Hiya, sorry for the double post, I didn't think I'd have anything to show just yet. But I was wondering if I could get a fresh pair of eyes to look at this and give me some advice? I'm really new at modding and not an artist, but I can take any amount of criticism. If this is ugly or stupid or tacky PLEASE tell me. I have a couple sets so far..

http://i.imgur.com/ISDmh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CxEfU.jpg

New pics update! Please please give criticism. This is my first time trying anything like this, but that doesn't mean I'll be satisfied with an inferior final product. If there's something wrong and it's in my power to fix it I will absolutely do my best. These are a different style than the others, because someone suggested other colors.


Pink butterfly set - http://i.imgur.com/2DZsY.jpg
Blue butterfly set - http://i.imgur.com/POV0H.jpg
Blue butterfly set 2 - http://i.imgur.com/vDepu.jpg
Twin dragon set - http://i.imgur.com/SK6hl.jpg
Dragon and tiger - http://i.imgur.com/c6duT.jpg

BTW guys - Can those of you who might be interested in this mod please post your race? I'm going to probably pre-release only one or two races to start with and see what kind of interest there is. I would definitely like to give something back to the people who have helped me so much with all my annoying questions. Ty much!

To be honest I really think they look cool. Would love to see more

I think it's pretty neat. I'd like to see a really nice japanese dragon tattoo though, covering the back

I don't know if you've seen it, but in skyrim there's quite a few of those mods.

They really look lovely! Actually, far from being ugly or stupid, they look more tastelful and NOT tacky than most of the very few tattoo mods I've been able to hunt up. I, too, would like to see more, if you are willing to share.

Those are lovely! May I suggest offering them separately as well? So the PC can choose to have the upper part, but not the lower part and vice-versa.

Oh those are nice! Will they be in any color other than black?

Oh this is surprising, I really didn't expect so many people to say they were nice. Thank you all so much, I am very motivated to actually do this now. Yes, I can definitely release them in pieces, I have to figure out a way to fanagle that. I have the Photoshop files with the layers and such, so it shouldn't be *too* hard.. As for other colors, I can certainly try it and see how it looks.

A dragon should be a fun endeavor, although can I ask you all's advice on something? 2 things:

1. Getting the tattoo to wrap around the body correctly is SO FREAKING HARD if it's not just a simple shape. It ends up looking warped or stretched, you can sort of tell on the butterfly. It's a complex shape and the body isn't a flat surface so.. *boggle*

2. I recently downloaded a mod that I think would help with the issue of releasing this mod in pieces, and also doing non-symmetrical tattoos (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8769). This uses a mesh that if you look in Nifskope it is split down the middle, so it has twice the segments I guess that normal meshes do, allowing you to have a "right" and "left" texture. The only problem was, it didn't seem to exactly work.. Can anyone give any information on this type of mesh? I'm not even sure this author would let me use it, but just for now, I'm curious about it and if there's any problem with it.

But thank you all for the feedback, you rock, I'll work more on this today.

Oh and Lyssia - I'm so honored that you responded, I love your mods. I actually use one of your Nymph faces as the base for my custom race that I'm testing all this stuff on.

I'm assuming this is a texture replacer for a BB race? or is it a new race? Either way, you will have to make seperate texture files for every tattoo if you want to seperate them. Also, I recommend you look up the assymetrical BB race mod that will allow you to put different tatt's on each side of the body withouth them being mirrored.

As for the tatt's being stretched, you will just have to test and test until you get it right, unfortunatly, unless you want to mess with the UV's on the model.

I just read your second problem and i believe that to be one of the assymetrical models I mentioned a moment ago.
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=3101
That is them.

Some people have problems with them, so if they don't work, send me a PM and I'll make you a assymetrical model of a race.

On a different note; I think your work looks great! May I ask what underwear mod you're using? It looks great.

YES!!! The asymmetrical body!!! This is exactly what I wanted. Thank you sooo much! You must understand, I know nothing about models and next to nothing about textures. I'm just converting actual tattoo designs into something that looks halfway good in Morrowind. Or, well, trying to. This asymmetrical model will help a ton. (I wish I knew what UV's were tho, time to look up a tutorial I guess!)

The underwear mod is something I had to make because I couldn't post my bare bottom on this forum. If you like it I will include it in the tattoo pack as an optional add-on.

Oh jesus UV is a 3d modeling thing *runs away very fast*

Your welcome I hope it helps.

And that'd be great, I look forward to using it

Bump for updated pics! Sorry, don't know the procedure for that. >_>

looks great, I really like the pink ones.

That's my favorite too! The blue ones might look a tiny bit cartoony.

Updated with more pics.

looks great! And as for my race; It doesn't matter. I play as a male, I'm going to set up a seperate race for teh tattooed body and make something with it. I might replace a companion with it or something

Asymetric maps are easyly done with decals and additional UV set. This race body has four UV sets for some body parts:

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n45/AxelIP/ScreenShot656.jpg

Whaaa.. what mod is that? I totally want to do that.. :/

This model(mod) cannot be useful: several years ago i have "ported" Robert's Oblivion female body model in MW, she has animated briasts (i have redone all MW animations), twist bones, lashes, etc. Hence, it is not compatible with any fantastic MW armor/clothes created by generations of super-talented MW modders. I have abandoned this mod because of other technical problems (scripting) and lack of community support (nobody liked her, simple as that).
I am talking not about the model but about approach with decals and multiple UV sets (MW game engine and exporters support them). New UVs really allow great flexibility in creating highres tattoos. Additional body mesh used in other mods (with different UVs) is another solution. Check great work of AlienSoft. If you know how to create UVs this should not be a big deal for you.

I'd never even heard of UVs until this thread. But I can try to learn.

Well, basically, to edit UV's you will need a program such as Blender, or another UV-Editing program. UV's are the vertices of a face, and a UV Map is the organisation of those faces acros a texture, telling the mesh where the texture should be placed or stretched.

Yes, it (UVs) is a set of values (UV coordinates) stored by a 3D model creator in a mesh that controls how 2-dimensional picture/texture is applied on a 3-dimensional mesh. It is possible to edit/move UVs in NifScope. However, with complex meshes NifScope is good only for minor tweaking. It is possible to work in NifScope individually with every UV set (usually meshes have only one UV set if any).

Er, well, I have 3ds max and I'm going to try to go through a tutorial on UV mapping. I know this stuff is extremely hard but I have nothing but time. Having these UV maps would completely unrestrain me as far as tattoo making. Cuz before I could really only do lower back and upper back without it looking crazy. But now... Thanks for the info guys, this will be great if I can learn to do it.

In max when you use e.g. Wrap UVW Modifier to create UVs there is an option to change "Map Channel" ("UV set" in NifScope). So, leave the first Wrap UVW Modifier intact with original body UVs, than apply a second Wrap UVW Modifier and change the channel to "2" and edit UVs in it as you want, suitable for your tattoos. Export. Because NifTools max shader is not working properly i am assigning texture slots/paths in NifScope (I guess you know how to do that). In the original MW Max3/4/5 exporter it is necessary/possible to select the corresponding for the texture slot channel/UV set in the material editor. Decal maps/textures must have alpha channel.

UVs for plane body parts are easy to create: select involved faces, applied planar or pelt, the rest (UVs for other faces) should be in the invisible alpha part of the texture.

Your textures are great, so UVs should not be a problem for you (just to learn few more things). This is not that difficult. There are numerous very helpful free video tutorials for max, e.g.

http://www.cgtutorials.com/c10/Video_Tutorials/newest/
Pelt Mapping http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=13818978&linkID=9241175
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=13818976&linkID=9241175

Thank you so much.. I'll definitely use all these resources. I'm going to go ahead and release one race and a few tattoos for it now, without UVs, just to see if it worked and such. I'll do the UV stuff if I can figure it out sometime tomorrow.