I've seen some custom hair appearing for females, but is there amy for male? I only play male characters and would love to see more new custom styles on men, both long and short. Anyone know of any I may have missed, or is it like Oblivion where everything was female only?

None that I can find. There's bound to be something eventually, but it'll probably be like Oblivion, where there was one male hair mod for every five hundred female ones.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4333

You're welcome

That's just a retexture, not new hairstyles.

You are going to have a long wait for anything realy new (if ever).
Bethesdas much vlaunted toolkit is only for game editing - THIS HAS CONSIQUENCES.
The tool developers are still very unsure of what Bethesda has done with the new format.
Bethesda games have got steadily harder to mod new stuff for (after Morrowind Bethessda stopped supporting the new content community because of disapproval from 3dsmax among others, and no doubt because of dissaproval of all the smut that was produced (by me amongst others)).
Only Oblivion is largely catered for by the new content mod creation tools.
Fallout3 needed an instalation override program used, while New Vegas required required not only that but also its own bsa support and startup files and the use of FEnvEdit facegen flag editing for head gear.
Every Skyrim bodyware model has to come in two different geometry forms massivly increasing the work load.
Hair was easy to create (but not to texture) - but not now, I dont like what I see in the nifs.
I fear that the bodyware improvements present in Fallout3 will be absent from Skyrim (you could have various types of facial gear and all sorts of other accessory bodyware stuff, Oblivion was a pain to find body attatchment points for, and Bethesda dont care).

k?

Anyway, I'm embarking on a hair journey, are there any styles you'd like to see, LittleWorm? I tend to focus on female characters more, and am always looking for good suggestions of male hairstyles.

I didn't even know it was already possible to add new hair to the game!!
I find female hairstyles easier to work with because there are less restrictions with what you can do. Almost all male styles can be used by female chars without any problems but there are a lot of female styles that some (most) people will find too feminine for male characters. That is why I think it is easier to make female hairstyles.
That said, I'll really have to look into importing a hair I made so that my male character has a unique look in Skyrim!

And throttlekitty, would you happen to know wether it is possible to make hair meshes that use blended transparency in their textures? I've just looked at a few screenshots from hair mods over at the nexus and they all seem to use 1-bit transparency. What I'm worried about is the possibility of bugs/alpha fighting issues occuring under certain weather conditions, like when it snows. I'm probably worrying for nothing, though.

...a good curly hair? a longer female version would be pretty boss, too. There's never any curly hairs :/

Some of the renhairs look good for men, especially if you like that elegant elven look (or Final Fantasy looks depending on your perspective Some of them seem to be designed for people wanting to recreate Sephiroth ) I used one I ported and rigged for my character.

The only issue I have with Skyrim's hair implementation is that they force us to disable alpha blending otherwise you get some unusual visual quirks, like the hair not being properly lighted in bright and dark areas, or the hair becoming semi transparent under certain lighting conditions. The end result is that we can (as far as I know) only get hairs that look somewhat stiff like they're made of mops. I've been testing alpha properties pretty intensively but I can't get the kind of soft transparency that worked so well for Oblivion. The use of shadows in Skyrim might have something to do with this, but anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to get hairs for men in Skyrim.

You raise an interesting point Andysaurus. Personally, I don't necessarily think that the modding process itself have become harder, but then again I may not be qualified to speak as I'm not exactly involved in the creation of the tools that gives us the ability to mod (like 3ds max nifscripts, the Nifskope scripts, etc). What I meant was that with the available tools I was able to do most of the things I did with Oblivion and Fallout (never modded for Morrowind so I wouldn't know). Advanced scripting functions and massive gameplay overhaul aside, the bulk of the mods found in the various modding community revolves around retex or mesh modification. I'm just glad we could still do that.

I do agree that there are certain changes that I'm not too fond of either. One of them is the use of object space normal maps (like those used for faces). They're difficult to edit or modify because of their asymetrical color . I also kinda miss material properties on the nif. The ability to apply emmisive colors for glow maps, and material characteristics like glossiness or shine was something I was quite happy with. In terms of mesh modification, the use of a heavy and light body mesh does indeed give additional headaches for those wanting to modify meshes. I tried doing a male body mesh, and by God, I keep getting problems either from morphs or the head (specifically neck area) not aligning properly with the seam of the body as it morphs from light to heavy Pissed me off. I'm tempted to make a one size fits all body, but that would be the easy way out. Women body mesh I think is a bit easier because as far as I can tell, their neck size don't really change much from light to heavy. It's still an amazing achievement that body replacers were successfully done at all. Kudos for those that succeeded. I just wish I had their skill and patience.

But these are just personal gripes, I'm hoping that as more modders get involved, new knowledge base in modding methods and best practices would also grow. Ultimately it's just a matter of having to adjust.

That's always the problem - so many modders (including female modders) focus only on females and those of us who play male characters get left out. I used your hairstyles in Oblivion, so I have high hopes that you might do some nice male ones as well as female. Someone mentioned curly hair and I second that, both long and short styles. Curly haired men are kinda cute! I'd love a neat long braid and ponytail as well as neatly combed and shaggy styles, both long and short. I would be eternally happy to see some nice man hairs from you!

I've been doing some exploration trying to figure out how I want to approach hair this time around. 1bit is fine if done certain ways for some styles. Others, you can get a better look with 8bit. And yes, Shadows are the issue: we either get Shadows or Alpha Blending. I don't know how many people play with shadows on in Skyrim, but I think they're used very well in the game (no comments on the jaggys, please). So it's kind of a big decision, at least for me. I can't come up with a way to make an invisible "shadow caster" proxy mesh, and it's probably a silly adventure. We can use Vertex Alpha, but I haven't had time to see if that's a suitable way to mix with a 1bit alpha in the texture. Regarding external alpha fighting, I don't think it will be an issue, I haven't noticed anything out of place in those regards.


I'm in the 'make the girls look good' group (and I *love* short hair on the ladies!), but the guys really do need options too. I don't know how balanced my new pack will be, but I'm going to try and work up a larger and better quality set of hairs than I have in the past. Probably some sort of obsession.

Anyway, tight or loose curly? A quick search for 'male curly hair' gives me some good looking stuff.

Loose curly please, mate.

I hardly ever really look at the girls - and not interested in them enough to - but I like my menfolks to look good.

It's great to see you here Mandamus, Andysaurus and Throttlekitty : )
My experience adding hair is reduced to some wigs in Morrowind and some retouched models for my chars in Oblivion.

+1 to new male hairstyles, and here are some ideas.

*Vega Style (from Street Fighter)
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs27/i/2008/118/6/c/STREETFIGHTER__Vega_by_Summerset.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3374/3651990421_3d8c859f46_o.jpg
http://vegetarukawa.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/vega_2.jpg
(sorry for the flag on the last one, but it's the better aerial picture of him I've seen).

*Curly short
http://www.weddingzone.org/wp-content/uploads/2011-Mens-haircuts-trends1.jpg

*Curly mid-long
http://www.umekobeautyfashion.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/mens-long-hair-styles-2011.jpg

*Curly, long
http://www.helenmode.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/men-long-hairstyles11.jpg

*Short covering an eye
http://www.haircutsidea.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/mens-hairstyles-2011-1.jpg

*Short, asian
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MWoz2jbDgsk/TehFRTPUyyI/AAAAAAAAFmE/qYLc_eHpLE4/s400/JaeJoong+Hairstyle+Korean.jpg

*Short covering, funkier
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc189/Zimnel_Redoran/Hair/Shorthairfunkier.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rrrIDo6e-k8/TsGMaaR5T_I/AAAAAAAAIq8/QCDlVxEZyzo/s1600/petra_mechurova_men_hair_thumb.jpg

*Spiky short
http://your-hairstyles.com/img/arts/2010/Oct/18/363/short_hair_men.jpg

*Mid -long
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IxaXtWn2ne4/Td90eKyp5dI/AAAAAAAALrM/hwAUp2yh_1o/s1600/mens_hairstyle_pictures_mens-long-hairstyle.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_J15b7jWXPxY/TE-LeIDwzII/AAAAAAAAA1I/r9aDW01t4Xc/s1600/guys+long+hair2.jpg

I assure you, it gets harder. In Morrowind you only needed a bog standard editor that had an nif exporter, and nifskope to set up the body part (PRN) link. From Oblivion onwards you had to either be VERY RICH and own an up to date 3DSMAX (second hand is not an options cause the makers issue unique licesnes), WITH CharacterStudio to generate the skeleton bone envelopes - AND YOU WOULD HAVE TO BRIBE BETHESSDA FOR THE PHYS files. When I created stuff for FarCry I had to generate the envelopes from scratch - you need a superb model viwer (supplied with FarCry editor) and a LOT OF HARDWORK. Thats why all my stuff has to be based on modified Bethesda models, Blender has no character studio facility. At the moment all I can do is adjust relevant models to what I want to use, but untill a Blender importerexorter for Skyrim is made I cant do anything. With no CS its all academic, what they have done with hair alone is wird and needs the CS to understand. They have also completely altered the skeleton - new pose and new critical bones. It means a lot of work to modify anything that was made for Oblivion or Fallout3.
Also I have less time now to mess around, and need to avoid stress - modding gets stressful.

If I was to make a request of you Throttlekitty it would be this hair from Gattsu, since I think he's one of the manliest men ever:

http://patrickmjones.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/berserk4.jpg
Here's him as a kid, maybe a little clearer: http://images4.fanpop.com/image/polls/689000/689978_1302893756378_full.jpg

Also it would be great to see a reappearance of your nordic/barbarian style from your previous wig mod. That hair was really good and would fit in Skyrim.

Overall, my main request is just hair that fits the game and isn't too....out of place. This game has a lot of culture, so it would be nice to see some more diversifying
hairs that build on that culture...(The Gattsu hair is just a personal request though xD).

By the way thanks so much for your constant contributions to the Elder Scrolls community. You inspired me a lot back in the Oblivion days! Good to see you still at it with Skyrim!