Beards and New Eyes in ST

[TheImperialDragon]

EDIT FEBRUARY 2008: THESE ARE NO LONGER IN THE CURRENT VERSION OF THE ESM FOR TECHNICAL REASONS.

Download files HERE
Archive size: Approximately 6Mb
Unpacked size: Approximately 47Mb

The beards and new eyes will likely be in the next release. You can test in the meantime with the ESP in the download.

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Overview

I have prepared an extension to madmole's Beards for inclusion into Silgrad Tower. The way this works is it adds new beards through new races. Each of these new races also has a few new choices for eye colour (I had a something special in mind for the crystal eye, but if someone finds a use for it...).

Now, I thought adding new races wasn't too bad an idea for a few reasons:

1) Adding beards
2) Being able to change the selection and use of eye colours and hair styles without altering the original Bethesda races
3) New voice folders assuring we cannot get a generic Bethesda voice (I'll talk more about that a little further down)

Bethesda created the beard for Sheogorath in the SI by replacing the tongue model in the race face data window. I followed this example to create this new variety of beards to use. Only I didn't use the Sheogorath beard, I used madmole's beards (these don't have tongues, but it's hardly noticeable). Most races have nine different colours to choose from, and the choice of styles depends on the race:
- All the human races and all the elven races have five beard styles including the mustache.
- Orcs have only one style, but more may be coming if specialized beard meshes are made for Orcs.
- The beards won't fit Khajiit.
- Argonians don't have beards.

I used a tool called the Conformulator to make the beards conform to the face?s shape and movements. This means the beards will move when the NPC is talking, and they will also conform to the different slider settings in NPC creation (you can have a bit of fun with the ?Chin ? Pronounced? and ?Face ? Wide/Thin? setting :brew: ). This is done through the EGM and TRI files. They are needed for the beards to behave properly. The Bearded People mod also used the conformulator.

Each of the new ST versions of the races have new eye colours as well, including a deathly white eye for either Morrowind vampires or dead characters. Just choose these like any other eye using the ST[Default Race Name] race. More eyes can be added because this isn't a default Bethesda race - it won't affect the main Oblivion.esm.

This is also useful for dialogue because we can ensure that none of our NPCs will have a generic Bethesda voice. This is good not only for consistency, but sorting as well. Each of the beard races points to the folder of the parent ST race (IE StIdDarkElfBeard01Red points to the StDarkElf voice folder).

Other than the voices, eyes, and beards, these races are pretty much identical to the originals, so switching between them is easy.

Adding or changing beards

All of the additional races reference only five NIFs with their respective EGM and TRI files (the CS points each of these to different textures specified in the Race Window). To update the beards, all that is needed is to replace the NIF or DDS texture. No work required in the CS. Pretty simple.

The textures might be different, since most modders will likely try to make the hair colour of the NPC the same as the beard, changing the textures might not be a good idea. However, if it needs to be done anyway, it can be done in a similar fashion as the NIFs. Adding a new texture would certainly be preferable.

To add a new beard colour, just create a new race with the right beard model and point to the texture you want to use. Make sure the voice of the NPC points to the right parent race (ST[Race Name]).

Usage

To use these beards, just select the race you want to use, here's how the race ID is structured:

StId - [Race Name] - [Beard Style] - [Beard Colour]

You can use both a beard and hair on the same NPC.

The eyes are chosen like for any other race, just click on the drop-down box and choose.

Bug(s)

Gap in the Beard03 mesh - needs to be fixed then reconformulated.

Other than that, they behave normally when I test them.

Credits

- madmole for the resource beard meshes
- Scanti for the conformulator

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I took a few screenshots of NPCs with some new options:

[Razorwing]

Nice work TID! They look great I especially liked this one, it would look perfect on a bandit.

Originally posted by TheImperialDragon
This is also useful for dialogue because we can ensure that none of our NPCs will have a generic Bethesda voice. This is good not only for consistency, but sorting as well. Each of the beard races points to the folder of the parent ST race (IE StIdDarkElfBeard01Red points to the StDarkElf voice folder).

That could solve a few problems, like having to write responses for "Gray Fox" and probably other topics just because Bethesda wanted all of their NPCs to say it. But maybe it could create other problems. Would it mean reorganizing our existing voice work? Because that sounds (pardon the pun) to me like it'd be a lot of work with the added hazard of breaking dialogue. But if it means from here on out then I don't think it would be a problem, especially since I don't think we have any dialogue based solely on race (due to it creeping into Bethesda dialogue that way).

[TheImperialDragon]

Originally posted by Razorwing
But if it means from here on out then I don't think it would be a problem, especially since I don't think we have any dialogue based solely on race (due to it creeping into Bethesda dialogue that way).

I think the "from here on out" approach would be best, at least for now.

[Dave_91]

Nice work, the Dunmer looks quite creepy. :goodjob:

Would making custom beard meshes like these ones need rigging or anything? Or would it just be a case of lining them up with the mesh up in nifSkope or whatever?

[sandor]

Very nice! :goodjob:

[TheImperialDragon]

Thank you sandor and Dave.

Originally posted by Dave_91
Would making custom beard meshes like these ones need rigging or anything? Or would it just be a case of lining them up with the mesh up in nifSkope or whatever?

I think just the beard mesh around the face and a suitable texture will do because there is no rigging in the NIFs (that I can see, they were in a modder's resource), and everything else would seem to be controlled by the EGM and TRI files.

[Ghogiel]

aye its problematic to rig things to head slots.

anyway. Why did you remove the tongues man?

Scanti relz a resource that consolidated the upper and lower teeth meshes into one object, complete with egm and tris for all the races, freeing up a whole facegen slot. So you can add beards or horns or some other wierd stuff with out losing a teeth or tongue mesh.

http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=10674

[TheImperialDragon]

Originally posted by Ghogiel
aye its problematic to rig things to head slots.

anyway. Why did you remove the tongues man?

Scanti relz a resource that consolidated the upper and lower teeth meshes into one object, complete with egm and tris for all the races, freeing up a whole facegen slot. So you can add beards or horns or some other wierd stuff with out losing a teeth or tongue mesh.

http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=10674

I read your post wrong the first time, thinking you were talking about the conformulator. I didn't know about that resource, it looks useful. :yes:

I was planning on eventually seeing if I could add the tongue to the beard, that should involve less work than going over all of them again. But I have other important things I need to do, so would you like to go over them?

In the meantime, the difference is hardly noticeable unless you're looking for the tongue or know it's missing.

[Ghogiel]

adding the tongue to each of the beard meshes is fair amount of work. Before scanti mentioned consolidating the teeth, I thought of adding the upperteeth to the beard mesh. but you end up having to do it for every beard style. so plenty of UVing and texture editing to nicely consolidate the 2 into on trishape. :bash: Plus with the 2 teeth merged any new beards, peircings horns, ect won't have to go through that rigmorale of editing the UVs and texture maps. extra facegen slot is fing cool though.

before I always noticed the missing teeth. when that was used as the place of the beards. did my head in, I'll just have to see if the tongue being gone is that noticeable.

[TheImperialDragon]

Originally posted by Ghogiel
I'll just have to see if the tongue being gone is that noticeable.

Let me know what you think.

For now, it comes as-is because I know it works in-game and right now I don't have the time nor the patience to go through 300 races and redo all of their tongues and teeth (it took hours to just edit a single slot). I think editting the beard would be much less time-consuming at this point, and more in tow with what Bethesda did.