Xaku Files Now Available!

[[DE]Taylor]

Xaku’s Files are officially available in the Steam Workshop! 

Much like Revenant and all Warframes following him, Xaku is made using new tech, so there are some missing textures in their ZIP file. It’s on you as the creator to make these maps yourself without any reference files.

Below is a list of what is included in the ZIP: 

• Normal
• Emissive
• Tintmask
• Body, Helmet, and Attachment* meshes

To be clear, you are expected to still make the specular, roughness, and diffuse maps -- we simply can’t send you a reference for comparison.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Xaku has two body material sets. one of them should be authored at 2048x2048 and the other is half that size at 1024x2048

 

TENDRIL MESH AND FX
Like with Revenant, you are unable to edit the Tendril meshes on Xaku’s body, but you are welcome to incorporate custom tendril details into their helmets! We are only accepting custom FX meshes for the helmet, you are unable to provide us with custom FX textures for their body and/or helmet tendrils. 

We have provided you with the FX textures in the ZIP file for your testing convenience!

Setting up the FX: 

Spoiler

• Use the default FX tendrils on the default Xaku as reference. Approximate your custom mesh's UVs to these default tendrils. Making the UV islands larger or smaller will change the scale of the textures that are applied to the geometry.
• Test the result in the TennoGen viewer. Get the scaling of the textures to roughly match the default FX scaling by editing the UVs ONLY, do not scale the texture in the viewer with the sliders.
• The in-engine pan is 0.0X, 0.1y, 0.0z. You'll want to orient your UVs with this movement in mind.

Custom Helmet Tendril Meshes
Please make sure your custom FX geometry is topologically separate from the base helmet.The FX meshes count towards your final triangle count for the helmet. Polycount limit is still 8k total for the helmet, but keep in mind that the FX geometry needs to be dense enough to bend/flow well wherever cloth physics are expected. 

We recommend you use the provided default files for reference. 

 

These details are also outlined in a ReadMe doc found in their files for your convenience. If you have any questions, please do leave them below!

[lemonforest]

Disclaimer: Not an Artist in any capacity of the meaning;

It looks like Xaku is unique in that the composite body appearance is made up of several, self-contained objects. The idle animation makes that much easier to see than trying to when using their 4.  What has me baffled is why isn't that being leveraged as a way to build your own Xaku appearance. Since tendrils cannot be edited, it's more likely that openings and connective regions from different TennoGen skins would appear to make a good fit (hopefully not clip).

I expect it would mean that each segment would also have to be limited to a bounding box to reduce the chances of overlapping objects and the fact very likelihood that Xaku composite, with all the various enclosed parts (bucket of parts), is already static game data as opposed to either run-time character model generation or, more to my preference, the skeletal Xaku is given invisible attachment points (much like armor) on the rigging where the player can pick and choose. It seems like, so long as every part that fits a particular slot, keeps a common attachment point, rigging may not need touched.

Of course, this also means that we could find broken (or prisma/vandal) parts throughout the game-world that would add to our collection. The broken part could be used as-is with a vault key like debuff or repaired to increase a Warframe stat (small amount) or maybe even a supreme upgrade that would also consume 1 or 2 Warframe mod slots. Yes, I see that this sounds like a Warframe riven and that's the last thing I'd want (dispo), rather more like umbral/Amalgam mods. You also wouldn't be able to gain the stat bonus from more than one part but could still equip another body part that has stats and consumes a mod slot but only decoratively.

The last thing I can think that would need changed is when you're looking at the preview list of frames in your arsenal, the icon takes on the look of the body skin (doesn't care about helmet) so that would need adjusted. Even just a wrench and gear tiny, corner icon on the default Xaku skin to show that it's been modded but not have to generate an image of how all the parts actually look since it's not even something anyone else sees. (oh and user profile view and help screens that use your currently equipped frame in the preview (like that one where every warframe has no head and wields a Galatine.)

[Scruffel]

2 hours ago, lemonforest said:

Since tendrils cannot be edited, it's more likely that openings and connective regions from different TennoGen skins would appear to make a good fit (hopefully not clip).

I expect it would mean that each segment would also have to be limited to a bounding box to reduce the chances of overlapping objects and the fact very likelihood that Xaku composite, with all the various enclosed parts (bucket of parts), is already static game data as opposed to either run-time character model generation or, more to my preference, the skeletal Xaku is given invisible attachment points (much like armor) on the rigging where the player can pick and choose. It seems like, so long as every part that fits a particular slot, keeps a common attachment point, rigging may not need touched.

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking here (or really the rest of your post since it seems unrelated to TennoGen), but what I assume you are saying that, artists should be able to edit the body model of Xaku since it wouldn't require any additionally rigging. Two main problems with that:

First one is that TennoGen artists are not allowed to edit the body model for any Warframe skin, and the second being, is the rigging process. When a TennoGen skin gets accepted, DE has to re-rig that skin onto the current body model for animations, as well as adjust anything related to helmets such as physics or specific animations such as Nidus's Mutation. It's much easier to do that process when it comes to a skin that only affects the textures of the body, as the process would be the almost same for the default Warframe, as it's the same model that was already done before. However, when it comes to a new model, whether it's one that drastically changes the shape or one that only slightly edits the model, the rigging process has to be done from scratch, taking longer and allowing for more mistakes to happen.

Xaku seems like a special case, where their body parts may seem separate enough to not be needing any rigging, but the thing is, their animations still have to be considered. Not just talking about their idle ones either, but whenever they cast an ability as well besides Vast Untime, since the body parts move in very specific ways through out it. If the models were to be changed, and the rigging process wasn't done for animations, the parts would not move at all, which would be incorrectly working in that case. Even though it seems like the body parts are separate on their own in-game, does not mean that it's the same way technically. Besides, a Xaku TennoGen would still need extra rigging because of their skeletal form that can also be changed through textures as well.

[lemonforest]

Spoiler

On 2020-10-06 at 4:39 PM, Scruffel said:

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking here (or really the rest of your post since it seems unrelated to TennoGen), but what I assume you are saying that, artists should be able to edit the body model of Xaku since it wouldn't require any additionally rigging. Two main problems with that:

First one is that TennoGen artists are not allowed to edit the body model for any Warframe skin, and the second being, is the rigging process. When a TennoGen skin gets accepted, DE has to re-rig that skin onto the current body model for animations, as well as adjust anything related to helmets such as physics or specific animations such as Nidus's Mutation. It's much easier to do that process when it comes to a skin that only affects the textures of the body, as the process would be the almost same for the default Warframe, as it's the same model that was already done before. However, when it comes to a new model, whether it's one that drastically changes the shape or one that only slightly edits the model, the rigging process has to be done from scratch, taking longer and allowing for more mistakes to happen.

Xaku seems like a special case, where their body parts may seem separate enough to not be needing any rigging, but the thing is, their animations still have to be considered. Not just talking about their idle ones either, but whenever they cast an ability as well besides Vast Untime, since the body parts move in very specific ways through out it. If the models were to be changed, and the rigging process wasn't done for animations, the parts would not move at all, which would be incorrectly working in that case. Even though it seems like the body parts are separate on their own in-game, does not mean that it's the same way technically. Besides, a Xaku TennoGen would still need extra rigging because of their skeletal form that can also be changed through textures as well.

What I mean to say is that, before accepting Xaku skins (to avoid the need for the author to go back to make them compliant with such a model) allow Xaku single-object outer-body parts (not skeletal-body model) to fit within a specified bounding box to avoid clipping (that would not have to be completely filled- see existing Xaku parts where the skeletal model is visible.) The ends being that the player would be able to select which parts from which ever skin that they would like on their toon.

More simply, the suggestion was that if each part had a specific anchor point, Xaku outer-shell rigging might could be made static but each part would have to be an attachment similar to how armor is connected.

Also, as I said, I couldn't do character modeling to save my life so I also don't know if each composite also has it's own rigging or other stuff I don't even know to consider (such as material-type/cloth physics/etc.)

Off topic here but something else that might have been nifty is if Vast Untime were able to void charge those composite parts and they were to act like a projectile who's force is exerted away from the Xaku-Skeleton (fracturing the parts perhaps? i.e. leg/arm parts don't travel a fixed path but radiate away from the skeletal frame on a perpendicular axis in a spherical pattern and front/back body parts more conical) with some effect. I realize that's a whole new can of worms but also presents the opportunity of not having to care how the different parts interact since physics projectile trajectory would take over at that point.

[crispb]

hoping someone is brave enough to make a Xaku Tennogen.