Due to my last thread reaching the post-limit, I open up this new one now before I can't copy the content of the 1st post anymore.
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=980293


Some might already know it, following my WIP threads about Argonian Beautification, that there's a personal side-project of mine I regularly talk about over there.
I have this one special Dragon (and the world he's living in, that is) in my mind since I first dreamed of him (yep, that's right, I dream of a world full of dragons... well, actually sleeping is just the phase my mind is most creative in, I admit) and am constantly developing his/this story in my imagination for quite some years now. (Yes I admit, I could've written a whole book already now after years of ongoing stories, continuing each time I go to bed, before I finally fall to sleep. I already started writing down the first chapters from memory and filling some gaps where necessary, but university is keeping me from seriously taking time for such a large scale undertaking.)
Anyways, this little dragon, Drake, was the first character I created in Oblivion and am since then working to make him "him", with all his abilities, unique features, looks, everything.

First I started with a simple recolored Argonian. That didn't look that "unique" though, neither very "dragon"-ish. So I gave him a complete texture overhaul to make him differ in appearance from Argonians, used jdayT's feet meshes, the spiked tail from Slof's Better Beasts, the wings from Chingari's and Ismelda's Demon Race, some claws and some spikes cut away from Slof's Giger Armor for his armblades/legblades and a rather unique scissor-like construction on the tip of his tail from the same Armor to form his tailblades.

Ready was http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/5127/drakesnewlookja3.jpg.
It was even working quite well, because http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/5776/draconianarmorkx9.jpg.
(don't mind the armor, it was a first-timer to create something fitting for him.)

I used Wrye Morph to switch between full-dragon and full/half-human shape, as I don't know of a way to get an exchangeable but still animated head working.
That's why in the next step I dropped the idea of full-transforming and concentrated on the half-human shape first from then on.

Drake's being a Shape Shifter, an art the ancient dragons refined in their thrive for real contact to other races for studying purposes or simply to make friends. It came very handy when they first invented the ability to shift into human shape and visit the first human settlements without causing panic and terror everywhere by their appearance. Over the millenia this ability somehow got merged into genetic knowledge, inherited information passed on to the offspring on birth. (It's a myth beyond my dragons that the complete knowledge of their ancestors sleeps deep inside their subconscious, sometimes even becoming active knowledge if need be.) That's why nowadays (the time my story's playing in) all dragons can shift into human shape at will, although nobody really knows how shape shifting in general works anymore. Each dragon has an own unique human appearance, somehow derived from their soul/mind/personality and can't take on another form, because they simply forgot how to achieve that. However, they still can control it to a degree they can transform only parts of their body, limbs, as well. It's quite handy to walk around in human shape, but when a bandit of sorts attacks you from behind he runs into your quick and agile defending dragon tail shooting out from under your robes, disarming him immediately with your tail blade. Or if you need a quick travel upwards, a steep slope for example, simply extend your dragon wings, fly up, and let them disappear again, continue wandering around as a human. Using your sturdy dragon claws as tools instead of requiring a certain tool hold in human hands, giving "unarmed" hand-to-hand combat a new definition with your sharp and almost indistructible claws, or simply using them in combination with your strong clawed dragon feet to quickly climb up a rock might come in handy as well some days.
(I'm still working out a system to "reward" for using dragon bodyparts instead of human, or maybe a "penalty" for NOT using dragon bodyparts would be better?)

This partial shape shifting I achieved by using my own "body part and adapted clothing equipment control" scripts resource, in use by Scripted Argonian Feet, to a rather extreme extent, enabling you to swap body parts at will by altering a variable's value (this will later be bound to some key-presses or spells or something). You can show/hide your dragon feet (legs will react if adapted clothing is available, but will keep human shape if not. This might change now that I use my own feet meshes.), show hide your claws (upperbody will react the same way the legs do), show/hide your tail and show/hide your wings, at will and independently from each other.

I used this setting myself for quite a while, everytime I played with my main character,
made some clothing items (re-texes, re-meshes),
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/371/drakereadingbackfj6.jpg, http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7828/drakereadingfrontfj4.jpg, http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/3457/drakerelaxingij1.jpg, http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/9291/drakethinking2rz8.jpg, http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/9130/drakethinkingcs3.jpg,
adapted some armor (thanks again, Nivea, for this conversion)
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/4462/drakeonhonorguard1jb5.jpg, http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/5099/drakeonhonorguard2ww0.jpg, http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/7043/drakelyingpronebd1.jpg, http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/1958/drakereadytojumpww2.jpg, http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/7606/draketailbladesraisedfh2.jpg

Then I tried making my own feet from scratch, loosely sticking to http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/7079/newfeetreferencekp7.jpg design.
But I went too far with the bent legs and the raised heels, the feet and toes were way too long, the legs too far spread apart to make room for the huge feet, and movement was looking aweful, walking worse than frogs or ducks, yet more ugly than the often-complained-about Morrowind-style Argonian movement. But still it was a first-timer and apart from that the result, especially my first rigging, looked quite promising ingame
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/2474/drakesnewfeethc6.jpg, http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/1509/drakesnewbow1xe2.jpg, http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/2715/drakesnewbow2tl2.jpg, http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1419/drakesnewbow3sa0.jpg, http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/9150/newfeetswordstanceev5.jpg, http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/465/newfeetdigitigradenessio8.jpg, http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/5106/newfeetwalking1lg3.jpg, http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/226/newfeetwalking2hj1.jpg, http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6408/newfeetwalking3fb7.jpg, http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/6592/newfeetstretching1hx9.jpg, http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8670/newfeetstretching2fk3.jpg, http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/8246/newfeetstretching3sg8.jpg

Then I improved the clothing a bit more, getting it closer to look like the clothing from my imagination
http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/897/standingbythefireuo6.jpg, http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/3131/newshirtcloseuppe4.jpg, http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/7049/spreadyourwingsza4.jpg, http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/6237/dragonseyeintothedarknemq9.jpg,
fiddled up a partner-look uniform scheme and did some action shots of me and my companion
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/8183/missingtoothgraduationxq0.jpg, http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/2958/swordfightpractice1lh7.jpg, http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/293/swordfightpractice2uq0.jpg, http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/7136/swordfightpractice3ue5.jpg, http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/3873/swordfightpractice4nj9.jpg,
and some rather civilian shots
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/8817/drakebreakfastrb4.jpg, http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/6613/draketiredho7.jpg, http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/3812/drakesleepingyt2.jpg

Actually all those shots had an ingame story to go with them, but I posted them in context already in other threads. They're only here to show the race and my work in use, and believe me, I have fun playing it.

Lately I gave his textures another overhaul, as this bloody red color scheme wasn't really fitting my imagination. I only did the upperbody and just "recolored" the lower to fit better, but results were looking fine... although it's still not quite the right color somehow... I also overdid the normalmaps' shinyness and bumpyness I fear... absolute overkill... but still the shape it gives the textured body is priceless and I will search for a way to keep most of its structure while adding in more details and toning down on the shinyness.
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/5559/drakesnewtextureswipcomue4.jpg, http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/997/drakesnewtextureswipclodo0.jpg, http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/5108/drakesnewtextureswipacteh8.jpg

Then I came up with the idea to create my own wings, better fitting my imagination, as anatomically correct as possible
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4821/dragonwingsvipcompyx7.jpg
(think along the lines of those wingfingers folding in to end parallel to the lower wingarm, while the lower wingarm and upper wingarm fold in to end almost parallel to the upperbody)

My own new feet meshes got a workover, reducing their length a bit, narrowing down their size, the legs slighty less bent for existing animations to look better with them and the spread-apart nonsense removed, and the result was really worth the effort. I think I got rid of this hilariously ugly look when they're moving.
YouTube videos of them ingame (bad quality, I apologise, another first-timer):
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=P4SrlmzYKYc
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=m7SkkIs_svI (just for the fun of it)
Now do those still look hilariously ugly? :hubbahubba:

A better tail mesh was in order and I made all new meshes connect seamlessly to the existing Robert's body (V4 Muscular)
http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/3994/dragonbodywip1qx5.jpg, http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/446/dragonbodywip2ld9.jpg

The wing webs had to be worked out and the texture improvement got to the next step, adding some structure to the claws' fingers and giving new textures to the new feet meshes and the wing webs
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/9362/nextstepdragontextures1lx2.jpg
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/9104/nextstepdragontextures2lu9.jpg

The texturework is finally completed, at least I think it is, at the very least the current texture is a release candidate already.
Using the simple method I learned from Ghogiel to "merge" normalmaps correctly, I actually managed, by simply merging my own normalmaps with themself just with different grades of bumpiness, to keep the bumpiness and well defined structure of the first try while also adding in the smaller details I lost last time, and of course I also reduced this shinyness overkill drastically this time.
The result is really looking fine in my eyes and was well worth the effort, I think. I even like the colors somehow.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/9899/newdragontexturesrc1hs0.jpg
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/3007/newdragontexturesrc2bg7.jpg
Don't mind the tail, I haven't rigged the new one yet. Now on to rigging the tail and completing the wings next.

Now also the new tail is finished and properly rigged, looking good ingame.
But see for yourself:
http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/5319/newtailriggedrollingok1.jpg
Video Documentation downloadable from http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21147 (higher quality) or viewable on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceZHiDUUbwU (lower quality)
I'm still a beginner with creating videos and it seems my editing software can only create this "crappy" quality. I don't know if I'm really interested in something more advanced though, as I'm really only uploading small video clips to present the state of my work.

I swapped two entries in the planned development timeline. In my late screenshots I could live with the wings not showing, as they would have been too large to fit in anyways. One thing though I couldn't stand any longer... this Breton head on top of it all! It was just... out of place. I just had to make something really creative to get back into the mood for continuing working down my todo lists, so I gave it a try and created a dragon head fitting my imaginations. It started as a deformation of the Argonian head mesh with the goal to keep FaceGen animations intact... while I failed miserably at that, because I didn't know how to do it right (still don't btw.), I created a really nice helmet or some sort of stiff mask static dragon head this way. I only had to make a new head texture fitting my body textures (aligning as seamlessly as possible around the neck), plug in mouth, tongue, teeth, also static, rip apart a "hairstyle" (actually these are horns) and hand-place the seperated horns and spikes all over the head (original didn't fit my head at all), retex the horns so they blend in better with the head textures and match the "painted" spikes located all over the body in the textures, and last but not least take two Argonian Eyes, plug them inside the eyeholes, retex them as well, as the originals didn't provide my style in color and glow, and rig every single part to the head bone (the head itself however was already rigged properly), and I was set. As a little cosmetic nit-pick I deformed the teeth a little bit so some of them stick out here and there, looks more realistic that way.
First tests ingame resulted in the eyes behaving strange when in inventory menu. When some other mesh (f.e. the horns) was to be seen behind them, it was like an x-ray effect, they were visible as if rendered in front of the eyes, but everything looked right when just the inside of the head should have been seen. That's when I realized eye textures don't have normalmaps, but ones made static to be part of a helmet sure do! So now my eyes even have some faint "structure" inside those shiny eyeballs. The horns received some better normalmaps as well while I was already on it, closely matching the head normalmaps which themself are identical to the body normalmaps, for maximum seamlessness.
All in all the whole process took me only about 2-3 hours until it was working ingame. This time I didn't have any references for the shape of the head other than the pictures of Drake I have in my mind. I'm quite surprised it turned out so well on my first try actually.
Remember, this head is NOT animated, no facial expressions, deformations in CharGen or any other FaceGen-related activities. However, I sometimes got the impression it shows different facial expressions from different points of view... maybe I was too sleepy already, but I could swear he blinked once and moved his lips! :lmao:
I think I'll stick with that for now though, as actually it's still a Breton body just occasionally wearing a dragon head. This way you can be still partly human but already have the head of a dragon. 2 animated heads on 1 race is not possible by all I know, so that's the best solution. If I don't want to fall back to forcing my users to also use Wrye Morph to actually change their race when transforming into "full" dragon shape, that is. Because Wrye Morph is way more complex nowadays than just the basic functionality I would need of it, to switch between exactly 2 stored character setups of fixed races, each appearance defined once during CharGen.
Anyways, on to the screenshots:
http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/228/newdesktopsq2.jpg, http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/5125/inprofilegg3.jpg, http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/3350/closeupkd0.jpg, http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/3787/newavatarho2.jpg,
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/803/littledragonbigdragonha9.jpg, http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/6048/almostscenicid9.jpg, http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/5185/canicompetejw8.jpg, http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/4696/finallywholecy8.jpg,
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/5461/nowthatsascenicey7.jpg

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=926198&view=findpost&p=13447648

Now there are also some nice spikes going down the spine and Drake's tailblades finally made it ingame... quite a handy weapon, or rather a "tool", that's for sure.
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5907/newtailbladesandspikes2ra6.jpg, http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8859/newtailbladesandspikes1ij5.jpg, http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1629/newtailbladesandspikes3fj2.jpg

I finally finished rigging the wings and the results are really pleasant to my eyes.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/1205/newwingrigging1dr9.jpg
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/9577/drakeflying1ah5.jpg
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6185/drakeflying2pu2.jpg
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8474/drakeflying3ij7.jpg
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5867/drakeflying4jv9.jpg
(that's what I envision the gliding motion to look like)
Gliding or flapping not fast enough?
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/4543/quickdive1so8.jpg
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2246/quickdive2xs3.jpg
There's nothing better than to dive down at your opponents on high speed just to spread your wings again shortly before hitting the ground, and while shooting along at the speed gained from the freefall above their heads, letting loose an inferno of flames to fry them... I love it "toasted"!

Got my head into animation business the first time of my life:
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6997/drakesnewidle1eo6.jpg
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5762/drakesnewidle2pq7.jpg
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/7725/drakesnewidle3dp6.jpg
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/904/drakesnewidle4uq4.jpg
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8251/drakesnewidle5bb2.jpg
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/1462/drakesnewidle6on0.jpg
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1169/drakesnewidle7xf3.jpg
Just uploaded this to YouTube today http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGAnCn_9nfg

Enjoy the little http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=577NFVOHeCs! The weather was quite cooperative this day and Drake looked just marvelous in this sky. :woot:

And as a little bonus here are some pics of me playing around with in-flight combat and a certain Midas Magic spell.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7271/helikesitwelldone1yy8.jpg (actually that's wrong, he can't stand meat at all, but it was so fitting. )
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5458/helikesitwelldone2fm7.jpg
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/51/helikesitwelldone3lv1.jpg
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/7955/helikesitwelldone4nk5.jpg
... poor thing didn't know when it was better "not" to attack.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/6500/armbladesmoving.jpg
...just wait for the first combat animations making use of these. :woot:

While I was at it, the tail blades, which form a tong or something like that, were of course also intended to be movable all the time...
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9793/tailbladestong.jpg
Wanna make some matches out of trees with these? :hubbahubba:

A while ago I was asked to release the things there are as some form of Hybrid Dragon Race.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4024/hybriddragonrace1.jpg... I got past Testinghall on my quick way out, as you can see.
I went a bit overboard with the sliders on this one, way too red and not fitting the "non-skin" sections of body parts occasionally... but this is something neglectible I think.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X4UDIBY3

I gave the head mesh another try and did make marvellous progress.
Here are some pics of it being used on Argonians:
(following pics are animated GIFs, might take a minute or 2 to load)
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4577/newdragonheadanimated1.gif
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6185/newdragonheadanimated2.gif
...man I'm somehow proud of this shape...

Now here are a few pics of the new head mesh and stuff and also of the issue that's currently holding back a release:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6169/drakeandtiamat1.jpg
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9677/drakeandtiamat2.jpg
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1215/drakeandtiamat3.jpg

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/9165/realdragonheadposes1.jpg
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/4186/realdragonheadposes2.jpg
(I like the shine-through of the wing-membranes)

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/7453/realdragonheadposes3.jpg

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7279/flightanimationwip1.jpg
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9598/flightanimationwip2.jpg
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/1821/flightanimationwip3.jpg
(is that a better wingspan now?)

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/308/flightanimationwip4.jpg

And now to the funny part...
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/2193/somebodycalladentist1.jpg
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7286/somebodycalladentist2.jpg
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5087/somebodycalladentist3.jpg
...well, you can clearly see the issue I guess...

Fearil created and released many adapted files for Vanilla armor pieces to be used with this race.
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/4596/screenshot6z.jpg
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=553FU2F1
Every armor except the Arena Raiments was covered.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F3AJIX1A

And here's a release of the old helmet-type dragon head I used in the old shots:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4MCG7YYW

Next update, sorta, is the new Dragon Head and fitting mouth, tongue and teeth meshes I was working on, now completely animated and morphable during CharGen.
Thanks to ThrottleKitty for helping me out with invaluable knowledge and suggestions!
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S9C8R8NW
This release is meant as an add-on of sorts to the Hybrid Race, providing all necessary files and a new ESP to replace the original one, to get the dragon shaped head instead of the human.
fixes, fixes, fixes... why do things never work perfectly right from the start?... That's a new download link. Get the latest version with all vital bugfixes!

For reference here's the link to the initial Hybrid Race release which is required for the other things to work:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X4UDIBY3

Requirements: OBSE v0016 or later, "Elys Pluggy" OBSE Plugin (I'm using v122, but I think any version with Array support will be suffice)


Overview of the 3 races (colorschemes) to be in the beta:
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/3707/dragontextures.jpg

Due to the loss of my laptop's secondary fan, cooling the GeForce, I can't play-test anymore currently. Also I'm fearing a complete loss, which might be unlikely but isn't unthinkable. So here's a pre-release of the beta, lacking only a few more scripting functionalities I wanted to add but can't currently.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HIR5CU83

Requirements: Robert's Male body (any version should do, meshes designed to fit V4 muscular), OBSE v0017 or higher (Pluggy is no longer required)
currently male-only!

Still missing flight capability, draconic NPCs will run around with their wings spread apart in rigging pose, last known flaws of my scripting approach still persist.
Everything I did myself is free to use. My scripting approach is a Modder's Resource. Consult the readme for additional information about re-use of particular assets.

Comes OMOD-ready as usual, but there are no installation scripts right now. If you prefer other lowerbody alternatives (nvde ones or different underwear), you have to replace the "meshes/characters/drakedragon/male/dragonlegs_dcpart.nif" file with one of the alternatives (names are self-explanatory). By all means make backups!

Attention! There was a critical bug in the ESP of the release, keeping tails and wings from showing up initially! This replacement ESP will fix it.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BSK5KTPS


Well, I'm back on track now, my laptop got repaired and everything's working wonderfully again on my side.
So due to there being quite a lot of bugs/flaws in the last release of the scripts here's a hopefully finally fixed one, as well as replacement skeletons with folded-in wings. (That way it's a lot safer, even if the animation to neutralize the wing pose fails some day.)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IYCBQ3GC

New requirement: OBSE v0018. I know it's still in beta... but then, this mod itself is not even in beta yet.


Alright, here's the MegaUpload link for the 0.0.7 pre-beta complete package:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=K1EKLHQH

You get all files directly from my drive in their latest state of development.
Male and female player characters and NPCs/companions are now supported.
OBSE v0018 beta 4 is highly required (I think I recompiled all scripts with beta 4 loaded before my laptop died, so they should all work with and require the latest OBSE)

Male meshes/textures are still made to fit Robert's Male Body V4 (muscular) and female meshes/textures are made fitting the TFF body.
But as I was reminded by RIF you should of course be able to use just about every body for your other races, my dragon race should still use those two, given all slots are configured to be controlled by my scripts and automatic unequipping of non-fitting items is enforced for all of them.

Updating of previous running games with my race to 0.0.7 is still bound to be error-prone unfortunately, but as soon as I finish the next script overhaul any updates from v0.0.8 on should be done easily and not cause any issues anymore. For now though expectedly-error-free usage is only given when starting a new game, or if you manage to make a clean update of your existing savegames following all safety preparations.


I was regularly talking about process of this project in my other threads. As of late not having much traffic over there anyways, my regularly posting process updates started looking like "bumping" my own thread, especially when about half of it was off-topic regarding this race WIP.
So now I created an own WIP thread for this race not to derail my Argonian Beautification or Scripted Argonian Feet threads anymore by posting this stuff (also to prevent some people complaining about "what I had done to Argonians" just because they looked at my pictures of "this race" without reading the post explaining that it's NOT an Argonian depicted in them).

From now on I will regularly update "this" thread instead of dropping lines into AB or SAF threads. (it was about time to start an own WIP thread for this race anyways... after all this development) -_-

What is that armor ?

I seem to have some trouble running the latest version, nothing game ruining mind you but some noticeable things.
I'm sure I have all the requirements, and the dragon itself looks fine, but there are 2 problems I run into, the first is a sound that keeps replaying throughout the game, I'm not entirely sure what it is but it sounds like some sort of a rock rolling across the ground, the other problem is that the dragons are wingless, I noticed you typed that flying isn't implemented yet but I assumed the wings were... I hope I'm not wrong and just being annoying.

Any ideas?

I believe that was Dragonic armor from lineage 2.

You're right, lordsoulstrike. The set was converted to Robert's Male by Nivea on request.
Unfortunately the textures turned out to be game rips or whatever, so it never was released publicly.
However, I remember a wip thread over at the Eyecandy forums where they were working on a hand-painted reproduction of the textures, even in cooperation with the original author, if I recall correctly.
I just can't seem to find the thread anymore and don't know how far they got with it. Last pictures I saw were looking quite promising though.

@TotalDevi: The repeating sound most likely is the script effect. I don't know why it was done that way to begin with, but apparently the original scripted magic effect made a disturbing sound each time a scripted spell was used by whatever... I think they were even yet-more-disturbing visual effects going along with this...
Anyways, that's why there are so many "Script Effect Silencers" out there, as it is just annoying... scripted spells is one of the most powerful resources in Oblivion modding, and it's mandatory to be silent and unnoticable.

I actually don't really know which one I'm using... I had it right from the start, so never needed one... maybe it was part of the UOP even?... if not, then it at least came with Supreme Magicka... or maybe it's the one from Midas Magic?
Whatever, I'm just lucky there weren't any conflicts with this... as using more than one silencer at once is known to cause conflicts, they can even nullify each other's functionality, so nothing's silenced anymore... or so I've read... :shrug:

Your dragons not having wings though is definitely some cause for worries.
May I ask which configuration settings on script start you tried? You can "turn off" wings in these settings, so this is the first thing I'll ask.
Then I noticed you typed "the Dragons are"... Does this mean you're trying to get draconic NPCs or something?
That's one of the last things I was working on before my second fan died, which disables me to test anything ingame right now, dragons as NPCs won't make you happy unless you get them to initially play my special idle animation to neutralize the wing pose on each game load/start.
I once tried to give dragon body parts to simply all NPCs in the surrounding, and strangely no one got tails or wings, not even Argonians or Khajiiti!
I then put it aside as somehow mysteriously being caused by them not being actual dragons or something along that line and went on with my implementations, delaying draconic NPCs till after draconic "players" are working.
I now think it's caused by them not using my skeletons, as NPCs can have their very own skeleton on a per-actor basis... or so I've heard. Again this wouldn't cause any trouble for "real" draconic NPCs, just regular actors can't be simply turned into dragons is all.
But of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the player. Did you mean your draconic "player" character didn't have wings? And you told the configuration popup to use wings?
Make sure you installed my 2 skeleton files in "meshes/characters/_male". They will overwrite any existing "skeleton.nif" or "skeletonbeast.nif" files in there, so be careful and make backups. As mentioned in the readme this might cause incompatibilities with certain other mods (those coming with their own skeletons as well and them not being simple clones of the game's ones or similar to the Demon Race's or Breeze's used for his Seducer Race), so I could imagine people refraining to use them... but keep in mind, if you don't, wings and armblades will never work and you will get horrible stretching issues or worse!

Now, can anybody copy this issue? Did I mess something up in this hurried release? Are the wings working or not?
If they aren't, I'm quite stumped though, as for me they are... but my dragon character exists longer than the race itself, so it could be him being affected by countless previous versions of this mod kept him working "although" the current mod is bugged... if it is, that is... :blink:

I tried using your updated mod and I cannot continue with my character (no wings or tail.) I tried creating a new character and for the life of me cannot get a character with wings or tail. I've tried every combination I can think of and nothing seems to work. It could be I am trying to get this to work waaay to late at night.

It's not an "updated" mod, mind you... it's a "new" one. This has nothing to do with the Hybrid Dragon Race nor is it intended to continue your Hybrid characters with this.

But you being the second one reporting wings not working really worries me now! At least in a new game it should have worked... something's really wrong here and I can't even quickly go ingame and have a look what it might be! That is if I don't want to loose my laptop to some molten circuits! :brokencomputer:

Oh my, what have I done?! I even talked about this semi-private release at other places and now it isn't even working??
Hell, I'm so sorry. It was working for me, never experienced any issues so far, so I thought it would work for you too...

Damn you, stupid cooling fan to die on me right now! :flame:
I can only hope you all accept my humble apologies for this complete and utter "disaster"... I called a "release"...

I'll try it on monday, when I get back home. I hope it works for me.

I've figured out the tail/ wings problem. You new scripts seem to only begin to take effect and start swapping items when a new (and unfitting) item is equipped in the correct slot. That is, when you start (unsure as to actually starting, but changing at the end of the sewers causes this) as a dragon, you have normal legs and feet until you equip a pair of pants or shoes, then the slots get swapped to the dragon versions. After this initial bug, everything runs (somewhat) nicely, swapping in modified meshes, including the ones for when you aren't wearing clothes. This problem also affects the tail. You do not receive your wings or tail until a tailslot item has been equipped and removed by the scripts.

Semi-related, some of the mesh swapouts don't seem to work properly anymore. You know how we downloaded the modified meshes for most of the various sets of armor? Only the greaves correctly swap, whenever you try to equip boots you receive the foot-wrap mesh instead of the modified boot mesh.

...

Actually, I just figured that last bit out. I need to change all of the filename endings for the boot meshes to just "_dcpart" instead of "_dcpartfc" and "_dcpartfo". I feel silly now.

And the one last thing; I was taking a look through the scripts, and was wondering what variables/strings I need to change to alter the suffix the game looks for in the altered meshes. (IE; getting it to pull a 'boots_kcpart' rather than a 'boots_dcpart' when you equip a pair of boots)

EDIT: Oh, and one more thing. The three item glitch happened again. So far, it only seems to be happening when I have two of an item that needs to be altered (IE; fur greaves). Both items have always been at different levels of repair and neither at full repair. The third created item is the one that gets equipped, and appears at full repair.

You did not know. There is not much you can do atm. I'm glad you did get an updated release out with 2 new textures to boot! I wouldn't say its a total loss or even a loss for that matter. Thanks for the initial release and continued on this project. So don't feel bad. These things happen.

Yeah, that's it! You figured it out. That's the cause, and quite an obvious one, it is!

It's always the same... since I implemented this "only reacts on slot content changes and thus saves the maximum amount of FPS impact while nothing happens"-thing in my scripts, such happenings became the norm.
I should have known! I damn should have known it!

Well, of course this one's easy to fix, too. I just have to initialize the slotContentArray with another value than "0" for each slot and that's it.
First I was like "well, why does this happen then... the slots are initialized with "0" so in the first frame whatever you're wearing will be different, thus the exchange will be triggered anyways... but no... of course, if you're not wearing anything, the slot will have value "0", thus nothing will react! How could I possibly miss that?!

Alright, I'll try to fix that ASAP... I won't even have to check this ingame, as the flaw, as well as its solution, is just too obvious. :facepalm:

edit: here's the fixed ESP. I hope it'll work now.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BSK5KTPS

...still trying to figure out how to replace a MegaUpload file with another, so the links I handed out would still be valid... but I'm afraid they don't provide this ability.

Please tell me if this one works now! I can't test it myself.

It works now. I just want to point out when you switch to the dragon race you have to save and then reload so the wings don't stick out.

Thanks for verifying this for me, and thanks, RatherInconsiderateFellow, for figuring out what was wrong. It's really appreciated!

So there's still something not working flawlessly with the animation control... ah, well, I was going to change the whole system anyways, migrating it to a token-based approach, enabling support for draconic NPCs, and all that. Guess, here's just one more thing to keep in mind then.

As for the temporary doubling of non-unique items during exchange, I'll look into it as soon as I can do this again. Though it's still weird it doesn't happen for everybody... or does it? :confused:

Well, anyways, I hope you'll have fun with it now for the time being... and excuse the inconvenience I caused in the beginning.

If you don't mind, send massive numbers of screenshots into my direction. I need the inspiration usually coming from these.


edit: Oh, all adapted items apart from the ones included in the last release are a bit out of date and especially the boots won't work without changing the tags in their filenames (there's only "_dcpart.nif" left from now).

As for what to change to make the scripts use other files... that's actually quite easy. Remember? I designed this new approach with full dynamic applicability in mind. So there's only one place to change it for all, and that's the quest script "DrakeDragonRaceQuestScript". The confArray[raceId][slotId]["combinations"][x]["tag"] defines which tags to use for which slot and under which conditions (...["req"]).
If you alter this one, just make sure you also alter the other arrays defined below
("itemArray" - the one storing all adapted items and their originals later,
"defaultItemArray" - the bodyparts to be equipped on an empty slot,
and "replacerTemplateArray" - defining replacer templates to use for the slots, if any)
to fit the new tags.

I've re textured the dragon skin again or should I say added some color to it. Fearil helped me with the Mythic Dawn armor and I will upload a revised copy soon.

Now that that's out of the way, allow me to say, excellent work, and looking forward to uhh... pretty much everything related to the race. Unfortunantly I cannot take a screenshot for now, but, I will take a screenshot tomorrow... erm... tomorrow for me that is.

As promised:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackred1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackre2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackre3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackred4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackred5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackred6.jpg

In the pics you will see your foot wraps. I was not sure what happened there. I could have configured it wrong when the mod first came online and asked a bunch of questions.

Edit: Nevermind..... Blind little old me did not fully read every word you wrote in your readme. :facepalm:

Really nice. I like these. ^_^
That's a job well done.

Is there anything wrong? Shouldn't there be footwraps but actually some boots you adapted?
If that's the case, make sure the adapted files are now "only" tagged with "_dcpart". "_dcpartfo" and "_dcpartfc" are no longer needed, so I finally stripped them from these scripts.
When you alter anything or add further adapted files, be sure to make use of the "DrakeDragonRaceUpdateQuest"-scripts each time, to update your internal list of adapted items to the new situation. Else under some circumstances you won't get your newly added meshes ingame, if for example one gender was present before or the wraps got registered to be used for them once.

edit: Oh, alright. Glad everything seems to be working so far now. B)

I said I was a blind fool. :facepalm:

It does not help that this is my "friday" so I have the next two days to get the proverbial ball rolling again.

Anyways....here is the updated files for the Mythic Dawn Armored Arms - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1TK2HD7X (you must have http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25644 in order for this mod to work.) I wish to thank Fearil again. Without their help the 1.1 version would not exist!

And for the texture tinkering - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O9EBJGFL textures. (Unlike the pics I just put up, I changed the wing membrane color.)

Enjoy and feel free to use/modify.

Congratulations on your progress so far! I have followed your race threads for a while and it's nice to see how far you've come.

I've downloaded the alpha and I'm enjoying it so far but for some reason, the wings aren't animated at all. They're just flat if that makes sense. I made sure I copied everything from meshes to textures in the right folders and I'm also using your updated ESP. I also have OBSE v17a, patched Oblivion, and Robert's Body V4 so I'm not sure what's going on.

I would appreciate any help with this

Thanks,

Xander

Thanks ^_^

Well, actually the wings really "aren't animated at all" in this release. I didn't make enough progress to come to this yet.
However, they should move into an initial pose and stay there, whenever you load or start a game. Maybe this doesn't happen right at the start, but at least after the first save&reload they shouldn't stay spread apart in the rigging pose any longer.

This is something I have to work on, the whole animation thing in general, that is. It's not enough to either have all animations you need or be very well able to easily create those that are missing alone... there also needs to be a clever system to control when which of them will play and all that... I was working on this, but until my fan died recently I didn't get farther than the initial "neutralization move", unfortunately.

Stay tuned though, as soon as I can make full use of my laptop again (without certain chipsets melting away due to the total absence of cooling) I will continue with this. -_-

Nother problem. Your scripts no longer like using the altered meshes for multi-slot items. When you go to equip a multi-slot item (robes, brotherhood armour, arena raiment) that also has an altered mesh with it, It equips the normal mesh for about half a second(as it does with all altered items), then equips the altered version. About a second after that, It unequips the altered version, leaving you wearing nothing. This happens with or without the exception for equipping multi-slot items. I have run the update quest after adding the altered items, and both male and female altered models are present(if it matters).

But it gets slightly weirder. Being impatient as I am, I decide that it would be a good idea to just click on the not-working item as fast as I could, constantly re-equipping it. After a couple of seconds, the item itself disappeared from my inventory, and was replaced by a "dragon empty item". (it was either drake or dragon, I forget) I would assume this happened because I was clicking faster than the script could keep up with.

It must be fun having all of these bugs found in your scriptwork when you can't test anything yourself.

EDIT: An idea for the wing animation problem. As of now, the wings only reset when a save is loaded. Couldn't this be fixed by making the animation script part of the wing-item and having it run when the wings are equipped?

Hell, yeah, it's great fun for sure... :wacko:
It's not only I can't "test" it... I also can't "fix" it while I have to get a replacement fan!

Ah, well, at least the beta will be way more safe, stable and reliable, now that all these bugs were already found "prior" to its release.

Damn, I can imagine why adapted combined-slot items aren't working. It's their tags ("dcpartcf" for example)... now when processing continues to, let's say, the hand slot, there's only "dcpart" allowed, thus the hand slot control will unequip the item validated by the upperbody slot control... that's dumb... and it only didn't happen with the previous scripts as everything was still hard-coded. The controlling block for the hand slot "knew" there was a valid item found in the check of the upperbody slot... but now I can't even guarantee there "is" an upperbody slot under control, to begin with...
Seems I need to come up with something to get this situation covered soon.
Now it backfires I haven't updated the few adapted combined-slot items I possess to the latest scheme yet!... else I would have experienced this myself already :yuck:

I'm really worried how easy it seems to be for you to damage my scripts' runtime functionality though! You even managed to end up with a DrakeEmptyItem in your inventory?!
Those things don't even get into any AddItem calls to begin with!... normally...

I imagine it's quite possible to damage every script's function by changing the environment it acts in while it's still processing the one frame...
It's totally beyond me how it could possibly be like this, but I experienced otherwise, so apparently it is possible that in one line of a script there's a safety check to make sure a certain item exists in the inventory, but then the user somehow manages to take this item away while the frame is still processing, so the next line of code, doing something with this item, will fail miserably, "although" there was a safety check right before that line! This is horrible inconsistency and should actually be prevented by the game engine on all costs...
but it becomes more and more likely now... that it isn't...

It won't help flooding your script with safety checks like this all over the place, if it is still possible the environment gets changed "between the lines", so to say...

Ah well, that's a hell of a lot of work to do once I "can" do it again... but thanks for pointing it all out regardless. :lmao:


As for the initial neutralization script for the wing pose to be put on the wings themselves... this would require to add them to ALL wing items as well, even those created by others, which ideally shouldn't need parenting their mod to mine... also when loading a savegame you'll still be stuck with the wings in rigging pose, as there's no equipping of any sort taking place in this situation... not to forget "when it is equipped" usually pointing towards an "OnEquip" block, which won't ever be triggered by a "scripted" equip anyways... so you would have to manually equip your wings for anything to happen at all... which of course is out of question...

But making this somehow react on equipping the wings isn't that bad an idea... I'll keep this in mind when creating the animation control scripts on tokens next. Thanks. :goodjob:

I've got more images for ya. Edited those new textures you added to your newest upload. Some are the same as they didn't need to be changed.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackredalt1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackredalt1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackredalt3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackredalt4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackredalt5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/blackredalt6.jpg


Alt http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1T8YRB50 Dragon textures.

I've also included the Photoshop file for the dragon body that I edited so those who wish to tinker around with it can do so.

I now realize I should have pointed this out earlier, but I only have legs and feet set to be controlled.

Also, another bug found. With force-unequipping multislot items enabled, about 30% of the time when you equip a multislot item without an adapted mesh, a second of the item will be created. It equips the item for a moment, then unequips it. When it unequips, a second of the item appears in the inventory. Despite having the same name and repair status, items duplicated in this way do not stack in your inventory. I would guess that this happens because a copy of the item is created to use the (non-existent) altered mesh, but the scripts are halted by another slot unequipping the old item before it can be removed.

And to the rest of those testing this mod, please speak up if you are experiencing the same problems or not. Some of these problems may have been caused by me (heavily) tinkering with various parts of the mod. I've really only been changing meshes and textures, but I may have messed something up by accident.

OK that's my fave retex so awesome looking



do you mind if i edit it slightly
I'm just gonna recolor it