Hello everyone,

I'd like to present you with some screenshots of the model for the Sload Race that's been made for the Black Marsh mod project (our board is here: http://www.silgrad.com/wbb2/board.php?boardid=62 ).

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa273/zaneeba_slave/sloadfinished.png

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa273/zaneeba_slave/sloadfinishedface.png

The model is now finished, however, it still needs rigging and animating, and we're looking for an animator who would be able to do this for us. If necessary, we're willing to release this as a separate package to the main Black Marsh mod.

If you are interested in helping us, please PM me and I can get the files to you.

For those who are interested, I post below the guidelines by our modeler Koniption, who has been working on getting the model ready for animating:

Sload Mesh 4 Potential Animator - Information
3-14-2010

Original Sload Mesh - By Zaneeba_Slave
Decimated and Tweaked - By Koniption
Animated - By ?????


ｷ I strongly suggest using a skeleton (like the NPC beast skeleton, for tail bones for sload tail), with the bones in similar layout and of same name as the beast skeleton used by beast NPC's. The reason is this: we might try to make a sload NPC or playable race. I don't know how feasible that'll be, however, to be honest. But to eliminated any discrepancies for future compatibility, I'd suggest using a skeleton with same type of bones and bone names as the beast skeleton for NPC's. However, during your making of the bones, you can shorten the bones and rotate them to better fit the sload. For now, I recommend using such a skeleton, but instead making a sload "creature" and not a race.

ｷ The existing vertices around the body joints might not be exactly in correct spots for the skinned mesh to deform properly. YOu might need to move or add vertices, for a smooth bending of the arms and knees, etc.

ｷ The sload mesh(s) are not UVMapped nor textured. UVMap and texture the sload BEFORE you add a skin property to the mesh and before morph animating.

ｷ I have already scaled up the sload to what I think is an appropriate average size in relation to the human male mesh of Oblivon. It's bigger than a human male, but not by too much.

ｷ I have altered the head mesh to have two eyeballs and a tongue, and opened mouth pose. My hope is that someone with experience and ability to make morph animations will morph animate the head, eyes, mouth, and tongue. I'm visualizing some of the facial poses to be something like "Jabba the Hut" from Star Wars (tongue sticking out and licking around lips slightly, etc). Other head morphs could be the fatty facial flaps moving left and right, up and down, as the sload walks and attacks, etc. The eyes can be animated to look left or right, or to close the eyelids. Mouth can open and close.

ｷ ZaneebaSlave was wanting the sload to be textured with something like Hippo skin texture and color. You can also go by the sload concept picture that is on the web at certain sites. But I like the idea of grey Hippo skin here and the more pink-ish Hippo skin colorations in the other more appropriate areas of the sload.


Koniption

Wow that's a great model! It would be great to see this brought into Oblivion! I can't animate myself, but I really hope someone comes along and helps out with this

Great model! Looks hideous and gross!

Thanks for your support. Anyone want to pick this up?

Just to get one thing straight, rigging, UV Mapping and Animating are all very different, i doubt you could find someone willing and able to do all three, you might want.

looks good though :goodjob:


DIT: Also finally get ot see some of the other stuff Koniption has been working on.

Well, someone who's willing to do any one of those three things would be great!

I don't suppose you'd be able to help us at all?

sadly, Im a little bogged down in my own race project.

Well, this does look interesting. I believe with recent skeleton/animation developments, the race could use already existing creature animations. I would be willing to skin, and rig the thing. I have access to blender and 3DS max, no Z Brush. I would be willing to try. I have been wanting to get into more creature modeling anyway. Do you want it to be a playable race or just another creature. Either way I love to try.

That looks fantastic

You can make it as a creature and convert to playable, you'll justh ave ot ask TalkieToaster how he modified his goblin to work.

Hi Corthian,

I'd recommend starting out the sload as a creature, first. Da Mage just PM'd me and he had an even better idea for what vanilla skeleton to use:

the Xivilai skeleton...Xivilai are already creatures, but use a skeleton that is close to the playable races one.

You can also try to reposition the bones of the Xivilai skeleton to better fit the form of the sload's appendages, but just don't rename the bones. I'd also add tail bones, for the sload's tail.

Lastly, if you have any questions or need me to do certain things, I'll definitely try my best to help you.

( PS - Thanx for letting Blackmarsh use the Naga stuff you made! )

Koniption

Okay, I am almost done, woo boy, I never really tried a lot of the things I had to do to get this to work before. Here is my WIP Pic,

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/2426/sloadpic.jpg

Okay, first, I UV mapped it, then I skinned it (not too sure about the texture, I need feed back). Then I noticed the skeleton best matches the human skeleton, therefore, the Sload is PC not creature. I edited a version of TalkingToaster's edited skeleton, stretching the arms and such to fit the Sload proportions. I rigged it and now everything is pretty peachy. Right now I am pretty pleased with my self. Ah, I probably release 10% of any of the things I mod. I must have made half a dozen races and easily dozens of armors that I have not even showed anyone. Well, I digress...

Any feed back?

It's hard to see how the texture really looks, because of the weird lighting in the screenshot. Maybe take a pic of the sload outside on a sunny day?

About the texture: I think the texture on the belly and such needs to be slightly more "fine", that is, has smaller skin patches. Right now, each individual "scale" of skin section, is pretty big, and could do with being made smaller. The head texture looks ok, though. I can't tell with the lighting, but maybe make the belly and chest area a lighter yellow/peachy color, like in that concept art of the sload that's on the net?

It's looking real good so far, though. I'm glad it could be made into an NPC after all. How do the default human animations look on it? I can easily see the running and jumping animations looking, uh, out of place, heh. It's now possible to make custom animations to go with custom races (and custom skeletons, for that matter). Da mage and me have been working on his Centaur race, and we've figured out some things between the two of us, that help to make this a reality. TheTalkieToaster has also used some of our info in his "Playable Goblin" race mod. The method requires OBSE, though, but da mage knows how to go about scripting it. So I guess I'm asking this: do you plan to stick with the vanilla animations, and maybe only use the slower vanilla animations with the sload? Or were you planning on tweaking some vanilla animations to fit better with the sload?

Koniption

This, the texure looks quite....large on the lower parts. those scales? need to be finer like on the head in my opinion.




The scripting part is only if you are intending to make it playable, NPCs can be set up no problem to use different skeletons and animation sets. personally i dont think making it playable would work becasue of the lack of armor and clothing you wouldnt be able to wear.

Progress is looking good

EDIT: Creating a creature NPC is the best way, with the following animation sets:
Idle
Walking (left right foward backward)
Hand to hand attack (just one)

after that tou might need to copy paste some stuff, like movent animations when in combat mode (like how the player has hand up when using fist and in attack mode) anjd running else the game with make them run as a x3 speed walk.

Its only about 5 animations if you want to be simple as a creature NPC race or something. The skeleton is the hardest part, the best way would be to modify a current skeleton to the right size.

If I was working on a texture for a sload race, I would look at pictures of slugs and salamanders as reference; I always imagined the sload to be very dense, slimy, and way too lumpy to have any remorse in disposing of them for their fat. If you know any lore, they're essentially animals to the more human-looking races, and their fat is used to make soap. There's a lot more about them I could go into, but none of it is really as relevant to texturing. Good luck; I look forward to seeing the final result.

Based on this picture:

- http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/95/others/sload.jpg

I would like to see more "elephant skin" like texture, more gray tone and wrinkles maybe

- http://www.photographybydon.com/NewGallery/Albums/Album58/Large/_DSF1606elephantSkinDiagWrinkles.jpg

- http://www.arkive.org/media/03/03357C07-334D-4184-9C54-37C5ACFC3174/Presentation.Large/photo.jpg

- http://www2.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2602389/2/istockphoto_2602389-elephant-skin.jpg

- http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/enlarge/elephant-skin-photography.html

- http://farm1.static.flickr.com/127/416887586_c211fe9232.jpg?v=0



What about something like this, with less green skin tone:

- http://digart.img.digart.pl/data/img/vol3/70/23/download/349682.jpg

Slimy feel to it:

- http://www.filterforge.com/filters/1173-v6.jpg

The feet (and hands to a limited degree) need to be modifed, given this quote

"advlt Sload have four appendages which behave partially as pseudopods, in that they mold themselves around whatever the Sload is grasping. This takes some time but allows them to attain a very good grip on practically anything, allowing them to climb things many other races can't. Despite this, their ability to use tools is limited."

http://www.uesp.net/w/images/images.new/9/91/Sload_big.jpg

http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part05image14.jpg

http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part10image08.jpg

They certainly shouldn't have bird-like talons for feet.

Here is a shot of the Sload in action.

http://img708.imageshack.us/i/screenshot224.png/

http://img708.imageshack.us/i/screenshot225g.png/

He got attacked by the Guard. Luckily, the animations work better than I could have hoped. He doesn't deform quite as well as I would like him to. I might reweigh his verticies. I completely re-UV mapped and textured him. I changed the physics of the Sload skeleton so he has a big gut and it's hilarious when he runs and is killed cause he rolls around.

Would the creators of the Sload mesh please listen to TOYB, as he knows what he is talking about. And listening to him and modifying the Sload in that way would surely make it look even better.

The creator of the sload mesh is most likely done working on the sload mesh. The creator was zaneeba_slave, and I have been trying to contact him to let him know his sload is being worked on, but I have not heard back from him yet. Even if he knew you didn't like the talon-looking things on the feet, it would be pointless for him to do anything about it, because he can only do things in high poly. He had to send me the mesh to decimate it to a lower poly form suitable for creature use, and that took a long while on my end. If the toes on the feet really bother you, then I don't think zaneeba would mind Corthian doing something about them, either by cutting them off entirely, or shortening them a whole lot. It's up to Corthian, if he thinks it's best to do that, since the sload is currently in his hands now. Personally, I can live with the toes, or without them.

Koniption

I'm really impressed right now, that is a remarkable bending of oblivion's possibilities. Wow, never would have thought I'd see a possible Sload in the game. *Applause*

I could get rid of the fingers easily enough, I don't see much of a difference myself.

The fingers aren't so much of a problem, as you can see http://www.uesp.net/w/images/images.new/9/91/Sload_big.jpg the Sload still does have some sort of finger-like protrusions at the end of it's 'arms', but they aren't really fingers as such, and they aren't long at all. It's the feet that are the real issue, they are a complete mess (and really, really need changed).

Also, the Sload is more akin to an Octopus than anything, the reason behind why it looks semi-humaniod is probably due to an evolution enabling them to interact with other races, so really they have no bones (also why they can only really live in water, as they need it to support themselves, the younger advlt Sload being able to be on land for varied amounts of time), the one 'hard' part of their body being their 'teeth' (which you can see on N'gasta in Redguard), which would be something like an Octopuses beak.

They must have somekind of "bone-like" support like the squid, would be hard to stand up on land otherwise :whistling: Really fatty bipedal humanoid cephalopod with transparent bones :hubbahubba: Those "ears" could be like Siphons...I wonder how N'gasta was able to be out of water so much, seeing as he was already kind of elderly...must've used magic to breathe and support himself. Probably should still need fingers to hold weapons and stuff (if it's a npc) Maybe make them more tentacle like, the feet might be an array of suction cups with little tentacle like portrusions on the edge of the foot for better climbing in underwater environments and form support on land. What is the Sloads' relationship with the water dreugh? (another race idea!)

TOYB,

To be honest, in that picture concept art of the sload you posted, I DO SEE TOES on the feet. They are visible to me. I see now why zaneeba modeled the toes on his sload's feet the way he did. So why are you saying there are no toes on the feet? I don't think the feet are a complete mess, imo, but to each his own.

Koniption