How in the world do I make hair?

[Katriela]

I'm new to Nexus (sort of) and new to mods (sort of). I haven't really made any mods before, but I do have some very limited, vague understanding of how to make hair due to watching tutorials of people making hair meshes in Blender for the Sims 4. Like... I think I can figure out how to make something look the way I want it to look -- it's the implementation that's the issue, as I have NO idea how to do that.

 

What I would like to know is:

1. Should I use Blender to create new meshes for custom hair for Dragon Age: Origins? If not Blender, which program should I use?
2. In Blender (or whichever program is best), what are my first steps for creating hair for Dragon Age: Origins? As in, do I open a base, do I start completely from scratch, do I need to have things formatted a certain way, etc etc
3. What format should I save my finished mesh in? Are there any specifics steps I need to take here?
4. How do I put my hair into my game? I'm more interested in just getting it to show up in the toolset, but I would like to know how to get it to show up in the character creator, for others who might be interested in what I've created.
5. How would I prepare my hair for upload to Nexus for others to download?

I know this is a lot to ask, and I apologize for my ignorance. I really want to create some content for DA:O, I just have NO IDEA how, in technical respects.

 

If any of you kind souls could help me out, I would be so immensely grateful. I also ask that you explain things as simply yet thoroughly as possible -- I know that's vague, I'm sorry. I've been having some pretty... significant neurological issues lately that makes it harder for me to process things like I should. (Nothing serious, I think. One doctor thinks it's just a pseudo-tumor -- because apparently that's a thing -- and it should be totally treatable. I see neurologist in August. I just really need you guys to understand why I need help and why I need simple but thorough instructions. Simple so I don't get lost, and thorough so I'm less likely to screw up.)

 

Ideally, I'll reach a point where I'm creating hair specifically for Dragon Age: Origins. My hope is to create a series of hairstyles that are somewhat realistic -- in terms of how hair actually works and in the sense that it's not out of place in a medieval fantasy setting. Because I highly doubt that emo bangs would be in style in Thedas.

 

If creating hair proves to be manageable, I'd love to be able to move on to other projects, like re-texturing some things or even editing some clothing meshes so the anatomy isn't so... odd. But right now I'm focusing on hair, because the default hair in DA:O is appalling and most hair mods available just feel out of place in the game to me personally.

 

Sorry for the rambling. I've been having more and more trouble reining myself in lately lmao

 

(sorry if this is in the wrong place or redundant -- not to use the whole "possible pseudo-tumor" thing (seriously what even is that) again but reading has become pretty hard and this already took way too long write)

[theskymoves]

I don't know anything about hair modding but Risibisi sure does, and she's shared some information and tutorials on that subject on her modding blog > mrs-risibisi