Watch me create a Skyrim character

[SpookyMunky]

This wasn't intended to be a tutorial, just an experiment really to see how feasible recording the entire process for a project was . I have tried adding annotations to explain some of it.. some maybe way too boring and annoying for experienced si users, for new people to softimage you may have to pause the video now and then to read some things hehe. So I have created something useless and wasn't really going to share it anywhere, maybe one person will find it interesting though ...

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... e=view_all

This was a "mistakes and all" style of recording, alot of it I didn't remember how to do things, or made mistakes, or was doing things I had never tried before.. the uv mapping is probably the most embarrassing bit for me besides the general slowness of the modelling etc since doing uv maps completely in xsi is something I have only ever tried once before. The only part I had tried first before recording was the gear part since I felt the first video I did was a complete waste, I had rotated the rig 180degrees instead of the character, and this left the gear spine broken.. so would have been a 10 min vid on me showing people how to make something completely useless

For the most part it is around 1 hour work for every 10 mins, I think I dragged my feet a bit because I didn't want to dive into the actually making the character work for skyrim part, although that went relatively smoothly.

Will be interesting to see what you guys think on this kind of format of video, like is it a complete waste of time ? .. I have a new 3770 and 32gig ram etc on the way, and now have a 3tb usb3 hdd so could conceivably make hour long vids with speaking etc at 30fps and end up with a format where I don't have to do so much work adding annotations, could be so boring people might hate it though, or more than likely not understand my scottish accent

edit: my thinking is people can shove it on at 1080p, stick on your fave music playlist and make good use of the skip to next and previous parts till you find something of interest.. dunno .. rather than me embedding music in, or having to listen to a monotone in broad scottish accent

If I don't get a single reply here or through youtube heh.. dunno if I will give up or not, took a while to do the actual video conversions etc and no-one seems to care, but with new system hopefully it should only be 5mins to convert into something I can upload so time wouldn't be that much of a factor. I could feasibly record everything I do just for fun, be a productive member of the community etc, share what I have learnt over the last too many years, if no-one cares though I might aswell just not. I would never want to become a youtube partner or anything and subject people to adverts hehe, just want to be nice, something I have been meaning to do for many years but hardware is too slow or stuff I have been doing is copyright, or I havent been even doing anything hehe.. sigh

[Hirazi Blue]

If I don't get a single reply here or through youtube heh.. dunno if I will give up or not

Just looked at parts of this and I'd say: don't give up...
A very commendable effort!

A bit of vocal commentary might have helped, it feels a bit "cold" without it.
Not necessarily something I'd personally sit through in "one go", but a fine achievement nonetheless.

[Grims]

Hello there!

My fist post here! I was an user of XSI Base, but as that forum is now down I'm starting to use this one.

I liked your tutorial and I think it shows useful processes during a game content creation asset! May I ask how many polygons your model have? And I also found very interesting that the first normal map that was created had some "yellow" areas and then you make another extract that appear to work much better. It seems that it was only to uncheck the "Test Both Sides" option, but I think that is useful when you compare different results during the tutorial, even if is only trial and error or just for demonstration.

I'm just not a great fan of the "double speed" in video tutorials, but I understand that the videos would become much bigger otherwise (in time and space).

Thank you for your very interesting tutorial!

[SpookyMunky]

Thanks for the replys

I'm not sure many would sit through them all in one go hirazi, it ended up a fair bit longer than I would have imagined starting out, even compressed into 10 minute segments. Commentary wise I don't know how people can sit and speak to themselves out loud for so long.. or worse - have to listen to it again in editing etc *shudders*

Welcome to si-community Grims ! .. This character ended up having around 13800 triangles which is quite high for all that he is, I got a bit carried away in part 5 where I cut in polygons to round out the edges etc. I didn't feel it would matter too much since in the mod he is the only character on screen, and only ever one of him with no weapons or armor, still I don't think I was too far off skyrim's 12000 or so (if I remember right, probably not).

One thing I maybe did wrong besides cutting in so many polys was doing it before I had created normal maps, or... not sure, I did a quick 2min test subdividing them in mud and generating a normal map before recording the vid where I paint the head and hands and mudbox did not like them at all, why I ended up having a go at using bump maps and converting them. I might have a go at figuring out a way around that, is pretty much because sub-ds have issues with triangles really, but since it was a game character I didn't care too much about adding them while cutting in the extra edges, silly me.

The test both sides part wasn't meant as a demonstration, I really didn't know what I was doing tbh . I don't see why turning it on would have given such odd results in that case, was no doubt me doing something completely wrong as usual

I am happy you found it interesting even in its highly sped up form

[slowdive]

Lookin at it right now- as for myself needing a refresher- looks pretty cool does help.

[Rares]

Thanks for sharing your experience modding for skyrim with xsi. I've been looking to mod a little for skyrim myself and I found your videos while searching online for an SI solution. I think a shorter more concise tutorial with audio or detailed instruction overlays would be easier to follow and much appreciated .

As far as your normal map workflow; Have you tried ultimapper for your map generation? It should get you what you need and easily enough considering the level of detail in your character. Don't forget to look into using tangents for your objects using normal maps. As you mentioned, 13k tris is high for your character. Good to see a thread on modding for skyrim with Softimage.

[Tekano]

hi, am going to watch your video but can I ask a technical(ish) modding question? does this mod only work on skyrim PC and not skyrim xbox360? I dont play it myself but the missus does (on the xbox) and she would be tickled pink if she could have her own character that she could mod? I can't imagine being able to mod for the xbox version but you never know things might have changed recently!

>edit< oh! hey wheres the bit where you export to skyrim? this is 16 videos of making a character? don't come with half a story bro