Blockhead Unique Bodytypes

[Striker879]

I was wondering when you'd run out of gas ... it's not late for you, it's early (in the morning). Get some sleep before the sun starts shining!!

[Striker879]

I'll get a head start on today's adventure in Blockheading textures ...

 

So just like we needed to do for mesh overrides, texture overrides need the folders set up for Blockhead to use. The folder path in your game needs to be ...

 

Oblivion\Data\Textures\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerNPC\Oblivion.esm

 

I'll use the body textures from Female Body Retextured in this example, but the same as for meshes it's just a copy/paste/rename exercise so you can use any resource for your source files.

 

So we know from what I have outlined previously that the HGEC body requires two textures ... one to cover the feet, legs, torso and arms and another one for the hands. That means that in Blockhead for a HGEC body mesh we only need to override the foot texture and the hand texture.

 

In the Female Body Rextured extracted download (I commonly use the modular version 1.2 4K version which is the second download down from the top but a lot will depend on how capable your own computer is in terms of handling large textures ... in any case the folder names remain the same between 2K and 4K versions) find the folder 10\textures\characters\imperial\female (which contains a single file named footfemale.dds). Copy footfemale.dds and paste it into the Oblivion\Data\Textures\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerNPC\Oblivion.esm you just created.

 

Now Female Body Retextured doesn't include a replacement texture for HGEC hands, so it's designed to use the hand texture you currently have installed. Blockhead doesn't have a problem with this as it will only override the body parts that it finds correctly named files in the proper folder path for, so we can procceed with the single body texture for now.

 

Rename Oblivion\Data\Textures\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerNPC\Oblivion.esm\footfemale.dds to Oblivion\Data\Textures\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerNPC\Oblivion.esm\00000007_Foot.dds and go into the game and you should notice that your character now has a different look for nipple colour (see the picture 003_03.jpg from the SS folder in the Female Body Retextured extracted download). As I noted last night, the AC AAA body mesh doesn't give a very large nipple diameter, but you still should see some difference.

 

Now the body textures found in Female Body Retextured are very close to (if not up to) seamless quality standards, whereas the hand texture we got from the EVE body install are not particularly great in that regard. The body meshes from SetBody Reloaded are seamless quality, so the seam at the wrist can be improved.

 

Download Seamless - OCCv2 to a folder (I suggest the top listed download SR- OCOv2 BAIN 44676 for this exercise) and extract to that same folder. Inside the extracted download you will find the folder path 20 HGEC TGND2 DMRA or Variants\textures\characters\imperial\female that contains four files. Copy footfemale_n.dds, handfemale.dds, and handfemale_n.dds and paste those three files in your Oblivion\Data\Textures\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerNPC\Oblivion.esm folder.

 

Next rename footfemale_n.dds to 00000007_Foot_n.dds, then handfemale.dds to 00000007_Hand.dds and lastly handfemale_n.dds to 00000007_Hand_n.dds and now go into the game and see if you notice any difference with the wrist seam on your character. It should be at the least slightly improved, if not completely eliminated.

 

What remains is a seam at the neck. We can get better in that area when we move to the next phase which will bring us past the Blockheading part of your character's body and into the realm of Seamless.

 

An explanation on what some of those new file types from the Seamless download are, specifically the footfemale_n.dds and handfemale_n.dds files.

 

The game uses two files to display textures on a mesh ... the colour map (example footfemale.dds) and something called a normal map (the footfemale_n.dds file). What the normal map does is allows a more 3d effect to the way light interacts with the colour map on the mesh, sort of a way to show things like wrinkles that are more apparent when the light strikes at certain angles and less apparent when the light hits from directly above.

 

To reduce the difference you see between two adjoining meshes like the hand attached to the arm we need two things.

 

The mesh is made up of small triangular areas arranged in a way to create the shape of the body (click on your character's body mesh in NifSkope and then zoom in and you'll see these triangles). Now look at the wrist of the upper body mesh and you'll notice that around the end of the arm there are places when the vertices of the triangles meet the line around the wrist that defines the end of the arm part of the mesh.

 

The same situation is there in the hand mesh, and if those vertices don't exactly meet in exactly the same place we will notice the difference in the shape transition between hand mesh and the arm.

 

It's not so easy to show a visual, but the same situation occurs with the normal and colour map texture files. If the colour didn't match up exactly we would all expect to see the difference, but the same is true with the normal maps. Everything needs to be precisely aligned if we want to reduce the noticeable differences where different meshes meet. That is why I have been mentioning this "seamless quality" at different points along the way.

 

That should give you enough to explore for a little while.

[DonozPaps]

Hey I'm back, sorry for dissapearing. I was wondering if I could use a thin upperbody with a very large lowerbody (HGEC of course to make our job easier) will it glitch on waist area or we can manage to work?

[Striker879]

With the ones maked as just femaleupperbody_A.nif or AA etc yes. Those are standard HGEC at the waist seam so you can use femalelowerbody_L.nif or LL (the largest).

 

Did you look at the FCPA that I suggested? It's the same upper body you currently have matched with a plump bottom (the PA part of the name).

 

- Edit - Here's a link to the original mod page (not seamless quality) FCPA Flat Chest Plump Ass Body.

[DonozPaps]

Ah I forgot let me quickly take a look. Btw can we do something about cameras. Its possible to look around your character in Skyrim with third person camera. Would it broke the controls?

 

Edit- Ah I saw what happens when I use different lower and upper bodies. There is a slice on waist. No need to fix I'll stick with the one we decided first time. I spent too much on choosing a body.

 

What is our next step? I downloaded those files you said.

 

Edit2- Oh wait just saw your edit. Alright Ill use that let me change it quickly. What I tried to do is use the FCPA file on the nif files with the AA bodies and thats why It glitched. Now I understand

 

Edit3- Same procedure with FCPA body? Do I need to know anything more while applying as character body?

Edited September 22, 2020 by DonozPaps

[Striker879]

Did you do the copy and paste to the Data\Textures\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerNPC\Oblivion.esm folder and rename the files?

[DonozPaps]

Yes as well as the feet and hands. I checked and it works now

 

EDİT- OH WAİT NO NOT THE TEXTURE ONE, I did the meshes thing that change the body.

 

I kinda forgot the path of our modding sorry. Ill read your message up there about the textures and to as you say. Be right back

Edited September 22, 2020 by DonozPaps

[Striker879]

The FCPA doesn't come with hands or feet, so it just uses the same ones you have installed now.

 

So it's just rename your current 00000007_UpperBody.nif to xx00000007_UpperBody.nif and then copy femaleupperbody.nif from the Data_Pack\data\meshes\characters\Bombshell\FCPA folder and paste in the Oblivion\Data\Meshes\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerNPC\Oblivion.esm folder and rename it to 00000007_UpperBody.nif, and then do the same thing only with the lower body NIFs.

[DonozPaps]

Alright I did the texture thing and applied plump body checked in game and they look fine. I couldn't be able to control the triangles on wrist on Nifscope because Upperbodies have no hands they are cut.

 

What is our next step?

[Striker879]

So something I mentioned way back at the start (probably when we were still working in the OCO v2 mod comments) ... how are you with how your character walk, runs etc?