Let's TexMod! (Updated OP)

[Dae]

If it were possible, I had always had ideas for editing the models for most of my characters and mod models for others. One thing I k ow I've wanted to try was to add various body types... Bah. The mod idea I'd love to do woud completely overhaul the character creation process and would be a pain in the butt to do, but a Sims style character creation setup would be pretty pro for us RPers.

But for me, I'd be happy refining models for the different body shapes of my different characters.

If you were just editing existing content, if I understand Geosets properly, there wouldn't be a way to make such modifications with the existing characters. And as is, there is no way of making mods that show up just for one character. If you edit a race's files, you change that entire race. You need to tell the game to display a different file through Actually having a different model. Unless you're a fluent programmer, you're probably not going to be able to redo the character creator. Even if you were, it wouldn't be easy, as awesome as that would be.

Hypothetically, there are ways of making this possible, but to implement it on CotH, it would require Kretol's cooperation to varying degrees and a server-wide patch to make it consistent.

The way I see it, there are two potential methods for making more body types that would work with the limited number of geosets which define the character models' shape. The first being to edit some random, other model that uses different data from the player races, and using the typical CMC means to make one appear as such. Seeing as making modifications to player models without adding or removing Tris is fairly simple, this seems most feasible. One could take the body of, say, a human and make the body less brutally muscular, without having to redo the character animations, and then move the audio/texture/etc. files into the place of whatever model they borrowed from, like a normal character model switcharoo. Its also possible to simply add the data rather than replacing another model, but from what I understand, adding new anythings to the game requires some kind of faffing about on the server core.

The second would take more extensive effort and delve into things that I know nothing about, but one could potentially add new races that reflected alternate body types to the character creation menu. I believe this involves making mods to the server core, redoing the character creation what-nots among other things, so this isn't so likely.

Another potential idea is to create new Geosets for existing characters, but the geosets that are displayed are dependent on a flag in an item's data, and I do not know if the number of possible geosets is hard-coded, so it may not even be possible.


The point remains though: if you can provide the models and kretol consented to it, this is quite possible.
It would also be nice to note unique models in WoW that coul currently be used as alternate models for players or be used as the targets of substitution for new models without making glaring differences in the WoW environment, such as that plump human guy models or the Silvermoon guards. It would also be worth it to look into some Raid characters; I think there are some necromancers that have nifty tattoos but otherwise are human.

If you want to start tinkering, here's an (outdated) list of tools that can get WoW files into a form you could actually start to play with: http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/world-of...grams.html

There might be some new and more convenient tools out there nowadays, but I haven't been following WoW modding in years, so I'm not the best resource. I do know that there are tools that can make race swaps super easy, should you try the "edit existing models, replace other models with them and use CMCs to make them show up" suggestion.
And on a less drastic note, textures can perform wonders themselves; I got some very promising results for changing the apparent physique of the lady Draenei by applying the Draenei male texture to them. Edits would need to be made to various places to make it completely useable, but that would still be a quick fix for certain body types. With a little colorizing, I'm sure there are plumper models somewhere in WoW that could serve a similar purpose.

(BTW, I would love to see a an option for Forsaken characters that wasn't super hunched over with the poorly executed visible bones. Perhaps you could edit up the Human models to this purpose, too?)

Edit: (because I generally avoid double posting)

I have been playing with a new drawing program and have used the white tauren lady texture as a test subject:


Sadly, the brown mane textures are a part of the model texture itself, meaning that changing the white mane would clash horribly on all the other Tauren. :/
I can at least make a higher resolution version! And maybe make the pigtails white, too.

TIL: Blizzard didn't give a damn when making Tauren. The stretching, UVs and all that are atrocious.

[Noble]

I'd actually be interested in seeing a Nelf with dark/Jet black hair, can and how can this be done?

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I'm also wondering how textures can be, "swapped out," for example taking a Belf's hair texture and applying it to your nelf's.

[Dae]

I'd actually be interested in seeing a Nelf with dark/Jet black hair, can and how can this be done?

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I'm also wondering how textures can be, "swapped out," for example taking a Belf's hair texture and applying it to your nelf's.

Changing the hair texture can be done, but whatever color of hair texture you changed would show up black for all the characters of that race. And certain textures may be swapped out, but the textures for hair for different races seems to be pretty specific to that race.

Perhaps you should ask Scout for the texture they made for nelves, presuming we're talking about nelf women?
Hair isn't too difficult to do, though with Vanilla races, its important to pay attention to where the textures are transparent in the original textures, so that one can deal with the many ways the textures are stretched and squished into beards, 'staches and hairdos.

[c0rzilla]

So, I'm giving a shot at this again. Anyone out there that can...do this for me? :C I feel like I'm trying to fly a friggin' rocket, I know so little about this sort of thing.