Model swap and retexturing the nude mesh

[bullobrien]

Hello

 

This might get a little long so stay with me. I have not modded DA before. ME2-3 is where most of my modding experience has been. I have been an end user of mods for many games however. So I thought I might try my hand in DAI. Here is what I was thinking about working on:

 

Back in DA2 there was a modder called RogueLass who did many mods that extended the possible textures for many different armors. One thing she and the TNT group did was retexture the nude model to create interesting skin tight "armors". Here is an example of the mods I am talking about:

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage2/mods/3685

 

Obviously these were not particularly lore friendly but they helped make multiple play-throughs fun.

 

I was thinking about the same thing for DAI and wondered why no one hadn't done it. So I looked at some tutorials and made a new modified texture for the h_arm_nud only to discover the reason. The nude texture is shared by NPCs so anything you do that will show up on your human female inquisitor also shows up on all human females. This is therefore an issue

 

A potential solution would be to copy the model and texture of the current nude body model and use that to actually replace the model and texture of another model. (I was thinking of something fullbody that was not used on NPCs like the last inquisitor model or the dragon armor etc,)

 

I do not mean an ID change that causes that model to use the nude model instead. That would not help. I mean actually changing out the mesh and textures so that they would replace the ones of the target model.

 

In ME3 I know how to do this but in my searching for info on this process for DAI I have only found ID swaps. Does anyone know how to do this? or could point me to a reference guide/tutorial for the process?

 

thanks

 

Bull

 

 

[unniebee]

I think, because of the limitations of DAI modding, that what you are suggesting is not possible. (I thought of doing the same thing a long time ago for another purpose.) The issue is that edited models will not upload unless they have the exact same number of vertices/polygons as the original models. This is why parts of meshes cannot be deleted - they can only be shrunk down and hidden inside the model. This is a limitation of the Frostbite engine and the modding tools.

 

What you MIGHT be able to do instead is to edit the Skyhold outfit "PJ" mesh to remove the clothing lines and make it shaped like a nude body (remove the metal accent bumps, slim down the sleeve cuffs, make the collar meld into the neck, etc.) and then repaint the texture. The PJ mesh is Inquisitor-only, it's not shared with NPCs. This would be quite difficult, but theoretically is possible.

 

However, this won't work for all races/classes equally - there is a known bug with the Human Male PJ mesh that causes a big black box to appear on the texture if you make any edits to the shape of the mesh. We don't know why this happens and we haven't been able to fix it. Another issue is that this will then show under many of the armors, but that might actually be cool depending on how you do it, and there is a very popular mod that makes the Inquisitor be wearing their PJs all the time anyway. This would also allow you to make your retextures tintable, if you'd be interested in that.

 

I hope that's helpful.

[bullobrien]

I think, because of the limitations of DAI modding, that what you are suggesting is not possible. (I thought of doing the same thing a long time ago for another purpose.) The issue is that edited models will not upload unless they have the exact same number of vertices/polygons as the original models. This is why parts of meshes cannot be deleted - they can only be shrunk down and hidden inside the model. This is a limitation of the Frostbite engine and the modding tools.

 

What you MIGHT be able to do instead is to edit the Skyhold outfit "PJ" mesh to remove the clothing lines and make it shaped like a nude body (remove the metal accent bumps, slim down the sleeve cuffs, make the collar meld into the neck, etc.) and then repaint the texture. The PJ mesh is Inquisitor-only, it's not shared with NPCs. This would be quite difficult, but theoretically is possible.

 

However, this won't work for all races/classes equally - there is a known bug with the Human Male PJ mesh that causes a big black box to appear on the texture if you make any edits to the shape of the mesh. We don't know why this happens and we haven't been able to fix it. Another issue is that this will then show under many of the armors, but that might actually be cool depending on how you do it, and there is a very popular mod that makes the Inquisitor be wearing their PJs all the time anyway. This would also allow you to make your retextures tintable, if you'd be interested in that.

 

I hope that's helpful.

Thank you for the answer. I appreciate it. Can I ask if editing the texture of the swimsuit is possible?

 

If not what I may try is editing the nude texture but only in such a way as the NPCs clothing would cover which would be somewhat limiting but would allow for some room to play.

 

Bull

[unniebee]

I have not seen the swimsuit texture be edited before, but it might be possible. That's a DLC outfit, right? Sometimes ModManager has trouble with those. I think it might use the nude texture for arms and legs though?

[CorniliuS]

The issue is that edited models will not upload unless they have the exact same number of vertices/polygons as the original models.

Is this only limitation? Yes this is not very convenient, but you can rearrange polys and vertices to make a new model. Why nobody doing that? Why no new models of weapons, this will be may first pick to try. Unwrap-normal map-new texture- import to frosty editor and that's it?

[nightscrawl]

 

The issue is that edited models will not upload unless they have the exact same number of vertices/polygons as the original models.

Is this only limitation? Yes this is not very convenient, but you can rearrange polys and vertices to make a new model. Why nobody doing that? Why no new models of weapons, this will be may first pick to try. Unwrap-normal map-new texture- import to frosty editor and that's it?

 

 

You can't import meshes into Frosty at this time. If you're going to do mesh editing, you'll have to stick with the older Mod Manager/Editor.

[unniebee]

People ARE doing that!! Reshaped body models, armors and weapons mods are all over the Nexus. In many cases these are just very small edits to fix bugs, simple changes to body shape or edits to armors to make them less cluttered up. Here's an example of edited weapons and a popular one is editing the wedding dress to have different shapes. Also, this is literally how ALL hairstyle mods are made.

 

Custom Body Models by Aravasia includes a downloadable tutorial on how to extract, edit, save and re-import model meshes using DAI Mod Maker.

 

There are a bunch of limitations on this, though.

1. Not every mesh will import back into DAI Mod Maker correctly. DLC models in particular often won't import at all. (I've been trying to make a mesh edit to the Qunari bed to get rid of those ridiculous statues, but I can't get it to import no matter what I do.)
2. Some meshes have multiple objects in them. In those cases, often only changes to one of the objects will be imported. For example, I have been trying to create an altered Male Hawke body shape for ages, but his torso and his exposed arm are separate objects and only changes to his arm will import into DAI Mod Maker. Believe me, I have tried everything I can think of.
3. Not every version of DAI Mod Maker will allow the creation of mesh mods. I believe version 1.1.0.16 will work, but the most recent one does not.
4. Making extreme changes to models will cause the texture to be warped, as there is no way to re-map the texture to the newly placed vertices/polygons as far as I am aware. This is why extreme changes to hair meshes are everywhere but no one has done something similar with most of the armors/weapons - the hair texture still looks reasonably okay if it gets stretched out/warped.
5. If I understand correctly, Frosty Mod Manager at this time cannot make changes to meshes. (I don't use it myself so I have not been able to test it.) DAI Mod Maker is the only option at the moment.

 

Hope that makes it clearer!

[bullobrien]

I have not seen the swimsuit texture be edited before, but it might be possible. That's a DLC outfit, right? Sometimes ModManager has trouble with those. I think it might use the nude texture for arms and legs though?

 

OK so i tried this and changing the texture of the swimsuit is pretty straight forward so far with Frosty. I could not get Modmanager to upload the new textures. But since frosty works at least there is that. I need to work polishing up the ones I tested and will likely make a mod with alternative textures for Swimsuits

[unniebee]

Good to know! I do not use Frosty ModMaker so I'm glad to hear that it worked. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

[bullobrien]

I published my first attempts. Take a look and see what you think

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonageinquisition/mods/2456