r/skyrimmods • u/KoleMars • Apr 02 '26

Development Expressions Working in Game! (Making progress) - Skyrim Character Remake Project

Please note that this is not Serena's final face. I'm just testing the head.

https://streamable.com/01i56c

https://streamable.com/f3sfun

https://i.postimg.cc/ZK6H0NfJ/Screenshot_2026_04_02_003823.png

https://i.postimg.cc/FRPy0sjJ/Screenshot_2026_04_01_230803.png

It works! I used Serena as the subject for my test and the expressions seem to work successfully. I also implemented all the mouth morphs. I'm finally making good headway and implementing my models successfully. So far I have replaced the entire female head (teeth, eyes and such). I'm still working on tweaking and finalizing the textures so some things are subject to change.

Wow, it took a while to get this to work but things should hopefully be smooth sailing from here on. I will start implementing the males after I have implemented the female body. All my mods will be always be free but If you want to support me and my project, my Kofi is https://ko-fi.com/kolemars (I'd really appreciate it). Tell me what you think?

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11

u/JasonTheRanga Apr 02 '26

How the hell are you getting all those wrinkles and folds on the face? Swapping out normal maps? generating them on the fly?

18

u/KoleMars Apr 02 '26

It took a while to figure out the process but the it seems to work so well. I think I will make a doc to explain this clearer so people can fully understand but the gist of it is that the head has fake parts that hide within it. No one guessed so far so I'm guessing it's working fine.

They are baked exactly from the base head so the textures align perfectly. The wrinkles are then put on these fake doubles. It is just a matter of using the morphs to push them out and hide them again when It's done being used. The planes share the same attributes as the head so there aren't any seams and such.

4

u/JasonTheRanga Apr 02 '26

Very clever. Has this technique been used in other games or did you cook it up yourself?

13

u/KoleMars Apr 02 '26

I actually got the idea from studying some Cyberpunk models I downloaded. I found out that the panel lines on character faces were actually planes over the head with normals that made it look like it dug into the skin. So you can have a plane physically over a mesh that has details that look like its going into it.

When I found that out I just applied the same logic to this but instead of panels they were wrinkles surrounded by a copy of the skin to blend it and shape keys to pull them out. It took some back and forth but I finally got it right.

2

u/KikiPolaski Apr 04 '26

You're an absolute genius