Cybrxkhan's Leaderhead Thread

cybrxkhan

cybrxkhan

Asian Xwedodah
Joined
Aug 10, 2006
Messages
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Location
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Well, looks like I've begun expanding my modding skills/empire into Leaderhead making! :D
Huge thanks to Ekmek for his tutorial. :)


Download Cybrxkhan's Newest LH: Matope




I proudly present Matope of the Shona/Zimbabweans/Mutapa. He can easily work as any sub-Saharan African leader, as I intended to make him pretty generic. Since it's pretty much impossible to find any good artwork on the Shona online, I decided to just take some artistic license with him, hence why I think he looks pretty generic. As always, an XML of the LH personality, as well as a button, has been included.

Background: Matope was the most powerful ruler of the Mutapa kingdom, which was a successor of the famous Kingdom of Zimbabwe. Matope extended this new kingdom into an empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara and the Indian Ocean. Under him, Mutapa became very wealthy by exploiting copper from Chidzurgwe and ivory from the middle Zambezi. Matope's armies overran the kingdom of the Manyika as well as the coastal kingdoms of Kiteve and Madanda. By the time the Portuguese arrived on the coast of Mozambique, the Mutapa Kingdom was the premier Shona state in the region.


​
 
UPCOMING LEADERHEADS​

In no particular order:

  • Abaoji
  • Mahirakula
  • Devapala
  • Alfonso the Battler (or maybe Alfonso X of Castille)
  • Philip Augustus
 
Nice, I get to be the first to comment on it.

This LH looks really good, especially for a first attempt. I like the concept, I like the colorscheme and the texturing on the robes. Obviously there are a few things that I'm sure you are aware could be fixed (the spot on the turban, the shoulder/neck situation) but it is a nice LH and I'm sure can certainly find a home in many many mods.

Great work. :goodjob:

Keep at it.
 
What about shaders?
P.S. I disagree that it can be used as Tamerlane as it doesn't look like him at all, and The Capo and I already made Tamerlane.
 
IgorS said:
What about shaders?
Click to expand...

Baby steps Igor. This is his first LH. And for the record I don't know how to do shaders either (although I will learn soon). And shadering LHs is your job now, right? Mr. I-am-quitting-making-leader-heads-and-focusing-on-shadering. ;)
 
The Capo said:
Baby steps Igor. This is his first LH. And for the record I don't know how to do shaders either (although I will learn soon). And shadering LHs is your job now, right? Mr. I-am-quitting-making-leader-heads-and-focusing-on-shadering. ;)
Click to expand...

Since he learned how to make LHs with the more recent versions of Ekmek's tutorial I expected him to make LHs with shaders. I do believe he didn't base it on the nonshader version, so adding the shaders won't be hard.
And besides, Capo, adding shaders is the easiest thing in LH-making! It takes just one second to learn how to add shaders to a LH that has all the needed files and not based on the nonshader model, and five minutes to learn how to add shaders to older LH.
 
He does look similar to some versions of Tamerlame I have seen, though I didn't mean to steal your fire (or whatever that idiom is).

As for the shaders, I only glanced over it briefly since I have basically been using Ekmek's old tutorials up until very recently, and I really wanted to just finish the LH first to see if it actually could do anything. I was surprised I was able to even get this far with the meager free time I had this week. I'll probably be around to make a second and much improved version of this LH, though.

ALthough I do believe I based this LH on the shadered version of Charlemagne, as opposed to Non-shadered. The reason he appears non-shadered in the screenshots (if that's what it is?) is because I run the game on low-graphics settings since my laptop is really really really old.
 
cybrxkhan said:
ALthough I do believe I based this LH on the shadered version of Charlemagne, as opposed to Non-shadered.
Click to expand...

If so adding shaders is just opening the LH in Nifskope and writing just one line, that I can't seem to memorize:). You can see it in Ekmek's guide though (and in BTS LHs' nif files).
 
Before you start shadering anything, cyberxkhan, I'd suggest going back into Blender and learning how to use the scale on axis feature to your advantage. I can tell by looking at this LH that you haven't learned to use that feature and honestly it would greatly enhance the look of this LH. He looks kind of like a child wearing his father's clothing, let's tailor these clothes a bit first.
 
Actually I really like the way the clothes look. I haven't seen him animated yet but together with his lidded eyes it gives him an air of frailty (or pot addiction lol). A lot of personality comes through and that's awesome. Great work on your first leaderhead!
 
TheCapo, I do agree that I need to get more experience with the different types of transformations, though I think the somewhat odd clothing for this LH is also due to simply bad choice. Basically, I used one of the Asian suits - the problem, I found out, was that the sleeves on many of the Asian suits are actually tilted backwards at an awkward degree, so it was extremely difficult and time-consuming for me to get them to align with the hands. In fact, if I hadn't added the new textures in, and used the old ones, his shoulders would have looked a bit awkward and imbalanced.

I think I'll probably find a different suit instead to use for the second version, one which will more easily align with the hands, so that I don't have to twist the guy's shoulder and all that.

Anyhow, thanks for all the feedback. I don't think I'll ever bother to go full-time LH making, but I don't want to be a complete slob with this either. :)
 
They are titled backwards to give a "hanging" effect. That is relatively easy to fix, you just select/highlite the sleeve and rotate it forward a bit. Admittedly this does take a little getting used to, but it does help it to look better. Another thing that works wonders is retexturing, with the right texture anything can look vastly different with little to no editing to the model itself. It does take a little bit of getting used to, but on an LH like this one, where there isn't a lot of ornate jewelry or accessories added, you have a great opportunity to learn the finer points of editing an LH. A good way to learn the ropes would be to pick this up whenever you have time and make edits here and there, as you familiarize yourself with these edits whenever you get around to making a second LH you might find that it has become much easier. I can understand if you don't want to dedicate so much time to making LHs (it can consume a lot of time) but I wouldn't give up on it.
 
Trying to transform the sleeve into the hand was pretty difficult, by the time I managed to get the hand and arm aligned I was more than happy; however, you do have a good point there, so I'll keep that in mind the next time I use one of the Asian suits. I found the suit I chose was really awkward in the end for him, so I think for the next version of this I'll try a different suit to perhaps make it easier.

Also, I have a question - if I were to say, move the hand itself, and not bother too much rotating the sleeve and what not, what would that do? Would that work, or would that just cause the animations to get screwed?
 
cybrxkhan said:
Trying to transform the sleeve into the hand was pretty difficult, by the time I managed to get the hand and arm aligned I was more than happy; however, you do have a good point there, so I'll keep that in mind the next time I use one of the Asian suits. I found the suit I chose was really awkward in the end for him, so I think for the next version of this I'll try a different suit to perhaps make it easier.

Also, I have a question - if I were to say, move the hand itself, and not bother too much rotating the sleeve and what not, what would that do? Would that work, or would that just cause the animations to get screwed?
Click to expand...

In my experience moving the hand or head at all does not work out well. You can sculpt or alter them (make them fatter or skinnier or whatever) but I wouldn't move them at all.
 
The Capo said:
In my experience moving the hand or head at all does not work out well. You can sculpt or alter them (make them fatter or skinnier or whatever) but I wouldn't move them at all.
Click to expand...

agree. if you take them out of sync wit the skeleton it causes a bad distortion especially on hnds. I think idi amin had that problem at one point.
 
Yay, I (sort of) fixed up my first LH.

Download HERE if interested. :)




I know there's a little problem with the eyes and shoulders, but I consider the guy finished for now.
 
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