How To: Make Leaderheads! Ekmek's Guide

[The Capo]

...Capo may have other recommendations ...

Basically what he said; your first couple of LHs are probably going to suck. But don't worry, they'll probably be better than *MOST* of what has come before them, especially when you have this thread to rely upon. Ask anything here, I'm not so great at the technical stuff, but Ekmek and co. really are. I'll try to help out when I can.

Another thing you should do is get as much source material as possible. Even after you have images of the leaders themselves, try to get contemporary images of the world around them at the time that they lived. It sounds lame, but it helps to get a sense of what this leader was like and how she may have lived. And don't forget to try as many new things as you can.

I hope that helps, it probably hasn't, but we could always use more leaderhead-makers.

 

[peteandbill]

Basically what he said; your first couple of LHs are probably going to suck. But don't worry, they'll probably be better than *MOST* of what has come before them, especially when you have this thread to rely upon. Ask anything here, I'm not so great at the technical stuff, but Ekmek and co. really are. I'll try to help out when I can.

Another thing you should do is get as much source material as possible. Even after you have images of the leaders themselves, try to get contemporary images of the world around them at the time that they lived. It sounds lame, but it helps to get a sense of what this leader was like and how she may have lived. And don't forget to try as many new things as you can.

I hope that helps, it probably hasn't, but we could always use more leaderhead-makers.

thanks a bunch! ... not sure how to quote two people so thanks to you too ekmek!

 

[peteandbill]

ok i'm working on my first LH and just got a problem.

I used Augustus Caesar's head and hands with FDR's suit. That went fine, but now i'm trying to edit Caesar's face and things are getting weird. I'm trynig to length the head by scaling it along the z axis about 1.2, but whenever i just scale the mesh it messes up the animation. Then i tried scaling some of the bones along with it, and tried nifswapping the bones as well, but when i went to open that up in the civolopedia it had that blank screen it gets when it can't read the art file.

Is it possible to adjust the bones' positions/lengths and still have it work in the game? or is there some better way to do this?

 

[Ekmek]

ok i'm working on my first LH and just got a problem.

I used Augustus Caesar's head and hands with FDR's suit. That went fine, but now i'm trying to edit Caesar's face and things are getting weird. I'm trynig to length the head by scaling it along the z axis about 1.2, but whenever i just scale the mesh it messes up the animation. Then i tried scaling some of the bones along with it, and tried nifswapping the bones as well, but when i went to open that up in the civolopedia it had that blank screen it gets when it can't read the art file.

Is it possible to adjust the bones' positions/lengths and still have it work in the game? or is there some better way to do this?

messing with bones has yet to be successful for me. I did copy over a sword bone once (in nifskope)that seemed to work but nothing else. I tried a ton with theodora and the bones stayed the same.

That being said how did you try to lengthen the head in object mode or edit mode? a little lengthen may lose its line up on the bones. in that cae it probably better to shrink the head on the x axis ainstead of stretchinng it on the z

 

[The Capo]

So I'm having some trouble with this Lincoln suit. For whatever reason none of the textures are showing up in Blender, and thusly don't show up in nifksope. I can not emulate this issue with any other parts, so I have no idea what to do about this. I suppose I could try it without shaders (i.e. import the nonshader version and see if that works) but I'd rather not. Has anyone had simlar experiences with Lincoln's suit, and if so how did you get around them?

 

[Ekmek]

So I'm having some trouble with this Lincoln suit. For whatever reason none of the textures are showing up in Blender, and thusly don't show up in nifksope. I can not emulate this issue with any other parts, so I have no idea what to do about this. I suppose I could try it without shaders (i.e. import the nonshader version and see if that works) but I'd rather not. Has anyone had simlar experiences with Lincoln's suit, and if so how did you get around them?

yes, with jeff davis - back then i used a nonshader vesion. I used the shader version on benito but i had to go in and edit the material properties to make it work. the easiest way is to join into whatever typical mesh you are using. then when you nifswap rename all the texture properties in nifskope and swap over (so you basically change the texture in nifskope). then reimport.

 

[IgorS]

So I'm having some trouble with this Lincoln suit. For whatever reason none of the textures are showing up in Blender, and thusly don't show up in nifksope. I can not emulate this issue with any other parts, so I have no idea what to do about this. I suppose I could try it without shaders (i.e. import the nonshader version and see if that works) but I'd rather not. Has anyone had simlar experiences with Lincoln's suit, and if so how did you get around them?

You can also try taking it from my Siaosi Tupou LH- I had the same problem and Ekmek solved it for me.

 

[Vika]

How to shader my LH if I have NifSkope version 1.0.22 ?

I need to configure EnvironmentIntensityIndex, EnvironmentMapIndex, NormalMapIndex, SpecularIntensityIndex.

 

[Ekmek]

How to shader my LH if I have NifSkope version 1.0.22 ?

I need to configure EnvironmentIntensityIndex, EnvironmentMapIndex, NormalMapIndex, SpecularIntensityIndex.

not sure what the difference is. I'll look into it. did you look in my guide how to shader?

 

[Vika]

I'm sorry, I had old version! It's page № 41.

 

[Nitram15]

Ekmek! Can you create a ring animation for my leaderhead? He already has a ring, but I want to put him to Colonization and he doesn't have ring anims. I tried to use other kings' animations, but it was awful!

Can you help me?

 

[Ekmek]

Ekmek! Can you create a ring animation for my leaderhead? He already has a ring, but I want to put him to Colonization and he doesn't have ring anims. I tried to use other kings' animations, but it was awful!

Can you help me?

did you try skeleton swapping with a colonization king.

its basically a nifswap but if the name of the bone isnt in your exported nif then you rename it to a similar bone in the base (king) nif. then you get a messy nif that you remport into blender. make sure things are lined up. export. then nifswap again.

 

[Nitram15]

There were a king, (French king) who had similar bones, but it wasn't good. His mouth, his head and his eyes was really bad. Can you help, Ekmek?

 

[Ekmek]

There were a king, (French king) who had similar bones, but it wasn't good. His mouth, his head and his eyes was really bad. Can you help, Ekmek?

is that after you reimported or before? if the eyes and mouth are the only thngs that were bad then you need to align the mesh with the skeleton better.
Skeleton swapping makes rigging easier but it takes some patience in lining things up.

I cant offer to do it because I barely have time to mess with my own LHs these days.

 

[Nitram15]

Okay, thank you.

 

[Made_of_sand]

OKay so my leaderhead was going really well until the nif swap point, didn't think I'd need help but now I am stuck, he doesn't appear to be attached to the skeleton at all.
My mesh is well below the skeleton and when i try and load up the game, he is still well below the view of the camera and doesn't move.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Ekmek]

post a screenshot of your block details for your blender exported nif. you might have to copy over the whole ninode and not just the nitrishapes.

 

[Nitram15]

Or just simply scroll up him on the Z axis. I had this problem before with some of my leaderheads.

 

[Made_of_sand]

There you go,

It can't be the z axis because the animations son't work either, I assume it's a problem with Nifscope other than Blender.

Oh and another thing, is it true that you can't attach a normal map or a gloss map unless you have 3ds max or a similarly expensive program?

 

[Ekmek]

There you go,

It can't be the z axis because the animations son't work either, I assume it's a problem with Nifscope other than Blender.

Oh and another thing, is it true that you can't attach a normal map or a gloss map unless you have 3ds max or a similarly expensive program?

hmmm. not what i expected. could you post your last exported nif and blend file?