Just me playing around with lighting and rendering specs.
If it was official: I would not be allowed to post it.
[MOD] Crackdtoothgrin's Graphical Goodies
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Just me playing around with lighting and rendering specs.
If it was official: I would not be allowed to post it.
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Okay, I totally have been playing around with this new rendering engine, and hopefully the results are sufficient. The shot on the left is what I was using before, and the shot on the right is a much higher quality shot. Ignore the positioning and lighting (It's broad outdoor daylight, for reference), and instead focus on just the quality of the render. Significant improvement, I'd say. (right click and view image to see in full resolution)
Is that a 3D modeling program like Blender, or are you using a game engine like Unreal to render these?
The original portraits, and mine, are mostly built inside Daz3D products, like Daz Studio or (in my case) Poser. But, I became bothered by the cost of having to purchase morphs, textures, and so on (It's a "Freemium" type of program), so I instead spent the money on zbrush and learned how to use that for making my own morphs, cavity, AO, and displacement maps. Photoshop is used to make custom textures. The clothing is a mix of hand-painting and Marvelous Designer, with zbrush as necessary.
That shot above is maximum quality Poser vs. Keyshot, which I'm trying out. I think I'm about to text out both Substance Designer and Kerkythea for texturing and rendering, respectively. Poser's great for structural composition, but lacks just about everything else one would need for that realism.
Keyshot, however beautiful the right side shot is, does not do displacement mapping, which means I'd have to change the material composition and maybe use higher poly assets, which would turn the pipeline into a much longer affair. I am experimenting with better renders and more accurate lighting to reduce the need for post-work, but I don't need perfectly realistic "everything" when it's just going to get shrunk and aliased through saving to .dds anyways. Trying to find a happy medium, because Poser's default rendering has issues. If you look at the full res shot, check the ears and under the chin to see what I'm talking about.
Hey Crak'd, so obligatory congratulations for the newest round of portrait DLCs, they're pretty swell. Other than the expected complaints about the Iberians being a bit too dark, one thing I've felt is that the Iberian females' lips are a tad bit large - is that just due to the compression or something?
Also, I have a question, now that I'm seeing what I can do with CPR - how appropriate would the Iberian clothes vs. the existing Western clothes be for Italians, in your opinion? I know you were paid to do Iberian stuff, rather htan Italian stuff, so I was wondering.
I also look forward to your Asian portraits if you ever make them. Though as an Asian I'm pretty satisfied with the Mongol portraits (I personally think it's Danevang's best portrait set, but I could be biased here I guess), it would be nice to see your take.
Also, I have a question, now that I'm seeing what I can do with CPR - how appropriate would the Iberian clothes vs. the existing Western clothes be for Italians, in your opinion? I know you were paid to do Iberian stuff, rather htan Italian stuff, so I was wondering.
I also look forward to your Asian portraits if you ever make them. Though as an Asian I'm pretty satisfied with the Mongol portraits (I personally think it's Danevang's best portrait set, but I could be biased here I guess), it would be nice to see your take.
No. The lip size is heightened by make-up, partially. It was a standard of Iberian beauty for full, red lips, so I went with that. A lot of the reference shots I saw had the mouths a tiny bit wider than some of the more northern Europeans. Whether that's true or just a false pattern recognition is something else entirely.
Not very appropriate for about half of them, to honest. The Iberians had a rather distinctive material culture that was a fusion including some aspects of Arabic dress. If you were making Early Iberians, the Carolingian clothing would work, since it predates the adoption of Muslim vestimentary accoutrement.
My goal, if I get the time to do them, would be at least five sets: Mongolian Redux, Shogunate Japanese, Imperial Chinese, Nomadic-infused Imperial Chinese (Khitan style, Chinese with Central Asian and Uyghur influence), and M̶a̶l̶a̶y̶a̶l̶a̶m̶ Srivjayan or Southeast East Asian portraits.
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If only we could get Crackd a hyperbolic time chamber to do the portraits/clothing for everyone..
Following cybrxkhan, I'd like to ask you, Crackd. Which in-game period do Iberian clothes fit best? Post-Carolingian epoch till ~1250?
Great new portraits
Hi Crackd - just stopping by to thank you for the new Iberian and Greek portraits. They are splendid.
Today I have bought Way of life, Iberian portraits and aswell early eastern and western clothing.
Now I just cant decide If am going to play as a Basil I or as some visighotic sheikh under the Ummayads.
Hi Crackd - just stopping by to thank you for the new Iberian and Greek portraits. They are splendid.
Today I have bought Way of life, Iberian portraits and aswell early eastern and western clothing.
Now I just cant decide If am going to play as a Basil I or as some visighotic sheikh under the Ummayads.
Hey Crackdtooth! Firstly, let me just say I enjoy your official Portraits for CKII.
Now on to the request: Do you mind if I use the Cumanian Portraits for a Mod I'm working on? I plan on using the Cumanian Portraits for already landed Turks and then I'll be using the Turk Portraits (Or, if you don't have the Turk portraits, the Arab ones) for invading Turks in my Mod.
Now on to the request: Do you mind if I use the Cumanian Portraits for a Mod I'm working on? I plan on using the Cumanian Portraits for already landed Turks and then I'll be using the Turk Portraits (Or, if you don't have the Turk portraits, the Arab ones) for invading Turks in my Mod.
I wouldn't do a single African pack. I would at least do East and West African, with maybe 2 East African types, Berbers with two types (light and dark), and Egyptian. If I had the time and could pull it off, those would be the minimum of what I would make.
Thanks for the detailled instructions!
This definitely looks more detailled! Pity it will be compressed again by the game; but you can definitively see the difference in the textures: I especially like how the eyes and brows have improved, and even tiny things like the shadows in the nose. I think this was a good investion.I'll do new ones with better lighting. I just dropped a grand on a new rendering engine like yesterday, so hopefully it works well. I'm still playing with it. We'll see how it turns out.
Looking forward to the Finno-Ugrics now
If I had one I'd probably spend more time trying to hit SSJ1, at the minimum.
Technically, around 980 to 1280, give or take. Some stuff would be fine throughout the whole game time-frame. 1280-1320 is when you start seeing a change in the material culture, which is not what it is in the pack. If PDS ever decides to do late period clothing and have me make it, then I'll get to put them in.
Awesome! Hopefully you have fun with them all.
I don't mind. Go on ahead. My initial "restriction" against it came early in the CKII modding scene, when Shaytana used my Cuman set in his BLC mod. It bothered me that everyone though he made them, and were giving feedback in his thread instead of mine. But, that's not really an issue any longer, so go right ahead.
Yeah. The default render engine inside the Poser software is not very powerful. You can do some amazing things with it, but it falls flat against a better renderer.
Looking forward to the Finno-Ugrics now
I haven't started, only in the conceptual stages mentally. I'm currently not working on any exact thing at the moment. Holiday season, so I'm spending more time with family.
Such a difficult choice, you know? I wouldn't go down into the ethnic group level, but rather more broad. I would at least want to do a Nubian and an Ethiopian set. I feel there is significant enough difference between the two to warrant two packs. A potential "Nubian Portrait Pack" and "Habesha Portrait Pack," with a possible third one for Somali characters. I would also possibly think about a Nilotic set, but my knowledge of the region is scant.
Speaking of: If you have any advice, links, forums, discussions, books, etc. that can help: Feel free to let me know. I don't care what language it is in. I have and will continue to pay for translation of foreign documents if they assist in what I do. I don't know if historical vestimentary systems and material culture have been covered in East Africa, but I do have access to some stuff for Nubia, and a handful of books on the region. Sadly, my local Eritrean friend disappeared to live his own life back in Djibouti, or I would try and enlist his help. As to what I use: Everything. Statuary, illuminated manuscripts, historical movies and shows, coins, carvings, archaeological digs, contemporaneous written evidence, etc.
FYI this is a lie; I've seen a couple early drafts of the Finno-Ugric stuff, and whilst the quality is as high as usual, the bloated red lips and Velkro-like black hair are both immensely racist and aesthetically inappropriate for the people in question.
Don't expect these to get on Steam, guys.
Hey this is not new stuff.. I just saw old stuff, not up to date. I could even make better than this. I mixed old clothing with turkish portraits dlc.
I'm disappointed :glare:
I'm disappointed :glare:
If you're referring to the link in my signature, it is the old stuff. I figured I'd help give credit to DarkReborn for doing the legwork in getting the files to at least work with the current patch, considering I haven't updated it for like, a year. So, apologies that you didn't get my new shinies, but I'm not beholden to produce on anyone's schedule but my own, haha.
I'll update my signature to reflect that it's the old original set.
Crackd, I have two questions:
1) Is there a remote possibility to see all of your work updated and downloadable for the last version of CK2 ? I'm kicking myself for the fact that I can't see your divine work on my screen during a match in CK2...
2) Why do the Iberians wear the new Iberian clothes also in the 769 and 867 Bookmarks ? Don't they have to use the early clothing pack ?
1) Is there a remote possibility to see all of your work updated and downloadable for the last version of CK2 ? I'm kicking myself for the fact that I can't see your divine work on my screen during a match in CK2...
2) Why do the Iberians wear the new Iberian clothes also in the 769 and 867 Bookmarks ? Don't they have to use the early clothing pack ?
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1: Yes. There is a link in my signature, where DarkReborn has updated the original work into the current patch. I haven't tested it myself, but I trust he got it to work just fine.
2: Once there is a portrait pack for a specific graphical culture (in this case, southerngfx), it overrides Early and Late because it would need to have its own version of the early and late .gfx files. You could make a custom .gfx that overrides the clothing, basically taking the portraits_southern.gfx file, removing the filepath designations for the hair and face pieces, and replace the filepaths to southern_male/female_clothes/clothes_behind/headgear/headgear_mid/headgear_behind.dds to the Early western set. Any path you replace will basically replace the loading for that image as long as you have the image loaded into the game.
Unrelated: I have been toying around with an Asian set, available for release to any modder that would want them. I don't know if I'd go all the way down into dividing the facial assets into Japanese/Chinese/Korean and so on, but I believe these would be a lot less "Mongolian" and therefore useful to other modders. (Cybrxkhan, this is for you). Example provided below:
