Oblivion Screenshot Thread

[Silver Sorrow]

True. No matter how good the colors look, no matter how shiny gold the trim is, it still looks like a damned lumpy overcoat with huge ridiculous booties and welder's gloves.

Rattin'-frattin'...indeed, I *did* flip the image.    Actually, I didn't remember doing so until you pointed it out. Huh. This is why people who have very low skills of observation -- by which I mean *me* -- should be kept under constant vigilance, lest we post something like this--

 

-- and get all confused when someone objects.

So...here's a brand new fun fact that I just made up: Xi (as portrayed by Michelle Yeoh) is actually left-handed. Who knew?  

My recollection of "sinister" is hazy, since I've almost all but forgotten my high school Latin...thankfully...but I did find something incredibly...well...boringly verbose at the OE dictionary:

sinister
1411, "prompted by malice or ill-will," from O.Fr. sinistre  "contrary, unfavorable, to the left," from L. sinister  "left, on the left side" (opposite of dexter), perhaps from base *sen- and meaning prop. "the slower or weaker hand" [Tucker], but Buck suggests it's a euphemism (see left), connected with the root of Skt. saniyan "more useful, more advantageous." The L. word was used in augury in the sense of "unlucky, unfavorable" (omens, especially bird flights, seen on the left hand were regarded as portending misfortune), and thus sinister acquired a sense of "harmful, unfavorable, adverse." This was from Gk. influence, reflecting the early Gk. practice of facing north when observing omens and I think my wife is cheating on me with our cruelly handsome poolboy, Dirk. But I don't want her to know that I know because if she knows that I know then she will know that I plan to spike her mint julep with strychnine, thus ending this twelve year sham of a marriage. Ah, Kumiko...how I long to whisk you away from this shabby coastal hellhole and your demeaning temp job, to an island featuring palm trees swaying gently in the breeze and brown-skinned wahines wearing coconuts on their bajoobies, who will provide adequate oral sex, no questions asked, to the first guy with a few dimes to spare. Which makes me wonder why I need you, dear sweet Kumiko, you rotting albatross around my neck. Frankly, your goofy "Japanese" accent irritates the living crap out of me. I mean, aren't you from Oakland? And for the love of humanity, get your teeth fixed. That chipped tooth nearly killed me, my weird little mouthful of wasabi.

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[Silver Sorrow]

Several things:

Finally got the menu icons working...the CS is a fickle bitch.

"Ah. Deja vu. Charming."

All of the menu/class/birthsign pics I've posted so far have been proof-of-concept images and not what I really want in the final product. That's my disclaimer.

As I was going over what I need to do to get this latest upgrade working, I stumbled across this little pool by Charcoal Cave.

I'd never really gave it any thought before, but there's a good-sized waterfall (not shown) coming out of this thing, and there's no water source. "Well...underground springs!" someone might say. And I would reach for my shotgun.

Anyway, Iyi went fishing today...

She hates fish.

Also, I spent the better part of yesterday evening tracking down new hairstyles, a good chunk of this afternoon adding them to the CS, and I look forward to this evening's excitement, which I like to call "Removing The Ones That Look Stupid." In other words, I added a bunch of them -- now my mousing hand is sore -- and many of those looked really crappy. My workload, however, was reduced tremendously by my refusal to add the overtly anime-style hairs. I have no desire to see my hard-won character with what appears to be a girl's bicycle handlebars poking out the sides of her head. But I did find some nice hairstyles --

-- and I'll probably post more of them later. I'm not sure if it'll be morally correct to add the CoolSims hair, but I'll see.

[Silver Sorrow]

Okay. I counted the new hairstyles: 62. There would have been more, had they not been crap.    Of the remaining batch, there may be a couple of very similar styles, if not outright duplicates...but to hell with being nitpicky. The album:

62newhairs

If you can't see the album for one reason or another, let me know and I'll figure something out.

Particular favorites:












This one makes her look liike Jennifer Tilly, sort of.  


And, just because:


EDIT: On a thoroughly unrelated side note, I totally freakin' loathe the OOO Amazons:

[bobdog]

Hmmm ... is bald actually considered a hairstyle??? 

[Silver Sorrow]

Well...maybe. As Chuck Lorre pointed out, Bald is the new Hair.  

[Silver Sorrow]

Because It's Almost 5AM: Stuff I Worry About When I Should Be Asleep

I decided to do something a little different with the Xi'an armor. That is, new greaves and some boots I found in Apachii's Goddess Store. More personalization choices means more happy. Probably.

The problem is that, once again, I'm not sure which direction is best. I ask myself, should I go with the big belt or not? Okay, here's what I mean...with belt:

(Brightness is at 50%, 75%, and 100%, respectively.)








Without the belt:

(Same deal with the brightness)








I'm leaning towards no belt...although it hides the minor clipping issues around the waist, I don't really see those as a huge problem since I have my brightness set at 50%.

Plus, I might very well redo the leather on the skirt. Ah...hellfire. I sleep better during the day anyway.

[Silver Sorrow]

Before I get to the screenshots...

"Yup! Still there!"

For Your Consternation, vol. 1,781

"Aw, crap...what the hell is he doing NOW?"

Shut up.

I decided to drop the huge ridiculous belt, because...well, I don't know why. I kind of liked it. Instead, I've redone the leather (don't think of it as a sign of talent, or anything...a monkey with a hangover can do what I do) and looked really closely at the female Xi'an cuirass. So closely, in fact, that's it's filed a restraining order against me.



Thank you.

Now, I thought I'd try the stripped-down look...you know, without straps or pauldrons. One of the cuirasses, as you would know if you downloaded the thing (if not, ROAST IN HELL!), has no pauldrons...but this goes farther! Farther than before! Also, I've toned down the metal bits so that they don't quite give away your position to people on other planets who might be glancing in your general direction. I might update the other cuirasses with that...if I find the motivation, that is. Anyway, what I was talking about in brightness strengths of 50%, 75%, and 100%:

This batch features straps:

And, just because I can...the Concealing Cloak!

With the "skirt" greaves and the mask (it's in the mod, dammit!), she's a walking blackout.

Also, I removed the tail slot from the cloaks so that 1) someone wearing an item -- such as sunglasses -- that's marked for the tail slot won't have to choose between cloak and shades, and 2) beast race players can have their tails back. Unfortunately, the capes still take up the tail slot, so I'm looking into that. Probably.

[Silver Sorrow]

I realize that I should have put the last few posts in my Pointless Stupid Worthless Crap thread, but I don't give a flaming fornication anymore.

I tinkered with letting amulets show on the Xi'an cuirasses.

...and I tinkered the feature right back out, because it looks stupid. This is why you don't see amulets while wearing Daedric armor...kind of ruins the effect of the scary armor. You want them pissing their pants and screaming, not gushing over your pretty necklace.

I've reworked the Xi'an armor altogether, really...don't get me wrong, I have most of this stuff cut up into my own special templates, so it isn't as arduous as I make it out to be. The hardest part is working with Photoshop...I'm used to PSP 5's controls (YES, I use PSP 5. I'm used to it. Bite me.), but I do okay with Photoshop...as long as I don't get confused. Which happens a lot. I'm pretty much trying to interact with the world through a venomous sludge, here.

Anyway, here's a comparison between old and new:

 

I'm not sure if anyone else can tell the difference, but here's what you should be looking for: the metal bits are somewhat more subdued now, and the rest of the armor may be lighter. It doesn't really matter at 50% brightness...

And I've toyed with the normal maps, too. I mean, sure. Why not? The original Dark Brotherhood normal map was incredibly detailed, so I fused that with the new pauldrons, and I guess it works.

Other stuff I've worked on includes beginning a new sub-sub-sub-dungeon below the sub-sub-dungeon of the last upgrade (You know all that sick water? Well...you'll be diving into that mess.  ); minor things, including adding a drain personality ring for those quests that require you to be less-than-personable (e.g., Namira), and so on and so on and so on. My list of changes and additions has become a thing of many words.

Speaking of crap no one cares about, I dug through an old chest and found some stuff I'd forgotten about.

 

   

I still like that deep blue...I might include that one in the latest upgrade.

One surprising moment was when I acquired the Deceiver's Finery and...

I'd totally forgotten that I'd recolored it. I'll include that, too.

So. Now it's over to ME2, where Shepard has just learned that...it's...oh, screw it. I'm tired.

[bobdog]

The red armor is a nice shade .... 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Yeah, the red and blue ones, I'm digging. The purple and teal ones, not so much. The violet... well, the less said about that, the better.

Primary colors tend to work better on armor, really.

[bobdog]

Is that violet!?    I thought it was pink....

In which case I was going to recommend it! 

[Silver Sorrow]

Violet tending towards hot pink, yes.    That color was something of a pun I had going, which I've dropped in favor of something even worse, but chromatically similar. Who knows, I might even be able to shoehorn the idea in to the current upgrade.

Anyway...yes. The teal is whimsy (more Mechanist-y than is practical); the purple is...well, I just like purple. But the blue is my current favorite...note that I went all out by modifying the skirt too. Really heavy stuff. I don't know how I'm still walking around free. I'm out of control. I should be locked up.

The red...well. The original mod -- over here -- is far more intricate...that is, better...but I was going for something a little different. I'll likely include that as well. Lessee...blue, red, purple. I'll save the teal and violet/pink for some other...waitaminit...just thought of...that's something to consider...

As for existing stuff, I made White Demon versions of the new greaves and boots I've been documenting here.

(The keen-eyed observer will note that I've also removed the shiny white bits from the katana's handle & sheathe, as compared to the original's blatant shininess.)

Ay pescado...I just realized that the new greaves might not look good with other body mods. The skirt is HGEC, I think...I'll see what's possible. The leggings part is just the blacksmith's pants, but the skirt is, as I just typed, HGEC. More in a moment. Until then, keep the homefires burning and if I'm not back by morning, tweet Ann Curry and tell her I want to nibble her tootsies.

EDIT

Okay, I'm back. I suppose I'll have to stalk Ann personally, rather than by proxy.

Anyway, the news isn't the fun kind of news...much in the way of the utter disappointment of Bethesda not announcing TES V during E3. Dumb shits.

For the sake of illustration, I used the dark pants and the white skirt to show where clipping occurs. Ready for this? Of course you are.

Fantasy Figures:

BAB:

By contrast, this is the HGEC EBE:

Not shown: The Girl Next Door, Robert's Female Body, etc. etc. etc..

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I've yet to find a skirt that fits the other bodies, but I'll keep looking anyway. The clipping won't be as noticeable when the colors are somewhat similar, but I'll know it's there. 

On another note...

[Silver Sorrow]

Stumbling Towards Coherence, Missing My Exit And Getting Lost In The Weeds

HDR usually looks good once you have the brightness set at or below 50%...but sometimes, you just shouldn't walk outside during the day.

Or during rainstorms with nighteye on.

Sometimes your greatest enemy is yourself.

This was during an SI quest -- some of you may be familiar with it -- wherein you have to fight a perfect, yet shadowy double of yourself. Now, I had added a Greater Power to my K1 race (I haven't given it to the others yet, as I'm still testing it), which was intended to be a last-ditch effort to get away from insurmountable odds (100% chameleon, reflect damage, reflect magic, etc. etc.). In less-scrupulous hands, it could be used to the detriment of others. I myself have used it for less-than-honest purposes...but being a Greater Power, it can only be used once a day. My double, of course, used it immediately and started slashing away at me with a double of my own RD Nodachi. Ouch. As I was at the lowest difficulty at the time, this wasn't too much of a problem (at 50%, though...watch out), but when I retaliated, my health started suffering terribly each time I hit her. That was when I realized that she had used the Power...so I used it myself and backed off. I summoned a Dark Seducer to keep her busy until the Power wore off in 120 seconds. She wasn't sneaking, so the Seducer could pretty much figure out where she was. When it wore off, I went after her and suffered no ill effects...in summary, not a boring fight. She even used Force Push against me at one point.

But back to the fashion crap. For a while now I've been kicking around adding cloaks with alternate colors to the mix, and the only obstacle to doing so is my own morose lethargy. So.

Purple #1 (brightest):

Purple #2 (-50% brightness):

Purple #3 (-75% brightness):

Wine:

What can I say? I like purple. Although the wine-colored version is my favorite... Next up, maybe a dark blue and a dark green.

[bobdog]

wine, definitely ... hiccup!! ... and i'z likesh tha purdy cloak too!!

[Silver Sorrow]

What a difference a different set of textures can make.

The test subject, in the different:

...aaaaaaand back to my regular skin.

I like mine better (much more sinister), but you gotta admit that the former looks so real...well, aside from the stretching on the shoulders, but that's not his fault. Ah, whatever. Back to Dragon Age.