DROPPED Better Males (by Chris57 and FavoredSoul)

[z929669]

I am seeing wrist seams in the vanilla versions of the first image set, but not in the BM or WSCO versions.

 

We should also point out that WSCO is far more limited with regard to mesh improvements, facedata variation and even the malebody msn. WSCO is not a replacement for Better Males (only the CBBE or UNP + BM versions provide BM files).

 

Furthermore, I am finding more and more random things being added via plugins, even some custom facegen facegeom meshes and the like. WSCO is looking more like a compilation of existing mods with some user-specific customizations, and I am not liking it for STEP.

 

Therefore, we should keep Better Males and IMO, reconsider WSCO for inclusion into STEP.

[TechAngel85]

With that

I am seeing wrist seams in the vanilla versions of the first image set, but not in the BM or WSCO versions.
 
We should also point out that WSCO is far more limited with regard to mesh improvements, facedata variation and even the malebody msn. WSCO is not a replacement for Better Males (only the CBBE or UNP + BM versions provide BM files).
 
Furthermore, I am finding more and more random things being added via plugins, even some custom facegen meshes and the like. WSCO is looking more like a compilation of existing mods with some user-specific customizations, and I am not liking it for STEP.
 
Therefore, we should keep Better Males and IMO, reconsider WSCO for inclusion into STEP.

That point is moot, IMO, because that is what XCE is as well. From XCE page:
 

Currently integrated mods:

Detailed Faces
Detailed Bodies
Detailed Lips
No More Blocky Faces
High Quality Eyes
High Resolution Scars
Weathered Warpaint and Improved Dirt
High Res Face Maps for Men by Geonox (Edited to fit body skin color)
FemFeet by Phygit (Edited to fit body skin color)
Lashmaker Eyelash Alpha Resource by Mr Dave (Edited)

Furthermore, that is what Better Males is too:
 

 

BetterMales - BodiesNudes - FavoredSoulMeshes - FlaccidVersion :
Body, penis and feet meshes by FavoredSoul / Body texture by Chris57, improved by FavoredSoul / Lips, dirty faces and scars Improved by Xenius / Bodybuilder by TS, edit by Chris57 / Uncircumcised penis by Sundracon, adapted by Chris57

- BetterMales - BodiesNudes - FavoredSoulMeshes - Erect version :
Body and feet meshes by FavoredSoul / Erect penis by 4uDIK, edit by Chris57 / Body texture by Chris57, improved by FavoredSoul / Lips, dirty faces and scars Improved by Xenius / Bodybuilder by TS, edit by Chris57

- BetterMales - BodiesNudes - SundraconMeshes - FlaccidVersion :
Body and penis meshes by Sundracon, feet by FavoredSoul / Body texture by Chris57, improved by FavoredSoul / Lips, dirty faces and scars Improved by Xenius / Bodybuilder by TS, edit by Chris57 / Vein Removal by MadCat221, edit by Chris57 / Fat males by Thegal, edit by Chris57

Nude Male by Sundracon : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3421
Nude Males v0_4 by thegal : https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=1947
No more blocky faces by xenius : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30
Coolsims Hair Pack by newermind43 : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3809
Coolsims Retexture by Bloodysunday : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4400
Beautiful girl like Lightning from FFXIII not Mask by FrankSunday : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4423
My Type of Hair by Meister falls off cliff : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6173
MTOH Soyas hair Standalone by Meister falls off cliff : https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=7400
High Res Face Maps for Men by Geonox : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4141
Coverkhajiits by mrLenski : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5941
More Muscular Men texture normals by tigersan-wolverinehowlett : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4145
Bodyhair Nude Male HD by MysticBinary82 : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=265
BeautifulHair for females : https://dl.dbank.com/c01b7ynt1z
A Better body scale for Khajit and Argonian Male by TS : https://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6239
Male Body Vein Removal by MadCat221 : https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=3677
XCE - Xenius Character Enhancement by Xenius : https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2356
4uDIKs Real body -4RB- by 4uDIK : https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6667

 

 
The fact that it is a compilation can not be held against WSCO (forgive me if I've misunderstood the point you were making there but I wanted to point that out). Some of the customization is the point of both mods; however, I haven't seen anything regarding custom facegens anywhere via the plugins for WSCO. Neither SRB or Kry mentioned them either in their detailed reviews. Nor did they mention anything wrong with the ESPs...they're mainly simply preset edits. Do you have an example of such "random things" and "custom facegens"? Also, how is WSCO more limited? It incorporates some of the Better Male mod as well as the same "facedata" as the Better Male mod does. They both use Genox's mod. If you're talking about player options, then I don't think that is something that we should be judging these mods on becuase they're up for Core which is very specially for vanilla-only mods. This is the reason we dropped UNP very quickly.
 
Sorry, but I just don't follow what you are saying or see where you're getting that information from. Just by comparing the file trees of both mods you can see that WSCO has given more individualized attention to each race than Better Males does. Only by comparing each race can you give the mods a proper compare unless the differences are very plainly seen in just a couple of the races to say that Better Males wins out. Until I've seen such compares on my own or posted I will withhold any final judgement. I still need to look at more races, but from what I posted above, there is not enough of a difference to say "this wins" for either mod. The only thing I can see that WSCO has going against it is the feet issue.

EDIT:
Just re-examined the ESPs. As Kry mentioned in the review, the female ESP is the only one that would need to be active and the only questionable edits in there is the one ITM and the edit to the Sundry Maiden. The rest are simply preset changes. I've already asked the author for permission to edit these personal changes out (just waiting on a reply). It customizes the female dark elves to use more custom files instead of using the High Elve's files. I'll post compares of these tomorrow when I get home from work.

Better Males still needs compares but for females, I'm convinced were not going to find a better standalone mod that fits STEP. CBBE is not an option in my opinion because of all the editing required to simply to get it to be "close" to vanilla. WSCO is vanilla friendly from the moment of installation. XCE is as well, but even still, that requires two mods to have Dawnguard compatibility and yet another to fix the awful skin textures. The skin textures from WSCO are actually very vanilla friendly for Core inclusion. More personalization can be considered for Extended. Cleaning up the vanilla skin too much isn't really a "fix" but rather personalization.

[z929669]

Forget the plugins for now and look inside the archives at the assets. WSCO vanilla does not contain Better Males ... you need the CBBE or UNP versions for that. Do a folder compare of Better Males against the male portions of WSCO vanilla. Still would need Better Males with WSCO vanilla. The facegeom data is unique to WSCO, and I am assuming that these meshes were alterations that are referenced by one or more of the plugins.

 

There are 73 files that exist in Better Males that do not exist in WSCO vanilla.

 

The WSCO compilation is haphazard, IMO, and comes with more baggage. I am liking it less and less as a whole, but certain parts may be worth looking at independently. Same goes for XCE and even Better Males. We ought to be looking at the mods that are packaged into these rather than these pre-built compilations.

 

Why not just make a STEP compilation as an alternative to XCE, WSCO and Better Males? We can find what we like and get the permissions to compile the ideal for our users and anyone else that is interested.

[TechAngel85]

Forget the plugins for now and look inside the archives at the assets. WSCO vanilla does not contain Better Males ... you need the CBBE or UNP versions for that. Do a folder compare of Better Males against the male portions of WSCO vanilla. Still would need Better Males with WSCO vanilla. The facegeom data is unique to WSCO, and I am assuming that these meshes were alterations that are referenced by one or more of the plugins.

 

There are 73 files that exist in Better Males that do not exist in WSCO vanilla.

 

The WSCO compilation is haphazard, IMO, and comes with more baggage. I am liking it less and less as a whole, but certain parts may be worth looking at independently. Same goes for XCE and even Better Males. We ought to be looking at the mods that are packaged into these rather than these pre-built compilations.

 

Why not just make a STEP compilation as an alternative to XCE, WSCO and Better Males? We can find what we like and get the permissions to compile the ideal for our users and anyone else that is interested.

What do you mean when you are talking about the facegeom? The males texture head msn files because there are no males specific meshes in the mesh folder. I'm not a texture artist so I don't know what each texture is or does. I quick bit of reading and I can be up to speed though if there is a good source for this information.

 

Compilations for each is going to be one big pain in the butt. The biggest things I see being pains with that are A) getting all the permissions we need (many authors are MIA these days) and B) the skin texture is going to be a nightmare. One of the benefits of these mods are the skin textures have already been set up to match without seams and gaps (or as little as possible).

 

I'll take a closer look at the files when I get home from work to see their importance and figure out what they're doing/not doing and if they're even needed for a vanilla version. That is something that has to be figured out because what I'm seeing is mainly a difference in meshes and skin texture and those differences are very small to the point that I don't see them as any sort of concern. In fact, the Better Males is doing something funky with the abs. There is at least one weird line making them appear to have a "ten pack". The vanilla abs are much more natural looking to me. Not everyone has perfect "model" abs.

 

EDIT:

Oh, none of the files are referenced in the ESPs besides the darkelf files. The author changed from vanilla here. In vanilla the High Elf is used. In WSCO, the author has made a custom mesh for the dark elf so it is changed so they don't look exactly the same but with different skin/eyes. This is also only done for the females and not the males. All the male presets are a non-issues because we wouldn't be using that file anyway.

[z929669]

Yeah, I am not satisfied with any of these three mods 100%, so I want to mix and match to create something more uniform and comprehensive for our purposes.

 

Regarding WSCO facegeom: Look under meshes/actor I think. Under facegeon are two *.esm folders with meshes inside. I am no plugin expert, but I assumed that these are related to the masters or at least alterations to vanilla assets. The problem I have with this mod and others in this category is the lack of explanation and changes.

 

I also agree that the vanilla male meshes and textures are better in some ways. There are bad feet and seams at the wrists tough in your previous screens.

 

I am still focusing on females, but will slowly progress and update.

[TechAngel85]

Yeah, I am not satisfied with any of these three mods 100%, so I want to mix and match to create something more uniform and comprehensive for our purposes.

 

Regarding WSCO facegeom: Look under meshes/actor I think. Under facegeon are two *.esm folders with meshes inside. I am no plugin expert, but I assumed that these are related to the masters or at least alterations to vanilla assets. The problem I have with this mod and others in this category is the lack of explanation and changes.

 

I also agree that the vanilla male meshes and textures are better in some ways. There are bad feet and seams at the wrists tough in your previous screens.

 

I am still focusing on females, but will slowly progress and update.

...? I don't have any .ESM folders associated with WSCO.

 

Edit:

Found them. Had use a different install option. Those files are associated with that NPC ESP that we've already decided to kick out due to it being all personal preferences on the changes it made. Reinstall the mod and skip the NPC optional and those files will be gone.

[CJ2311]

Skyrim.esm and Dawnguard.esm are both contained in the Better NPCs BSA file (since the better NPCs affects characters from both those esm files)

[z929669]

OK, got it ... I am still slowly evaluating male and female faces/bodies using many different options from all mod contenders. This will take some time yet.

[TheDane]

With imperial heavy armor equipped (Taken from the female captain at Helgen), major clipping occurs when you block an attack (half of the left arm is missing). Can't take screenshots as it happens to fast. By the way, I have only current step extended + better males (Step recommended setup).

[DoYouEvenModBro]

We don't use any of the optional additions for these mods, right? For example, 'bodybuilder version' or 'no veiny' verison or whatever it has. Same with 'smooth face' option for Geonox faces?

[Tarvok]

I'm not sure if I've just ever really looked at Ulfric's face during the cart ride before, or if it is this mod, but I feel like Ulfric's emotions have changed from vanilla. My impression of him has always been that, bound and gagged, he had the look of a feral beast, impatient to get free, ready to bite anyone who gets too close. But this last cart ride, I looked more closely at my wagon-mates faces. Lokir was hilariously handsome. Ulfric, on the other hand, had a different look on his face: abject terror in the face of death.

[TechAngel85]

The mod only changes the textures...any animations behind them are the same. The STEP choices are very similar to vanilla, albeit cleaned up and fixed. If anyone wants to try out the other choices, they're free to do so.

[DoYouEvenModBro]

So no optional choices? Just default options?

[DoYouEvenModBro]

This apparently overwrites (or in my case, is overwritten by) EOTW Mage Robes of Skyrim with 2 boot meshes or something. Has anyone tried them together? Does this matter? Not even sure how to test this in game or why these would even conflict...

Edited July 15, 2014 by DoYouEvenModBro

[Nearox]

SRLE has both mods. If it would be a problem I'm sure Neo would've mentioend it in the guide.