Hi folks!
I've had a total modernization rework of KOTOR head models floating on my mind for years and thanks to the fantastic tools released on this site, I've been able to get a fully functioning prototype going with a few test cases. I'm starting this thread to document my progress with it and share with the community.
First up, huge thanks to developers of KOTOR Tool, Kotormax and MDLops for making this possible.
My goal is to build a universal head base that can be extrapolated to replace all the player and party head models with a much more modern standard - one that looks good, and is also very easy to adapt and modify. Hair will be handled as a separate mesh instead of something modeled as a fixed part of the head model, as is the solution in vanilla meshes, removing the need to do skinning cleanup for new heads. Texture layouts for heads are standardized as a result.
Where I'm at right now:
-New head geometry completed.
-New teeth, tongue and eyes.
-Eyelids are no longer separate geometry, instead the eyelid models have been converted to dummies and the eyelids on the head mesh are skinned to them, allowing for far more natural looking blinking.
-Much more believable eyelashes have been integrated as a result.
-Head is fully skinned for facial animation, though this is still a work in progress and needs a lot of testing and iteration.
-Early tests for texturing and stylization are underway.
First pass with vanilla eyelashes before I took the plunge to try the dummy skinning route, which ended up being a huge gamechanger.
Skinned eyelids and eyelashes.
Much more detailed teeth!
Testing out eyelid skinning.
To see how much I can get out of the new geometry I chose to start with a pretty major quick redesign of Juhani based on Cathar from SWTOR. If I have the stamina to see this project to full completion I'll probably also make a 'classic' version.
This is probably going to be a pretty long project, but I'll try to keep updating once in a while. I plan to release a full resource pack of this even in the absence of a fully completed replacer mod. Thanks for stopping by! I'll be happy to answer any questions in the meantime.