I've got the hands attached and the materials for the body part seperation applied. Thanksgiving diner interrupted progress though. New picture is up at GHF. Next step is to stress test the model with a full mod list.

I've completed ver 0.3. This is still not ready to be called version 1.0 nor release. The poly count is down to 7438 and I'm able to get 15 fps with 31 copies of the test NPC in a single cell. There is a bit of tweeking to do with the weight painting. And I don't have a texture yet. Two of the communities top artists (my opinion here others may vary) have offered to make textures for this project. These screen shots do not show how good the feet look
http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/NBv3-1.JPG
http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/NBv3-2.JPG
http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/NBv3-3.JPG
http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/NBv3-4.JPG

looks great.

Before leaving for work I whipped out a quick pair of pants for this model. Using blenders' mirror, and shrink wrap properties I was able to produce a pair of pants with UV map & skinned to the animation within 10 minuettes. The test model is 1000 poly's which is way more than is needed. Given the ease with which this was accomplished I should be able to put together some of the simplest clothing articles in short order. Texturing them will be another matter. The simple items, like the solid black, brown & dingy whites won't be an issue.

I've got an idea of how to solve the slumped shoulder problem but I'm not sure if it'll work properly. I'm thinking that this is caused by the position of the mesh in realtion to the skeleton and that the bones need to be repositions. I'm not sure though at all of the effects of this but I found a plaethoria (sp?) of tutorials that I just need run through.

Today I learned that making a back up copy of my work before making changes is worth the effort. In trying to correct the head placement (which is to far back and too low) I jack up the shoulders. Easily correctable with a small tweek.

I went to my full mod lisst which includes among others, Better Bodies (I'm testing with a single test race NPC), BE, NoM, CoM, MCA, and THE Face compliation. In Balmora my fps drops from around 14 to 9 fps and then adding in 23 copies of my NPC drops the fps to 7. Despide the low frame rate the game still plays smothly.

Neat. Means my own compy should be able to handle that as well.

I've got a http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/textureprob.jpg with the illumination of some of the faces of the model. Where I deleted the original faces and reworked the faces of the alignment the faces added to fill the hole don't match the original faces. I know the problem is in some way related to the vertex shading or something along those lines. The texture and vertex colors all appear to be the same but I'm obviously overlooking something. If anyone has an idea I'd like to hear it.

Perhaps the normals are flipped?

You might also want to close the edge loops. N-gons are generally considered a bad thing. :S

Nicholiathan, have you test them with some clothes, weapons doing something, e.g. script to attack PC? That was the case when I had fps problems with high polygon models.
Try NifScope to fix the normals.

If you know how to use them and the engine supports it well N-gons can be a useful tool to get certain deformations to work correctly. But it's risky and difficult to master, it's generally a good idea as you said to stay away from them.

Since he's using blender, I'd suggest using the flip normals option in edit mode, just select the flipped faces, hit "w", and click "flip normals". Or you could use nifscope, whatever works.

The normals are not flipped that was one of my first thoughts. All the normals are facing outwards. I find it far easier to get normals to face correctly in blender where I can set the mode to draw normals.



I lack the knowledge to understand. closed edge loop? what edge? N-gon? that would imply a polygon with N sides but there are only triangles in the model.

Edges are basically the lines that surround a face or polygon. An edge loop is basically how these edges connect or loop around a model.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/AnOldFriend/Concepts/EdgeLoop.jpg

The image above shows what I mean by closing the edge loops.

I have read somewhere or been told perhaps that not only are bad edge loops or n-gons bad for deformation but can also slow down the engine when trying to breakdown your model into tri's which will cause a reduction in performance. Maybe I am ill informed or perhaps it doesn't even appply here as they are already in tri's. I am not a professional or even very knowledgeable on technical matters, just something to consider I guess.


As for your original question. If it is a vertex color problem (note: not exactly sure the process in blender) try adding another vertex color (paint) modifier and just go over the area again. :S

Ah I see what you mean. I've not ran across any problems with the edge loops yet in my testing. The disruption in the loops comes from reducing the poly count. I'll certainly keep that in mind if problems occur.

Redoing the vertex colors fixed the problem with the off colored faces and the model doesn't look jaundiced.

http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/NBv4-1.jpg
http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/NBv4-2.jpg
http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/NBv4-3.jpg
http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/NBv4-attack22.jpg

Looks really great Nich! I can't wait till this is finished! I've never seen an NPC look so non-blocky. ^^

There is a book "Edgeloop character modeling. For 3D professional only":
http://www.amazon.com/Edgeloop-Character-Modeling-Professionals-Only/dp/047003629X

I bought it a while ago and tested models from the CD: they are obviously bending not as good as Oblivion custom bodies. Yes, edgeloop, technique creates some advantages but clever mesh/bone alignment and careful vertex weighting are more effective IMHO. Moreover, I have not observed that this method is really so widely used in games as it was claimed by respected and decorated authors.



That's not bad!!!

By way of comparison with the same mods loaded & only two of the new model NPC who are not fighting in the cell I get 12 fps.

So i'm really interested in what body slots you are making available with this model - it would be nice to get some more for clothing - including both hands for fingerless gloves

I see in you screencap you had your model wearing a vanilla skirt - have you tested for clipping with vanilla clothing and Better Clothes?

This body uses the same clothing parts as BB. The screen capture was made with Better Clothes loaded. You can see at the top of the screen the character in front of the gaurd on the right has a major problem with the skirt not fitting the hips. At a more level angle the mismatched fit is very bad.

Here I was http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/ManPosed.jpg in blender after getting the male body rigged. It's got the beast skeleton from LizTail's modified BB hands. In about two days I've been able to bring the male body to the same point as I was at after a week of work on the female body.

Looks like the classic Nord pose - I could almost imagine the words to go with it "Hey you Breton Wench, come back with my clothes!"

Today I got the male body exported to nif format and the bones correctly possitioned. Unfortunately the lats(?) um... on the sides of the chest, under the arms are too wide for morrowind animations. As a result there's some ugly clipping of the arm and chest. Correcting this will involve rebuilding the chest and upper arms a bit. Now that I've found pose mode correcting the weight painting is a world easier. I'll put together some fugly textures for the models using blender's texture painting feature & the gimp.

Here is my http://www.nicholiathan.com/morrowind/Images/1stTexture.jpgof a texture for the male body, permenate underwear version. This is by no means complete. I'm an amature texturer but so far this is working ok. (3954)

No progress in the last couple of days because I forgot how to do math. Took me forever to figure out that my texture wasn't working because 1028 is not a power of 2. I still need a free-to-use picture of soles to finish the textures. I'm looking at remapping the arms as well depending on how the elbows turn out. (4089)

Perhaps its the angle I'm looking at the female design. It looks like the shoulders are a little to broad. Females are usually more slender in the neck and shoulder area. Wider in the hips. Plumper in the butt. The thighs are also thicker. I know it seems pervy perhaps but I would suggest checking out nvde model sites for design ideas. =)

PS- average female bust line is also a C cup.