[NSFW] STEP Female Body Replacer

[Aiyen]

Vertical lines look like banding artifacts... if it is not normal related then it would be because you got some serious compression artifacts on your color map... or are working from a file that was compressed ie you lost a lot of color information during that transition. 

[TechAngel85]

It's present in some but not all options so it's not the diffuse map (skin) and since it's not present with all options it can only be the normal maps. When I re-saved them after fixing that issue in the blue channel, I saved with with the Nvidia Tool as DXT1.

 

EDIT:

That's the culpret. It's the normal after it's been re-saved. The artifacting is visible when zoomed in and and especially when only viewing the blue channel. Any suggestions on this since all I have to work with atm is the Nvidia Tool which is causing the issue?

 

EDIT:

This is the issue in the normals that needs to be fixed and the reason for the re-save.

[Aiyen]

You NEVER want to save a normal map with DXT1... min would be DXT5.. and while you are working with it leave it uncompressed so you are certain that no compression artifacts sneak along. It is perfectly fine to have a 2k uncompressed normal map for skin textures as well in release too imo. It is one texture that is always loaded, and every single compression artifact will most likely be visible. Especially the body one, since it does need to cover a rather large area relative to how well the UV´s cover the texture. 

 

 

Also... for normals.. crazybump is one way to do it.. xnormal another. I use a small prog called InsaneBump which is a very very light weight version of what Crazybump does.. Normally I combine the Nvidia one with that since the Nvidia one cannot generate Large enough depth on its own, but I find it better as a general base. 

Dunno if that process would work for skin since I never worked with that specifically. 

[CovertSlinky]

Without supplying technical info, which I don't know. They look good, really good! You did a great job of getting the glossy skin off, and they are well detailed. Really liked the Most tone More Abs, and agree that they do look really good on orcs. Aside from seeing what you already knew and what Aiyen has already brought up, the vertical shadow lines. I like them and think they will only get better.

[TechAngel85]

You NEVER want to save a normal map with DXT1... min would be DXT5.. and while you are working with it leave it uncompressed so you are certain that no compression artifacts sneak along. It is perfectly fine to have a 2k uncompressed normal map for skin textures as well in release too imo. It is one texture that is always loaded, and every single compression artifact will most likely be visible. Especially the body one, since it does need to cover a rather large area relative to how well the UV´s cover the texture. 

 

 

Also... for normals.. crazybump is one way to do it.. xnormal another. I use a small prog called InsaneBump which is a very very light weight version of what Crazybump does.. Normally I combine the Nvidia one with that since the Nvidia one cannot generate Large enough depth on its own, but I find it better as a general base. 

Dunno if that process would work for skin since I never worked with that specifically. 

I have to do it in Photoshop because of having to edit the file. CrazyBump doesn't allow editing (the kind I need) from what I've seen of it. It's good for creating normals; however, I'm not creating them but rather simply editing/fixing them. I've tried a very wide range of settings for DXT1 and DXT5; however, none of them will save the file in the same quality as the originals. Time to PM the author.

[TechAngel85]

I think I might have finally gotten it... RTFM! Read the readme on the tool and played a bit with the settings...time to redo all the normals...

[TechAngel85]

Happy to report the artifacting is gone. Here's the new file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_Nlyy2ueu0bkVacHE1SldPaVE/edit?usp=sharing and I've updated the link on the previous post to the new file as well.

[EssArrBee]

Don't save skin textures in DXT anything. Save them in a different format altogether, I'd go with something that is lossless. not lossy. 8888 is good.

[TechAngel85]

There is no alpha channels for anything yet so I went with 888. The skin texture itself; however, is saved in DXT1. It's not detailed enough that you can tell a difference when loaded side by side. I checked once I figured out this compressed vs uncompressed thing.

[Simondererste]

Will have a look on your work later this week.

[Aiyen]

Good you got it sorted out... was gonna say it would be a bit weird if you could not save as you wanted... the GIMP version allows that then I am fairly certain the photoshop would as well! 

 

Anyways... looking good so far. Will have to do a more indepth test later...atm I am kind of on a roll with some other development, and do not want to slow down! 

[TechAngel85]

I have to say, after playing for a while the females are looking pretty good!

[monk56]

I think it looks fantastic. Great job...can't thank you enough for this.

[justjr]

Downloading to test!

[TechAngel85]

Yay! I need more users using it and providing feedback. Keep in mind that the images in the FOMOD are not from the mod. I have yet to update them.

 

Here's the file again to keep it alive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_Nlyy2ueu0bkVacHE1SldPaVE/edit?usp=sharing