WARNING SKYRIM RELATED!!!!!! Coyote's Skyrim Mod Progress

[Don Coyote]

Warning!!! There will be lots of pictures.

Adding a helmet FAIL



Upside down shield FAIL



DW Beer Mugs WIN




Blocking with a beer mug WIN


Upsidedown beer mug BOOOOO


Giant Purple Gem Hammer Thing WIN?




NO YOU CANNOT HAVE MY BEER!!!!

[Cramulus]

those shields look righteous! and I would love to fight sword & mug style. Great idea for a mod. You should make a french bread sword.

THIS is why I regret playing on console.

[Don Coyote]

those shields look righteous! and I would love to fight sword & mug style. Great idea for a mod. You should make a french bread sword.

THIS is why I regret playing on console.

Don't thank me. Thank Blizzard. Also thank Blizzard for having the mapping for the textures fubar'd. I'm using them to learn about texturing and mapping. Going from World of Warcraft to Skyrim does crazy things to some of the models.

[Don Coyote]

I wonder which way I should go though. Continue to adding crap, OR add my own quests, OR replicate Outland from WoW into Skyrim. I do want to make more complex fights, espcially with dragons and high level boss type enemies.

[Don Coyote]

CURSE YOU BLIZZARD FOR USING LOW RESOLUTION TEXTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now this is a shield that was very near and dear to me when I playing WoW.


However I made it a little too small.


So blewed it up.


But I am not happy with how the textures are rendering in game, so I maked a grid texture to figure out how it is mapping.



Coyote, talentless hack.

You should make a french bread sword.

And I WILL DAMNIT!!!!!

[Don Coyote]

You should make a french bread sword.

And I WILL DAMNIT!!!!!

AND I DID DAMNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!



AND NOW FOR A BALANCED SNACK!!!! DW BREAD LOAVES!!!!!!


I know it looks shitty, but that is because I need to make texture maps just for this instead of using the original bread maps.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

mmmm, delicious bread sword!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Now you just need cheese plate mail.

[Don Coyote]

Now you just need cheese plate mail.

And a tomato shield?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Now you just need cheese plate mail.

And a tomato shield?

Hell yes.

[Telarus]

CURSE YOU BLIZZARD FOR USING LOW RESOLUTION TEXTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But I am not happy with how the textures are rendering in game, so I maked a grid texture to figure out how it is mapping.



Coyote, talentless hack.

Now you're getting into the mechanics of UV unwrapping and material creation. Nice.

[Don Coyote]

CURSE YOU BLIZZARD FOR USING LOW RESOLUTION TEXTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But I am not happy with how the textures are rendering in game, so I maked a grid texture to figure out how it is mapping.



Coyote, talentless hack.

Now you're getting into the mechanics of UV unwrapping and material creation. Nice.

Funny thing, is I can use the Skyrim model viewer to export the UV maps and use those, but ultimately I will have to use Blender or another 3d modeling program to make my own UV maps, even if I persist in using Blizzard's models. I suspect my problems are combination of lower resolutions, which makes no sense as both Blender and Nifskope do not display the same rendering errors, and the way Blizzard has things mapped, in several cases there is on section of the map used to skin 4-9 individual bits of geometry.

EXAMPLES

[Triple Zero]

Now you just need cheese plate mail.

And a tomato shield?

Hell yes.

A BLT WARRIOR!!!

I maked a grid texture to figure out how it is mapping.

Yes it's a hack, but no I wouldn't call it "talentless", it's in fact pretty damn clever.

From your examples, I kind of get the idea that there could be a tool missing in the chain, I can't imagine they'd have a gfx artist bend their imagery around all those corners, when a computer algorithm could do that as well, given a slightly higher resolution version of the texture (which would be what the gfx artist is working on anyway--see how P3NT's originals are also 4x display size)

[Don Coyote]

Now you just need cheese plate mail.

And a tomato shield?

Hell yes.

A BLT WARRIOR!!!

GODDAMMIT NOW I WILL HAVE TO START DOING THAT INSTEAD OF SERIOUS STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is one of the things I am loving about Skyrim and modding. I, or anyone can just do silly stuff, like the retro 8-bit mod I had installed.

I maked a grid texture to figure out how it is mapping.

Yes it's a hack, but no I wouldn't call it "talentless", it's in fact pretty damn clever.

From your examples, I kind of get the idea that there could be a tool missing in the chain, I can't imagine they'd have a gfx artist bend their imagery around all those corners, when a computer algorithm could do that as well, given a slightly higher resolution version of the texture (which would be what the gfx artist is working on anyway--see how P3NT's originals are also 4x display size)

The orginal textures for the X shield is 128X64 , but it also a shield from when WoW first came out; whereas that mug has 512x512 texture. The real reason I tossed up the grid texture was because it is 1024x1024, and has a recognizable pattern. I suspect with the older models and textures it's just the resolution, so I will end up having to make my own higher res textures to save my sanity.

[Telarus]

Ok. Secrets time. Yeah. Blizzard is using some pretty heavy trickery (multiple pieces of the model using the same UV/texture space). This is "last gen" thinking as hardware has gotten a lot better since WoW came out, and they target the middle of the market (or a technique for use on props in the scene that won't get interacted with much). Anyway, onward.

Most 3d modeling packages will have UV tools, but there are some good free stand-alone alternatives.

Roadkill UV Layout will get you used to the basics of such programs (and it's free!): http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm

Headus UV is a step up from that in complexity & functionality, with licensees ranging from $100-300 (although you can get a good trail run on the free version).

There are a few others I'm forgetting. These are specialized viewers, not modelers. You can't change the Model Vertices, but you can manipulate UV layouts. Cut seems on your model in 3d space, and the program will attempt to flatten each "island" and lay it out in the 2d canvas according to some rules (pack tightly, or keep relative sale, that sort of thing)...

Coyote has stumbled on one of the keys of UV layout (a grid texture, used to visually see how much info-density a section of a model has.. this is used for various methods, the two most common being "make sure everything is in proportion to each other" by matching square sized, or when figuring out UV space for light and shadow maps (which don't have to be to scale.. the underside of a desk is nearly always going to be in shadow, so we scale that UV island way down to make room for detail elsewhere in the model)... and a few other techniques.

See if Roadkill will work for you to re-lay the UVs (you don't want overlapping UVs if you're painting a new texture). Then you would screenshot the new UV layout, and use this as a guide-layer to paint a new texture.


Have you gotten to Normal Maps yet?