axis, so that I can use them with Vipcxjs Real High Heels System (yes, I want to release that one too, just haven't gotten that far yet), so I have some experience with Blender. During my various searches and studies, I have also come across reference to a method of copying one set of vertex-points to another mesh, assuming I've understood correctly (always a debatable point).

 

What I'm hoping for is some instruction on how to quickly and easily modify the existing stock meshes to fit the various body-types I have in mind. And of course, for the H- & K-cup equipment, I'll need to add BBB.

 

Anyone wanna help me out with this...? :rolleyes: :whistling: :wallbash:

Edited February 17, 2012 by Richard123

[Nephenee13]

Huh...this is similar to a thread I just made, which for various reasons is now in the Skyrim section and hopefully will make its way back here soon.

 

I can't speak for making different races have different bodies, or use different clothes, but modifying clothes to fit other body types isn't outrageously difficult, and adding BBB is by far the easiest part of the procedure.

 

The main thing is just that its time consuming.

 

You can save some time because a number of outfits (robes especially) are a single mesh with different textures, so once you've done one you've done them all.

 

HGEC E-Cup is a pretty good base to start from, most clothes in that range can be expanded all the way up to DMRA (which I've done), and reducing them to A or AA would probably not be outrageously hard (though I've never had occasion to do so)

 

I don't know how much help I can be, since I have limited time and try to focus my efforts on stuff that I might actually use (which means either HGEC E-cup or DMRA, both of which as you've noted are covered). I would be very interested in your conversion of boots to RHH though, thats a project I've wanted to do for a while, but simply don't feel I have enough experience on both ends (Blender and the CS) to do it right. Are you planning making high-heeled variations for all the stock armor boots? I've toyed with the idea, but have yet to go anywhere with it.

 

I can try to give some advice for Blender, I guess, if there is anything specific you have in mind. You can check out the conversions I've done to see if there are any specific aspects you'd want to ask about.

[Richard123]

Thanks Nephenee!

 

First, about RHH: I haven't nodded any of the stock boots. Changing the foot shape was going to be too difficult for me. What I have done, is take a couple of existing high-heel mods (UFF as one example) and stretch out the calf-through-ankle region. It was easy to do (cause I'm only streching the vertices along one axis) and there were already several textures made for each boot (that still fit, cause changing the shape of the mesh doesn't affect the texture-mapping). Now, I do still have the monumental task of changing the existing stock textures to fit the new boots, but I felt that would be easier than trying to come up with a new foot shape. IF, however, there's a simple way of copying vertex-points from one mesh to another, then modifying the stock boots will be a snap.

 

Looked at your conversions, love 'em. Have to ask, is that your PC? what skin texture are you using? And do your NPC's look that good?

 

So, how does one go about converting a mesh from one body type (HGEC E-cup, for example) to another (HGEC A- or H-cup). Because I like Edhildil's "skimpy" look, I may use that as my base instead. Beautiful as it is, one must admit however, it is rather distorted. Would I still be able to recover a more "natural" curvature from it? And, would you say that the conversion process is fairly standard from piece to piece? Because if it is, maybe I can set up a macro of some kind and automate the process...

[Nephenee13]

Looked at your conversions, love 'em. Have to ask, is that your PC? what skin texture are you using? And do your NPC's look that good?

 

She's a proto-PC, I will be playing a game with a character very similar to her, but I haven't started yet. She's a Chocolate Elf using a tattooed skin texture.

 

So, how does one go about converting a mesh from one body type (HGEC E-cup, for example) to another (HGEC A- or H-cup). Because I like Edhildil's "skimpy" look, I may use that as my base instead. Beautiful as it is, one must admit however, it is rather distorted. Would I still be able to recover a more "natural" curvature from it? And, would you say that the conversion process is fairly standard from piece to piece? Because if it is, maybe I can set up a macro of some kind and automate the process...

 

It absolutely has to be done on a case-by-case basis, there is definitely not going to be a way to automate it.

 

As for how to do it, well, there are a couple of ways.

 

First you import the outfit and delete any existing "body" mesh parts. Then import the body mesh you are converting to. I generally turn on texture display so I can see what things are going to look like. Now, if you're lucky and the mesh is precisely symmetrical, you can turn on X-axis mirroring and easily end up with a symmetric result, if its not, you have to do it carefully and manually. Another way to do it, if the mesh and texture are symmetrical, but X-axis mirroring isn't working, is to cut the mesh in half vertically, delete half of it, manipulate the remaining half and then mirror it. This can cause issues with the texture though, especially if the texture is not symmetrical.

 

Depending on how the original mesh was constructed, you may need to increase the number of poly's in the mesh to keep thing smooth, especially when going from a smaller cup size to a larger one, but this just depends on how it was made originally.

 

Most manipulation will be done with proportional editing, I generally use either smooth or sharp falloff.

[Richard123]

Umm... Hmm, I seem to have not done a sufficient job in overstating my _lack_ of experience with Blender...

 

First, how do I turn on X-axis mirroring? I assume it only works if the vertices on either side of the X-axis are already _perfectly_ symmetrical?

Second, how does one increase the number of poly's? I presume that poly's are the triangles? I've tried splitting those up before, and gave up, as I couldn't make it work right...

Third, what is proportional editing?

 

Thanks for your help Nephenee. Oh, and since I brought up the face of your PC: do you know of any way to import a PC face onto an NPC?

[Nephenee13]

Umm... Hmm, I seem to have not done a sufficient job in overstating my _lack_ of experience with Blender...

 

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm far from being experienced myself, most of what I've learned is through trial and error. The Blender 2.4 User Manual has been quite helpful though.

 

First, how do I turn on X-axis mirroring? I assume it only works if the vertices on either side of the X-axis are already _perfectly_ symmetrical?

Second, how does one increase the number of poly's? I presume that poly's are the triangles? I've tried splitting those up before, and gave up, as I couldn't make it work right...

Third, what is proportional editing?

 

1) Correct, X-Axis mirroring only works if the two sides of the mesh are ABSOLUTELY identical, I always test for it, but am frequently disappointed. To turn it on, go to the "Mesh Tools More" panel at the bottom of the screen, it should be the very last one when in editing mode (after selecting a mesh and hitting tab) you toggle it with the "X-Axis Mirror" button

 

2) You increase the number of polys by selecting an area in edit mode, then hitting "W". You will get a pop-up menu, the first few selections being "Subdivide", you can play around with the different methods, but for this I usually use "subdivide smooth" at the default level, maybe increased just a little bit if its a very low-poly mesh (such as a number of the vanilla outfits)

 

3) Proportional editing causes other vertices/edges/faces to move when you select just one and modify it. It is the number 1 most important tool when doing this sort of thing. On the bar at the bottom of the 3d window, next to the place where you choose whether to select vertices, edges or faces, just to the left you will see a button with two concentric circles in it, clicking on it gives you a few choices under the heading "Proportional", turning it on will activate Proportional Editing, and a new button just to the right, where you can select how much other elements move in response to what you've chosen. As I said, I usually use "Smooth" (which is the default) and "Sharp", though I've tried out the others, and even had the occasion to use them.

 

From here its pretty much just trial and error. All I can really say is choose a mesh that isn't very complicated and just...mess with it. See what you end up with. No one ever taught me this stuff, I just figured it out.

 

There is also copying of bone weights, which is pretty straightforward all in all, and is used for both BBB compatibility and to make sure the clothes move properly with the rest of the body.

 

 

Thanks for your help Nephenee. Oh, and since I brought up the face of your PC: do you know of any way to import a PC face onto an NPC?

 

That face is actually pretty much the "default" Chocolate Elf face, if you just load up the character creator and hit "reset face" thats what you get. I do know there is a way to copy faces, I've never actually had occasion to do it though. I have this saved in case I ever want to.

[Richard123]

Thanks for the face link Nephenee, that's fantastic. I'm gonna have to download and learn how to use WryeBash soon...

 

Thanks also for the Blender instructions. Hopefully I have some time this weekend to try this out. Once I've got a stock of re-sized meshes, I can move on to adding BBB to them.

 

A new question: Do you (or anyone else reading this) know of any way to extract an .esp to a spreadsheet or comma-delimited text format? I'm going to have a lot of edits to do to make this work as I want, and it would be much easier if I could just use a find-&-replace. Getting it into a spreadsheet would make things even easier, for organizing by race, among other things...

 

Thanks!

[Nephenee13]

Thanks also for the Blender instructions. Hopefully I have some time this weekend to try this out. Once I've got a stock of re-sized meshes, I can move on to adding BBB to them.

 

You should do the BBB at the same time you resize the mesh. Its far easier that way.

 

Make sure you use an already BBB weighted torso mesh, then once you finish resizing, just copy the weights from the torso onto the relevant areas of the clothing. Its incredibly easy, and by far the simplest part of this entire procedure.

[Richard123]

Oh. Alright then. Umm... How does one copy weights...?

 

Any ideas about the spreadsheet bit?

[Nephenee13]

Oh. Alright then. Umm... How does one copy weights...?

 

Any ideas about the spreadsheet bit?

 

Everything you ever wanted to know about BBB weighting

 

No clue about the spreadsheet aspect.