[NSFW] STEP Female Body Replacer

[Shadriss]

Your work on this front is much appriciated... don't let us nitpicking get ya down. We only do it because, like you, we want the best possible results. :) Having done a lot of modding (in a completely different game engine a long time ago in forums far, far away...), I know how much work even the simplest of things can be. I'm seeing good work here, and hope to see outstanding work.

[TechAngel85]

Thanks, Shadriss!

 

About to have to head to know. I've been working on this all morning. I'm basically going in by hand and removing the blotchy issues on the texture. I think it's suppose to simulate dirt; however, it's just causing stretching so I've decided to tone it down as much as possible. Hopefully this all works out and my efforts will not be for nothing!

[Aiyen]

You get the learning experience from it which is probably the most vital! Like you said earlier.. it would be nice if we here on the STEP staff have more texturing knowhow! :) 

 

Everything we learn now can be used in the future...the programs may change, but the overall principles and basic features will remain the same. 

 

 

In relation to the texture.. then yes.. dirt should not be in the diffuse, or normal, or in any of them really.. it should be a tint mask which is applied on top of the textures instead! 

 

The real tick other then the color and tones, is getting those small details on the skin that prevents it from looking like a barbie doll... human skin have lots of features that make it not look super smooth etc. At least I am not a fan of skin textures that look like the person had a laser surgery that removed all features from the top of the skin. 

[TechAngel85]

You get the learning experience from it which is probably the most vital! Like you said earlier.. it would be nice if we here on the STEP staff have more texturing knowhow! :) 

 

Everything we learn now can be used in the future...the programs may change, but the overall principles and basic features will remain the same. 

 

 

In relation to the texture.. then yes.. dirt should not be in the diffuse, or normal, or in any of them really.. it should be a tint mask which is applied on top of the textures instead! 

 

The real tick other then the color and tones, is getting those small details on the skin that prevents it from looking like a barbie doll... human skin have lots of features that make it not look super smooth etc. At least I am not a fan of skin textures that look like the person had a laser surgery that removed all features from the top of the skin. 

That can be done with the specular maps so when the light hits the skin it looks more textured. I still have the tutorial pulled up that shows this:

 

 

The key is finding a skin texture with a continuous pattern so it doesn't look tiled.

[Shadriss]

Long shot, but perhaps a google search for a generic skin texture at a large resolution might be an idea. Get one big enough, cut out the pieces you need from it (so to speak), blend the edges so that they will mesh at the seams, and there you go.

 

Far simpler said than done of course... I tried my hand at skinning a long time ago, and it never made any sense to me. Ask me to build a Quake3-Engine game level though, and I could help... :(

[TechAngel85]

Quick Update:

 

I haven't been sitting down on the job...though my RL job has been taking most of my time. I ended up running into some seam issues that I had to resolve. Turns out the femalebody_1_sk.dds file is important in helping the seams to be hidden. There is still very slight wrist seam but you have to be right up on it to even notice it. This seam was visible in WSCO as well. Overall, the skin is looking good. At least 50% better than it was. I've also fixed the black seam on the inner right thigh that is present in vanilla. I'll probably be fixing the gaps around the underwear too if I can (haven't looked into it yet). I've noticed that at least one of the normals (muscle tones) will likely be dropped due to some funky stuff it's doing to the skin (causing vertical lines)...though I haven't ruled out the specular causing it yet. I'll be testing that tomorrow. Nothing else to report really. There has been a lot of trial and error and redoing but it's coming along.

 

EDIT:

Oh, yeah... I've also reduced the skin texture from 4096 to 2048. WSCO's skin texture was for some reason a 4K texture. Seamed like overkill to me, especially seeing there was a lot of detail on it, so I cut it in half.

[Aiyen]

You always want to work in 4k if possible then downscale last... if you have the memory to do all the layer adjustments in 4k that is. I know on my sword the save file it self is near 500mb.. and while running GIMP eats up near 2-3Gb of memory.. Depending on which filter is applied etc. 

 

It just makes everything so much nicer, and smoother to work with. So not strange that it is a 4k texture since most who can work there will... since upscaling is always a bad idea, while downscaling is not that much of an issue. 

 

Glad to hear you are having fun with all the seams! Probably one of the more annoying things about skin texture.... bright texture + seams :S 

I found a set of Chinese or Japanese textures from a guy over at enbdev recently... really works nice with the normal of mature body.. and just a black _sk file... quite impressed by that really. Have less seam then mature has but that mainly due to being higher resolution and in general better blended. 

[TechAngel85]

You always want to work in 4k if possible then downscale last... if you have the memory to do all the layer adjustments in 4k that is. I know on my sword the save file it self is near 500mb.. and while running GIMP eats up near 2-3Gb of memory.. Depending on which filter is applied etc. 

 

It just makes everything so much nicer, and smoother to work with. So not strange that it is a 4k texture since most who can work there will... since upscaling is always a bad idea, while downscaling is not that much of an issue. 

 

Glad to hear you are having fun with all the seams! Probably one of the more annoying things about skin texture.... bright texture + seams :S 

I found a set of Chinese or Japanese textures from a guy over at enbdev recently... really works nice with the normal of mature body.. and just a black _sk file... quite impressed by that really. Have less seam then mature has but that mainly due to being higher resolution and in general better blended. 

Unfortunately my history in Photoshop wasn't set up to back far enough to undo the down scale (an oversight on my part since I haven't used it very much on this PC) because I thought of that. I might just redo some of it because now that I know how to clean up the skin, I'd be able to do it in half the time it took the first round of learning. I've never check my memory usage those....it's only using 800mb with three files open atm.

[Winterlove]

I've not seen any vertical line artifacts on bodies in my game, but that means little. If you do determine that it is a normal map issue, I'd be interested in knowing more (although I suspect there is little I could do).

[TechAngel85]

I've not seen any vertical line artifacts on bodies in my game, but that means little. If you do determine that it is a normal map issue, I'd be interested in knowing more (although I suspect there is little I could do).

Hey, Winterlove!

 

My Windows 8.1 had a meltdown again. I'm back up and running Windows 7 now. I'll get back into this in a day or two to do some more investigation. Right now I have to make sure my STEP install is still in tacked. I know the LOOT rules and a few masters are missing so I have to run through the Guide.

[TechAngel85]

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I'm going to start getting back to working on this again.

[TechAngel85]

I started over with cleaning up the skin texture and it's already looking very nice. I have just a bit more to do on it. I don't want it to look perfect, but there are still a few spots to clean up a bit. It currently looks really really good under ENB as a vanilla replacement, imo. In vanilla lighting, the specular is way too bright so I'm going to tone that down a bit. All-in-all, it's almost done. I'll post the aphla mod sometime today for testing. Back to work...but first, more coffee!

[CovertSlinky]

Sweet, really want to see your work, you have been working pretty hard on it. I got a feeling it is going to look good. Good luck on the remainder of it.

[TechAngel85]

Okay everyone, I'm at the point that I'm ready for some feedback. I need the overhaul installed and tested. Feedback on the texture, normals (muscle tones) and specular maps (the shine on the skin). Try it with your ENB of choice and try it in vanilla lighting. All feedback is welcome.

 

What's been done:

• Hand specular maps reduced by 25%
• Face specular map reduced by 50%
• Fixed muscle tones not working in the FOMOD (no one really saw this issue but me...need to submit a bug report for MO)
• Shadowing and stretching mostly fixed on stomach area by merging assets (it's great to have full permission to use these assets!)
• Fixed vanilla texture seam on inner right thigh (this appeared as a thick black line in vanilla)
• Fixed issue with the normals (there was a cutout in the blue channel causing a "V" to appear next to the inner right knee)
• created custom specular maps for each normal (muscle tone) so the light will reflect more accurately
• Removed most of the blotchy spots from the skin texture as well as smoothed out some areas
• ...that's all I can think of at the moment...

 

File:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_Nlyy2ueu0bkVacHE1SldPaVE/edit?usp=sharing

 

Known Issues:

• Very light wrist seems when really close to the wrists. These shouldn't be noticeable during normal gameplay, but let me know if they are. You'll really only notice them if you're up close and looking for them.
• Normals have some blotchy areas in them which are hidden within the channels. This is most likely a result from the texture they were made from. I'm planning on smoothing them out.
• Vertical line issue...the cause is not yet known. I've eliminated the specular maps off the list of suspects because I replaced them with black textures and they were still there.
• 

[CovertSlinky]

Sweet, downloading now, I'll let ya know what I think.