How To: Make Leaderheads! Ekmek's Guide

[Ekmek]

Anyway, I haven't had too much time to look it over again, but I don't know exactly how to connect the arm itself. I connected the torso to the spine, but as far as I can tell the arms are "part of" the torso, so I don't quite understand how that works.

sorry i keep saying "torso" when mean spine because all LHs except colonization have "b_torso" as the bone name.

First off I see your blend has all the seams marked.

1) you need to clear seams

Spoiler :

2) then you need to separate the forearm from the bicep by clicking, then shift clicking, each dot below the elbow. Then mark that as a seam (do NOT separate) then do the same above the elbow. (you wil want the elbow to be both the 'Bip 01 R forearm' and 'Bip 01 R upper arm')

Spoiler :

3) now select the Right elbow and the Right forearm and assign them to the 'Bip 01 R forearm' bone just like how you assigned the body to the spine bone. When this part of the arm is highlighted select the spine bone and click remove (NOT DELETE) - remove remopves the arm's rigging to the bone (so it can move) delete removes the whole bone which you pretty much never want to do.

Now assign the upper arm bone For the elbow area and the bicep.

4) Next you need to move the arm into position to line up with te hand (and the bone)

 

[Ekmek]

1) For the positioning you will need to highlight the whole arm and mainly press the R key and move it around with the mouse until it looks close from the front.

Spoiler :

2) then rotate the model using the numpad 4 or 6 keys to rotate left and right. once you are lined up directly on (as in the picture) use the rotate command (R key) to get in position. You may just havet o move it in some instances just by using the mouse (which moves it up and down)

Spoiler :

3) finally you'll see a gap for the arm pit. this is where you get into real modelling click one dot and drag it with your mouse until it lines up. you can also shift click multiple dots (to move many) and change views to get the right angle.

Spoiler :

you are going to need to practice around with this CTRL+Z (undo) is your FRIEND!

Then do the other arm.

the last step is also how you can adjust the face a bit if you want or other modelling you may want to do.

Have fun!

 

[Ekmek]

Oh, and for the . .. .. .. . of it, here is another one I am also working on, but this one is going to be much easier because I'm not going to reskin anything and its a pretty simple cut and paste job. I'm sure you can guess who it is...

(also I named the picture, so I guess the guessing game is over)

EDIT: Oh yeah, the reason I posted this, I wanted to ask why it looks like he has a sword through him? I have a theory that I assigned the torso to the wrong thing, but let me know what you think.

I think I'll need the nif to see whats going on. pictures don't help me.

 

[The Capo]

Don't worry about the last thing I posted. I'll get to that one after I finish the Gustav Adolph LH. I will give all of this a go and tell you how it went. Did you see what was wrong with the hat though?

 

[Ekmek]

i didnt check the hat. I'll check it out tomorrow.

 

[The Capo]

I am a bit confused by what you are telling me to do here, because I can't seem to select parts of the arm, when I click on the arm it selects the entire torso (both arms, and the body). Here is what happened though point by point:

2) then you need to separate the forearm from the bicep by clicking, then shift clicking, each dot below the elbow. Then mark that as a seam (do NOT separate) then do the same above the elbow. (you wil want the elbow to be both the 'Bip 01 R forearm' and 'Bip 01 R upper arm')

Okay, in the picture I've attached you can see what I did. As far as I can tell I did this right. I marked as a seam but did not separate. I did this both above and below the "elbow," (which was a vague term in this sense because it isn't really marked, but I ball-parked it). Anyway I was kind of confused about what the "you will want the elbow to be both th 'Bip 01 R forearm' and 'Bip 01 R upper arm'" part meant. I get the lingo, I know what the Bip things are, and I know what the elbow is, but what I don't get is the "you will want the elbow to be" part. What do you mean by "to be"? I assign the elbows to those parts?

Which leads to the next question; if I dont' separate it, and after I mark the seam and go to object and click it it selects the entire body. How do I mark out that I ONLY want the elbow? It doesn't seem to be working for me, and I can't figure out how to see all the way around the arm so its hard to tell if I've "marked the seam" properly.

3) now select the Right elbow and the Right forearm and assign them to the 'Bip 01 R forearm' bone just like how you assigned the body to the spine bone. When this part of the arm is highlighted select the spine bone and click remove (NOT DELETE) - remove remopves the arm's rigging to the bone (so it can move) delete removes the whole bone which you pretty much never want to do.

This is equally confusing, but hard to try out when I can't get through the first part. What I take this to mean is you want me to select both the elbow and the forearm, and then assign that to the 'Bip 01 R_Forearm', but how does this make sense if I just assigned the elbow to the forearm? Why don't I just skip part 2 and go straight to this? I am confused. And then you say "When this part of the arm," but it seems to me that I can't even select part of the arm, even when I try it. And in my file the arm is part of the torso, so I can't remove specific arms from the torso, thus can't remove them from the spine.

Now assign the upper arm bone For the elbow area and the bicep.

4) Next you need to move the arm into position to line up with te hand (and the bone)

Obviously I haven't gone to this part if I can't get past part two. Sorry to be a bother but this is really difficult for me to figure out for some reason, maybe since you are used to doing it you've forgotten a few minor things that may seem obvious to you that a total newbie wouldn't realize, I don't know but I THINK I've followed these instructions and I keep screwing up. Although this has happened a few times before, so its clearly an issue on my end.

Thanks for the help, and here is a picture of the "elbows" I made. Maybe this will help you figure out what I'm doing wrong.

 

[Ekmek]

Which leads to the next question; if I dont' separate it, and after I mark the seam and go to object and click it it selects the entire body. How do I mark out that I ONLY want the elbow? It doesn't seem to be working for me, and I can't figure out how to see all the way around the arm so its hard to tell if I've "marked the seam" properly.

ok, i assumed that you were used to selecting parts. Go to 'UV Face Select' (its where object mode and edit mode are) and click one polygon in either of the sections and then go to select->linked faces. that will highlight everything that is connected up to the marked seams.

Get used to 'UV Face Select' mode this will later be the way to reassign textures.

but what I don't get is the "you will want the elbow to be" part. What do you mean by "to be"? I assign the elbows to those parts?

the elbow section should be assigne dto both forearm and the upper arm bones because if it is not it will look sepaarted in the animation. By assigning it to both it looks more smooth.

 

[The Capo]

I didn't realize you could assign one thing to two parts. I get what you are saying now as far as that goes. For the UV select thing, that's exactly what I did and it kept selecting the whole bicep, which I thought meant that I missed one of the "dots," but it happened every time. So I figured I probably didnt' see it from the right angle, but I can't zoom in and move the camera (or I haven't figured out how) so I'm kind of in a spot, I'll try one more time and then I'll have to wait until tomorrow after work.

 

[The Capo]

Okay, this is another one that may seem like a stupid question. The Right arm/elbow whatever, is on the right SIDE (from my perspective) or the LH's actual right arm (from Gustav's perspective)?

 

[The Capo]

Another thing: I selected the right forearm and elbow and "assigned" it to the right forearm, and then I selected spine and cliked on remove. But I didn't see anything change, how can I know for sure that it is no longer assigned to the spine? And for that matter how did I know to begin with that it was ever attached to the spine? What indicates this?

Here's a picture.

 

[The Capo]

Sorry for the quadruple post; do I remove the bicep/elbow from the spine as well?

 

[The Capo]

So now I have to go back and do the nif swap again? I think its finished, I don't know that everything is connected right, but I think it is... well I hope it is....

Here's a picture.

 

[The Capo]

Here are a few still shots taken from the latest Gustav work, I haven't tried to fix the blue light issue yet, but I wanted to check if the arms and hands worked, which they did. I guess I didn't connect them properly because there are a few small issues. I have circled all of the problem areas. His hat still kinda moves unnaturally too, did you notice anything from the last set of files I sent you Ekmek? Because I didn't alter the hat at all since then.

 

[Ekmek]

but I can't zoom in and move the camera (or I haven't figured out how) so I'm kind of in a spot, I'll try one more time and then I'll have to wait until tomorrow after work.

you can zoom in by using your mouse wheel and I usually change angles by using the numpad numbers. 4 and 6 are the right and left angles 2 and 8 are up and down.

Okay, this is another one that may seem like a stupid question. The Right arm/elbow whatever, is on the right SIDE (from my perspective) or the LH's actual right arm (from Gustav's perspective)?

I think you figured this one out already but what is on the left side of the screen is his right side. just like if you are looking at a person.

Another thing: I selected the right forearm and elbow and "assigned" it to the right forearm, and then I selected spine and cliked on remove. But I didn't see anything change, how can I know for sure that it is no longer assigned to the spine? And for that matter how did I know to begin with that it was ever attached to the spine? What indicates this?

Here's a picture.

yeah it doesn't tell you its no longer assigned. the way to see what is assigned-to-what is to pick a bone then push select. Then it will highlight all of the model's mesh that is assigned to that bone. there is also deselect which will deselect anything associated with that bone. these come in handy when you specifically what to delete all the polygons/faces of a particular bone (like torso).

do I remove the bicep/elbow from the spine as well?

I think you already figured this out too. But yes you do or the arm won't move bacause the spine doesnt move like the arm does.

So now I have to go back and do the nif swap again? I think its finished, I don't know that everything is connected right, but I think it is... well I hope it is....

Here's a picture.

Yeah you have to do the nifswap again - should be getting easier though. Thats the only way to see whats wrong in game.

Here are a few still shots taken from the latest Gustav work, I haven't tried to fix the blue light issue yet, but I wanted to check if the arms and hands worked, which they did. I guess I didn't connect them properly because there are a few small issues. I have circled all of the problem areas. His hat still kinda moves unnaturally too, did you notice anything from the last set of files I sent you Ekmek? Because I didn't alter the hat at all since then.

Now you are getting into issues I face all the time. Fortunately you should know enough to handle it. For the top row what usually happens is that the bicep/upper arm overlaps the torso/spine here. The clavicle/shoulder bones may be another option. One way to minimize it is by assigning that dot or the whole polygon BACK to the spine(or other bone) and REMOVE it from the upper arm. It may work, but this is where real model testing gets tough and as you've probably seen in my leaderheads, they can't always be fixed.

The bottom two rows have the same issue but the sleeve looks off and can be adjusted by rotating more. Change the angle using numpad 4 and ralign the sleeve.

I haven't go to the head yet. What I plant to do is see where the previous hat was assigned too (by looking at the original VDD nif in blender) and see if we used the wrong bone.

Looking great so far! you probably havent take time to notice but in under a week you've made a new leaderhead!

 

[The Capo]

Thanks, that was some good insight. Well, I wouldn't say I'm done, he still looks shiny and its hard to tell from those still photos but the hand still looks really strange (like its floating outside of the sleeves, rather than attached to an arm). But I think I have the general idea behind what I'm supposed to be doing. The other thing is the skinning, I dont' want him to have these clothes specifically; I wanted to change some of the colors.

I wanted to know what you thought the best/easiest program to use for this is? Or what you would recommend. I noticed you have some pretty cool skins on your LHs, so I was just wondering what you think the best approach is.

 

[Ekmek]

the shiny stuff I've addressed before - mess wit the material settings in nifskope

as for skinning - it took me a long time to get the handle on that. Amra is probably the best out there. use Paint Shop Pro 9. I think you can find it free some where. Others use Photo Shop.

Stuff I use the most are the hue/saturation adjustments, brightness/contrast, and the clone brush. Sepia toning (that may get the brown gloves you want) Then being able to cut and paste and stretch the images will help. I really cant help much with te skinning part but there are tutorials on units out there.

 

[The Capo]

Once you get your nif working and want to go back and edit this is how you get rid of the VC light problem.

1) set up your panel so it looks like the attached picture

2) click each individual object until it show VClight being selected (grayed out like in the picture)

3) deselect it.

4) move on to the next piece until none have it.

To do this do I import the new nif or load up the blend and re-do the nif swap?

 

[The Capo]

This is what I did. And here is how I set it, everything turned black.

EDIT: Damn it, he's still shiny.

 

[Ekmek]

no that is how you get rid of vc color light error when you try to export.

to fix the shiny, its done in NIFSKOPE

by adjusting the values at the bottom (arrow #3) and follow what I posted earlier:

1) click on your new body of VDD. you'll see details open up.

2) click on materials and you see at the bottom more details.

When in game you'll see if its real shiny. if so lower the glossiness to 10. you may also need to add specular color. click on that stuff and mess with numbers. you can do this while the game is still running, make a change in nifskope save it, and then just refresh your civilopedia screen by clicking another leader and then go back to vdd/gustav. you'll need to mess with these values because each leaderhead has different values.

 

[The Capo]

Sorry to ask this, because it may be obvious. The numbers correspond to me clicking them? So I load up the nif and then what do I do exactly, I have it loaded now.

Also did you see what I did wrong with the hat?