He can't really fly it is just the teleport system that is scripted with in CMP's. Although sometimes it can look really cool but it is not an option for true companion flight.

Drake your mod keeps getting more and more amazing :bowdown:

Ohh the author himself.

Cool good to know and as the kismit of this forum is there is another thread discussing related topic of slowfall http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1073003 (currently up on top with this thread but maybe not by the time Drake reads this).

So the mod in question is this one: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24729

so more ideas for the pot.

so it might be possible to use this with some new animations to make it appear that they are flying? if it works it will be great. (it's simple, when you don't think about it)

Drake, on the subject of your laptop, is it still in for repairs? if so, have you sent a letter of complaint. (sometimes it ends up under a pile of other stuff and gets forgoten, so a complaint every now anf then can get things moving again)

because no laptop should be in repairs that long, unless it went in a steaming pile of mush. :shakehead:

Yup. Drake's sent complaints. You should read some of his older posts, it's really quite a mess. And it's depressing what all is going on. What is it, do they keep putting in 'refurbished' parts or something and breaking the same things and just not doing anything right? I'm under the impression that they just don't know what they're doing.

Sorry for not writing anything earlier. I was working from wednesday morning till 8 AM yesterday before I finally got into bed and thus was quite busy.

No, it's not still in for repairs. That's not it.
It was in for repairs 3 times in a row, then after this I ordered a service technician to my home so I can watch what he does... again 3 times in a row. The last time was a few days before we left to visit my grandma, my uncle and his family over Christmas and New Year's Eve. Of course it was still broken when he left, but we only realized it a few minutes after the technician was gone.
I couldn't do anything over the holidays, due to not being at home to begin with, and since we returned I was quite busy with other things every day. Hey, after all my life is not only waiting for Dell to repair my laptop, now is it? I didn't yet get around to call them again. Honestly I don't really know what to request next either... 3 times this, 3 times that, overall 5 months, still broken... is there any alternative available at all?

The thing which I think is causing all this trouble is, I'm far "out of warranty" for my laptop, after 4 whole years of being absolutely reliable and error-free.
Out of warranty repairs are quite expensive, but this doesn't seem to mean you get the same quality as if it still was inside the warranty period. One of the technicians even told us he won't get paid for all this because I don't have a warranty contract. Now, when the 500? I paid already only were for the replacement hardware components, I can easily understand why none of their technicians is taking "repairing my laptop" that serious. They won't get paid, so why should they do it right?
Well, the only thing I know is, and I'm also going to tell this whoever I will have on phone next time, if they again tell me I should pay 400? for a new graphics card (previously replaced 3 times in a row), 200? for a new motherboard or cpu (already replaced twice in a row) or 50? for a new harddisk (replaced 4 times in a row), then I'll contact my lawyer, because that's an undoubtable proof they only let me pay for "damaged" hardware. If they call it "refurbished" or whatever... which damn hardware component needs replacement 3-4 times in a row because it's always broken?! Who do they think I am? Fraud is fraud, even in Germany, and fraud is still illegal. And like my brother already expressed really elegantly to them, "if it isn't 'fraud', then my lawyer will sure know what's the correct expression for it".

Well, that being said my primary goal now is to buy a new pc, getting as far away from Dell as possible. This takes its time though, as I will only be able to afford this once, and it needs to be a really good one because of that.
But because I won't have paid 500-600? for nothing, I will also contact Dell again in the near future. Regardless of how long it takes, but they will repair the damn thing or give me back my money!


Back on topic, thanks for all the suggestions and links. I will definitely take them all into consideration or use them as reference when I start creating the flight system.

lonewolf_kai, I admit I messed up the shape of the head in this concept scribble I posted, but the bending of the neck "must" be fixed by all means. The point the head bone rotates around isn't even close to the point in reality heads rotate around. I admit when a human looks upwards the head might bend in a "similar" way, but a dragon's neck will never http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/2977/strangeneckbending.jpg! Nobody can convince me of this.

No progress in any regards the last and this day or night. But perhaps I'll get some time tomorrow to do a few things.

WOW! I heard Dell has gotten pretty bad with service lately, but that's just plain ridiculous! I hope you can get things straightened out soon as that can be aggravating I'm sure.

My project is turning out to be a real headache. For some reason any change I make to the form messes up the whole thing in-game. Everything looks fine on blender and nifscope, but when it gets to the game, the changes either don't show up (the eyes mainly) or there is some really strange distortions in the mesh and looks like its been smeared up into the air or something (from the fin changes that travel down to the tail). I'm at my wits end and am probably going to need some help to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Yes, there are some things one needs to keep in mind when merging several face meshes into a head-helmet. More than enough things could go wrong.

If you're using Blender, you could send me the .blend files, or the .nif files otherwise, and I could take a look at it if I find anything obvious.
For example some meshes which previously didn't have any bone weights (due to being attached to the bodyparts via "prn" nodes instead or some engine-internal mechanisms) now need to be re-rigged of course, or their vertices might shoot into infinity ingame. But that's just 1 example of what could go wrong.

Okay, I'm going to try a few more things and see if I can't fix it. If I still can't, I'll shoot you a PM. I really appreciate you taking a look, but I also don't want to bog you down with my mess too. If you do take a look, might see something you like and want to use.

Equinox, I need a few decisions from you.

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/4009/newequinoxtextureswip1.jpg

In the reference pictures I got from you all the "appendages" like horns, spikes, claws, blades, wing membranes etc. are either missing or untouched.
What's with them? Should I make them white-on-white, black-on-black or rather in-contrast? And which ones which way? (As you can define it seperately.)
Currently the two sides of the dragon show examples of both variants. What's looking better in your eyes?

That looks neat!

Wow, I wasn't sure you were still doing that, he looks amazing so far.

As for any spikes or horns that would be on him, in my mind, any extra details on one side would be the opposite color. So on a black side, his claws/spikes/horns/whatever would be white, and on the white side, the stuff would be black. That's how it was in my mind, but whatever is easiest to do, I don't really mind.

As for the wing membrane, I'm thinking of a similar split design. On the white arms of the wings, the membrane should have a black tint but still retaining it's red-vein look, and on the black side, the membrane would be white, and similarly red-tinted.

At least that's how I pictured it, but, if this is too hard, I'm perfectly happy with what you've got right there. I just love the split colorscheme, I'm more concerned with the metaphorical representation of mercy/justice and if that theme reads well rather then how accurate the visual design looks in my head, I can't even imagine him completely fleshed out.

equinox looks pretty good, no offense but the deviant art picture didn't really appeal to me, (but you most definetly can draw) and your icon doesn't offer mutch detail, but this equinox looks pretty badass, nice job Drake, and good inagination who cares, i might need to start reading that web comic u made. (sorry, i cant remember the name you asked to be called and i dont have any time to spare to check, as i am not supposed to be doing this.)

Thanks for the compliments, even though my artstyle doesn't appeal to you. Yeah, my http://btcomics.com/ is pretty much my life's work, Equinox isn't in that one though, he's part of a different story that I have yet to work on. Anyway "Equinox" is in fact the name I asked to be called here. Drake is definitely doing an amazing job on his take on Equinox.

Whoa boy!

Last time I checked the progress on this mod was about a year ago. Jesus Christ I thought you must have given up by now, that's what I would have done. But WOW this has progressed.

I cannot wait to finally get this thing, the wait is killing me

I finally got my mesh alterations to finally work right. Pointed out by LHammonds, I was forgetting one simple little thing in Blender..... Anyways, when I get it done, I'll show you some pictures to see what you think. It might be awhile though, the inspirations for my ideas are on several creatures from different games and I have to reach a point in one of them first.

with this, i dont exacly dislike Equinox, it's just the hair i think.

and drake, an update with the saphire texture idea, just like the red-gold but blue-silver, and mabe a bit of a glow effect to give it a faint shine.

Alright, so I'm reinstalling Oblivion since I managed to pick it up on Steam (the copy I have been using didn't come with KotN, SI or anything extra at all, and they eventually took down all the DLCs and it's very hard to find hard copies anymore). I remembered seeing an Auroran armor mod, which I think was by Fearil, but it required one of the expansions so I didn't bother with it at the time. Now that I'm looking for it, I can't actually seem to find it. Or any of his mods for the Drake Anthro Dragon Race.

Also a few more questions...
I see a lot of various updates which I'll need to take the time to track through (and I have to say I'm a little confused on the outset but I'm hoping if I take the time I can sort out all those updates), but how much of it has applied to TFF?
I also seem to recall lordsoulstrike making an alteration to the meshes which changed the color of the spikes. Wondering if that's still hanging around or still compatible (maybe in his 4shared?).
Lastly, is there any good way to prevent the skin color change stuff from affecting the color of the spikes? Such as using a different material name? Thought I'd just ask since apparently my knowledge of some nif-oriented workings is kind of limited.

As far as the mods, I'd check out TESNexus and search it there. I recall some months ago several of those types of mods being released. I think I even requested the author change it a bit to accomodate boots as he had separated each piece of the armor except the greaves and boots. Be aware though, each piece probably has to be "refitted" for the Dragon Race, so It might not look right.

As far as the updates and the different things other posters have done, I'd suggest looking through the posts to find them. Perhaps lordsoulstrike will be willing to help you out there, but as far as the most up to date meshes and textures, look in this thread. I think the second page has it.

Which spikes are referring to? The arms? Back and tail?

I didn't do anything for any of the female versions, however Drake did update the textures I did and believe he did apply those to the female body. You can find anything that I have done in my sig. I have also uploaded everything Drake has done so far as a backup in case megaupload deletes his stuff again. All the newest stuff is right on the front page of 4shared, everything else is in their respectful folders.

Edit: Forgot to read about the spikes. + Meshes
It's sort of hard atm to change the spikes separately as they use the same texture as the body. If you were to reassign them to a new texture then everything might be better, however unless you know what you are doing it may not come out quite right.

The only thing I did with meshes was with the Armored Arms which Fearil graciously helped me with make modified greaves and boots. The only other thing I can think of dealing with the dragon mesh was a replacement for the footwrap that seemed to be bugged in the previous release, this however should/has been addressed. Other then that I really have not done much other then the Dark Flame Sword offhand.

Uh, those were some busy days. I hate deadlines made up by people without a clue of what actually has to be done.

Alright, looking through my posts I realized there are a few releases still missing in the opening post. That was when I was about to delete the files from MegaUpload anyways, so that's probably why I didn't post those links.
You should be able to find all releases on lordsoulstrike's 4shared repository, and apart from a few minor tweaks everything should be done for Robert's Male and TFF.
The important stuff is linked to in the first post here. From these on the little replacement updates should be installable in any order.

As for the spikes, you can of course give them a different material than "skin", but this will not only take away the "adapting to skin tint and color" property but also the "will use whatever texture the current race has" feature and thus will make ALL dragon races stuck with one-and-the-same texture on spikes. Me including a little skin patch at the bottom of these for smoother transition between skin and spikes would than give even the black or albino dragons the regular red'ish skin patch on their spikes (or whichever dragon's texture you choose).

I recently found out how I can exclude the skin part of the textures from the colorations for horns, this is what the "_hl" and "_ll" texture files are for, but I doubt it can be applied to any other meshes.

The day I'll have a new PC is coming closer and closer now. I finally was able to settle on most components without getting a bad feeling or becoming worried about my decisions.
It won't be a super-high-end gaming monster-rig... when do I ever get time for serious gaming anyways?... but the 3-4.000? will be well spend, that's for sure.
My primary goal is only to be able to do everything I could do before, without too many worries about having to buy a new one in the future... of course due to its age the new rig will be aeons better than my old one... but that's unavoidable.

Well, Equinox, here's the current look of the textures and split-color-supporting meshes for you:
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5573/equinoxwip2.jpg,
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/1632/equinoxwip1.jpg

I just need to come up with some nice contrasting swirls and I think it would be done. But how do You like it so far?
Oh, the horns (not included in there) could need some split-color treatment as well.

And here's my first attempt at this Saphire scheme:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/818/saphireschemewip2.jpg,
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/9813/saphireschemewip1.jpg

In the aftermath it's looking way too bright and too few blue in it, but the plain texture was looking promising. Guess I went a bit too far with articulating the silver tones.

No more progress than this, as I was very busy with my job the last days. Some times it's only working for days on end, but every now and then I get some freetime-phases where I can actually achieve something.

great job with the textures, equinox is looking pretty good.

and i love the saphire textures, really good for a first go. i cant wait to see how they turn out.

and it's great to hear that your about to get a new computer. :ahhh:

Awesome to here! Nice pics as well. At least buying a rig you are describing it should last longer then another Dell unit.

Awesome! That's exactly what I had in mind. I can't wait to see him in-game. You're doing a marvelous job. Don't worry about how long it takes you, you're doing this as a request after all, take all the time you want. I've got the split eyes, so you remember, so you don't have to worry about that.

As for a new computer, I wish you good luck. Sounds like you know what you're doing- I can't give any advice, but I can't wait to hear the news.