Juliandroid's Modding Ventures

[Juliandroid 4]

Alright, so I have a few different projects running concurrently, and I didn't want to start a thread until I had something substantial to show. Then I remembered that constructive criticism is great. So, some very obvious WIPs:

 

The first project is, admittedly, a very big undertaking, especially for someone with somewhat little texturing experience. I don't know about anyone else, but I really enjoy dramatic dark side transitions. The kind that makes you question if the person is even still human. So, the idea is to design a unique dark side transition for each vanilla face, modeled after the three categories of sin in Dante's Inferno. (For the sake of keeping a consistent direction, mostly, though Violence, Dissoluteness and Fraud echo the Sith triumvirate quite nicely!) 

I've brainstormed up a couple designs already, but so far, have only worked on one head.; PMHA01. It's design takes after Fraud, in this case, manifesting as a sickly, saggy and Sidious-esque face. I want to get the face just right before I move onto the rest of the head:

 

 

It's... not quite as dramatic as I would like. I think the sagging parts need more emphasis, maybe more wrinkles and I'm not entirely sure about the main color.  What do you guys think?

 

As for the next WIP, well... It's far from complete. I'm running into seam woes (which, hopefully, may be alleviated when 3dsMax finishes downloading), a lot of the texture is still streaky, and there's plenty of areas that need touch-up:

 

 

"Juli! There's already an 'alive' Sion mod!" There is, and it's quite nice! But my goal here is different; note the exposed spine. Sion's skin isn't going to be so clear for long! I have plans for the rest of the Sith Triumvirate as well.

(And just for clarity's sake, I want to say that my textures are all hand-painted over the original game's in GIMP 2.6!)

[Jorak Uln 458]

@Juli:

 

Nice work. Im excited what you will do next! 

Its very interesting to see how you model the different face areas and the more muscular approach of sion...but the bones at the back could be in 3d as well -a frightening thought actually...

 

Are you planning to give him a facelift too? His face never looked "convincingly" terrifying for me; 

 

but Drewton once did some changes to it: 

In post 28 you can see the resolved unforgiving look in his face:

 

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=194921

[TheDarkChocolateJedi 17]

Congrats julian, very nice texturing work even if it is in the beginning stages.

[Juliandroid 4]

Update on the Sion reskin:

 

 

There's still a lot of fixing to do (Seams, underdeveloped areas, his arm's uv map is atrocious, etc) but the restoration of Sion's skin is more or less done. Now the rest of the project will be cutting it up and making it gross again. Yippee!

 

 the bones at the back could be in 3d as well -a frightening thought actually...

 

Are you planning to give him a facelift too? His face never looked "convincingly" terrifying for me

 

After seeing his features without the signature cracks? Definitely. As for the spine, as truly tempting as it is, I want to be sure that addition would be compatible with DeadMan's TFU Sion model, first. It's essential for the look I'm going for!

 

Here's a preview of the back, which is a little more indicative of the final result. It's a little bloody:

 

 

Oh, Deadlystream. I have such sights to show you.

 

 

[Jorak Uln 458]

Urgh...disgusting  - good decision to hide it under a spoiler

 

one quick thought regarding the skin: its hand-painted, yes?

i think it would be very cool to have a realistic one where you can see the pores like here:

 

 http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/face.jpg

 

but with an "ill" look e.g. small wounds, unhealthy colors on the surface.

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

I'm interested in seeing the finalized concept of this. I'll say I'm not a big fan of Sion with clean skin overall, but I remain optimistic.

[Juliandroid 4]

Update time again- Still focusing only on Sion.

I don't know if anyone following this thread's picked up on this yet, but my Sion reskin is heavily inspired by the Cenobites of Hellraiser fame. Anyone familiar with that franchise will know what to expect; Elaborate and ritualistic wounds! Woo!

Once I finish up the skin and wounds, I plan on refurbrishing Sion's outfit texture as well. Whether or not the materials will match that of the cenobite's is still up-in-the-air for me. Frankly, I'm not even sure if I want to keep the skin's base color as-is, or go for the more typical cenobite powder-blue. 

 

This update features a cleaned-up arm texture, no hand texture (at all!), and depictions of gore:

 

 

 

 

 

The gorey bits don't hold up so well in-game- I don't know if a specular map might help. Gonna spend some time looking into that.

[Nomnisang 23]

Great work!

[Xuul 224]

He looks so human... makes him much creepier. 

[high5 18]

Starting to come together nicely I think Sion's a great subject for your work and it suits him, exited to see more.

[coolphoton1234 3]

So are you aiming for full on Pinhead or Pinhead meets Zombies and/or Husks?

[Juliandroid 4]

So are you aiming for full on Pinhead or Pinhead meets Zombies and/or Husks?

 

For now, more along the lines of Pinhead. I'm not opposed to doing variations on the skin to add lore-friendly rot or change the skin tone to a more classic cenobite blue. I'm just waiting on my tablet to arrive so I can continue working on it. 

[Kaidon Jorn 186]

Wow, very impressed.

[Sith Holocron 2,452]

I have a question that kind of runs parallel to your Sion project.

 

As a separate mod, why not add a non-gory head of Sion's for a playable character head option? Not sure if the "white eye" actually moves and acts like the others but if so, you could potentially have the first heterochromic character available to players. What do you think?

[Juliandroid 4]

Sorry for the three month freeze, a semester and some tablet issues happened. 

So far, I've only had time to work on my sion retexture still, but I'd like to expand my WIPs over the break while I have my trial of 3D coat running. Seam fixes have never been so easy.

This update includes a new piece of clothing, some overall smoothing, more staples, and a new screenshot venue. Because 3D coat handles some of the lighting oddly (and 3DsMax, for some reason, crunches up and reduces the collar colors in the .tga), there's an in-game screenshot included.

 

Also, I, personally, have no idea what to do with the right arm. Any ideas?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a question that kind of runs parallel to your Sion project.

 

As a separate mod, why not add a non-gory head of Sion's for a playable character head option? Not sure if the "white eye" actually moves and acts like the others but if so, you could potentially have the first heterochromic character available to players. What do you think?

 

I would love to do this mod if/when I learn how to patch in a PC head without overwriting any existing ones. I'm sure I can find a tutorial on that, easy, but that's still a whole new field for me.

His white eye does dart around in synchronization with the regular one, but there's no eyelid movement whatsoever. Since that could look, uh, off with a regular eye texture on it, I'd lean towards a cybernetic one for that.

 

 

Something along these lines.

[high5 18]

Looking good. I'm unsure what his arm was meant to be in the first place, a robotic replacement? If you can get rid of the obvious seam where it cuts from skin to black and make it more gradual but instead of blackness go for umm.. more gore? flesh peels off into robotic hand or something. Not sure how much can be done with textures alone but hopefully it's food for thought.

[Juliandroid 4]

I apologize, I meant the on the right, not his right arm. For the glove, I figured I'd just mess with the materials on it and slap some weird stitching here and there. I've always wondered why Sion chooses to wear an arm-long glove, and only one of them, but questioning a force lich's fashion tastes sounds like a bad idea.

 

Though, now that that great idea is there, I got to consider it. 

[djnugent 34]

I apologize, I meant the on the right, not his right arm. For the glove, I figured I'd just mess with the materials on it and slap some weird stitching here and there. I've always wondered why Sion chooses to wear an arm-long glove, and only one of them, but questioning a force lich's fashion tastes sounds like a bad idea.

 

Though, now that that great idea is there, I got to consider it. 

 

What about bone? Wires and blood seem obvious and actually needed, especially with a cybernetic eyeball, but what if it was all grafted to just bone on his arm? Or just bone, period? Especially when the medic in the Harbinger states "I don't even know what's holding this guy together..."

[Zhaboka 91]

Lookin' terrifying. Great work.

[Juliandroid 4]

Update time, featuring Sion and someone else for once!

 

A pass at a design on Sion's arm. 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping it purely flesh and scarring for now. I'm gonna spend some of tomorrow working on something for his shoulders. After that, I think he'll be sufficiently cut up that I can focus on clothes or cybernetics.

 

 

 

 

 

The lord of hunger! Did you know all the space under his nose is assigned to a space on his texture just about 11x11 pixels large? I didn't and I'm mad about it.