When I was last working on this in the summer, I found out quite a few things about the compromises that Bethesda was making when choosing what material files to use. Especially when it came to transparency, glow/emittance, and lighting.
An approach closer to the way the other insects are set up, will be probably used going forward. This will prevent any issues with the wings being 100% black when under certain lighting conditions. And will also give the Radroach a more consistent glowing look, when compared to something like the Bloatfly.
Already have a new version in the chamber, just need to take another look at it before uploading.
*Update 12/23/24: The above has now been fixed and uploaded in v04.0!
No clue. But it's not 😁 You can preview the files in the files tab. Nexus clears these mods, but this is a normal occurrence during modding, for some. You can learn more here: Virus Scanning at Nexus Mods
Thank you! Everyone watching me work on it said the same thing. The improvements make them look a little grosser, not the intention, but a good outcome. I reference the Bloatflies Materials and Textures a lot, which are the grossest ones to me lol.
I quite like the vanilla ones but I'm sure many will prefer your offering. I'm here only to comment, regards your stated future interest to go through more game files, about knowing if/how they'd be "fixes"? What I mean is, just because a modder finds an apparent discrepancy in the game files it doesn't mean there's a been a mistake or omission. You'd need to know all the decision making process. For example with roaches it could be they didn't like how vibrant the glowing wings became, or indeed initially made a mistake but liked the result, etc.
Or maybe they spotted some visual ugly during some play-testing in a certain lighting condition/location and deliberately nerfed the files. It wouldn't be the first time this happened (iirc, random facial hair oddities with transparent visors in FO3 lead to visors being nerfed to opaque in FNV - and could be why FO4 face visors were made that way too).
Either way, devs wouldn't bother retrospectively tidying up game files so that modders years later could fully understand all such reasonings.
On a tangent, same goes for cut-content mods. And concept art mods ignore any possible gap between what artists did and devs had asked.
This mod is both a personal edit, and Vanilla fixes, and Ill stand by that. To go on my own rebuttal/tangent, it is very clear to me that the Radroach was approached in an extremely lazy fashion. Probably because it was one of the first creatures in the game. They are nowhere near as well designed as Bloatflies, from both an art and technical approach. There is also a ton of cut content regarding the roaches too, for example; Radroach Mother, Radroach Larvae, and Radroach Juvi, which is unfortunate.
Does my mod actually fix things, or am I just changing it to my personal liking? Both.
As for what I fix, I list it in the description. Bethesda set up the Radroaches with Material swaps, but neglected to use the right naming convention or material for the wings on each Radroach, which there are 4(3 Diffuse + 1 with Glow Textures). This caused all wings on all 4 radroaches to share the same Diffuse Texture, even though each Texture has differently designed wings. They also assigned a no glowing material to the wings on the Glowing Radroach. They even applied these wing Materials in the Material Swaps they use for the Radroaches along with the body Materials, they just didn't set the wings up in the NIF correctly. So now each unique variant has unique wings, including the Glowing Radroach, due to my fixes.
As for the Alpha/Transparency in Wings, this is where it becomes a mix of a personal edit and Vanilla fix. 4 Materials exist for transparent wings but are not used correctly, assuming they had planned to set them up identical to the other insects in the game, I rework this into the Nif/Material swap fix. Transparency also isn't perfect, as I'd need to mirror the more technical approach of Bloatflies, but I felt my version was good enough to release.
As for what's truly my personal approach? Well that's more with the texture edits and my desire to distinguish them more, I'd like to refer to any other bug in the game, as they all have very distinguished variants. I made that happen.
Tldr; This mod is my a mix of personal edits, with some clearly Vanilla fixes due to obvious lazy mistakes, to make a more unique set of Radroaches by replacing what's already there in Vanilla. If you like Vanilla Radroaches, this mod probably isn't for you.
I forgot to comment on the future prospects: If I can create some Vanilla+ edits for other things, I will. If I find some things that are clearly wrong, I'll try to fix them. For example, Bloatflies need so much less work to get them where I want them, but I did already fix an issue where Glowing Bloatflies destruction giblets were using nonglowing giblets and also the wrong texture set. Giblets now glow, and use the correct base texture set. I did something similar for the Radroaches. Hopefully this offers some clarity on what I might try to "fix". I imagine other insects won't require the same amount of work, and Ill just tweak Textures and Materials for consistency across.
17 comments
An approach closer to the way the other insects are set up, will be probably used going forward. This will prevent any issues with the wings being 100% black when under certain lighting conditions. And will also give the Radroach a more consistent glowing look, when compared to something like the Bloatfly.
Already have a new version in the chamber, just need to take another look at it before uploading.
*Update 12/23/24: The above has now been fixed and uploaded in v04.0!
You can preview the files in the files tab. Nexus clears these mods, but this is a normal occurrence during modding, for some.
You can learn more here: Virus Scanning at Nexus Mods
I could not download your mod.
According to Vortex, the Archive is damaged.
I'll do some testing myself and with other folks.This has been fixed.Or maybe they spotted some visual ugly during some play-testing in a certain lighting condition/location and deliberately nerfed the files. It wouldn't be the first time this happened (iirc, random facial hair oddities with transparent visors in FO3 lead to visors being nerfed to opaque in FNV - and could be why FO4 face visors were made that way too).
Either way, devs wouldn't bother retrospectively tidying up game files so that modders years later could fully understand all such reasonings.
On a tangent, same goes for cut-content mods. And concept art mods ignore any possible gap between what artists did and devs had asked.
Does my mod actually fix things, or am I just changing it to my personal liking? Both.
As for what I fix, I list it in the description. Bethesda set up the Radroaches with Material swaps, but neglected to use the right naming convention or material for the wings on each Radroach, which there are 4(3 Diffuse + 1 with Glow Textures). This caused all wings on all 4 radroaches to share the same Diffuse Texture, even though each Texture has differently designed wings. They also assigned a no glowing material to the wings on the Glowing Radroach. They even applied these wing Materials in the Material Swaps they use for the Radroaches along with the body Materials, they just didn't set the wings up in the NIF correctly. So now each unique variant has unique wings, including the Glowing Radroach, due to my fixes.
As for the Alpha/Transparency in Wings, this is where it becomes a mix of a personal edit and Vanilla fix. 4 Materials exist for transparent wings but are not used correctly, assuming they had planned to set them up identical to the other insects in the game, I rework this into the Nif/Material swap fix. Transparency also isn't perfect, as I'd need to mirror the more technical approach of Bloatflies, but I felt my version was good enough to release.
As for what's truly my personal approach? Well that's more with the texture edits and my desire to distinguish them more, I'd like to refer to any other bug in the game, as they all have very distinguished variants. I made that happen.
Tldr; This mod is my a mix of personal edits, with some clearly Vanilla fixes due to obvious lazy mistakes, to make a more unique set of Radroaches by replacing what's already there in Vanilla. If you like Vanilla Radroaches, this mod probably isn't for you.