Congratulations to @Diem and @tuxek for the promotions. Pop a cold one and reap the benefits fellas.

Cpt.Rex wrote:

greetings everyone, we have two promotions today....


@Diem and @tuxek



enjoy your new level. We trust you'll to respect the modders wishes and not to share mods and  mods-w.i.p.´s from the approved sections.

zodiac213 wrote:

Congratulations to @Diem and @tuxek for the promotions. Pop a cold one and reap the benefits fellas.

Thanks!

I was actually a colonial at one point in time a few years ago, and I was working on a mod for Skyrim based off of some of Xinavro's port work, integrating his Dark Souls armor ports into the world. You'd find Oscar dead in the first cave, Solaire would be in front of High Hrothgar and give you a spell to summon him, etc. It came along really well, until I was experiencing issues with Steam and, in an attempt to resolve them, uninstalled Steam, which deleted everything in all the game folders, wiping my progress back significantly.

After that I lapsed on the site for a while and wasn't very active. I know a thing or two about the Creation Kit, but modeling is beyond me. As such, I don't have much to contribute, hence my lack of participation.

I guess somewhere along the way I got demoted. It was confusing when I came to the site one day and saw the GUN Mod Releases section looking empty. I figured that either the structure of the site changed and now everything was public or everything was private, or I'd gotten demoted. Felt a little too embarrassed to ask.

Recently I've gotten more active, particularly due to the discovery of models my dream armor for Fallout being discovered. I found them first in GMod, so I had a thread up asking for help on converting it from GMod to something usable in Fallout. There, the wonderful user "clanky4" helped me out thoroughly, and thanks to him I got the model ported and textured in Blender. But I was at a loss for what to do next.

Shortly afterwards, EvTital offered to handle it for me. Seeing as he's the author behind the excellent Resident Evil armor mod I was using in my playthrough at that moment, it was like a dream come true. Lo and behold, he got it up and running in Fallout 4 very quickly, but with a few issues. There's a gap between the torso and neck, and the gloves are missing. These are likely because the model was ported from GMod, which was ported to GMod from the source files, so some things got screwed up in translation. The gloves in particular were because the GMod skeleton didn't have two of the fingers rigged for posing. Nothing EvTital could do about that, stuff, unfortunately, but I'd managed to make my own ghetto solutions to these problems using two other mods I edited, so in my game it looks kind of presentable.

The bigger issue, though, was the lack of normal and specular map textures, which the GMod mod didn't provide. Unable to create these the normal way, I had to opt for the cheap and fast way, which didn't produce good results. In fact, it made the armor look worse. But I couldn't find any better guides on how to do it (good resources/tutorials for Fallout 4 modding are scarce as hell).

So, knowing that the original files had to be out there, I set out to find them. I actually tracked them down to a Russian website that had them backed up, since the original author did that thing where they take down their internet profile and all their work. Luckily, these files had the original normal and specular maps, too, which solved the most difficult problem of the project.

I got back in contact with EvTital and told him what I'd found, and he directed me to an online Adobe program that automatically rigs models. It worked like a charm, even for the fingers. I also found a good straightforward guide of getting armor into Fallout 4 after several attempts of searching.

Unfortunately, the project has hit a roadblock. Blender won't save the pose I put the model in, which means I can't pose it to the Fallout 4 skeleton. On top of that, even if it did, I don't have a way to mirror the skeleton once I do one side, which is something that makes me afraid that I'll get one side wrong somehow, but that's just a personal concern.

Also, my own cheap normal and specular maps didn't look very good, and I was hoping that the original files would solve it. The new normal map works great for the mostpart, but the specular map is wonky. I know from working with another Dark Souls port in Skyrim that these textures aren't made the same way for all games, so what's right in one might be weird in another. Right now, it seems a combination of the original normal map and my cheapo specular map works best, though I may combine the two specular maps to take the best parts of both.

EvTital's helping me a bit with the kinks in the Blender process, since I can't find the answers to my questions anywhere else. I feel like I could sign up for and ace a college course on 3D modeling and still have these kinds of issues.

Once that crap is cleared up, though, I'm going to be excited to share it on the website. Much like my previous Skyrim mod, I plan to do some fancy stuff in the Creation Kit to integrate it into the world. That part's actually completed for now and only took me a couple hours. All I'm waiting on are the corrected models. After that, the specular texture might need some work, but that's a lesser concern.

I'm hoping to have both a Fallout 4 and a New Vegas version. Depending on when the Blender stuff gets sorted out and how much trouble the rest of the process gives me, EvTital and I might have it done by the end of the month.

Which means I'll finally have something worthwhile to contribute and give back to the community. Though it wouldn't be possible without EvTital's help, so I'm very thankful he's been taking time out of his day to help some pathetic stranger's quest to get some obscure gear from a PS3 game into Fallout.

...this turned out much longer than I expected.

Anyways, thanks for the promotion--again! Soon I should have something good to share, so I'll earn my keep this time.

Congratulations to the re-promoted! May you once again enjoy the benefits of the colonial position.

well congratulation @tuxek and congratulation to @Diem

Thanks for the promotion. No worries as some upcoming stuff from me will come soon.
Its just taking a little bit longer thanks to some other stuff going on but the main thing should be ready this week.

Congratulations to the newest Colonials @tuxek & @diem! Enjoy your new ranks and all the perks it comes with.

congratz to new rank up guys

@Tuxek Congratulations my friend for re-earning your colonial! Keep giving us badass mods and I'll keep supporting you!

And congrats to @Diem as well. Welcome to the Cool Kids Club!

congratulations to the new colonials I hope you enjoy the mods and if you can publish more

Even though I didn't serve the community as long as Tank-Girl, through my time as a Sentinel, I too know what it's like to resign due to real life obligations. Life gets hectic, and sometimes the best thing you can do is remove potential sources of stress. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors, and I hope that your resignation doesn't mean we'll be seeing any less of you around GUN, Tank-Girl. Good luck and godspeed.

@Tank-Girl, I do not know you but I wish you good luck in your life and thanks for all what you've done here

Thank you, @DVAted

It is a real honor to be a part of Sentinels, and i'll not misplace trust of those who rely on me.
For 1 year in GUN i've never thought that i would be a Sentinel. I have here many comrades, mates and friends - and i will prove my words with decent deeds.

As for @jacoboriley u have deserved your Colonial rank. Come for Mods - Stay for Community.

Congrats on your promotion to Colonial, @jacoboriley! Enjoy your new rank and all the perks it comes with. But today is a momentous occasion not just for that, oh no. We have new blood in the staff! A major round of congratulations go to @Star for being promoted to Sentinel rank! Being a Sentinel is a lot of responsibility, but I'm confident that you'll serve GUN well. Revel in your new rank, my friend. In my opinion, you've certainly earned it.

Welcome @jacoboriley to the Colonials group. Feel free to kickback and pop a cold one and I'll see you around the forums. And also congrats to @Star for the promotion and I wish you luck with your new responsibilities.

@DVAted - in case you missed it that thumping sound you heard was my chin hitting the floor. Thank you (and staff) for this, it was very unexpected. I do enjoy the community as much as anything and in many ways that means more than the access perks, but again thank you.

Congrats to @Star for your promotion to Sentinel and staff. Your posts and good nature haven't escaped my notice and although I'm fairly new, my guess is you very much deserve the promotion.