How To: Make Leaderheads! Ekmek's Guide

[Ekmek]

Hmm, alright. I'd be lying to you if I said I knew what all of these terms meant, but I'm sure I'll learn over time. I'll try and get Chucky done tonight because I am shocked that he has never been in a civ game before. Especially considering they have the HRE now. I'm almost certain they had him in CivIII for one of the expansions, just the LH though because I was playing fall of Rome or something and there was a leaderhead there that looked out of place (like he was from the renaissance) and looked at lot like Charles V.

the term nif ninode is basically the first five (or so lines) in the list of branches in nifskope - usually where scene root is. you should be able to find. good luck on #2, it looks great!

 

[The Capo]

I don't know how this keeps happening, but I can't figure something out, you say something to clarify it, and it works... then I run into another issue. He has buggy eyes now! Have you seen this/know what is going on here?

 

[Ekmek]

buggy eyes? did you copy the eyes over from your exported nif?

if that doesnt work than that then you have to go into adjusting the x-y-z settings (the translation line at the bottom of your screen shot)

 

[The Capo]

Well, I got it to work. Anyway here is what Charles V looks like, I . .. .. .. .ed up the hat thing again. But this time I am not starting over, I am going to try and fix it again. Although I wouldn't mind if you could tell me a quick way to do it without starting over or re-nifswapping?

EDIT: Damn, I can't figure this stupid hat thing out. I keep reassigning it, and then nifswapping again, and every single time it does the same thing!

Here's some shot's of chucky, as you can see he's basically finished.

 

[Ekmek]

Well, I got it to work. Anyway here is what Charles V looks like, I . .. .. .. .ed up the hat thing again. But this time I am not starting over, I am going to try and fix it again. Although I wouldn't mind if you could tell me a quick way to do it without starting over or re-nifswapping?

EDIT: Damn, I can't figure this stupid hat thing out. I keep reassigning it, and then nifswapping again, and every single time it does the same thing!

Here's some shot's of chucky, as you can see he's basically finished.

1) the only thing you need to do is swap the hat node. Just like regular nifswapping - remove the branch of the old hat in gameplay nif. then with your re-rigged exported nif swap the hat over. you don't need to do the WHOLE body swap. just the hat. its two seconds tops.

2) did you remove it from the torso bone? check to see what else is attached to by selecting the likely bones and press 'select' it will light up and tell you whats wrong.


it looks really cool by the way. Awesome job!

 

[The Capo]

Yet again, I have hit a wall! So I opened the nif up again, and apparently I must have done something wrong. I checked to see what the hat is attached to and it is attached to the face_jaw, which is what I thought it was supposed to be assigned to except this doesn't work. And apparently I can't figure out how to select something else (like the head for example). So I posted a screen shot to show what I am talking about as well as the nif so you can look at it, if you wouldn't mind terribly, hopefully you can figure out what I did wrong. Sorry to keep bugging you with this stuff, I promise I'll get the hang of it eventually...

 

[Ekmek]

you must have reimported your nif into blender. when you do that if you have an object separaed it will only show that bones.

jaw is wrong. it should be the head. click on the head/body object. go to edit mode and see if there are more bones there. if it has the head bone - greast if not find the object with the head bone .

Then join the hat object to the object with the head bone (probably the head/body). then highlight your hat, assign it to the head and remove it from the jaw. that should do it.

look on the bright side - you are learning a lot

 

[The Capo]

Thanks for your help, I posted him up by the way if you want to DL him.

 

[Ekmek]

great! How is skinning going?

 

[The Capo]

I haven't started skinning really, I reskinned Gustav's forehead so it wasn't so dark but it doesn't look that great, at least in my estimation. I am still trying to get used to putting the LHs together so I've begun working on one that is going to be a little more complicated/original. Here is my progress so far, its going to be an Egyptian Pharaoh. I was thinking Amenhotep, but there is already one out there so this one can be Akhenaten...

After this one I think I'll take a break (although I might throw Michael Collins together, because I think Cfkane's Jack Ryan looks more like Mick Collins than the one that's out there already, but that one should be easy, plus I'm making an Ireland module) for a while and finish up the modules I was working on for my mod.

 

[Ekmek]

cool. might as well set up thta LH gallery and post progress for feedback!

 

[The Capo]

After I finish up this LH I'll set up a gallery so I dont' have to keep bugging you in this thread. Here's an update, this one is not cooperating very well, but I'll get him to listen to me!

 

[Ekmek]

Before you get too far, are you using gilgamesh? you've seen this right?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11101

 

[The Capo]

Hey, things are going good with this, until I got into nifskope and the body is too large. But I resized it! Here is an image, compare it with the last image I posted. It doesn't make sense!

EDIT: Yeah I saw that, no offense to that guy, but I think this one will look a bit better. He is shirtless and all and has a different hat, check the image I posted.

 

[Ekmek]

who's body you using? you might have to post me a blend and nif..

 

[The Capo]

Alright, NM I fixed it. I didn't realize you have to select everything and then do Ctrl-A. Anyway here he is, I just have to fix one of his braclets (the pesky one on the left) and reskin him. I am going to have trouble getting his face to match his body though. But he looks pretty good to me so far.

 

[Ekmek]

real cool. clone brush might help with the skin tonining. or recruit PW90

 

[The Capo]

Damn, yet again a snag! Alright I was trying to do the NifSwap thing, and move him on to Gilgamesh (who I used to make him by the way) and it doesn't seem to match Gilgamesh at all. I have attached two screens from my NifSkope work and they are obviously not the same. I don't know what I did wrong here, or why this is happening but I don't want to ditch the LH because I think it looks good. HELP!

 

[The Capo]

On a lighter note, I have three images I could use for this pharaoh. One is my favorite so I won't say which one yet, but which do you think would look best behind this guy?

 

[The Capo]

Ekmek! I can't figure this out at all, I have tried everything I can think of doing, the only thing I notice is that the "skeleton" (if that is what that is) in NifSkope doesn't look the same. But I used Gilgamesh as a base (in fact I used that Akhenaten LH you mentioned earlier as a base) and I've tried everything, including importing the nif back on to the original LH to begin with and every single time I get this problem. I don't know what I did (or how I keep doing this to myself) but I always seem to have trouble with these damn leaderheads.

Use the TEST3.blend or Gilgamesh.nif for testing/checking purposes.

BTW: I probably shouldn't have jumped the gun on making those backgrounds...