[WIP] SWTOR-Style Alien Player Heads (Nautolan, Kel Dor, etc.)

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Someone asked for a Nautolan head in the Request thread. I was thinking of making a Togruta and wondering how I would deal with the montrals and head-tails, so decied I'd take a crack at this as a (far more difficult) trial run. Rather than clogging the request thread up, I figured I'd post progress here. I used the SWTOR Nautolans as a guide/target:

Even though the request was for a male, I started with a female first as a proof-of-concept (and because I plan to do a female LS run through the new Steam version of TSL at some point). I wanted to use one of the existing heads as a base, to keep the mouth intact for potential NPC use. Also because I suck at organic modelling, so creating something completely from scratch wasn't an option. I wanted a head that was in both games, so I went with the Luxa head, which is PFHA01 in K1. I got rid of her hair and lopped off most of the back of her head, then grafted on a whole bunch of amputated Twi'lek lekku that I massaged into shape. Plus I gave her some major facial surgery to implant the creepy giant bug eyes.

I whipped up an export with some quick and dirty skin wrapping from the original head to do an in-game test. Aside from a few bits of nasty deformation from sub-optimal weighting, it seemed to work ok:

Once I knew it would work, I went ahead and UV mapped her. That went surprisingly quickly, although I am forseeing some nasty broken shading/seam issues and possible remapping in my future. Currently I'm baking out normal/ambient occlusion/cavity/curvature/etc. maps from a high poly mesh for texturing. Doing them at 4K, so that takes a few hours.

If anyone here is a skilled skinner/rigger and would like to volunteer their services, I'd greatly appreciate a hand. Character rigging was never my bag, and that mass of tentacles/head-tails at the back will need some finessing that's beyond my ability to minimise mesh distortion during certain animations.

[Sithspecter 909]

First of all, wow, that looks incredible!! I'm pretty much speechless, and this is without a doubt the most impressive head mod that I've seen to date. Unfortunately, I can't be much help with any of the rigging or skinning, because I haven't got a clue how any of that works.

 

In any case, excellent work, I'm humbled by how amazing it looks.

[1Leonard 134]

Could you make a tutorial or a small checklist of what to go through in order to make a completely custom head model?

 

These look great btw. I'd love to make some alternate skins when it is released.

[Kainzorus Prime 205]

I'll take ten.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

On 8/6/2015 at 11:36 PM, 1Leonard said:

Could you make a tutorial or a small checklist of what to go through in order to make a completely custom head model?

1. Model

2. ???

3. Profit

 

The ??? is VarsityPuppet's HeadFixer - http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=209595

There is some further elaboration in the original thread - http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=207690

[1Leonard 134]

1. Model

2. ???

3. Profit

 

The ??? is VarsityPuppet's HeadFixer - http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=209595

 

There is some further elaboration in the original thread - http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=207690

This is the first time I've come across that tool!

 

Thanks.

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

1. Model2. ???3. ProfitThe ??? is VarsityPuppet's HeadFixer - http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=209595There is some further elaboration in the original thread - http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=207690

My finest moment, no doubt

[1Leonard 134]

My finest moment, no doubt

Could you perhaps reupload it to DeadlyStream sometime?

[Fair Strides 509]

 

I'll chip in a bit of knowledge on the weighting/rigging...

 

To my understanding:

 

"Weighting" is the act of setting the weight of a vertex or series of vertices, which in turn determines how much those vertices are affected when their parent element (for example, the hand [not the fingers or thumb, essentially just the palm] would be parented to the lower section of the arm in the original models).

 

"Rigging" is the act of adding "bones" to a model and setting them up as the parents of a series of elements, such that when the "bone" is moved, anything parented to that "bone" will be affected, though the amount to which it is affected is determined by the weights of the affected element's vertices.

 

Now, if I'm wrong on any of that, please correct me.

 

For the KotOR games, a regular character or head model will include: the pieces seen in-game, invisible "hooks" (such as the camera hook, right and left hand hooks, the impact hook, or a goggle hook), and lastly invisible pieces of geometry. These are invisible because they have no texture applied to them, so nothing is "rendered" in-game. These invisible pieces of geometry are KotOR's "bones" and it is these "bones" that are actually animated, with the real in-game geometry being parented to these "bones" and weighted so that the geometry is realistically affected.

 

The developers used a series of five models that house the master list of animations: s_male01, s_male02, s_female01, s_female02, and s_female03. Together, these models contain every combat, dialog, and movement animation used by a humanoid NPC. This is done by the models themselves having nothing but the hooks and "bone" geometry in them, and the models that need these animations "linking" to these "super models" in their compiled form.

 

For most of the heads in the game (AKA, any head that is just a head, not attached to a body as a one-piece set so-to-speak), they link to one of these super models, commonly s_female03 (which in itself links to s_female02, which links to the 01 and then the chain continues back to s_male02 and that one includes s_male01), and so gets the animation data from there. The common exception to this is the party member heads, which seems to link back to their normal clothing models (the "BB" models).

 

Given your task and the specific head involved, it is quite likely that you'd need to re-animate the hair yourself (or just leave it along, since it doesn't really move in-game much anyways). As well as this, you can probably import the invisible bones and hooks from a normal head (possibly a twi'lek head) and then copy a regular head's way of linking the parts together.

 

If you do this, you will want to NOT check the "Convert skin to trimesh" box in MDLOps, as that skin piece is what holds the bone-linkage information. The weighting would take some tests to get right, but if you have everything else setup and just have the weighting to take care of, it'll be a lot less stressful...

 

 

P.S: I apologize for the assault of information.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 98]

I'm at a bit of a loss. How does creating 4k textures actually translate into 4k textures in-game..?

 

Sure, the new steam update means that the game can support 4k resolution, however, that does not mean that the game's renderer can make use of 4k textures. Likely they will be down-sampled to something it can use, or, simply get lost in some other way. Meaning the end result isn't going to look all that much different if you simply used a texture that was 1024x1024.

 

EDIT: it's like the support of widescreen displays via the new steam update; sure, you can use widescreen resolutions, however, all the UI elements get stretched out. It's not a "complete" fix for the problem, just a patch of sorts.

 

I don't have any 4k displays, so, perhaps there is some big difference that is lost on me.

 

Anyway, like the head model. Nice to see some new and really interesting work.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

You are conflating two completely different things. Texture resolution is all about pixel density. A 4K texture is 4096x4096. The reason I am using a texture that big is because player heads ideally need to use a single texture to allow DS transitions, but there are so many parts that a lower res texture would have an extremely low pixel density for the individual parts. Even at that resolution, the face itself only occupies about a 1024x1024 space. The rest is taken up with all the head tails.

And leaving actual game use aside, you always work at the highest possible resolution. You can always scale down, you can't scale back up. For the same reason your source files should be uncompressed.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 98]

Yeah but I my point is that you won't see that extra "pixel density" in-game.

 

I've got no issue with people using larger sizes for their work and then scaling down, but I do with people using these in mods and insinuating that you are going to get 4k detail from them. Like it's somehow better than another mod that uses 1024x1024 knowing that the renderer won't really make use of anything more.

 

Anyway, you set it up as you like. Especially as it's a new model and not some rework of a pre UV mapped head.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

There is clearly a difference at 2K vs 1K. 4K provides minimal additional benefit, so 2K is probably sufficient in this instance, but those are the source files, as I said above.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 98]

Yeah, I was thinking that earlier, that perhaps 2048x might be the better option for some heads. 

 

From the comparisons it looks like it definitely, would be interested in seeing a comparison of an existing UV mapped and textured head at 1k and then 2k followed by 4k. See if there really is a big difference even between 1k and 2k, as I gather you've UV mapped it quite specific to the model, so as to get a more or less uniform pixel-density across the whole head. If I recall correctly, the Twi'lek heads aren't like that at all, so you might be able to just use 1k as 2k is pointless.

 

Anyway, regardless, definitely seems like 2k is a valid option if the model is UV'd to make use of it. 

[HK-47 84]

Wow. I cannot find the words to express how impressed I am with this.

 

I agree that 2k would be the better option over the 4k.

 

I personally would rather have a 2k version than a 1k version. But I'm basing that partly off of the blurriness of the lines in the image and my limited knowledge of these things. I'm also basing that off of seeing the work of a few that have upgraded textures to a 2k model, but those were mostly going from a very low resolution to the 2k.

 

I look forward to seeing this progress and seeing the final product.

[L0ki194 82]

I've gotta say, that's pretty amazing what you've done DP. And I agree with the use of 2K textures over 4K.

[Durendal 5]

This is seriously impressive, the only thing I can think of that comes close are NiuHaka's retextures. Really looking forward to this when it's completed.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Whipped up a male version, using PMHB03 as the base. I thought the nose was a good starting point, and he is in both K1 and TSL. I was going for the look of this guy in SWTOR - https://i.imgur.com/XTCnbLF.png

Still have a few tweaks to make, but should be able to finish that up and UV map it tomorrow.

[Inawordyes 0]

It looks awesome DP! One thing I would have to say as far as improving it, though, is that the lowest set of head-tresses heading backwards juts out of the head model unnaturally (compare to the same set on the female model comparison above). I'm aware that it's due to the extra set of head-tresses on his shoulders, but it still seems to branch from the head in a weird way (at least to me!), to where it's kind of more noticeable (compared to the female head) that it isn't one model piece.

 

I don't even know if that's more than a moot point, haha, but I thought I'd mention it. It looks amazing regardless and I look forward to when they can be used in-game!

[Jorak Uln 458]

Whipped up a male version, using PMHB03 as the base. I thought the nose was a good starting point, and he is in both K1 and TSL. I was going for the look of this guy in SWTOR - https://i.imgur.com/XTCnbLF.png

 

 

Still have a few tweaks to make, but should be able to finish that up and UV map it tomorrow.

Very very nice DP!

The only difference between  the SWTOR version is the front lekku  - the tentacles are a bit longer than in your version. 

But no matter which version will be ingame, either way im really impressed with your work -

 

just one question remains:

 

to get more diversity in the game, will there an option as  NPC head replacer as well?   

[Kainzorus Prime 205]

Very nice. I will have to release a dialogue tweak, so there will be fewer, if at all mentions to the player being human in the game to go along with this. Thankfully, it's mostly in generic alien babble, so it's all in text edits.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

The only difference between  the SWTOR version is the front lekku  - the tentacles are a bit longer than in your version.

Yeah that's intentional. Too many issues with clipping and mesh distortion if you make them longer. As they are it's going to be pretty rough with certain animations, and a few body models will have some nasty clipping issues. The lowered hood on the back of the TSL master robes is a particularly apparent one, and I imagine the Revan reveal in K1 would be comically bad.

 

will there an option as  NPC head replacer as well?

That's the plan, but it depends on whether I can manage to skin the lips and mouth properly to the head rig. That's why I asked for volunteers in the first post. I was never any good at rigging character models.

[LiliArch 115]

Yeah that's intentional. Too many issues with clipping and mesh distortion if you make them longer. As they are it's going to be pretty rough with certain animations, and a few body models will have some nasty clipping issues. The lowered hood on the back of the TSL master robes is a particularly apparent one, and I imagine the Revan reveal in K1 would be comically bad.

Well, the Revan reveal in K1 is comical with the ponytailed Vanilla female head, too. I wouldn't worry about that too much.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

I have been avoiding the horror of skinning the nautolan heads, and haven't started on the textures yet as I was waiting for my new Wacom tablet to arrive. So in the meantime I decided to do a bit more modelling, this time something without any nightmare-fuel appendages. Behold:

I started out modelling him after the SWTOR Kel Dor, but then I looked at some pics of Plo Koon and realised their version is a bit off, so I started moving more towards the movie/canon style. As a result I still need to tweak a few things, like moving the ear/sensory sac things in a bit closer to the head.

Skinning for this should be a piece of piss, just head and an bit of neck really. I might be able to add in some brow movement as well, as I didn't really change the position of the eyes compared to the original (I used Uthar's head as the base). On the other hand, texturing will be a lot more difficult than the Nautolans, with the wrinkly external brain look Kel Dor have.

[scoutception 17]

I have been avoiding the horror of skinning the nautolan heads, and haven't started on the textures yet as I was waiting for my new Wacom tablet to arrive. So in the meantime I decided to do a bit more modelling, this time something without any nightmare-fuel appendages. Behold:

 

 

I started out modelling him after the SWTOR Kel Dor, but then I looked at some pics of Plo Koon and realised their version is a bit off, so I started moving more towards the movie/canon style. As a result I still need to tweak a few things, like moving the ear/sensory sac things in a bit closer to the head.

 

Skinning for this should be a piece of piss, just head and an bit of neck really. I might be able to add in some brow movement as well, as I didn't really change the position of the eyes compared to the original (I used Uthar's head as the base). On the other hand, texturing will be a lot more difficult than the nautolans, with the wrinkly external brain look Kel Dor have.

That looks fantastic. Also, I'd say Kel Dors are pretty nightmare fuelish too. They don't even have mouths or noses, really, just gaping holes.