Is this taking it too far?

[Kaftan Barlast]

I thought Id try to play a bit of NWN2 today with the new patch, and all was well except for the fact that I could not find any good haircuts for a female character. So I just thought "Oh shoot! I'll just make my own then" and I swooshed up 3ds Max and modeled a new hair, textured it shabbily, rigged it stiffly to the head and there, I could finally play.

 

 

Is this taking it too far? I know I didnt like the way the weapons felt in STALKER so I modded them aswell. Im starting to do it more and more, will this end with me spending a year modifying a game with fully animated custom models, expanded storyline, tweaked gameplay etc. just so Ill be able to enjoy it without being annoyed by some tiny detail? Should I just leave my games alone?

 

 

 

 

( I'll upload the hair thingie later if anyones interested )

[Musopticon?]

Can you upload it sooner?

 

 

As for that obsession, I'd expect that everyone who has the ability to correct things, that they see as faults, to do that, especially if one has already done it before. Hell, I'd like to mod lots of things out of some of my favorite games. Like Minsc, for instance.

Edited June 16, 2007 by Musopticon?

[karka]

It's not taking it too far for you. You're a game developer afterall.

[Cantousent]

I'm dead serious, kaftan, I hate the hair in NWN2. I've been playing it today also, mostly switching between the campaign and trying to figure out the toolset. I can't stand the hair. It's not just the female hair. At least some developers get the female hair right. The male hair just sucks. In WoW, I can't have a standard, parted on the side male haircut. Rat bastards. Well, Blizzard is worse, but Obsidian doesn't get it right either. There are short haircuts, but they look like anime or lightly parted in the middle.

 

Most of the haircuts are long. I don't disdain your long locks, Mr. Barlast, but I want the choice of a haircut that is similar to my own. In fact, while the argument that growing long hair was a way of self expression and the devs should grant the option has turned dramatically the other way. I can't express myself in my own fashion because the devs want to have these ridiculous long haircuts (Blizzard) or the unkempt mop top anime style (just about everyone).

[Pop]

More variety in regard to character creation in NWN2 would be greatly appreciated.

 

Has anybody fixed those half-elven faces yet?

[Sand]

GIMMIE!

 

More hair styles is always good. More heads would be good as well. More the merrier I say!

Edited June 17, 2007 by Sand

[metadigital]

In the words of Bigweld, "See a need, fill a need!"

 

It actually re-affirms your choice of vocation, methinks; the fact that you find objects and means to improve the games you play means that you are actively interested and have a high coefficient of care (aka carefactor).

 

It would be a serious problem if you didn't want to tweak and modify games that you play and implement ideas ...

[dunniteowl]

No it's not taking it far enough! Modify to your heart's content!

 

I'm now learning to use 3DS Max and wish I could modify things like that all the time. I have more fun designing things than I do playing things. I have had NWN2 since early April and I have probably only gotten a 1/3 of the way through the game, maybe less -- I am currently just getting back from the mission in the hills where you find the emissary from Waterdeep I think it is. In the meantime, I have played with the toolset and have only really been playing around making different terrains of rolling hills, roads, things like that.

 

I am so looking forward to making buildings and other placeable type things. I'm not that good at making people parts and so my hat's off to all those that can. Hair, faces, facial hair, different types of eyes, lips, noses, mouths and jaw lines -- all of these things are lacking, in my opinion. Whatever can be done to make the heads and faces of the NWN2 models look better on the whole, I am for it.

 

One of the things I am pressing the Devs for as a Community Representative is to make more heads with different facial characteristics or to release any new content made for Mask of the Betrayer if possible in an earlier patch. In the meantime, I also encourage anyone who can in the Community to make whatever they can to increase the variety in the game.

 

So, please, by all means, modify all you can and enjoy it to the best of your abilities.

 

regards,

dunniteowl

 

ps: If you look at my avatar (yes, it's really me, there) you will see that there was a time when I had my hair also parted on the side and my hair (what's left of it) is fine and thin in the first place -- never saw that modeled, plus I also have gone from close cropped, to business style, long haired, ponytailed freak and I have gone from clean shaven to just a mustache, to a mustache and goatee, a Lincoln/Capt. Ahab beard without mustache, a Fu Manchu mustache and many variations of beard. I would like to be able to model my PC avatar with changeable facial hair and head hair to match my mood. (it would be too cool and probably too much to have hair that "grows.")

[Morgoth]

Hair that looks decent is always a little tricky to do, especially the texture, so you might spend some time with it. I always wondered if I could have a Lara Craft like pigtail for my dwarfen lady...? Or even Bavarian style pigtails. Yes! Fully rigged, too! Because I'm a demanding customer goddamit!

[Kaftan Barlast]

Ok, fine. Here is my hair files http://www.xn--holmstrm-t4a.net/pics/nwn2_hair_kaftan.rar

 

 

Its sloppy work mind you, I wasnt really thinking when I made it so instead of taking polys from the head, copying them and thus ening up with a mesh that fit the head very closely, I just doodled up a quick spline profile and went from there. Thus:

 

1 the hair doesnt fit the head too closely resulting in a slight "helmet" look

2 it clips like crazy with the rest of the model

3 its not two-sided all the way so you can see right through it sometimes

4 the normal map doesnt seem to be quite bumpy enough

5 the tintmap is the result of 5min in photoshop, so it doesnt work that well

6 its rigged to only the base head bone, so it wont flop when you run and so on

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

I thought Id try to play a bit of NWN2 today with the new patch, and all was well except for the fact that I could not find any good haircuts for a female character. So I just thought "Oh shoot! I'll just make my own then" and I swooshed up 3ds Max and modeled a new hair, textured it shabbily, rigged it stiffly to the head and there, I could finally play.

 

 

Is this taking it too far? I know I didnt like the way the weapons felt in STALKER so I modded them aswell. Im starting to do it more and more, will this end with me spending a year modifying a game with fully animated custom models, expanded storyline, tweaked gameplay etc. just so Ill be able to enjoy it without being annoyed by some tiny detail? Should I just leave my games alone?

 

 

 

 

( I'll upload the hair thingie later if anyones interested )

 

Considering you're plans on becoming a games designer. It's perfectly natural to mod the hell out of something when you don't like it, it also shows that you understand and comprehend the process of getting from A - B, something that designers really should understand.

 

Come to think of it Designer is such a non-descript position, it's probably due to the area being such a vast one.

 

Eventually what will happen is that you'll most likely be working on a game, with a team, tweaking such things and loosing sleep over them... I don't believe you'll end up excessively modding a game, if anything it's just good practice.

 

 

edit: I leave modding to designers, I prefer to give designers the right tools to make they game they wish, and as much power as possible to configure it... Which is all a game engine is (a tool), tho' I am fond of taking text files and converting them to binary just to allow for a good bitch slapping of a designer when they screw up a script :D. Just one of many amusement I create for myself.

 

Designer:- "Why's it not compiling? Your compiler sucks!".

Programmer:- "Because you screwed up and probably missed a semi-colon, welcome to my world :D".

Edited June 17, 2007 by @\NightandtheShape/@

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Ok, fine. Here is my hair files http://www.xn--holmstrm-t4a.net/pics/nwn2_hair_kaftan.rar

 

 

Its sloppy work mind you, I wasnt really thinking when I made it so instead of taking polys from the head, copying them and thus ening up with a mesh that fit the head very closely, I just doodled up a quick spline profile and went from there. Thus:

 

1 the hair doesnt fit the head too closely resulting in a slight "helmet" look

2 it clips like crazy with the rest of the model

3 its not two-sided all the way so you can see right through it sometimes

4 the normal map doesnt seem to be quite bumpy enough

5 the tintmap is the result of 5min in photoshop, so it doesnt work that well

6 its rigged to only the base head bone, so it wont flop when you run and so on

 

You should be able to fix most of those problems in about an hour max... Surely it's worth the effort.

[Walsingham]

I'm hungry. mod me a ham on rye.

[Cantousent]

I'm hungry. mod me a ham on rye.

 

What a doofus. I can't believe I laughed out loud at that.

[Aram]

I'll wait for the mustard patch.

[Lare Kikkeli]

screens plz

[Kaftan Barlast]

No screens for the wicked!

 

 

You should be able to fix most of those problems in about an hour max... Surely it's worth the effort.

 

 

I just saw this tutorial on sculpting a female character in Zbrush3 and if I was going to spend time with a hair model, thats probably the way Id do it. But that would take a bit more work than Im willing to do right now. WHat I should be doing is learning Softimage|XSI instead of fooling around

[Diamond]

screens plz

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

No screens for the wicked!

 

 

You should be able to fix most of those problems in about an hour max... Surely it's worth the effort.

 

 

I just saw this tutorial on sculpting a female character in Zbrush3 and if I was going to spend time with a hair model, thats probably the way Id do it. But that would take a bit more work than Im willing to do right now. WHat I should be doing is learning Softimage|XSI instead of fooling around

 

You can get some pretty good results quickly in photoshop using the nvidia plugin, result won't be as good as with Z-Brush, but it should be good enough.

 

Dunno about you but I can't see softimage|XSI being that different it's usually a matter of where and what the tools are called... But I dunno, Max gives me the wilies :D

[Morgoth]

It's less the tool and more the talent that determines how good an artist's work is. Doing something "quickly" isn't a habit I'm following, either. Workflow/effeciently with the tools is the key if you want to invest more time and energy into the artistic value of your work, which possibly means a better and more interesting game atmosphere as well.

[Wistrik]

Developers can't please everyone, so inevitably we find things in games we don't like, or feel we could do better ourselves. Thus there've been many times when I've stopped playing, and whipped out an editor to change something that bugs me in the game. I even get crazy over misspellings and bad grammar. So don't worry if you're taking it too far. Our personal experience in a game is ultimately what matters most, not what someone else likes or dislikes.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

It's less the tool and more the talent that determines how good an artist's work is. Doing something "quickly" isn't a habit I'm following, either. Workflow/effeciently with the tools is the key if you want to invest more time and energy into the artistic value of your work, which possibly means a better and more interesting game atmosphere as well.

 

True enough, some tools are quicker and provide fairly good results if the artist has the talents in the first place...

[Kaftan Barlast]

You can get some pretty good results quickly in photoshop using the nvidia plugin, result won't be as good as with Z-Brush, but it should be good enough.

 

Dunno about you but I can't see softimage|XSI being that different it's usually a matter of where and what the tools are called... But I dunno, Max gives me the wilies :D

 

 

I used that plugin to create the normalmap on this model, but it doesnt "bump" enough for the engine to actually show it. But mostly, Id use Zbrush because Im a perfectionist and it would look infinitly much better with properly sculpted hair.

 

 

And XSI is teh shiznitz

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

You can get some pretty good results quickly in photoshop using the nvidia plugin, result won't be as good as with Z-Brush, but it should be good enough.

 

Dunno about you but I can't see softimage|XSI being that different it's usually a matter of where and what the tools are called... But I dunno, Max gives me the wilies :D

 

 

I used that plugin to create the normalmap on this model, but it doesnt "bump" enough for the engine to actually show it. But mostly, Id use Zbrush because Im a perfectionist and it would look infinitly much better with properly sculpted hair.

 

 

And XSI is teh shiznitz

 

That must be the settings on the tools surely... I've certainly created some very deep bump maps using a depth of 128... But then again I think i used 9 samples aswell, regardless... Z-Brush always looks better .

 

I would like to see the result of your work with that time and effort... In a game naturally...

[Morgoth]

That Photoshop plugin sucks, I wouldn't want to work with that half-assed thingy. ZBrush is the only way for good looking and functioning Normal Maps. And it rocks for Color Map creation, too.