Cybrxkhan's Leaderhead Thread

[The_J]

But at least he already looks good on the image .
Will be a nice LH .

 

[Optical]

Looks great I've been looking for a Khufu for my personal mod and this fits the bill just fine.

 

[Nitram15]

He looks really nice! Although he looks like he isn't animating. Probably you joined the meshes improperly and he lost connection to the skeleton.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Thanks all!

Although he looks like he isn't animating. Probably you joined the meshes improperly and he lost connection to the skeleton.

Yeah, he's not animating, although the eyeshadow is working fine since it's from the original nif (you can see the two curved lines moving around on his crown). But yeah, I agree with you, as I'm pretty sure I didn't connect the guy to the skeleton right, either that or I somehow screwed up the nifswap (something similar happened in my first draft of my Kanishka LH).

Oh well. Shouldn't be a hard fix. Even if it doesn't work, I don't think it'll take me that long to re-do him since it's a pretty straightforward slap-a-hat-on procedure for me.

 

[Ekmek]

are you trying to make him look short?

 

[cybrxkhan]

Alright, so apparently the problem that's happening is that when I do the nifswap, the new nif I created shifts downward for some reason. Thus the new nif is somehow not matching up with the skeleton, even though it was in the correct location before the nifswap, which makes me conclude that I probably did not do anything wrong in blender (probably). To show in pictures:

Firstly, we have the original nif here. You can see that the shoulders are above the red line:

Likewise, the new nif I made, before the nifswap, also has his shoulders above the red line:

However, once I do the nifswap, the new nif has his shoulders go even to the red line, meaning he shifted downward a bit (you can also see the skeleton now). I emphasize that this only happens to the nif after the nifswap and not before it.

I'm not sure what's going on, whether I'm supposed to do something a bit different for Colonization leaderheads (although I copied the new nif to exactly where the old one was anyways, so there shouldn't be an issue there... right?), or whether I did some mistake in blender, or whether I'm completely losing it on something when it comes to nifswapping.

If anyone can figure out what's going on, I'd really appreciate it. If there doesn't seem to be anything wrong per se, I'll try to redo him in blender to see if that'd work.


Also, as a side note, some of you might notice that the formatting for the block list is not normal. A while back I accidentally pressed some hotkey I was unaware of (I think) and the format changed; while it technically doesn't really affect anything, and I can deal with it, it does make trying to locate certain files a bit harder, so if anybody knows how to fix that, that'd be great.

 

[Ekmek]

I don't recall how I fixed it when I did my Juarez LH but this tip I found in the Civ5 unit thread maybe a better way:

Sounds like you might not have done this bit from the tutorial - namely setting the Armature modifier for the mesh:

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You'll probably find that the mesh isn't matching the pose of the skeleton. Easily solved. Select the mesh using right click and click "Add Modifier". Pick the option Armature and then type "Scene Root" next to the "OB:". The model should snap to the skeleton pose.

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It might not be "Scene Root" you need to enter in some cases. What you actually need to type as the Armature modifier is the name of the skeleton. You can get this by right-clicking on the skeleton. Use Z to switch between Solid and Wireframe view if that helps. The name of the skeleton should be in the bottom left when you selected it (from memory).

Another potentially useful feature for Nexus Buddy would be a ability to rename Bone Nodes if that is possible, although you can do that in Nifskope or Blender prior to FBX export.

i not it involves a fix in nifskope by putting the mesh under the scene root node and then adjusting from there (I think)

 

[Nitram15]

I don't think Blender is needed now. Probably Nifskope is enough. You should try to move the meshes on the Z axis a bit. I did this when I wanted to make Napoleon shorter.
Here are some pics:

You need to to this with every mesh in your Nif. Napoelon had 6 meshes, so I wa a bit bored of shadering and moving them.
I hope this helps.

EDIT: Probably Ekmek's method is better now, because my method is only good if your leaderhead is finished. But still, your leaderhead doesn't animate, which means you have to attach it to the skeleton, in Blender.

 

[cybrxkhan]

@Ekmek: Thanks again for your help, still, it's really appreciated. I tried it several times, but the nif still is still lower than the skeleton when I do the nifswap, meaning it doesn't work. I'm trying to desperately think of other possible problems, such as whether I'm not choosing the right options when exporting (I checked several times, I'm doing the exporting right), but - if I'm guessing correctly, it seems that this issue is mainly due to some kind of conflict (naming conflict?) between the main model and the skeleton, correct?

@Nitram: Yeah, the guy's not animating.

 

[Nitram15]

By the way, is there a way to attach a mesh to the skeleton? I never did such a thing, as I always joined the meshes properly.

 

[RPG]

With all the new leaderheads, and new civs of the week being released recently, I was wondering if you were going to include them all in a new version of WOL?

 

[Ekmek]

post your nif and blend. I or someone else may be able to spot the problem quicker that way

 

[cybrxkhan]

By the way, is there a way to attach a mesh to the skeleton? I never did such a thing, as I always joined the meshes properly.

Ekmek's solution seems to do that, if I understand you correctly.

With all the new leaderheads, and new civs of the week being released recently, I was wondering if you were going to include them all in a new version of WOL?

A number of them will be included, yes, but not all, of course. Shoshenq I, however, as previously stated, will be a second leader of the Berbers.

post your nif and blend. I or someone else may be able to spot the problem quicker that way

Alright, it's in a rar file, with two blends, one before I did the changes as you indicated in your post and one after; there's also the finished nif. The LHs based on Logan, just in case you didn't notice (but you probably obviously did... but just in case).

 

[cybrxkhan]

While Ekmek hopefully gets to the bottom of this, I decided to make another LH based off a colonization one, to see whether I'd also be having more problems again.

Quickly playing around with blender, I moved onto doing a nifswap, wherein I got this:

The guy is, again, much lower than where he's supposed to be, even though he was in the right location before the nifswap.

I'm also confused as to why the block list on the left is listing all the elements without their names - I think I accidentally clicked some hotkey a while back that changed it, and I can't change it back at all; I really would like to suspect this has something to do with why these LHs aren't working right, but I don't know how that would even work out.

Any thoughts or similar experiences? And thanks again for everyone's help.

 

[The_J]

The guy is, again, much lower than where he's supposed to be

I guess you're training to do some FfH2 LHs, you know...dwarfes...




The guy himself looks already okay .

 

[Ekmek]

you're making the same mistake. Not being negative but after a bunch of leaderheads you've gotten "sloppy" on your skills. I think when you are joining objects you are taking a mesh with no bone and joing the boned mesh to it instead of the other way around. Basically you are loosing the 'scene root' parent.
I'm pretty thats the problem because I saw this in blender:

when I clicked your mesh it didn't have Scene Root where it says Par:

and you didn't mess up the skeletons by importing another skeleton because it still say Scene Root and not Scene Root.00

So I think you need to relook how to join objects in the guide

hopethat helps and gets you back on track on posting great civs.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Thank you Ekmek, God of LH making!




I can't believe it was just a stupid little thing again. I'll definitely remember to join meshes the right way this time.


Lots of thanks again.

Anyhow, he's working now, but I think I'll do a bit of sculpting to change his face a bit. Here's a preview for those interested:

Spoiler :

As a side note, does anybody happen to know what animations work well with Logan's?

 

[Optical]

Awesome! Top quality LH

 

[IgorS]

As a side note, does anybody happen to know what animations work well with Logan's?

Logan works only with Logan.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Thanks to Ekmek, I finished Sheshonq and he isn't messed up no more! Please enjoy, as always, and I can see this guy having a lot of use as a generic Pharaoh leaderhead.

Download here!

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Logan works only with Logan.

Oh well, thanks for telling me anyhow.


Next up is either Abaoji of the Khitan, Nzinga of Angola (maybe), Umar of the Arabs, or somebody else entirely.