How To: Make Leaderheads! Ekmek's Guide

I have to add a hat BTW, because like I said I chopped the top of his head off by removing his hat, so I figure adding another hat would be easier than trying to mess around with new hair.
 
Dammit, why can't I rotate this forward?

EDIT: Nevermind, I'm an idiot. I figured it out. Okay, sorry to be annoying, but I have the cuirass/torso in place. How do I get the arms to line up with the skeleton, or how do I attach it to the skeleton?
 
you can export it as torso.nif (just typeover gustav.blend to 'torso') then hit the export nif button in the top right corner.

yeah keep the hat for now. adding hair is possible. i have a separate julius scalp that would work well. but it gets int othe detail of merging dots to dots to get it lined up. totally do able but i think it better that you feel confident on adding, separating, and assigning stuff to the bones to see it in game. you can keep VDD's hat or grap jaoa's for now. alternatively you can take a low-polygon hat from a unit also.


coloring is just a paint/photo shop exercise.
 
I already deleted his "pilgrim hat", but I think Frederick's hat would work better, it may look a little goofy for now, but I think its better because I want to make Gustav at least look battle-ready, I haven't attached the torso to the skeleton quite yet.

Anyway, here it is so far...
 
looking good so far.

i think you know how to do fredrick's hat..same as the suit (and any other parts.

adding it to the skeleton might be tough at first. so post when you run into problems.

the other thing is that you are going to have to line up the arms...that is unless you just want to do a moving head and torso LH like dutchking's patton (and my first jefferson) or you want to take a shot at moving arms too.
 
Ideally what I want to do is give his sleeves a very faint golden color, and make his cuffs/hands leather-brown to give the appearance of gloves. I'll probably leave his torso to look like Fontenac's cuirass and keep the collar like Van Der Donck's. The strap would be brown as well. And for the moment I think I am going to just give him Frederick's hat. I'd like to thank you in advance because you have showed me A LOT, before I was just guessing everything (and doing a horrible job at it). Now how exactly do I get your parts to work here?
 
Ekmek said:
looking good so far.

i think you know how to do fredrick's hat..same as the suit (and any other parts.

adding it to the skeleton might be tough at first. so post when you run into problems.

the other thing is that you are going to have to line up the arms...that is unless you just want to do a moving head and torso LH like dutchking's patton (and my first jefferson) or you want to take a shot at moving arms too.
Click to expand...

I don't know, what do you think is better? I am at your mercy sir...
 
my leader parts collection is basically a bunch of nifs with no skeletons - just like the founenac suit you made. so you should have no problem importing it.

as for sleeve color thats all photoshop or what ever paint program you use.

As for arms or no arms - no arms is quicker and easier - you attach the suit you made to the VDD object nand the with it all highlighted you assign it to the torso bone (including the sleeves), then you separate the hands and delete them.

the arms options wil require selecting only certain parts of the arms and assigning them to the bicep or forearm etc and then in edit mode moving them in place.

so torso is quicker - but if you choose that route save a VERSION of blend before you start so you can come back later and do the arms when you feel more comfortable - if not you'll have to start from scratch.

PS I guess I never separated his hat but I did do Catherines (which is close). but you know how to do fredrics now - probably a 2min job ;)
 
So, do you think I should do it the quick way and then go back and do a more advanced version? That way people can get their Gustav (assuming they like it) now if they want it?
 
Alright, well Cathy's hat was a bit too small, but I like Freddy's hat better, unfortunately I forgot to highlite the damn nif so I exported NOTHING and it took me a minute to figure that out. Now I gotta fix it.
 
The Capo said:
Alright, well Cathy's hat was a bit too small, but I like Freddy's hat better, unfortunately I forgot to highlite the damn nif so I exported NOTHING and it took me a minute to figure that out. Now I gotta fix it.
Click to expand...


you can resize Cathy's hat. in object mode press 'S' and then move the mouse ariund to shrink or grow it.

as for the no nif export. yeah thats why i do bunch of back up blends. i've done that so many times its been a pain.


When you need to assign it - follow these steps from the guide (with picture attached)
BLENDER – Assigning parts
if you import a second nif with no skeleton you can add it to this nif
Select the object/nif part you want to add
Go to edit mode and select all (this will make rigging easier)
Then go to Object mode
Line up your part to where you want it on the body
NOTE: you can rotate the piece by pressing ‘R’ but it only rotates from the view you are in.
Shift click the part you want to add it to – NOT the skeleton!
(steps 1 & 2)
Then click object and go to join objects – they are now joined but not assigned to the skeleton
Go back to edit mode
Select a bone part you want it assigned to (steps 3 to 5)
NOTE: If you want to assign different parts to different bones go back to UAV face select and unselect the parts you do not want
Click Assign
NOTE: you can also unassign parts by hitting ‘remove’ delete will delete the bone and distort your Leaderhead!
Click to expand...

After that delete the hands (in edit mode NOT object - it'll take the head with it in object mode) and then export as nif.

then Roland TUTORIAL comes into play.

Ill be back in a hour
 
Okay, I've put on the hat, it looks a little big, but whatever, its fine with me and he did wear stupid hats like this (according to the etchings and paintings I've seen online at least) so I guess its fine. Now, what's the next step boss?
 
good job. Did you just import the hat nif or did you try assign it to the skeleton yet?

if you didnt this would be an easy example.

- First make sure nothing is highlighted on the body/head (the base object)
-In OBJECT MODE - click on the hat, then go EDIT MODE
- select alll (either press 'A' in EDIT MODE or go to Select->Select/deselect all)
-then go back to OBJECT MODE
- now with the hat selected (pink line around it) hld SHIFT and select the body so they are both outlined in pink.

- Now Join the objects by click Object->Join Objects or CTRL+J
- They are now joined
- Now go to EDIT MODE. you should see only the hat highlighted
- Now follow the attached picture and assign it to the edit (more instructions folow the picture)

attachment.php


- now its assigned/rigged to the head and will move with the head 'bone' in-game.

- Now do the same for the torso but assign to the torso.

- delete just the hands and export the nif.

Then do the 'nif Swap' in Roland's tutorial HERE

it basically involves the coipy branches from your new nif to copied version of te normal game nif. just copy your branches and paste them when clicking on scene root and they'll show. But then you have to get rid of shininess which is quick.

(if its confusing I'll walk you through tomorrow).
 
Hey, if you could be around in an half an hour to an hour I'll try this out again. I have been ignoring my pitboss-diplomacy game over at Apolyton and apparently a world war has occured and I didn't even realize it!

I'll try this out right after I write up some posts about it.
 
It says no vertex group is active when I try to assign. And I can't seem to get past that so I guess I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow.
 
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