6382 réponses à ce sujet

[Adela]

ok so i modified the crap out of Cass's head lol, it has the same amount of verts and polys haven't exported it yet tho

 

[Adela]

K i export it as an obj and didn't optimize it. So its pretty much the same as the original as far as vertex/poly count is concerned

[Ehamloptiran]

Looking good, if u upload the file, I will grab it first thing tomorrow morning as its time for me to sleep now.

[Adela]

oki i will send u a pm

[Silvist]

@Adela - Wow, such a huge improvement on Cass @_@  I really can't wait to see how it looks in game, but I can surely imagine.  Being able to edit morphs is a huge thing to me, considering how many terrible presets there are lol.

 

Honestly, I don't expect perfection..but looking at the two side by side makes the original almost look like a man lol.  I realize they were trying to add some variety to the head meshes...but geez just look at the difference..

 

I mean I'm not bad at making a decent face, but having a good morph base saves so much time.  Thanks again for all the hard work Eham and Adela ^^

[Adela]

Personally i'm not a huge fan of changing  NPC that much, i would go as far as giving them a diffrent hairstyle but thats about it... I rather them have their iconic look, i just did it for test purposes i would much rather change the inq heads, but as Eham said its a bit tricky for now to do that

 

 

Also ty Silvist for the compliment

[Silvist]

@Adela - Well yea, I understand the fact you don't wish to change their attributes to much..but you for sure succeeded in making Cass look more feminine.  I remember in DAO someone made that gray warden trailer, and the variations they did on the characters was based on the official DAO CG intro.  

 

An example:

 

Spoiler

 

Now compare that to the current Leliana, and you'll see what I mean lol.  

 

Here's another example:

 

Spoiler

Look at the vast difference of Morrigan lol.

 

[Adela]

Yea i used the mod for the GW  and i agree that Leliana and Morri look very different in the CG compared to in game

 

As far as Cass goes... now that i look at the pic more... my modified version kinda makes her look generic... idk i guess i messed up in reducing some of the details when I moved some verts around, the face i made looks kinda plain and... dare I say child-like?  Maybe this could be for like a very young Cass... idk

 

Lol sorry I'm my worst enemy when it comes to this kind of stuff I'm never satisfied with what I do...

[Adela]

I think Im gonna redo Cass's head cause I don't like it .. will post a pic with the new one.. hopefully it will turn out better brb

[Adela]

K... sooo 2nd attempt... not that much different from the 1st one... I guess whenever i try to shrink her jaw and make her cheeks a bit  "Puffy" instead of sunken in , it makes the head look kinda generic....

 

[Silvist]

@Adela - Both version are a huge improvement lol.  Also don't forget this is how it looks without textures, and shaders.  Which as we've seen so far from out talented group, can make a world of difference.

 

First off, let me tell you the differences that I like.  Immediately I see you fixed her ears that stick out like Prince Albert lol.  Her entire face now looks smoother, instead of odd sharp edges all over the place.  In the first one you changed her nose quite a bit, though in the second you kept it more like the original.  

 

Though, it was more refined.  To me the manly part of her is mainly her jawline.  I have no idea why they made it like that to begin with, even if it was based on a real life person.  Its like conceptually it makes her face look a little more unique, but to me it makes her look as if she has alot more weight in her face.  Perhaps, they are trying to use some kind of ethnic basis to how she looks.  So, I guess if the other Pentagast family members have that trait..it would make sense.  

[mrjack]

I see it as a normal obj, i thought it had a morpher modifier in it

 

If it was an obj, I guess it didn't come with bones? When you move verts without moving bones, doesn't it end up a warped mess in game? Unless the bones are already tied to verts somehow which I haven't seen but might be possible. I'm basing this on modding ME3 soooo... who knows?

 

Great work modelling btw but I agree with you that Cass is fine as she is. Still it's good to know it can be done. 

[Silvist]

@Mrjack - Doesn't verts tied to bones = skin modifier aka weight painting?  If so, I'm not sure what page its on (so many pages lol), but I skin wrapped an armor I converted a while back and it had the weights copied from the vanilla DAI nude body.  It was a tad buggy, but I was able to get it working.  

 

Edit:

 

Oh here's the screen shot of the weight paint I applied in 3ds max to a custom mesh from the DAI nude body:

 

Spoiler

 

Typically if a mesh is "rigged" to the skeleton, the verts should all be moving with it.  There is a way to re-bake the weight painting to ignore certain verts, just in case those verts have issues.  I've only done a bit of weight painting, and its pretty difficult to do with complex meshes.  Specifically in a game that has tons of animations.  You would essentially have to load in every single animation the mesh can use, and go frame by frame to verify how its weight painted.  

 

I did this alot in skyrim, and simply just made sure the mesh worked with the default/generic animations.  Outside of that..is just way to much work lol.  In fact that in itself is a full time job you can get at any company that does professional cg animations.

 

I did this by extracting the nude body mesh with an older tool as a psk format.  I used the psk importer, and it added in the bones.  Some of the bones didn't seem to do anything to the mesh at all.  Though, some like the shoulder bone seemed to work.  

[Adela]

@Adela - Both version are a huge improvement lol.  Also don't forget this is how it looks without textures, and shaders.  Which as we've seen so far from out talented group, can make a world of difference.

 

First off, let me tell you the differences that I like.  Immediately I see you fixed her ears that stick out like Prince Albert lol.  Her entire face now looks smoother, instead of odd sharp edges all over the place.  In the first one you changed her nose quite a bit, though in the second you kept it more like the original.  

 

Though, it was more refined.  To me the manly part of her is mainly her jawline.  I have no idea why they made it like that to begin with, even if it was based on a real life person.  Its like conceptually it makes her face look a little more unique, but to me it makes her look as if she has alot more weight in her face.  Perhaps, they are trying to use some kind of ethnic basis to how she looks.  So, I guess if the other Pentagast family members have that trait..it would make sense.  

You might be right about the textures that it makes or breaks a character, without them it looks soo generic lol

 

As far as how the devs modeled her, (this is speculation ofc) I think  they went with the assumption that European women "back in the day" had more broad faces/heads , like if u looks how DaVinci painted the women's heads and also Michelangelo you can see  they pretty much all have wide/ broad  heads/jaws and such

 

I don't really think Cass was modeled based off of a real human, but more like based off of concept arts such as drawings by Matthew Rhobes , I also think they went with the more bold look for her because she is a warrior and she is suppose to look kind of tough... idk

 

If it was an obj, I guess it didn't come with bones? When you move verts without moving bones, doesn't it end up a warped mess in game? Unless the bones are already tied to verts somehow which I haven't seen but might be possible. I'm basing this on modding ME3 soooo... who knows?

 

Great work modelling btw but I agree with you that Cass is fine as she is. Still it's good to know it can be done. 

Eham said that all the  morph data is condensed down to vertex data, so all i did is took the mesh into mudbox (sculpting program) and just pretty much moved the verts around to get a different shape . Im not sure how this works with FB only Eham knows that , I personally never got to mod ME  so im not sure how it is

[Adela]

@ Silvist Morpher modifier doesn't really use any bones, its not like skin.  If you have an object , and  if you make a copy of that object and modify its shape  and then apply a moprher modifier  on the original then u can target the modified shape to change on the original

 

With morph as Eham said, on a mesh object, vertex count on the base object and targets must be the same. If you use a patch or NURBS object, the Morpher modifier works on control points only. This means that you can increase the resolution of patches or NURBS surfaces on the base object to enhance detail at render time.

 

Usually Morph modifier is used for lips syncing or facial expression or in DA case for face deformation aka CC

[mrjack]

@Mrjack - Doesn't verts tied to bones = skin modifier aka weight painting?  If so, I'm not sure what page its on (so many pages lol), but I skin wrapped an armor I converted a while back and it had the weights copied from the vanilla DAI nude body.  It was a tad buggy, but I was able to get it working.  

 

Edit:

 

Oh here's the screen shot of the weight paint I applied in 3ds max to a custom mesh from the DAI nude body:

 

Spoiler

 

Typically if a mesh is "rigged" to the skeleton, the verts should all be moving with it.  There is a way to re-bake the weight painting to ignore certain verts, just in case those verts have issues.  I've only done a bit of weight painting, and its pretty difficult to do with complex meshes.  Specifically in a game that has tons of animations.  You would essentially have to load in every single animation the mesh can use, and go frame by frame to verify how its weight painted.  

 

I did this alot in skyrim, and simply just made sure the mesh worked with the default/generic animations.  Outside of that..is just way to much work lol.  In fact that in itself is a full time job you can get at any company that does professional cg animations.

 

I did this by extracting the nude body mesh with an older tool as a psk format.  I used the psk importer, and it added in the bones.  Some of the bones didn't seem to do anything to the mesh at all.  Though, some like the shoulder bone seemed to work.  

 

That's my understanding of how things work as well but Adela didn't have any of that info to work with just vertex data as it was an obj. Eham said he is no modeller so I doubt he put the bones in himself or wrapped the mesh to an existing skeleton. A wrap wouldn't work for a face anyway as it is so intricate you'd have eyeballs melting out of the head and whatnot.. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure that the skeleton must be already mapped to vertices on the head mesh, all of them. Which is one of the reasons Adela had to keep the same number of verts and also why every face texture fits every face.

 

If this is the case it will be much easier for modellers to change head meshes because the game does half the work for them. Good for me because I desperately want to make the default male elf look more masculine.

[mrjack]

Scalp texture WIP

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

[Silvist]

@MrJack - Hmm, I've actually only modified a head mesh a couple of times in the past.  I was able to use a skin wrap modifier without any issues (I normally toss a smoothing modifier with this before exporting as well).  I can see the head mesh is about (4799 or so) x4 as much verts as what I'm used to dealing with (bout less than 1k), in say skyrim.  Are you more referring to the bones that the head uses?

 

Though, I'm not exactly an expert on creating morphs lol, but I do understand the idea behind how they work.  As for the eyeballs, they are a completely separate mesh, along with the eyelashes.  Changing the head mesh would only conflict with those if you somehow moved the eyesockets in a way that it clipped through.

 

Keeping the head meshes the same in terms of verts is always smart to prevent any conflicts.  Whether the game engine has some kind of imposed limitation or what not.

 

In terms of Eham not being a modeler, I'm still sure he knows his way around 3ds max.  After all he did make a 3ds max plugin for skyirm.  He just doesn't prefer to focus on doing modeling work.

 

@Adela - Is this morpher you are using part of his new tool? 

 

Also in terms of morphs, that's practically how Skyrim worked.  There is truly only one race in skyrim, and every race is basically a "morph" of the one race..which is the nord.  So I'm very familiar with how that all works at least in terms of a morph.

 

Update:

 

@Mrjack - I love the color of that tattoo and those eyes @_@

[Adela]

@Silvist, If you are referring to Eham testing tool no,  that was for ppl like me who had problems  merging patches, what he is working on right now , will probably be his new tool, i have sent him the files of my Cass wannabe morphed heads for him to test and see if it works in game

[mrjack]

@Silvist, I only have limited experience modelling for one game so when I say I know what I know it only applies to that one game and even then I might be wrong.

[Silvist]

@Mr.Jack - No problem, I didn't mean to offend you in any way, shape or form.  If I did, I apologize.

 

I was just curious why you stated what you said.  I don't know everything either, so I can be wrong as well  I'm only stating what I know from my experience in modding. (I learn new things all the time from other modders, such as what Adela showed me with the symmetry modifier ^^) 

 

@Adela - Yea, I didn't mean his test tool (i tested it as well cause the patch merging wasn't working for me either).  I was actually more referring to his announcement here:

 

http://daitools.free...c.php?f=3&t=390

 

Regardless I'm very excited to the fact we will be seeing new morphs soon @_@

[Adela]

@Mr.Jack - No problem, I didn't mean to offend you in any way, shape or form.  If I did, I apologize.

 

I was just curious why you stated what you said.  I don't know everything either, so I can be wrong as well  I'm only stating what I know from my experience in modding. (I learn new things all the time from other modders, such as what Adela showed me with the symmetry modifier ^^) 

 

@Adela - Yea, I didn't mean his test tool (i tested it as well cause the patch merging wasn't working for me either).  I was actually more referring to his announcement here:

 

http://daitools.free...c.php?f=3&t=390

 

Regardless I'm very excited to the fact we will be seeing new morphs soon @_@

OH SNAP!!! I didn't even see that post that's awesome    Eham is our knight in shining armor! And yea i cant wait to see new morphs, specially for the inq when it will be possible ofc

[flaming]

[...]

 

As far as how the devs modeled her, (this is speculation ofc) I think  they went with the assumption that European women "back in the day" had more broad faces/heads , like if u looks how DaVinci painted the women's heads and also Michelangelo you can see  they pretty much all have wide/ broad  heads/jaws and such

 

I don't really think Cass was modeled based off of a real human, but more like based off of concept arts such as drawings by Matthew Rhobes , I also think they went with the more bold look for her because she is a warrior and she is suppose to look kind of tough... idk

 

[...]

i think they also wanted to show her age a bit more. by my calculations she's supposed to be at least 35. (don't know if she actually says her age anywhere, since i still haven't left haven, but during a camp talk with her about how she became the divine's right hand, she says the story happened 18-20 years ago. the story is depicted in the dragon age movie, where she seems to be at least 15 (she's already a fully trained seeker member)). So probably that's why they went with the rather gaunt facial structure: a life of fighting and suspicion.

 

Still, i don't like her being portrayed as such. if anything, i'd simply love to have her look similar to how she was in the movies (especially eyebrows & hair style... *begs* pretty please, adela? if not head mesh, at least hair or eyebrows?)

 

p.s. - btw, on the off-chance anyone didn't see it yet, the movie is called "dragon age: dawn of the seeker", introducing cassandra's story. a so-so movie, but you'll get some pretty nice references here and there

[Ehamloptiran]

That's my understanding of how things work as well but Adela didn't have any of that info to work with just vertex data as it was an obj. Eham said he is no modeller so I doubt he put the bones in himself or wrapped the mesh to an existing skeleton. A wrap wouldn't work for a face anyway as it is so intricate you'd have eyeballs melting out of the head and whatnot.. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure that the skeleton must be already mapped to vertices on the head mesh, all of them. Which is one of the reasons Adela had to keep the same number of verts and also why every face texture fits every face.

 

If this is the case it will be much easier for modellers to change head meshes because the game does half the work for them. Good for me because I desperately want to make the default male elf look more masculine.

 

The way the head morphs work is, you have a base head, that contains vertices, normals, texture coordinates, bone weights, bone indices, and an assortment of other parameters, it is skinned to something like 50+ bones to control all the facial features, they use FaceFX for this. Then you have morph files, these control the unique looks of the characters, in their editor, they would move a bunch of sliders to give the characters unique looks, like we do for the character creator, and then its condensed down into vertex data, so what I sent adela was one of these morphs - But what I do, is load the original base mesh in, strip out the top three LOD's, and remove all skinning info (Since morphs can't change that info) and replace the vertex positions with the moprh positions.

[Adela]

@flaming

 

Yea i saw the movie it was awesome  I could make her pony tail  that is not an issue for me, however, that movie is more "anime" and it makes her look super young and your right i forgot she mentioned  all that happen several years ago, witch is why she looks so different now. We will see when Eham wakes up and test the files I've sent him...  if yes and i can try and make her look more young