http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1085068

(not really up-to-date, will fix this as soon as I'm not in a rush anymore)

The latest test-release, for playing around or help with bug-tracking, of the mod would be the semi-official v0.0.7 pre-beta, still, due to me still not having a working pc at hand to go on with modding full-scale.
Now available at TES Nexus on a special pre-beta releases page:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30094

requires http://obse.silverlock.org/, better yet beta 5, always keeping up-to-date with the latest beta can't hurt either. The current v0020 is more than enough right now though.
A Script Effect Silencer could also come in handy, to get rid of these regular or random thumping sounds and maybe even visual anomalies like purple clouds or something.
For example http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15677.
male meshes/textures made to fit Robert's V4 (muscular)
female meshes/textures fitting TFF
(due to the nature of my scripting approach though using different bodies in general won't cause issues when all slots are under control of my scripts and fitting equipment is enforced)

For the lowerbody meshes there are quite some alternatives. Parallel to Robert's body mod there are several different underwear variants plus a mammalian and a reptilian nvde version.
All files can be found inside the folder "meshes/characters/DrakeDragon/male". For females likewise.
The names should be self-explanatory, but if you possess NifSkope, you can even open them and take a look inside to select which one you prefer.
Whichever one you prefer you simply have to create a copy of it and rename it into "DragonLegs_dcpart.nif" (that's the one the game will use).

There was an issue reported with the new foot wraps not being rigged properly. This is because I didn't have time to check it at all but just rescued everything "as it was" from my drive before cleaning it.
The following resource pack will remedy this as well of course.

Well, here is the complete package of Cloth Wraps, in all possible slot-combinations with all corresponding human-dragon-hybrid adaptations
(ranging from full-human to full-dragon, making it an actual "resource" with applicability far beyond that little race of mine).
I actually wanted to do this for quite some time already, but as you can imagine I previously didn't get the opportunity to start it.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FJ5GEKY6

You won't need my plugin to use these, but due to me being unable to create plugins currently and the nature of this resource release you will need to put them into the game as actual clothing (or armor, if you prefer) yourself.

Latest pictures (some of them might be a bit outdated mesh-wise already)

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/3707/dragontextures.jpg (latest state textures)
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/1764/tfforiginal.jpg (latest state textures)
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7746/tffblack.jpg (latest state textures)
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5310/tffredgold.jpg (latest state textures)
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7079/newdragonwings1.jpg (latest state meshes)
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/1875/newdragonwings2.jpg (latest state meshes)
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/651/newdragonwings3.jpg (latest state meshes)
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/5043/newdragonwings4.jpg (latest state meshes)
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4858/lessglossynormalmaps.jpg (latest state textures and meshes)

This is what you get right now.

Now here is what you don't get yet. All released now apart from animations.

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3568/improvedwings1.jpg,
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8449/improvedwings2.jpg

I shortened the phalanges, elongated the 2 outermost fingers, rectified the curving of the membrane's borders between the tips, and also altered the rigging pose a little by bending the wing arms one more unit. It actually increased the wing span yet again, so I think any bigger than this now won't ever happen. Anyways, I really like this result. Even those questionable forward membranes seem to look way better now, somehow "fitting in" finally without disturbing the overall shape.

This is Drake's new look, not necessarily a replacement for the red-gold theme.
The body is now (in my eyes) sufficiently armored with sturdy scales at exposed areas (which was horribly lacking before).
The whole area around the chest was completely redone from scratch and this plated chestpiece turned out way better than the last one.
I think I went a bit overboard with the sharpen-filter though.
I'm really surprised with how great my first attempt at veined membrane textures turned out, but judge for yourself:

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8312/newscalytexturesandwing.jpg (mind the new plates on the chest),
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/8312/newscalytexturesandwing.jpg (mind the faint see-through effect, the tail shimmering through),
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/8312/newscalytexturesandwing.jpg (slight shadows of the hands this time),
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/8312/newscalytexturesandwing.jpg (full view of the new wing-anatomy, mind the improved phalanges)

Now the veins in the membranes are less prominent, more like "underneath" the skin.
I added another layer of flesh, giving the membranes a much more fleshy structure.
And while I was at it I also reduced the transparency further, as it was far too clear for my taste previously.
It's just getting better and better me thinks.

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8312/newscalytexturesandwing.jpg,
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/3475/newscalytexturesandwingk.jpg
I also like it how the original "golden"-coloured areas returned once the transparency vanished.

Due to Drake being quite a young dragon still, almost a child, always walking on his hindlegs, like the others of his kind prefer to do to better blend in with human society, gets quite taxing after some time. This and him and the others having been forced to retreat into their ancestors' caves ages ago makes him prefer walking on all fours (feral-style) when not too close to humans, or anyways when he's quite exhausted.
This made me start trying to create some feral-style movement animations a while ago and my attempts at creating these 4-legged animations are turning out to yield quite fine results.
As I can't use Fraps on the netbook for capturing videos of them in NifSkope (it reduced the whole animation from 24 to just 2 frames, the first of each leg's motion cycle, which obviously doesn't make it a "movement" anymore... talking about how slow that thing is...), I just used Blender to render a full animation cycle instead and created Animated GIFs from that. They're round about 1.5 megs each, so be patient when opening them.

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4628/runfwdanimback.gif (the most interesting point of view in my eyes),
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6362/runfwdanimside.gif (giving the best view of the legs' movement),
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/9518/runfwdanimfront.gif (looking cool already?),
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7369/runfwdanimtop.gif (mind the fluid bending of the spine with each step)

Next I made it a walk now. Looks actually far better than last time, better than I expected.

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9881/walkfwdanimround.gif (give it some time to load)

Don't mind the camera going round in a crazy circle. This is just me experimenting with just another play-thing I found during the process, animating camera movement as well and a moving lightsource creating some nice highlights occasionally. Hope you won't get sick by watching... and you can see the animation that is.

Oh and if anybody's wondering, these are Drake's new personal textures, many smaller high-detail unresized elements, like scales etc., added to bring back the sharpness even the sharpen tool could not restore. I'll never again use double-sized resources as a basis for my textures. It just gets way too blurry right from the start this way.

Due to me altering the wings' geometry that drastically all available dragon races will need new wing-membrane textures at least as soon as I release the new meshes and the skeletons going along with these.
Now I think I'm finally done with this little task, so here are the results:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8312/newscalytexturesandwing.jpg (I posted this already but here it is again for direct comparison),
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5721/originaldragonnewwings.jpg,
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/8215/blackdragonnewwings.jpg

lordsoulstrike, I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty to create some fitting ones for all your fine retextures I could find as well:
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/4813/blackreddragonretexneww.jpg (black membranes),
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/4813/blackreddragonretexneww.jpg (dark-red membranes from black dragon),
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4813/blackreddragonretexneww.jpg (original-color membranes like you did in your release),
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9494/icedragonretexnewwings.jpg (the most-sophisticated work of all of them),
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/5273/albinodragonretexnewwin.jpg (was hard to hit the right tone)

Those will all be included in the next upcoming resource release/update. I hope you like them and they're fitting in Your eyes as well.

Now while I was at it I also gave all existing texture variants a quick work-over to create matching counterparts to Drake's brand new textures, the "red-gold scaly" variant. Thus I actually created a complete second branch of new scaly textures.

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/1576/redgolddragonscaly1.jpg,
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/9025/redgolddragonscaly2.jpg,
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/748/originaldragonscaly1.jpg,
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/4360/originaldragonscaly2.jpg,
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/3428/blackdragonscaly1.jpg,
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2758/blackdragonscaly2.jpg,

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8305/blackreddragonretexscal.jpg,
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/8305/blackreddragonretexscal.jpg,
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/4097/icedragonretexscaly1.jpg,
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/7149/icedragonretexscaly2.jpg,
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9398/albinodragonretexscaly1.jpg,
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/2347/albinodragonretexscaly2.jpg

This makes 12 variants overall already.

And now here's another resource release:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6N12E2K4

It contains the new and improved wing meshes, all wing membrane textures I did, plus the scaly textures for male and female I created.
Attention: the scaly textures are contained in a seperate folder inside "textures/characters". I conveniently named it "DrakeDragonScaly". Right now you can only use one or the other, but at least you can decide about this on a per-race basis.
If you replace the files of the species you want with the scaly ones or change the textures used by the race in the ESP itself is up to you, both should work fine.
Replacing the skeletons though is mandatory for the new meshes to work!
I included "skeleton.nif" and "skeletonbeast.nif" in "_male" as well as "skeleton.nif" and "skeleton_loupsombre.nif" in "_1stperson". Latter is a replacement for when you are also using Loup Sombre's "3rd-Person Animations in 1st-Person View" like I do. It has a different 1st-person skeleton, so that's a compatible one.

There's a new resource with 100% compatible "universal" skeletons made by Growlf including my bones as well. This one is advisable to be used in place of mine by all means. The link can be found on the download page in the description quite close to the top.

Wow I really havent kept up with Oblivion... This all looks outstanding from the last time I checked it out amazing job Drake!

So I've been lurking around for a while after the last release, and I just got a new laptop. I put Oblivion on it with this race, and for some reason, my dragon refuses to use the adapted meshes for stock clothing.
I know they work, I have them working on my desktop, but even copying my desktop's files over doesn't seem to fix it. My dragon keeps using the cloth wraps instead of the adapted meshes.
Any ideas on how to get him using the right meshes?
(By the way, I still am in love with your work, I've not had a single character another race since I installed it ages ago.)

What clothes is the dragon on the left in http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/3707/dragontextures.jpg photo using Drake?

@Johnn123: That'd be the Goa'uld Armor set from a mod from AlienSlof which was pulled a short while after release.
Nowadays it's obtainable again through one of her latest projects named "Jaffa Kree!", from either her hive directly, Hall of Torque or Wolflore.

@Silvonomon: For my scripts to consider an item equippable its filename needs to end on "_dcpart.nif" or a similar tagging. If your files are doing this and they're still not being used, there's a good chance my scripts "stored" the cloth wraps as alternative appearance for those items already when you first equipped them. You might have to manually trigger the update script now for them to take files you installed later as the new alternative visuals. According to the readme just type "StartQuest DrakeDragonRaceUpdateQuest" into your console and wait for the message popup to tell it's done. It's best not to be wearing any of those items during this phase though.

There were some slight changes to the naming scheme though already far back in the past, and I haven't yet released a single package of adapted clothing or armor items myself I'm aware of. Chances are you got a version with out-dated tags which will not be recognized by the current state of scripts. But it's already too long since and I have a very bad memory, so I could as well be wrong with this in all points.

edit: Damn, I still need to update the OP. Its contents are one and a half years old already!

Thank you sir! I need to re-outfit my dragon character with something a little more rich looking.

Thanks Drake, using the updatequest made them work again. I'm using LordSoulstrike's adapted item package, which seems to work fine with the current scripts.

Hey, its good to see everybody's still around and stuff. as far as the scripting goes, the past few weeks have been notoriously un-productive, thanks to having to juggle a full time job and school, but things are slowing down now, so I can finally get back to the mod.

I was thinking about a fallout 3 port of the mod, and i don't think it would be all that hard to do, just tedious. as far as the meshes go, they would have to be updated to the fallout 3 nif format, which can be done with nifskope, the textures would work without modification, and then just copy the scripts, make a new race with the stuff, and that's that. kinda breaks canon though (not that I am complaining), human + human = dragon? that is, unless you believe those tabloids with headlines like "Man hatches from egg!"

any way, I hope to get this worked out soon, and I'm sorry it is taking so long.

"You" are sorry it is taking so long? What about me? I'm forced to let you all wait for about a whole year now (or longer?) and can only apologize over and over without so much as actually feeling any better!
No, Muse, there's definitely no need for you to feel sorry.

As for porting this race to FO3, I know it can be done, at least with meshes and textures, as it was done already and there were quite some screenshots shown of the results throughout the last WIP threads.
The scripting though I always deemed the most complicated part of a port such as this. I'm pretty sure it's not "just copy the scripts". I might not know the Fallout scripting engine the slightest, but I'm pretty sure it's like using Basic code in a Pascal compiler, especially taking OBSE into account. But what do I know? The script commands, syntax and functions could as well be completely identical!

It got a little quiet lately, especially from my side, but only because nothing modding-related at all happened during this time... not that this makes things any better, that is, but oh well.

Well, it is getting to the point where I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish what I started out to do. I simply cannot summon up the motivation to sit down and do this, not when there are half a dozen other projects all demanding my attention. that said, I will more than likely get this done eventually, but at the moment, I don't know whether "eventually" will mean a few weeks, or a few years. So in the interest of getting what, in my mind, is the only major bug in the current release of the mod, done relatively quickly, I'm looking to pass the torch off to someone who actually has some experience with scripting, something I lack. looking back, had I realizing that the task I was signing myself up for was code optimization, something I have no experience in, I probably would not have been as quick to jump head first into a task I ultimately should not have. in essence, what I was trying to do was paint the mona lisa, without ever picking up a paint brush before, and without any knowledge of any artistic techniques. I really set myself up for failure; an unfamiliar area of coding, in an unfamiliar language, in a coding environment that is not very good for a novice.

Well, it is getting to the point where I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish what I started out to do. I simply cannot summon up the motivation to sit down and do this, not when there are half a dozen other projects all demanding my attention. that said, I will more than likely get this done eventually, but at the moment, I don't know whether "eventually" will mean a few weeks, or a few years. So in the interest of getting what, in my mind, is the only major bug in the current release of the mod, done relatively quickly, I'm looking to pass the torch off to someone who actually has some experience with scripting, something I lack. looking back, had I realizing that the task I was signing myself up for was code optimization, something I have no experience in, I probably would not have been as quick to jump head first into a task I ultimately should not have. in essence, what I was trying to do was paint the mona lisa, without ever picking up a paint brush before, and without any knowledge of any artistic techniques. I really set myself up for failure; an unfamiliar area of coding, in an unfamiliar language, in a coding environment that is not very good for a novice.

So I guess what i am trying to say is, I'm in over my head, and while eventually I'll be able to dig myself out, it could end up being a few years before I do, and, as such, I'd like to pass the task off to someone qualified for the task.

In interest of helping myself get some scripting experience, and making things a bit easier on myself, does anyone know if there is a way to export the scripts out of the construction set, so I could open them up in a text editor like MS notepad? Last time I looked into it, I noticed that the construction set's scripting window does not even support copy and paste outside of the construction set, but I didn't look in to exporting it. That is one of the biggest obstacles I'm facing right now, the construction set's scripting window is the worst coding environment I have ever encountered. If I could get past that, things would be a lot easier.

As for my previous post, I say I'm sorry it is taking so long because from my point of view, its taken me nearly a year to do what I initially thought would take, at most, one or two weeks to do. even now, If I found the motivation and time to do so, I could probably pound out a rough script that would solve the major issue in one to two days (not counting additional bugfixes and cleanup). But I just can't seem to find the motivation to do so, which continually frustrates me.

The need to apologize also come from the perception that everyone is waiting on me to do this, a perception which I realize is most likely not true but remains none the less, and the resulting guilt from not accomplishing said task.

Don't worry. I know far too well what you're talking of, though with me it's only the lack of free time. But the results are the same, people are waiting on progress and only let down. But this is all me to blame, not you. After all, you were only trying to help.
And while I could wait for likely an infinite amount of time, users usually can't. I need to rework my whole scripting approach completely anyways, but due to the lack of free time I can't tell when I will finally get around to actually do it.

Regarding copy&paste in the CS' script editor, that's actually very easy. It might not give you the options to do so from the context menu, but it's just a simple text input window, ctrl-ins and shift-ins still work in there, maybe also ctrl-c and ctrl-v.
The complex scripts of mine I'm writing in a comfortable code editor first, with simple syntax checking (non-matching brackets, anyone?), indentation and all the other nice features the CS' script editor is missing, then c&p them into the CS to compile them. The other way round works just as well.

Thanks for all your time and effort you put into this so far. It's really appreciated! And don't feel bad for not finishing it or something. If anyone's, than it's "my" responsibility to do that. And "me" feeling bad for letting you all wait that long is enough already, I think.

ctrl+c/ctrl+v works for you? Last time I tried it didn't work for me. Guess I'll have to try it again.

Regarding yesterday's post, I was having a bad day yesterday. I really wouldn't go so far as to say I'm in over my head. I fully believe I am capable of reducing the save game bloat substantially, however due to my lack of experience, I have my doubts as to whether I'll be able to eliminate it completely. As for a time frame, I don't foresee anything happening in the near future, truth be told, I probably won't get back on this project until a few months after Skyrim comes out, as once skyrim comes out, chances are I won't be doing much else (which makes me worry about what will happen to my grades lol), but after I sink a few hundred hours into it, i figure my inspiration will return and I'll be able to beat out a script relativity quickly, in anticipation of working on a port. additionally, though I won't be working on the scripting, I still plan on contributing to the project, as one of the personal project I'm currently working on is learning to use Autodesk's 3DS Max 3-d modeling program with the intent of, among other things, fitting the vanilla armor to the body of the dragon, in addition to additional pieces(wing armor, tail armor). I doubt I'll ever completely leave this project, as this is one of my favorite mods of all time, and I want to do my part to help it become even better.

As for my difficulty in getting anything done on the mod, the problem is not exclusive to this mod. I seem to be in a rut, I can't seem to make any headway with any of my personal projects.

Thank you for your kind words, they did lift my spirits, though the same should be said for you. You shouldn't feel bad because you can't get any spare time to work on this. For a one-man operation, I'd say you have already done an impressive amount of work. As for the delays, well that is the sort of thing that comes with the territory. it should also be noted that the save game bloat is remedied relatively easily by the user.

I'd like to throw in a suggestion for the future though, when you write a script, it would be nice if you put in comments describing what the script does, what the variables do, what the functions do, etc.
although that might just be my slight obsession with comments, no doubt born of my programming classes where we get docked points if we don't comment every line.
But it would make my job easier:)

I agree on that last one. Those scripts could use a little "more" comments, if they're ever intended to be used as a resource by others... which they are, dammit!
I'm already putting far more comments into my scripts than I've seen in any professional source code, as I myself am quickly loosing track of what a certain line did or why a certain check needed to be in there although it doesn't make much sense on the first view (well, "quickly" meaning like after a year of no scripting or so), but I agree it's not yet enough.

Hmm, but talking of Wing Armor, here's something to wet your appetite, don't know if you've seen it, yet.
First things first, it will be scrapped next, whenever "next" is, as it wasn't really a good idea to re-use existing feather meshes for this instead of simply doing my own ones exactly the way I need them, but well... a lazy dragon I am.
But it gives you a good image of what the final product will be looking like... I think.

I'm not making much progress lately, as I rarely if ever find some free time at all, but if I do find some free time, I most likely do some more playing around with meshes and such, as it's the easiest task at the moment and, well, I'm just feeling like it.
There are so many far more important things which need my attention, but as I can't hold up any schedules or plans lately I simply stopped doing plans altogether for now and just follow my muse, whenever it strikes me again. ...So, I'm not only lazy but easily distracted also? Oh my! Well, at least I'm still creative, if it counts anything.

But hey, on to the pics:
You might know my last one already, the http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/1451/newsittingid.jpg... just for reference or in case you missed it
Now the new http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2358/wingarmor3layers.jpg (closely orienting on real-life hawk wings... or some such)
And the new http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/429/newhelmetlayeredwingarm.jpg (probably last iteration)
Or http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/429/newhelmetlayeredwingarm.jpg of it (Light Armor version?)
And now only the http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/429/newhelmetlayeredwingarm.jpg (Clothing version?) Aimed to have an Egyptian theme to it. Hope I got it somewhat.

If just I'd find more free time such as this. If I could release this armor some time soon'ish, it'd be a massive step forward from my point of view.
Oh, well...

Hmm, last activity was back in September '11?? That's a long time ago...

Well, no progress to be reported in any of the departments mentioned in previous posts, that's what total lack of free time does to your projects.

However, lately I managed to follow a request in another forum and put all seperate packages into one,
- fix all file bugs in the process,
- add a few requested features to the ESP,
- for example all dragons now use Argonian voices by default and are no longer mute,
- fixed about all bugs I knew of,
- like the bothersome savegame bloating due to missing string_var cleanups,
- and yes, even the nasty upperbody slot-control bug is finally "gone"!

So go get at least the ESP of the v0.0.8 pre-beta from the usual location now, and you won't regret it.
One thing though, due to the massive changes in scripting to apply to your existing savegames, you'll have to do clean saves without my mod active for each of them, so the mod starts fresh on your games and all scripts on objects and quests are up-to-date. I provided detailed instructions on how to this for a mod the race you're playing comes from without making the game crash in the process on the description page of the download.
The new package is BAIN-ready, OMOD-ready and the manual installation instructions should be up-to-date and not confusing... but who am I to tell? You need to tell me once you tried it.

Oh, and there's a little bonus gift somewhere in the middle of the readme. I'm planning to add one to all future releases of mine now. Tell me what you think of this idea. Yay or nay?

Have fun, enjoy your game, and most important of all... give me feedback!