Just a question on Oblivion!

Do you know what they do to change the face in the Oblivion charachter creator?
I'll try to explain me better:
When you start you can create a characther and you can modify the face of it as well.. But how they can do it?
Aza

I think it is a mixture of real-time mesh deformation, changing meshes for new ones and some texture changes - possibly also shader effects.

The facial changes are real-time deformation - the changes of hair, etc are done by swapping the hair mesh, etc.

The head mesh is a base mesh - it is a bald mesh - no hair (other than textured eyebrows) - no eyes, no ears.

EDIT:
Although there are separate hair meshes - they real-time deform them base on requested length.

Actually, I don't think any shaders are in use - just texture stuff going on.

The aging of characters and complexion changes are done with normal maps being applied to the head mesh. They are using DXT1 x 12 and DXT5 x 13. So, they are basically just stepping through the aging/complexion process by swapping the texture with the next/previous one.

lol at puki jumping all over oblivion topics, i'm a fan too, and i agree with the mesh deformation, seems to be the case

Thanks to all,
Puki some time ago i see some your screenshot, where i can find it?

Aza

Not sure which thread, try these:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=60753

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=61319

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=67011

Aother question, the oblivion's map is just one big map or there are many little map one attach to the other?
Can you make a screenshoot of the map?
Thanks again

Aza

The map/landscape is in pieces. I could screenshot it - it doesn't look very interesting without vedgetation etc.

Thanks puki, just the last question (you are well informed on Oblivion) what is the way they use to create the landscape? With a program or manually map by map? I need to do something like that but i don't know how..
They use skyboxes or skysphere?
Thanks again

Aza

There is a skysphere in Oblivion - it is a sphere with a sky ceiling mesh - this allows for the morphing mask for the weather effects. They real-time LOD the terrain from the terrain chunks and map objects/vegetation to it.

In fairness, they are somewhat behind me in capability. In truth, they are not even close.

Gosh, I wonder how puki knows so much about Oblivion's media?

Oblivion uses FaceGen for the faces.

http://www.facegen.com/

the facegen woman looks like the woman in the first star trek movie.

They use the FaceGen SDK
http://www.facegen.com/sdk.htm

9999$ for selling the created faces...

not an option for me :D