Hopefully, if anyone has looked at the meshes I made, they realise the meshes were designed to try to make the lines in the tartan pattern look as straight as possible without requiring distorting the pattern on the texture image. Since I wanted it to be easy to change tartans, I wanted to be able to use a square pattern on the texture image. Applying a square texture onto a cone like shape was surprisingly difficult without the pattern getting narrower from the top to bottom. Which is one thing that seems to bug me about other tartan texture mods. Also, trying to make the meshes in a way that didn't stretch the tartan pattern when the character jumped was more difficult. Maybe what I was trying to do was impossible using the base game skeleton weighting system to begin with. Probably a good reason no one that knows what they are doing has attempted a kilt mod like this. It would be so much easier to do with a solid color texture instead of a tartan (cursed straight lines), but a kilt with a solid color would just defeat the whole purpose.
* I can definitely work with this, and am already doing so. Details in separate post below. * Looked at the NIF, and can see adjustments that need to be made, but have found that they can be done in Outfit Studio, so I'm good to go. * The garment's physics are already quite appropriate for an actual kilt (heavy wool garment). It flares around with movement pretty much exactly as it should. * The kilt is likely adaptable to both to alternative male bodies and to females, though this will take some work. * LoganBruce's original mesh work was actually pretty successful at getting a square-grid tartan onto this outfit, so trapezoidal pre-distortion of the texture to compensate for mapping onto a conical garment will not actually be necessary.
Less-good news [some of it already resolved or in-progress; see updates below]:
Spoiler:
Show
* This is a rather unusual NIF (3D object) design, and it is not going to look perfect under all lighting conditions. Sometimes part of it looks darker than it should (see, e.g., the rump area, just above the pleats, in the original screenshot). I don't know if this is fixable. * The NIF actually does need a lot of work. ** It has a kind of a loose and chunky design at the detail/fit level, though this can be re-sculpted with some effort, e.g. to close gaps, and fix overhangs of the top part over the pleats, etc. ** It isn't really entirely shaped right (most noticeable at 0-weight, where it has a tiny waist but then flares out dramatically like a billowy skirt. THAT is going to take some work to repair. ** It also has "dingleberries" of visible mesh bits hanging below it in at least two places; this is supposed to be an invisible fringe area at the bottom but little bits of it are visibly showing texture, kind of hovering in mid-air. They are quite small but still annoying. ** The length is wrong. A properly worn kilt should bisect the knee-cap dead center, or be just a tad higher. When it's well above the knee, as in the original mod, it has a "trollopy" look to it, as someone once put it. Actually, the underlying NIF is probably about right, and it's just turning up short because of the ragged edge. Still, will need adjustment. * The UV textures are not ideal. ** This just uses an area in a not-very-large texture that has other claptrap in it, when ideally it would use a larger (or at least optionally larger) hi-res texture that consisted of nothing but tartan, for easy replacement. It'll take significant changes to get around this, but I think I can do it. (I have been meaning to dig into UV mapping anyway, which is something I've been kind of avoiding!) ** It has a built-in ragged bottom edge, via an alpha channel (transparency). While that's great for a rustic barbarian look, it's kind of inappropriate-looking with a fancy shirt. So, need to make a version with clean bottom selvedge. ** It lacks a belt, sporran, shoulder-plaid, and other features, all of which will need new 3D models (or adapted ones from modders' resources). * It is not actually possible to prevent distortion of the tartan as the garment moves, nor as it is deformed to fit various body shapes. That's just how the game works - it stretches textures to fit the mesh, and it stretches the mesh to suit the action. Still, the way LoganBruce designed this, the distortion is already minimized. The real challenge will be adapting this to different body shapes without undoing all of that work. * Needs testing in various ENB conditions. My potato PC can't handle that, so someone else will have to do it.
Other plans:
Spoiler:
Show
* I want to design tartans for the holds and for some factions, so you can get ready-to-wear kilts for them via crafting, and modders can just distribute them on NPCs. I actually have some experience in tartan design, with advice (back when) from J. Charles Thompson, author of So You're Going to Wear the Kilt and a Fellow of the Scottish Tartans Society. * Maybe also create a "Custom Kilt" item with instructions on which texture file to replace, so you can run around in your family tartan or whatever, without replacing any of the tartans for holds/factions. * Make armor (light and heavy) and just-clothing versions, separately craftable. * Make rustic/ragged and pristine/fancy versions separately craftable. * For armor version, make magicistical crafting upgrades that use high-end requirements, so you can keep improving the gear and wear it the entire time (i.e., upgrade it beyond leather gear to Glass level, and so on). Have it use some kind of level or perk check so you can't just whip up a Daedric kilt at level 5. * Maybe add some pre-enchanted ones to leveled lists, or at least insert a Kilt of Sheor artifact or something. * Adapt this to a female version, and make BodySlides for it. * Add some female skirts of various lengths and styles that use the same textures. While it's perfectly fine for women to wear proper kilts, they are not the same as the typical female skirt. Kilts are flat-fronted then pleated in the back only, which is unusual. Skirts simulating linen or other lighter-weight material, would also be better suited to HDT-PE or SMP physics for additional sway and bounce, which isn't something you're going to get much of on a heavy woollen kilt (not much more than the kilt already moves in-game). Some HDT effects could be added to the kilt itself, but it will require custom weighting and XMLs (since just copying breast weighting to it would, in most HDT setups, result in a bobbling kilt that looked like it was made of bouncy rubber filled with gelatin). * Test with and as necessary adapt it to various male body mods like SoS and Shape Atlas. * Make it compatible with stuff provided by other kilt mods – ensure it layers well, etc. * Adapt it to other in-game cultures, e.g. non-tartan things like an Imperial (Graeo-Roman inspired) kilt with leather plates, and whatever.
* Reduced the glowiness problem reported by the initial author. The mod originally shipped with a near-white tartan which exacerbated the problem, but 1) the specular level was too high, and 2) the normal map needed low opacity. I think it will now look right in more typical, darker tartans, and even light ones are acceptable now. *Made separate kilt-only version, which equips in slot 49 (typical of pants and skirts). ** Made that craftable. * Changed crafting requirements to use less but different stuff (leather strips, linen wrap for waistband liner, and goat hide as the closest vanilla thing to a source of wool). * Made this wearable by more races; modders can now put kilts on Dremora, Draugr, Skeletons, and other humanoids (but not Giants; I tried). Mudcrab coming soon. Just kidding. * Instituted a TXST (texture set) record, for easier custom-tartan experimenting (TXSTs are the way to do variants later, and the default one would not use a TXST record, but just let the NIFs use their default). * All IDs and paths are now new; if you install the forthcoming alpha-version overhaul to test it, it will have no impact on any existing in-game items you are using. * Armor value reduced to between fur and leather. Kilt-only version is half that of shirtless-cuirass version, since the former would be worn with some kind of top-half armor. Gold value increased a little for the kilt (in either version), since this is a custom-tailored garment. :-) * Have experimentally tweaked the meshes to fit better (in throw-away copies in which I didn't do much), and it worked out. So, making it fit better in earnest will actually be doable. * I'll post a Mega link to this version later today after some more testing and tweaks. See next post for in-game screenshots.
* The texture "dingleberries" have been removed. * In-game testing shows that even the very bright original demo tartan works out okay. It's "a bit much", especially under magic light, but it no longer glows in the dark. * A quick-and-dirty colorization of this to a darker, reddish tartan shows that, in-game, it works exactly as hoped. * "One or more blocks have had their Name sanitized" according to NIFskope 2.0. I guess the original names were not compliant with the NIF specs or something.
Give ImgBB a minute to load the full-size versions of those when you click on them; the site is quite slow, at least during certain times of day.
* Successfully made a version without the ragged bottom. * Enlarged the UV texture map, so the tartan part of the DDS texture file spans the entire width of the image. This allows for higher-resolution tartans, which will make a big difference in appearance. (I generated an 8K photo-realistic one, then cut this down to 2K and tested that as the texture to use and it looks way better than the screens above). * Moved the tartan in the texture to top-left, for much easier customization. You can now just paste one in (of the correct size) and move it into the corner, rather than trying to have to perfectly align it in two directions, mid-image. * UV map over the texture enlarged and moved to fit the new size and location of the tartan graphics in the DDS file. * Tested, and figured out some specific tips for doing custom tartans, which I will document. * All the other parts of this image were junk textures from some other piece of armor, so they've been removed. The current texture only takes up about half of the DDS file, so there is plenty of room for belts and whatever. * I'll see about creating a Photoshop and GIMP template for generating new tartan texture files. * Will try to put out a usable demo tomorrow. I got caught up in some stuff yesterday and did not get around to it. Need to multiply the demo kilt a couple of times with different tartans so they can be checked out in-game as separate kilts.
Demo version, with three craftable kilts: https://mega.nz/#!dMRhhCQB!WOCH9gD_-lkxHqdh8QE3HWnj9G4CLWUKDtTpqWol8RM (two just-kilts in slot 49, and one shirtless "cuirass"). Please don't use this in a save you intend to continue with, since stuff in this version will get replaced with new, completed items. This is mainly to have a look at it and (please) take screenshots with ENB and without so we can see if there are any issue with it to fix. The new high-res green version doesn't have a new normal map yet, so in some lighting it may show vestiges of an old texture. Also needs testing with other gear; the priority may need to be changed so that (on average) is layers well. It won't be possible to account for every possible conflict, of course; modders just do whatever, and we don't have any control over some of them using weird priority values. Mostly just want to get it looking good with vanilla gear.
[UPDATE: See threads above; in the course overhauling this mod, I've already implemented craftable kilt-only versions that equip in the pants/skirt slot 49.]
That's an easy fix in TES5Edit or the CK - just change the body slot of this so it does not cover the torso.
I oversimlified actually. The way to do this right (I just did it) is to edit the item's ARMA and ARMO records (or copy them and make non-cuirass version with a new ARMO calling the new ARMA, then edit THOSE records) to change the body slots to nothing but slot 49. If you made new records, then also create the crafting recipes for it. Save the ESP. Go to where the NIFs are and edit them (or copies of them, and change your new ARMA to use the copy), and do this, in both the *1_nif and *0_nif versions: Right-click on the male body, and pick Block > Remove Branch. Next, left-click on the kilt itself, and under its NiTriShape, pick BSDismemberSkinInstance > Partitions > Partitions > Body Part, and change that to SBP_49_MOD_PELVIS_PRIMARY. While you're in here, you can also pick NiTriShape > BSLightingShaderProperty > Specular Strength and change this to 0.1. Save the first NIF, and repeat all of that for the other one.
[EDIT: Never mind. I've looked into the mod in detail and am already working on it; see above for progress reports.]
Can anyone lay out in detail what the "issues" are with this? After running around in a kilt through all of Morrowind and Oblivion, I've been looking to do the same (with better physics) in Skyrim. I know there's a great-kilt mod, too, but I would like to have small kilt available as well. I'm willing to bang on this a bit if I know what problems it has.
The original author suggested some kind of luminosity or other lighting issue, though I'm not sure of the specifics, nor whether I can address it (I don't use ENB except for its memory patch, because my potato just cannot deal with it).
I think the original author is correct that it will not be possible to perfectly map a square-grid tartan onto a cone-shaped and folded garment; some distortion is necessarily going to happen. However, this mod (alpha-ware as it may be) seems to have gotten this better than any other kilt mod so far, judging from the sample image (especially the back of the kilt). This looks vastly better than what I was wearing in the other games. It may be possible to improve the results further by pre-deforming the UV texture in certain ways (if that's not what LoganBruce was already doing in the first place). That would make tartan customization more difficult. I think it might require something like a GIMP script, which someone would have to run externally to the game, kind of like GenerateFNISforUsers and BodySlide and other utilities.
Adding HDT-PE or SMP physics, a belt, a sporran, etc., are all really just afterthoughts. They're well-developed techniques by now. Mapping a tartan grid onto cone and folding it and having the results not look freakish is the different animal here.
Excellent work so far. I think the addition of a belt and sporran would be wonderful. Then all I would need is a way to add my tartan. I'll be following this for sure.
If you ever decide to add to this a real pre victorian (the modern kilt is based on those that Prince Albert the consort of Victoria made fashionable and is arguably not a real kilt) kilt based on this that the Highland Jabobite's used, here are some paintings and history on the kilt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_kilt The reason it went over one shoulder was that it was actually a very large piece of material, a Scotsman caught out in bad weather could actually shelter in his Kilt which he obviously could not do with a short skirt, they also despite the imagery often went right down to the ankles when worn, these are the kilts that Claymore wielding highlander's used in battle and day to day life, believe it or not they worked as good if not better than most modern outdoors clothing and remained little changed since before the time of the Romans.
The advantage of a small kilt though are not to be underestimated, in battle they would allow free unhindered movement of the leg's which the sporran provided some protection to the groin and was not merely for decoration, after all the Greek's and the Romans both used kilt's of lether strip's for exactly the same purpose.
As a kilt wearer there is a saying. The difference of a kilt and a skirt is that you wear underwear with a dress. This looks pretty good and I hope someone helps you out. Good job so far.
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Also, trying to make the meshes in a way that didn't stretch the tartan pattern when the character jumped was more difficult. Maybe what I was trying to do was impossible using the base game skeleton weighting system to begin with. Probably a good reason no one that knows what they are doing has attempted a kilt mod like this. It would be so much easier to do with a solid color texture instead of a tartan (cursed straight lines), but a kilt with a solid color would just defeat the whole purpose.
* I can definitely work with this, and am already doing so. Details in separate post below.
* Looked at the NIF, and can see adjustments that need to be made, but have found that they can be done in Outfit Studio, so I'm good to go.
* The garment's physics are already quite appropriate for an actual kilt (heavy wool garment). It flares around with movement pretty much exactly as it should.
* The kilt is likely adaptable to both to alternative male bodies and to females, though this will take some work.
* LoganBruce's original mesh work was actually pretty successful at getting a square-grid tartan onto this outfit, so trapezoidal pre-distortion of the texture to compensate for mapping onto a conical garment will not actually be necessary.
Less-good news [some of it already resolved or in-progress; see updates below]:
* This is a rather unusual NIF (3D object) design, and it is not going to look perfect under all lighting conditions. Sometimes part of it looks darker than it should (see, e.g., the rump area, just above the pleats, in the original screenshot). I don't know if this is fixable.
* The NIF actually does need a lot of work.
** It has a kind of a loose and chunky design at the detail/fit level, though this can be re-sculpted with some effort, e.g. to close gaps, and fix overhangs of the top part over the pleats, etc.
** It isn't really entirely shaped right (most noticeable at 0-weight, where it has a tiny waist but then flares out dramatically like a billowy skirt. THAT is going to take some work to repair.
** It also has "dingleberries" of visible mesh bits hanging below it in at least two places; this is supposed to be an invisible fringe area at the bottom but little bits of it are visibly showing texture, kind of hovering in mid-air. They are quite small but still annoying.
** The length is wrong. A properly worn kilt should bisect the knee-cap dead center, or be just a tad higher. When it's well above the knee, as in the original mod, it has a "trollopy" look to it, as someone once put it. Actually, the underlying NIF is probably about right, and it's just turning up short because of the ragged edge. Still, will need adjustment.
* The UV textures are not ideal.
** This just uses an area in a not-very-large texture that has other claptrap in it, when ideally it would use a larger (or at least optionally larger) hi-res texture that consisted of nothing but tartan, for easy replacement. It'll take significant changes to get around this, but I think I can do it. (I have been meaning to dig into UV mapping anyway, which is something I've been kind of avoiding!)
** It has a built-in ragged bottom edge, via an alpha channel (transparency). While that's great for a rustic barbarian look, it's kind of inappropriate-looking with a fancy shirt. So, need to make a version with clean bottom selvedge.
** It lacks a belt, sporran, shoulder-plaid, and other features, all of which will need new 3D models (or adapted ones from modders' resources).
* It is not actually possible to prevent distortion of the tartan as the garment moves, nor as it is deformed to fit various body shapes. That's just how the game works - it stretches textures to fit the mesh, and it stretches the mesh to suit the action. Still, the way LoganBruce designed this, the distortion is already minimized. The real challenge will be adapting this to different body shapes without undoing all of that work.
* Needs testing in various ENB conditions. My potato PC can't handle that, so someone else will have to do it.
Other plans:
* I want to design tartans for the holds and for some factions, so you can get ready-to-wear kilts for them via crafting, and modders can just distribute them on NPCs. I actually have some experience in tartan design, with advice (back when) from J. Charles Thompson, author of So You're Going to Wear the Kilt and a Fellow of the Scottish Tartans Society.
* Maybe also create a "Custom Kilt" item with instructions on which texture file to replace, so you can run around in your family tartan or whatever, without replacing any of the tartans for holds/factions.
* Make armor (light and heavy) and just-clothing versions, separately craftable.
* Make rustic/ragged and pristine/fancy versions separately craftable.
* For armor version, make magicistical crafting upgrades that use high-end requirements, so you can keep improving the gear and wear it the entire time (i.e., upgrade it beyond leather gear to Glass level, and so on). Have it use some kind of level or perk check so you can't just whip up a Daedric kilt at level 5.
* Maybe add some pre-enchanted ones to leveled lists, or at least insert a Kilt of Sheor artifact or something.
* Adapt this to a female version, and make BodySlides for it.
* Add some female skirts of various lengths and styles that use the same textures. While it's perfectly fine for women to wear proper kilts, they are not the same as the typical female skirt. Kilts are flat-fronted then pleated in the back only, which is unusual. Skirts simulating linen or other lighter-weight material, would also be better suited to HDT-PE or SMP physics for additional sway and bounce, which isn't something you're going to get much of on a heavy woollen kilt (not much more than the kilt already moves in-game). Some HDT effects could be added to the kilt itself, but it will require custom weighting and XMLs (since just copying breast weighting to it would, in most HDT setups, result in a bobbling kilt that looked like it was made of bouncy rubber filled with gelatin).
* Test with and as necessary adapt it to various male body mods like SoS and Shape Atlas.
* Make it compatible with stuff provided by other kilt mods – ensure it layers well, etc.
* Adapt it to other in-game cultures, e.g. non-tartan things like an Imperial (Graeo-Roman inspired) kilt with leather plates, and whatever.
* Reduced the glowiness problem reported by the initial author. The mod originally shipped with a near-white tartan which exacerbated the problem, but 1) the specular level was too high, and 2) the normal map needed low opacity. I think it will now look right in more typical, darker tartans, and even light ones are acceptable now.
*Made separate kilt-only version, which equips in slot 49 (typical of pants and skirts).
** Made that craftable.
* Changed crafting requirements to use less but different stuff (leather strips, linen wrap for waistband liner, and goat hide as the closest vanilla thing to a source of wool).
* Made this wearable by more races; modders can now put kilts on Dremora, Draugr, Skeletons, and other humanoids (but not Giants; I tried). Mudcrab coming soon. Just kidding.
* Instituted a TXST (texture set) record, for easier custom-tartan experimenting (TXSTs are the way to do variants later, and the default one would not use a TXST record, but just let the NIFs use their default).
* All IDs and paths are now new; if you install the forthcoming alpha-version overhaul to test it, it will have no impact on any existing in-game items you are using.
* Armor value reduced to between fur and leather. Kilt-only version is half that of shirtless-cuirass version, since the former would be worn with some kind of top-half armor. Gold value increased a little for the kilt (in either version), since this is a custom-tailored garment. :-)
* Have experimentally tweaked the meshes to fit better (in throw-away copies in which I didn't do much), and it worked out. So, making it fit better in earnest will actually be doable.
* I'll post a Mega link to this version later today after some more testing and tweaks. See next post for in-game screenshots.
* The texture "dingleberries" have been removed.
* In-game testing shows that even the very bright original demo tartan works out okay. It's "a bit much", especially under magic light, but it no longer glows in the dark.
* A quick-and-dirty colorization of this to a darker, reddish tartan shows that, in-game, it works exactly as hoped.
* "One or more blocks have had their Name sanitized" according to NIFskope 2.0. I guess the original names were not compliant with the NIF specs or something.
Give ImgBB a minute to load the full-size versions of those when you click on them; the site is quite slow, at least during certain times of day.
* Successfully made a version without the ragged bottom.
* Enlarged the UV texture map, so the tartan part of the DDS texture file spans the entire width of the image. This allows for higher-resolution tartans, which will make a big difference in appearance. (I generated an 8K photo-realistic one, then cut this down to 2K and tested that as the texture to use and it looks way better than the screens above).
* Moved the tartan in the texture to top-left, for much easier customization. You can now just paste one in (of the correct size) and move it into the corner, rather than trying to have to perfectly align it in two directions, mid-image.
* UV map over the texture enlarged and moved to fit the new size and location of the tartan graphics in the DDS file.
* Tested, and figured out some specific tips for doing custom tartans, which I will document.
* All the other parts of this image were junk textures from some other piece of armor, so they've been removed. The current texture only takes up about half of the DDS file, so there is plenty of room for belts and whatever.
* I'll see about creating a Photoshop and GIMP template for generating new tartan texture files.
* Will try to put out a usable demo tomorrow. I got caught up in some stuff yesterday and did not get around to it. Need to multiply the demo kilt a couple of times with different tartans so they can be checked out in-game as separate kilts.
That's an easy fix in TES5Edit or the CK - just change the body slot of this so it does not cover the torso.
Can anyone lay out in detail what the "issues" are with this? After running around in a kilt through all of Morrowind and Oblivion, I've been looking to do the same (with better physics) in Skyrim. I know there's a great-kilt mod, too, but I would like to have small kilt available as well. I'm willing to bang on this a bit if I know what problems it has.
The original author suggested some kind of luminosity or other lighting issue, though I'm not sure of the specifics, nor whether I can address it (I don't use ENB except for its memory patch, because my potato just cannot deal with it).
I think the original author is correct that it will not be possible to perfectly map a square-grid tartan onto a cone-shaped and folded garment; some distortion is necessarily going to happen. However, this mod (alpha-ware as it may be) seems to have gotten this better than any other kilt mod so far, judging from the sample image (especially the back of the kilt). This looks vastly better than what I was wearing in the other games. It may be possible to improve the results further by pre-deforming the UV texture in certain ways (if that's not what LoganBruce was already doing in the first place). That would make tartan customization more difficult. I think it might require something like a GIMP script, which someone would have to run externally to the game, kind of like GenerateFNISforUsers and BodySlide and other utilities.
Adding HDT-PE or SMP physics, a belt, a sporran, etc., are all really just afterthoughts. They're well-developed techniques by now. Mapping a tartan grid onto cone and folding it and having the results not look freakish is the different animal here.
All there is left to ask for; the Royal Stuart tartan for my clan-affiliation.
Whoever picks this up..I hope they can make it HDT..you know, for the Ladies..
*for those who wonder what is worn under the Kilt: "On a good day, Lipstick!"
The reason it went over one shoulder was that it was actually a very large piece of material, a Scotsman caught out in bad weather could actually shelter in his Kilt which he obviously could not do with a short skirt, they also despite the imagery often went right down to the ankles when worn, these are the kilts that Claymore wielding highlander's used in battle and day to day life, believe it or not they worked as good if not better than most modern outdoors clothing and remained little changed since before the time of the Romans.
The advantage of a small kilt though are not to be underestimated, in battle they would allow free unhindered movement of the leg's which the sporran provided some protection to the groin and was not merely for decoration, after all the Greek's and the Romans both used kilt's of lether strip's for exactly the same purpose.
Good work.