As “proof” of sorts, here she is with a different outfit.  What does this prove other than that I’m a pervert and install sexy mods?  Well, she has no blue pants here, THATS for sure!

Yeah, you keep dreaming shopkeeper.  This kitty ain’t for you!  She’s given up the booze and the one-night stands…  (well, maybe not wearing that outfit!)

Ok, enough silliness.  So when last I left off, I had an upper-half-khajiit body that worked beautifully with the rest of the armor (which allowed me to have a 2nd body inside the armor with the blue pants texture) – but it was only available at max-size.  I tried making a minimum size body, cutting out the same vertexes using 3ds Max program, but it either crashed the game completely or in-between things went hyper-wonky because the vertexes didn’t match up exactly between the two.

(weight settings other than Max and Min were failing miserably – not now as you can see!)

I even went so far as to post for help over at Nexus – (with no results).  But then I got an idea – what if I import the complete, max size body into 3DS Max, along with the complete min size body AND the partial, max size body.  With all three in at once, I can edit both complete bodies precisely to match the partial max-size I had.  Then, when I exported them after removing the lower half, the two originally complete bodies SHOULD be identical.  The same process will have been done with both bodies so the result should match too.  It worked.  IT WORKED!  Hurrah!

Ok, so there are still some small touchup things I want to do – plus this is still the Ragged Trousers clothing and it needs to replace an existing armor.  (I’ve no plans to create a truly NEW armor in the game here – I’ll just replace an existing armor mesh/template)

So not really done yet – but nothing is stopping me now.  And now, for something completely different.  First, for HoodieKatia, the closest I could find in Skyrim!

More like HoodED Katia but it’s still cute!’

Anybody like succubus-es?  (Succubi?)  How about Katia as a Succubus?  Maybe if she hangs out more with Nah she might someday…

(And this shows the problem with lazy modders – max-size body regardless of the weight settings you choose.  Not MY mod tho!  But perhaps for a succubus mod I guess that max size might be somewhat more appropriate.)

Ok, enough of my screenshot-fest.  I’m going to go head to the beach and see if I can catch Katia there.  Or at least take a break from this for a few days.  A few tweaks still – I’d like to work on that belt a bit, got a few clipping issues (minor though), maybe re-work the wolfs head.  For now though, something with ice and rum sounds good!

Ok, the pauldrons took a bit more than just copy/paste but really just revising the names of some objects and copying some “bones” over.  I’m really getting close to being done with this CHSBHC model version, and it will be better than my original because the blue pants are part of the armor this time, not a separate body texture that applies to ALL Khajiits!

So, the latest.  First, I still have the problem that I can’t reduce the size of her below max, so I know you’ll all think I’m some sort of big-boobs pervert.  I may be a perv, but not for unreal silicone.  I can appreciate them as well as the next hetero type, but I KNOW this can’t be Katia with those mammoth mammaries. I’ll try to explain as best I can what the problem is.

As I mentioned before, there is an actual body underneath all armors (that have any sleeveless, breast or leg showing anyway).  But I can’t just paint the legs blue to simulate pants – if I do, ALL khajiits will have blue legs. I want them to come-and-go with the armor though.  Well, I did figure out how to do that.  Inside I now have TWO bodies.  The lower half is separate from the upper half, with transparent texture on the upper half so you never see it.  Very fortunately, I found a mod that had an upper-half-only body too so that’s what we see for the arms and chest.  Problem is, that mod ONLY had the full-size body.  It didn’t have the corresponding minimum size body.  So I’ve been looking for a mod where someone has just the upper-half as a minimum size for CHSBHC shape.  I’ve not found a SINGLE ONE!  Everyone is just creating single-size CHSBHC mods…

or their armor is full-coverage and thus there is no minimum body or it’s a full body.  And I can’t use a FULL body – the lower half must not exist.  While I can make the upper part of the blue pants body transparent, I can’t do the same for the lower part of other body because the other body’s texture is used by ALL female khajiits.  They would be floating around legless!  I’ve got an idea that I may be able to use a non-CHSBHC upper body though – so I’ve still got hope.  Meanwhile, I HAVE gotten a lot of other stuff done…

Pauldrons obviously, and I fixed the texture issue with the pants – and made them shiny.  (I like shiny things.)  I even tried making the main armor shiny, but – though these screencaps show the shiny version – I’ve gone back and put back the duller version so it wont have the sheen you see here (except her leggings – like I said, I like shiny!)

WARNING – MORE KHAJIIT BUTT AHEAD!  HIDE THE CHILDREN!

Anyone who has worked on textures knows the bane of the “seams”.  Seams are hard to avoid when you have a 2D texture laying over a 3D model.

Two are quite obvious here on her butt.  I could try and minimize them, but then I realized that, in this particular case, they’re actually a benefit!  While in reality her “pants” are really just bodypaint for all practical purposes.  But those seams, normally a bad thing, help create the illusion that the pants ARE leggings and not just paint.  Ok, not MUCH, but a little bit at least.  So I’m going to leave those as-is.

I had another problem – hard to see in screenshots, but just above her tail there was a section where both the upper body AND lower body textures were in the exact same place.  Causes weird flashing colors when that occurs as one texture gets slightly over the other and then vice-versa.  I solved that with some VERY careful editing of the blue texture to just the point where the upper body starts.  End result is good as the tail actually joins with the upper body texture and not “poking through” the blue.

If you look close, you’ll spot a bit of clipping (blue poking through the armor) at her hip. I should be able to fix that too with some careful texture work.  So I’ve got quite a bit of tweaking to do when I’m finally finished with the last major hurdle – the ability to tone down her curves to a reasonable level!  But I’ve a fighting chance now and the end is in sight.

So, with some luck on my current plan to use a non-CHSBHC model for the upper half minimal-size version, I might just be able to pull this off yet!  If it works, the next update may actually show Katia’s sammich-loving sister trimmed down and with some breast-reduction and butt reduction – they go together.  Just so you needn’t fear that her butt must always be so…  well…  round?