Paatru Race - Progress Thread

[Mizreg]

It is indeed very smooth, I think that if all the kf's where like this the mod would look quite pro in the end, and it already does look awesome.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Cheers, Mizreg. Here's hoping that Koniption can get some help to get it sorted. =)

[Koniption]

Thanks for the compliment, guys!

Tech. Jargon and Ideas below:
Yeah, I have an idea to get around having to use scripts to direct the folder path to point towards where the different Paatru body models are. It means joining all the body mesh pieces of the Paatru together in one nif, then entering that whole body nif as a "tail" item in the race creation window.

This way, future Paatru clothing can be equipped as usual, using the "clothing" or "armor" CS sections, but you can't put anything in those sections' "tail" slots, else the whole Paatru body will disappear.

I "might" can use the "hair" slot to add body details to the Paatru, like "degenerate tadpole tails", warts, or other froggy stuff to the races. The Paatru are naturally bald anyway, to using the hair slot for hair, would be weird. And I'm not talking about the "hair" slot in clothing and armor CS sections. I'm talking about being able to use those extra body details as actual hair object, with possible morphing abilities (like can choose how long the "tadpole" tail is for any given Paatru, etc).

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I'm liking those body variations a lot. I think any introduction of the Paatru to the Oblivion community right now will really shake things up and raise a few eyebrows. You deserve recognition for stuff like this.

[Koniption]

Thanks IG!

More Tech. Jargon On What I've been up to these past 4-5 days:

I never heard back from OBSE. And it's been about a week or so. I PM'd one of the members twice, but never heard back. They must be pretty busy, or something.

So, I decided to try to enter the Paatru's all-in-one body mesh as a "tail" item in the race creation section of CS. To do this, I found I needed to redo the names of the Paatru's Bip01 bones to say "Bip01 P" prefix, PLUS add in the vanilla-named & uncollisioned Bip01 bones of vanilla beast skeleton into same Paatru skeleton.

I did this for a reason:
This way, if I scale the vanilla Pelvis bone to zero in the skeleton, the human/beast body meshes won't show up at all. Also, since the human/beast bones are present in the Paatru skeleton, if the Paatru equips a vanilla armor or clothing item, it won't show up on the Paatru's body.

YET, if I make custom clothing for the Paatru that is specifically skinned to its "Bip01 P" prefixed bones, I *should* be able to enter these items in the CS as clothes/armor (that don't take up the tail slot at all, or else the Paatru body will disappear since it is entered in tail slot), and they should appear on the Paatru appropriately. (I'll just have to figure out how to prevent vanilla races from trying to equip Paatru clothes/armor - probably will need a script for this).

I've gotten the Paatru in the tail slot, with "Bip01 P" bones, and also the skeletonbeast.nif bones that are uncollisioned (Bip01 Pelvis bones, and everything under it). It works ok in the CS in the Paatru's character window, and also in the render screen....but in the game, once I turn to look at the Paatru, the game crashes. I've been trying to figure out the crash.

To troubleshoot, I took a combined human body, added it into a plain human skeleton nif that was just bones, then I "flattened branch" the top bone to make the bones appear all on same level, out of hierarchy (I also deleted the Bip01 and NonAccum bones). I then made a new race called "testsubjecthuman" and entered that all-in-one human body as a "tail" item in race creation window. I tested this test subject ingame, and got no crashes.

Problem is, looking back, I gave the testsubject a "human" skeleton, and not a "beast" skeleton, so it's most likley that the human body in the "tail" nif section did not register at all in the game. So I need to go back and use the beast skeleton, and see if it does not crash again.

Tbh, I think I have something wrong with my Paatru skeleton or the Paatru body mesh. I did a lot of changes to it over the past 4 to 5 days. I saw that the skeletonbeast.nif has NiTransformInterpolators for all bones in its skeleton, but mine does not. Thing is, I got the Paatru skeleton working even without those NiTransformInterpolators, initially, under a different setup. But under that setup, the separated Paatru body meshes did not render, but with the vanilla body meshes rendering in its place. It's just that the vanilla body mesh was stretched into Paatru skeleton dimensions and animated using paatru animations.

So the work continues....

(Heh, this thread seems to be serving as my personal "Paatru modding journal". )

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by Koniption
(Heh, this thread seems to be serving as my personal "Paatru modding journal". )

Koniption

It should help you work through the issues, hopefully...even if us non-modellers can offer no assistance. Here's hoping this helps you in understanding future projects as it's looking a little headachy.

[Koniption]

Aye, I've gotten a few headaches troubleshooting things, for sure.

:dunce:

Koniption

[Koniption]

Update:

I got the Paatru to show up ingame without crashing. The body mesh uses the tail slot.

Now I need to work on the "camera zoom" for when talking to them, and updating the rest of the prior-made animations to remove unwanted references (basically, I just need to import the kfs into Blender, then export them again...).

I might need to change the Paatru "Bip01 P Head" bone to be "Bip01 Head" bone, and basically remove the vanilla "Bip01 Head" bone from the vanilla beast skeleton I used in same Paatru skeleton. I saw that the vanilla upperbody.nif has skinning that uses the Bip01 Head bone, but I'm hoping that since the vanilla beast skeleton pelvis bone is scaled to zero in the Paatru skeleton, that any artifacts from a lacking bone in the vanilla skinned mesh will be scaled to zero as well and not visible. Experimenting resumes....

After that, I will test equipping a simple belt clothing item on the Paatru, to make sure clothing and armor can be equipped, like I'm hoping.

Koniption

[Deeza]

That really is quite a remarkable model. And to get it working in-game too...

[Koniption]

Minor Update:

I got the head camera zoom to work when talking to the Paatru.

And I didn't even have to put the "Bip01 Head" bone where the Paatru's main "Bip01 P Head" bone was. Whoot!

Seems the game engine is only looking to zoom in on where the "head.nif" is sitting on the body, and perhaps also where the Camera01 is. If you don't have a "head.nif" for your race, and don't enter one in the race creation window, the Dialogue head zoom won't work at all.

Koniption