n3-2-Tri

[Haplo]

Claim type: OOT
Claim ID: TR_n3-2-Tri (#2584)
Faction: Temple
Claimed by: Melchior Dahrk
Status: Claimed (Progress: 60%)
Files: TR_n3-2-Tri_Melchior Dahrk_1.rar

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Statue of Almalexia requested by Why

[Why]

About the statue Melchior Dahrk made, it's a nice start but I don't like the use of a Kwama egg. Even a hint at comparing Dunmer to Kwama should be highly offensive to the Dunmer. I was imagining something along the lines of Almalexia breastfeeding a child (possibly wrapped in cloth so you don't have to model the child's body) or heck, a man even.

[Melchior Dahrk]

Hahaha, I suppose that I can see that association odd and possibly insulting to the dunmer (especially for their god-queen). I did it more to draw attention to her association with Vivec (who was born of an egg). If it were retextured to stone, would that help?

Given that children do not exist in Morrowind... I thought it odd to include one, even in a statue. But I should be able to do something with a swaddled child. Might end up looking like a kwama forager, anyway

Bear in mind though, that a true breastfeeding Almalexia will require an edited texture and model (I'd cover the important bits with the baby and arms, but just FYI).

[gro-Dhal]

I think an egg is better than a baby. Should be a netch egg though. We don't have a model for that so maybe just a sphere? A sphere with a vehk symbol on it? I dunno.

[Melchior Dahrk]

I think an egg is better than a baby. Should be a netch egg though. We don't have a model for that so maybe just a sphere? A sphere with a vehk symbol on it? I dunno.

A netch egg does makes sense, I can make it more spherical and replace the kwama egg texture with a stone one. If that ends up being the general consensus.

Having a baby still seems uncharacteristic to me.

[Mwgek]

Reply I made in the wrong thread apparently :

Looks good! (As far as npc's converted to statues go, since it has some limitations)

The texture of the egg could be a stone texture, maybe even a custom one with some art patterns on it. Now it looks a bit weird having a living Kwama egg in her hands.

Also there is still no collision mesh.

And the last thing I want to add is that the skirt can't be made out of stone. It is far to thin and looks a bit unrealistic, maybe it needs some extra vertices to make it thicker or even some other form of clothing.

So far it looks good.

[Melchior Dahrk]

I didn't make a collision mesh, it's setup to use the triangles for collision. Since the mesh is large enough, that method should be appropriate.

And that's a valid point about the skirt (and the reason that I removed her thin curls of hair. That SHOULD be an easy enough tweak. I'll see what I can do.

And I do agree that this method of creating statues is sub par (doesn't look as good as the dedicated Oblivion statues), but I'm not volunteering to create statues from scratch. I can do that for other sorts of models, but not characters.

[Mwgek]

I rather have a collision mesh for saving some of the much needed framerate in the Indoril lands. Doesn't the game need extra calculations for baked in collision?

[Nemon]

As simple collision mesh as possible please.

[Melchior Dahrk]

Alright, I'll create a collision mesh when I redo her loincloth. Shouldn't be hard since I don't have to UV the dang thing

[Why]

A sphere with a vehk symbol on it?

That I'd love to see.

[Melchior Dahrk]

A sphere with a vehk symbol on it?

That I'd love to see.

Alrighty, I'll muster something up.

What's TR's accepted stance on textures? Matching resolution to vanilla, as much as possible, I assume? Is overlaying details on existing textures an accepted practice?

[Mwgek]

If the texture comes from a copyright free place it is okay. You could use textures from let's say CGtextures for details.

As stated in the texture showcase information thread there is always some hand painting needed to get it to match the vanilla textures.

As for sizes we always want to stay as close to vanilla as possible. So for a relatively small thing like the egg I would say 64x64. Maybe a little bigger if needed.

After creating save it as a .dds file in the DTX1 no-alpha compression. Since it has no transparencies.

Textures with copyright on them or parts of a texture used with copyrights on them will not be appreciated. But I think you are aware of the legal stuff etc.

[EDIT]If you mean overlaying a vanilla or TR texture with your own details it is okay.[/EDIT]

[Melchior Dahrk]

I was indeed meaning to overlay a vanilla texture with my own, painted details. But thank you for the additional information; it was still valuable to me.

[Melchior Dahrk]

Thoughts?

[gro-Dhal]

It would be great if you could upload images of the things you make for those of us who don't have the software

[Melchior Dahrk]

It would be great if you could upload images of the things you make for those of us who don't have the software

Ah, silly me. Unfortunately, I don't have the software right now, either. Heh.

I guess I just assumed most people reviewing my work had nifskope or the CS. But you're right that pictures are much quicker things to check.

By the way, this version does not yet have a collision mesh, but I fixed the skirt and added the "vehk" symbol to a more spherical egg.

[Aeven]

I would suggest fusing the body parts into one smooth thing.

[Melchior Dahrk]

I would suggest fusing the body parts into one smooth thing.

I agree that attempting to make the body look less segmented would make it look more statuesque. I can mess around with doing that, but with blender 2.49b it's probably going to screw up the UV. Unless I can do all the work by merging vertices rather than creating new ones. Not sure if I have the patience to redo the UV map, but I'll start experimenting.



edit: I put the latest file (no updates since my previous post) in the claim update. Does it automatically rename the file? I guess I didn't need to try making it a consistent format since the site did it for me; I named it TR_n3-2-Tri_Dahrk_1.rar and the site changed it to TR_n3-2-Tri_Melchior Dahrk_1.rar

[Mwgek]

I'm not really a fan of the texture, but that wasn't your work so.. We can change that later on with a correct uv-layout.

On the nit-picking side:

• * The V symbol looks a bit plastic.
  * What Aeven said. If you want to change that, also check some of the useless faces in the joint areas like fingers etc. Since the thing is static know it doesn't need the bend friendly extra faces.

And yes the site makes a name for the files you upload.

[Melchior Dahrk]

Are you referring to the stone texture for Almalexia, that you don't like?

It's certainly possible that the V looks that way, I didn't spend too much time on it.

[Ashstaar]

I think it looks good. The v symbol doesn't look that bad, could be made to look more integrated maybe, however that would be. None of the other statues are smoothed or joined together so I see no reason to make things harder than they have to be. Unless somebody wants to go through all the other statues and smooth them out too. Keep at it. I had considered a statue with two people, perhaps smaller on either side in certain poses as her children, but that was just an idea.

[Mwgek]

I don't particularly like the older statues either. So if Melchior gets the hang of this and he wants to update the other Alma statues that is fine by me. I'm all for making these look like an actually statue instead of a frozen NPC and it is about time some of the older TR models got an update. I know this will result in some serious uv-mapping and a lot of extra work, but it will certainly be worth it when they are finished.

[Melchior Dahrk]

I think it looks good. The v symbol doesn't look that bad, could be made to look more integrated maybe, however that would be. None of the other statues are smoothed or joined together so I see no reason to make things harder than they have to be. Unless somebody wants to go through all the other statues and smooth them out too. Keep at it. I had considered a statue with two people, perhaps smaller on either side in certain poses as her children, but that was just an idea.

It's definitely a valid point that there are other statues which were created using the same posing method I used for this (heck there's even the other Almalexia statue which still has the flat loin cloth iirc) in the TR_Data. The changes I had in mind may not have too much of a visual impact, but the consistency issue is still there.

I don't know that I'd volunteer to smooth out the other statues either, depending on how difficult it ends up being once I experiment with this one. As I said, it's not the modeling that's hard, it's the fact that most actions I'd take will screw up the UV (blame blender 2.49b).

As was discussed before, I still resist including children in the statues since they aren't present in the game. Hence why I didn't go with Why's original concept of having her suckling an infant.

Also, hey there Ashstaar! I still have yet to mess around with your armor, clothing, heads, and hairs... but it's on my ever growing to do list! Hahah.

[Melchior Dahrk]

In regards to not liking the texture for Almalexia, I also do not like it overly much. It's too detailed.

If anyone's interested, it shouldn't be difficult to make one with decimated details and a more stone-like appearance. If I get to it this evening, I'll post pictures a'ight?

[Haplo]

In regards to not liking the texture for Almalexia, I also do not like it overly much. It's too detailed.

If anyone's interested, it shouldn't be difficult to make one with decimated details and a more stone-like appearance. If I get to it this evening, I'll post pictures a'ight?

Sounds good; screenshots are always welcome for claims

[Melchior Dahrk]

Sounds good; screenshots are always welcome for claims

Lol, yeah from here on out I'll use more screenshots

[Melchior Dahrk]

Alright, I made my own statue texture for Almalexia. Let me know what you think.

Edit: I just realized that I should have a "before" shot too. So people can see what changed with my new texture.

[Adanorcil]

Nice. Definitely an improvement. First off, a question to all:

Maybe we could consider a different material here? Stone has been done to death and something else would definitely break the gray monotony of Almalexia somewhat. (Which is, you should understand, the only place this statue will be used, under pain of being shot by me.) Maybe verdigris'd bronze, optionally with the original color showing through at the feet, where people rub it for good luck.



A couple of notes:

- I'd definitely make the egg a bit smaller. It looks rather disproportionately large compared to the rest and and also seems far too heavy for Almalexia's spindly arms to hold it up like that. Maybe the size of a big grapefruit.

- Maybe try and make her pose a little more elegant. Drop her right elbow somewhat. Bring both of the elbows in somewhat.

- If possible, fix the texture stretching around the upper chest a bit.

- Wherever possible, try to alter the original mesh in a way that makes it a bit more believable as a statue:

- Have her arms against her body as far down as feasible. If that makes the whole a little less lifelike, I think some stylization isn't uncalled for here.

- Make the loincloth thicker and have it bleed into her legs as far down as possible. Maybe make it wrap around her in some elegant way to connect it entirely.

- Make some of the limb "joints" a little smoother still. I reckon you could make the limbs a bit thicker without it looking out of place. The right shoulder has a bit of an odd dent in it.

[Haplo]

Cool! Just a thought bouncing off of what Adanorcil mentioned about materials and the egg: Do we want the egg to be same material as the statue? Or some different/special material? Obviously this is just an example, but there many statues made of one material where there is a centerpiece made from crystal or gold or something, for symbolism. Since this is a one-time-use only statue, the opportunity for taking such an opportunity would be a good one, perhaps. That way the egg could still be a little large, but logically explained with the weak support it currently has.

[Melchior Dahrk]

I like your suggestions, Adanorcil. I'm not surprised that her arm positions don't look elegant to you... I used myself as a model, lol.

I'll try and mock something up as soon as I have a chance. The material of the statue won't be hard to alter. So discussion can continue on that, it has small effect on me, whatever would look good in the city.

[Yeti]

I know you've been on recently, Melchior Dahrk, so I won't revoke this. Do you have an update. Are statues even something we still want?