KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

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King of Worms
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by King of Worms »

Hi mate, thanks for all the beautiful updates.

I like how you improved the face on my Redguard lady (and the hair ofc as well)
The Vampires look great, glad its not a big problem to fit em in the different canvas. Yes, its most likely because of the ears.

Ive tested most of the faces on the paperdolls and they fit will. Ofc I will need to do some adjustments, but thats not a problem and its in most cases just about moving the head few pixels left/right/up/down in the canvas so it fits the helmets.

The colors match the bodies quite nicely already, ofc there will have to be some adjustments bot they will not have to be major, like I had to do in the past with the art from different artists. Here it will be more about subtle brightness, saturation and maybe a very minor hue shift. All doable and dont be afraid, your art will not be destroyed by this :) Its just a necessary step.

Also, IF you decide to do any work on the bodies, the colors should stay the same... otherwise I will have to readjust the colors of all faces and thats something I would really want to avoid.

I might do a set this weekend. To get back in the flow with the process... I will share back. But no promise, I dont enjoy to put any deadlines on me :) for the sake of my mental health and well being... times have been stressful lately.. so Im more in a recuperating mode.

Next week I have holidays, I will go alone on my cottage, do the fire every evening and watch it, have a walks in the forests, no PC, no phone. Kind of lunatic asylum type of retreat... :lol:

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King of Worms
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by King of Worms »

Btw can someone please explain to me, why I cant edit my own posts in this thread? It happens only in the Dream thread.

Im used to type my posts, post em, read em and correct spelling/grammar errors. Plus maybe add ideas Ive missed. Here I cant do it. So it looks like Im half retarded with all the spelling and grammar errors :D

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RedHookGhost
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by RedHookGhost »

King of Worms wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:21 am Ive tested most of the faces on the paperdolls and they fit will.

The colors match the bodies quite nicely already, ofc there will have to be some adjustments bot they will not have to be major
I'm glad they fit easily without too much alteration, I tried to keep as close to the reference as possible. I also only used colors sampled straight from the reference as well. I was hoping by doing so that it would match as closely as possible to the bodies. I'm glad that seems to mostly be the case, and not as big a challenge as it could be.
King of Worms wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:21 am Also, IF you decide to do any work on the bodies, the colors should stay the same... otherwise I will have to readjust the colors of all faces and thats something I would really want to avoid.
You absolutely read my mind. I thought about asking questions about altering the bodies in my last post, but figured I'd wait until I got closer to working on them. So thanks for the information. :D
King of Worms wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:21 am I might do a set this weekend. To get back in the flow with the process... I will share back. But no promise, I dont enjoy to put any deadlines on me :) for the sake of my mental health and well being... times have been stressful lately.. so Im more in a recuperating mode.
To be honest, if you want to put off working on altering the images, I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm looking back at some of my portraits, and seeing mistakes or things that could be improved, and I want to fix them. So it would be really frustrating for you, if you make images I've sent you ready for the mod, and then I post an updated version so you end up having to redo them.

These last 7 I posted are 100% finished and a couple of the Khajiit are too, but a lot of the others...I...want to fix them.

So don't rush or stress about it. I'm just drawing and posting because my motivation is momentum based. I'm afraid if I stop, I'll STOP.

Yes, it would be nice to see the mod updated and be able to play the game, but I'm...really having way more fun working on art right now. So this whole project IS the end goal for me. Not a means to an end of getting to the game. I'm having a good time. :) So take your time! Get to it when you feel like it. This is a hobby for you, not a job. I'm just happy to contribute and get feedback about what works and what doesn't.
King of Worms wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:21 am Next week I have holidays, I will go alone on my cottage, do the fire every evening and watch it, have a walks in the forests, no PC, no phone. Kind of lunatic asylum type of retreat... :lol:
That sounds really relaxing. It's been too long since I've been able to get away, so enjoy yourself for the both of us, and don't think about this thread at all while you're gone! :D I'll keep working, but I won't post anything until you get back, so there's not a backlog waiting for you to slog through.

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RedHookGhost
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by RedHookGhost »

King of Worms wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:32 am Btw can someone please explain to me, why I cant edit my own posts in this thread? It happens only in the Dream thread.
Re-posting this for KoW since I drowned that question with the novel I just submitted. (rude of me)

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Interkarma
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by Interkarma »

King of Worms wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:32 am Btw can someone please explain to me, why I cant edit my own posts in this thread? It happens only in the Dream thread.
Hi KoW. This is because the standard Reply Only permission template doesn't allow editing own posts. I've adjusted permissions in Released Mods forum now so that Registered Users have Edit Own Posts permission in this forum. You might need to sign out and back in again for changes to take effect.

Please let me know if you continue having troubles with editing own posts here.

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King of Worms
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by King of Worms »

Thanks a lot Interkarma, its working now :) > Less confusing posts from me (wishful thinking I know)
Last edited by King of Worms on Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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King of Worms
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by King of Worms »

RedHook,

I think I will just wait for the final versions of the images, thats what I thought about recently as well. When you feel like all is said and done, I will just take the most recent version and go head by head, body by body and refit everything. Thanks God I have the saves of all 160 or how many characters still on my HDD. I will just have to create a new saves for 16 vampires but that (turning to vamp) can be done by console commands EASILY I HOPE :D

And for the same reason, I will wait for the bodies. For bodies I will have to emphasize the need to keep the original outlines. If you make bigger shoulders, they wont fit in the armors etc. Not sure about the resolution honestly, because:

- female bodies have 2x resolution of male
- when I upscaled the males to match the females, I did not like the results and went back to original.

Why? Well the game somehow turns the soft sprite edges to the black color (aka black outline around the body)
Thats ok, no issue, it looks stylish. But the upscaled males had this black line somehow thicker and more importantly it flow worse for some reason. So I kept it original. So maybe just keep the resolution...

Thanks for nice wishes for holidays and a reassurance of me not being under pressure. Its very important for me, as lately my psyche took a hit and I just need some peace and recuperation. Its getting much better and I know I will make it thru stronger than I used to be. All is good, just... need some rest :)

Also, I REALLY appreciate your input here RedHook, its quite rare someone with your skills, dedication, consistency and nice approach appears here to help me. I think about it as a nice ending as this project is nearing its end, same as DFU is nearing its 1.0 release version. So your faces will be one of the last contributions accepted into the DREAM mod final. Special place for you :)

EDIT (!!!) :D I liked the subtle touch you gave to that Redguard woman face/accesiories, if you decide to do something similar to other old faces, without changing the eyes,nose,mouth positions - it would be cool and it might reunite the overall style a bit. Just idea, do as you feel like.

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RedHookGhost
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by RedHookGhost »

Hey, it's been a bit since the last update. So I just thought I'd let you know where we're at right now.

I'm nearing the end of the vampire portraits. Finished all but the Argonian female, and have three more of the males. (I got part way through the Argonian portrait, but realized it was taking a lot more time than the others--so scaly-- so decided to finish off the rest before dedicating the last of the time to the lizard people, that way I wasn't feeling as rushed with them).

It did end up taking some more time repositioning and resizing than I thought it would. A lot of the portraits just don't fit on the vampire canvas without cutting off too much of the top of the head, since facial features have to be in fixed positions. Once I finish up, I might ask you to look at a couple of them to make sure they do in fact fit correctly.

Once this is all done, I may end up contacting the other mod author about their vampire portrait mod. Since they've got a version for every player character, I assume means their base portraits and vampire portraits must be identical? That would be really convenient.

I ended up finding either the matching face (or picking one of the base portraits that I could fit the canvas as best I could) and cleaning up that base portrait, and then importing and creating the vamp portrait. On top of that, I made alternate versions for elves/khajiit. Since a lot of the elf lady portraits had human eyes I made default and alternate versions.

Default = Just cleaned up basic portrait
Alternate = Made the eyes larger and angled with bigger irises (darker sclera for wood elves)

I did the same thing for Khajiit noses and face paint.
Default = cleaned up without feature changes / Alternate = with changes

....so there are options for either having all the races more uniform, or if you prefer keeping a particular portrait with more human eyes/nose.

So all in all there are about 4 more vampire portraits (and their 4 matching base portraits) plus any alternate versions to finish up. Then a quick pass through all the base portraits to clean them up. And I want to do the bodies as well, that way I can color match the portraits to them. (Sample the basic colors from the body images and import/blend them into the portraits. I'll leave the paperdoll colors as is).

So TL;DR incredibly wordy and boring post shortened to bullet points.

- I'll finish the 4 vampire portraits
- Do a quick pass to check and clean up all portraits
- Touch up the bodies
- Do a final pass to color match portraits to bodies

Once that's done, I'll just zip all of them, organized, so that you've got everything updated and sorted conveniently.

I figure that'll be MORE than enough to work with on your off time when you feel like it, and then I can take my time working on sprites and miscellaneous.

Not sure if you're back from your trip yet, hope it's going well or was restful.

This is just an example of the different versions I was talking about:
Attachments
VAMP00I0.CIF_5-0(default eyes-blood-jewelry).png
VAMP00I0.CIF_5-0(default eyes-blood-jewelry).png (275.68 KiB) Viewed 1705 times
VAMP00I0.CIF_5-0(alt eyes-blood-jewelry).png
VAMP00I0.CIF_5-0(alt eyes-blood-jewelry).png (274.7 KiB) Viewed 1705 times

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RedHookGhost
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by RedHookGhost »

Sorry! I was in a tunnel vision "complete task A move on to task B" mode there. I completely bypassed the part where I wanted to say "You're welcome, I'm happy to help with the mod." Also that I do really hope your holiday is/has been enjoyable and peaceful.

I'm working on a lot of images and everything, but I'm not trying to make that overwhelming. Basically I'm just gonna zip and send it, and I figure you'll browse through and pick your favorites.

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King of Worms
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Re: KoW - D.R.E.A.M.

Post by King of Worms »

Hi RedHook :)

Thanks for the update, the holidays were nice (it really helped) but last day I got some kind of illness (sore throat etc) so the next (this) week I was at home during these extremely high temperatures and that was torturing... but I haul thru, day by day. It also prohibited me from meeting my GF so.... its a test of will I guess.. Still, even with this shitty ending, I feel better than before, and thats good :) And I can repeat that vacation as well, so whatever .)

I really like the dark eyes on the vamps, I think it fits really well! (and that face overall is kickass)

Im really glad you decided to match the bodies with the faces and maybe improve on the bodies as well. Its quite a delicate work to do, maybe have a look at some of the old work I did of color matching the face to bodies.. the faces ended up low contrast etc, and thats good. Fits the rest of the game, armors etc.

Indeed, I can test the vamps, I get it that these are special case due to the fact they need to be refitted in the different canvas..

Thanks a lot for the work you do, I hope you enjoy it. I remember 3 years back when I started to do art for DFU, it was a blast, so I can imagine you have fun as well :)

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