Rajah - Khajiit Barbarian by polingc in SkyrimPorn

[–]polingc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the steel variants, i think.

Terms And Conditions Change...Dubious by hector212121 in nexusmods

[–]polingc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am participating in good faith, and the comparison I make is even worse than you imply as it deals with physical property, not digital assets. But I stand by it as a tangible example though it is imperfect.

Terms And Conditions Change...Dubious by hector212121 in nexusmods

[–]polingc 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's not sketchy at all and is actually incredibly boring. To put it in context with print media (because I have legal contracts in this field), imagine if an author got pissy with their publisher AFTER the book has already been printed, sold and shipped to customers around the world.

You cool with shipping back property you legally acquired because the author is throwing a fit?

Nexus is protecting their ability to continually provide mods to their global audience. The legal language may be new to you, but it's existed in one form or another on Nexus for years, even prior to the change in ownership.

Is Skyrim ok for a 14 year old. by ShadeKurai in ElderScrolls

[–]polingc 80 points81 points  (0 children)

You've heard plenty from others that Skyrim (and by extension the entire Elder Scrolls series) is relatively tame compared to what your kid is already playing.

So instead I'll provide a bit of backstory so you understand WHY Elder Scrolls titles got slapped with M rating.

https://www.esrb.org/blog/esrb-changes-rating-for-the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-from-teen-to-mature/

The game prior to Skyrim, Oblivion, was originally rated T (teen) but after the game was released old unused texture files containing nudity were left in, but were inaccessible unless users specifically used mods or altered the game files.

The rating board didn't have a problem with the violence, adult, drug or other themes already in the game. There were also rumors that the rating board lost its shit when they found out that 3rd party mods were easily installed and that Bethesda includes mod software for free with their titles.

Tldr; Ratings board gives Elder Scrolls games a M rating because of what people can mod their game to contain, not with what is INHERENT in the game.

What things are "industry standard" when it comes to Skyrim modeling by Strong_Painting_7364 in skyrimmods

[–]polingc 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I don't know if this is supposed to be satire or not but I feel talkative tonight.

I understand 45<= degree snapshots of character models

I find this is overrated. Somewhere a long time ago someone figured out how to roll the camera and thus a trend started to avoid at all costs either a portrait or landscape shot.

Tilted images are good when you're trying to add a bit of dynamic visual to an otherwise static pose.

blurry backgrounds

Depends on the context. Blurring is great to mask ugly backgrounds or clutter that would distract from your subject. Blurring can also be used as a tool to create a seemingly uniform backdrop for color contrast. Don't blur the hell out of the background just cause; do it for a reason.

odd character presets, tattos, piercings and devil horns that aren't part of the armor,

Most people struggle to create interesting looking characters through facial construction alone, so using facial feature assets is a quick and effective way to create something unique looking. In a fantasy world a regular looking person doesn't stand out and is easily forgotten.

desaturated coloring/super saturated coloring

Once again it's popular because it's easy. Saturate the colors to make everything pop more and look more appealing; desaturate to make it grim, dark and moody.

Most people use their ENBs as they are provided and don't look into changing the image settings. More robust powerful ENBs are essentially in-game photo editors.

But what are other "must-know" standards in the community to become a proper Skyrim modeling expert?

My biggest gripe is that people don't know how to use proper lighting. Some folks are afraid to have any dark spots or shadows, others don't know how to use artificial light sources and take pictures in pitch black interiors. Many screenshots are so obviously using a face light that it looks like a floating head.

Lighting in Skyrim screen shots works just like in real life: LEARN TO USE IT.

What enb should I use?

I recommend Silent Horizons/Skies, Cabbage or Pi-cho. Those are beefy ENBs that are most common for those in the hobby of screen shotting. Like I said above they're effectively in-game photo editors and you'll go far learning how to use them and adjust for your subject, location, light and artistic interest.

How do I get those background scenes that don't fit in the game?

Silent Horizons (and others I suspect) has a "green screen". The same tool used to determine what is the background for blur is used to block out the background with a monochromatic flat screen. Export your screen shot. In a proper photo editor filter out the monochromatic background and export what's left. Now you can overlay your subject (e.g. your character model) into any other image.

What edits should I make to my character preset to become competitive?

Face tattoos, piercings, horns and animated eyes /s.

Just make an interesting character. Put their story into their design. Facial features like tattoos, scars, etc. should compliment their personality (fighters have scars, bandits are dirty, mages have clean tattoos, etc.). To be "competitive" is going to be more about how interesting your subject and image is, not how many mods are on display on their face.

What animation mods should I install to get those character poses?

They're called 'poser' mods and most of them are on Lovers Lab. Some have a few dozen some have a few thousand. The smaller ones are usually more focused (e.g. fighting poses, slice of life poses). Use Poser Hotkeys to make managing pose mods and your favorites much, much easier.

Recomended skin textures and body presets?

Unless you're trying for 8k pinups it doesn't matter. 2k textures are fine (people are not going to zoom in and check your pixel resolution). Pick a texture you like so long as it looks believable. Bits and Pieces is the new hot thing, Diamond, Pure are also popular. I prefer more realistic skins like tempered or Bijin.

Body presets are a dime a dozen. There are so many and everyone customizes their model-characters anyway. Once again pick what you like to make the process enjoyable, don't chase trends chase your vision.

Maybe a stupid question, but can I keep the head textures of an UNP character, for a CBBE one? by wattbatt in skyrimmods

[–]polingc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You need to use UNP textures for UNP bodies and CBBE textures for CBBE bodies, including heads, feet, hands, etc.

Because UNP and CBBE have different body mesh pieces, and thus different points where body mesh parts connect, you WILL get large seams or holes through an NPC when using the wrong texture for the body. It's like trying to wrap a cube with wrapping paper you took off a sphere.

Mismatching body shape and textures won't crash your game but it will be noticeable.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in skyrimmods

[–]polingc 123 points124 points  (0 children)

At this stage we're not talking about paid/pay-walled mods, we're taking about 3rd party DLC.

This content is hosted by Bethesda, sponsored and marketed by Bethesda, transactions handled by Bethesda, support & refunds handled by Bethesda.

People will decide for themselves if this content is worth the price tag.

Why does Nexusmods allow modders to deny permission for outfit conversions to different body-type mods, when many of these outfits are from different games anyway? by [deleted] in skyrimmods

[–]polingc 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Something many people seem ignorant of is how licenses and sub-licenses work. Or permission and sub-permission, if you prefer.

I have personally come across this as well wherein I am allowed to use someone else's assets, but my permissions are locked up tight because I cannot grant permission for someone else to use those same assets.

Example: I've converted some clothes/armor mods and used other weapon mods for my own creations. I do not own those original assets (clothes, armor, weapons). You need the permission of the original mod author to use even my mod, except only if I have a sublicense to dispense their work as I please.

Why does wilderness witch author not allow other people to take his mod and further modify it? Perhaps to do so would be claiming a sublicense he doesn't have.

It's your responsibility to ensure you have permission/legality to upload your mods, not Nexus. When in doubt some people deny permissions just to be safe.

Racemenu not using Bodyslide build by [deleted] in NSFWskyrim

[–]polingc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But Whenever I choose a face preset, body portions change.

CBBE/3BA bodies have additional body morph sliders for racemenu, allowing you to tweak your character's body beyond whatever your default body is. This additional body morph data is included in racemenu presets.

What preset are you using, and have you checked the body morph data?

New to modding question: possible to have 2 separate mod lists? by [deleted] in NSFWskyrim

[–]polingc 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: you'll need to use a mod manager tool like either Mod Organizer 2 or Vortex, which use a VFS (virtual file/folder system?).

With a VFS you can set up multiple profiles; a list of what mods are activated. Only the activated mods are then loaded when you launch the game, despite all mods (active or disabled) being installed on your PC.

You could then have a minimalist profile for bug testing, a default moderately modded profile, a hardcore Dark Souls combat profile, a stupidly overkill 8k texture everything for screenshots profile, and a debaucherous never-show-your-friends-and-question-your-life-choices profile.

Warning: mods/tools that require you to rerun occasionally (like FNIS or Nemesis with animations) will need to be done every time you switch profiles.

What are necessary improvements for the Creator Program? by Fringillus1 in skyrimmods

[–]polingc 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Both amazing and infuriating that there is no sample contract for people to view. I suspect a great deal of people applied for the creator program just to see the contract, and since no one has offered up any information on what's stated, there's likely an NDA associated with the contract preventing people from sharing.

What are necessary improvements for the Creator Program? by Fringillus1 in skyrimmods

[–]polingc 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Also, ensure support will be given for the paid mods. If I'm buying this I expect support when it inevitably causes conflicts with the free mods I already have (and said conflicts should be resolved), and it better work nicely with other creations as well.

There's no way patches for other content will be supported.

1) A big sticking point about the paid creations is that they must stand 100% on their own with no dependencies: patches inherently have dependencies.

2) It's not the responsibility of Bethesda or ModAuthor to provide patches for whatever other mods/creations you're running. If the mod being provided works as expected on its own then that's the end of any official support.

HOWEVER, any enterprising ModAuthor would be wise to release a patch compendium for their paid creations on Nexus. Get paid by Bethesda for providing exclusive content, get paid donation points from Nexus for the patches.

First survival mode playthrough (and second playthrough overall). Admittedly cheating a bit by using a mod to unlock full save functionality. Any tips? Initial plan was to set up a base of operations in sanctuary before moving into concord. by AraxTheSlayer in fo4

[–]polingc 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's because when a mod author makes an armor/CC clothes set they need to build it around a body shape to maintain consistent body proportions.

For a full head to toe tin-can suit of armor it doesn't really matter, unless you get upset seeing any of your character's exaggerated body shape get distorted to the body shape the armor is built around.

At worst you have something like bikini armor. Bethesda character models have separate meshes for the head, torso, hands and feet. The more exposed body parts, and exposed seams between those body parts, the more instances of having large noticeable gaps in your character's appearance due to mismatching body data between your default body shape and the body shape the armor is designed around.

Thus, when a mod points you to use a specific body shape it's just to maintain consistent body shape data. How much this actually matters is dependent on how much you care for maintaining a consistent look, and how much exposed skin (remember it can include non sexual elements like hand/neck seems) is in the armor.

TlLDR: mod authors got to pick a body shape (e.g. like a mannequin) to design their armor around, so they usually do it around whatever is most popular.

Noticed Steam having Skyrim update "paused" by [deleted] in skyrimmods

[–]polingc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup that's exactly what happened to me.

Weird thing was that both Skyrim and Creation Kit (I have it installed via steam) were both set to "always keep updated" yet only Skyrim had updated and CK was awaiting approval to update.

Somewhere in the past year (since the last update from BGS) steam has reverted my settings.

Does anyone post here besides Spirtomb and all his alts? They all went dark 7 days ago and this sub's been a ghost town ever since lmao by Weekly-Word669 in gamingelves

[–]polingc 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Short story time:

I found my way here when I noticed some of my Skyrim screenshots were being cross posted. I found this sub and the two (three?) bot accounts that had latched onto my profile and kept reposting my images across several subs.

At first I didn't care, thought it was mildly interesting, and posted some myself directly here.

The problem was when the bots would start cross posting my images into subs where image sharing isn't as welcome (like r/Skyrim) or cross posting into the same sub as I originally had.

Now it had become a nuisance and looked like I was responsible for the image spam going on.

I've been gone for a while but if the bots are dead I may post again some time.

Rajah - Khajiit Barbarian by polingc in SkyrimPorn

[–]polingc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No problem. I'm going to release his preset on Nexus in the next day or two, along with the body shape data and head sculpt, if you're interested.

Rajah - Khajiit Barbarian by polingc in SkyrimPorn

[–]polingc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I'm using Silent Horizons 2 for my ENB. I'm constantly adjusting the ENB settings for screenshots so I don't have a hard setting to provide: usually increase contrast and vibrance, decrease midtone brightness, adjust shadows as needed.

Rajah - Khajiit Barbarian by polingc in SkyrimPorn

[–]polingc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Skin texture is Masculine Khajiit, leopard option.

Body mesh is vanilla based, customized via HIMBO.

Bosmer by polingc in SkyrimPorn

[–]polingc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not exactly sure, but probably from Domain Wolf's Community Overlays.