AION - Heavenly Jerkin & Breeches Mod

In today's mod, we will look at one of the oldest armor in AION. This is the first abyss leather armor set, which was introduced in AION 1.0, for characters between level 25 and 35. If you guys can recall, abyss armor is a class of armor with PvP stats, that reduces damage inflicted by another player.

 

By AION 5.0, new players would probably level up so much faster, that most might have just skipped this armor set and went straight for the level 40, 50, 55 or even 60 ones. But back in the days of AION 1.0, leveling up is a grind fest and having this armor set around might enhance a player's survivability, when questing in the PvP zones. 

 

Although each level range of abyss armors has uniquely designed skin, the different grades of armor (i.e. superior, heroic, fabled, eternal & mythical) does share the same skin (except their colors). The different grades for this set are the "Guardian Recruit's", "Guardian Squad Leader" and "Illustrious" set. Even though they are now outdated in terms of stats, they are still sort after by some skin hunters, thanks to their unique skin.  XD

 

Although this is a leather armor, it gives more of a cloth feel and I find it kind of similar to a housemaid's dress (You know? Those black-white dress that maid wears in Japanese anime XD  ). The jerkin looks much like a bare-shoulder, lace neck party dress and the breeches resembles a short skirt with matching stockings, as shown below.

 

Front View - Original Armor

Front Close-up View - Original Armor

 

Rear View - Original Armor

Rear Close-up View - Original Armor

Hmmm... The back of the dress is what causes me to feel that this design originated from a housemaid's dress...  >.< 

Side View - Original Armor

In order to make the armor more appealing, I have trimmed the bra, dropped the neck lace, modified the sides-back to plastic texture, and of course not forgetting the skirt... No, I didn't remove the skirt this time round. Instead, I have shortened it to reveal more of the leggy legs.  :D

 

So, let's take a look at the modified version below.

 

Front View

Front Close-up View

The layer below the bra is empty and so, I cannot really trim much on this area. Same goes for the tummy, sides and back areas. 

Rear View

Rear Close-up View

 Does the skirt looks cuter now?   :p

Side View

And finally, modified the sides and back from cloth texture to a transparent plastic texture, since I can't do much, due the missing layer below them.

 

You can take a look at the video if the images are not clear enough for you.  @.@

 

 

 Download Link
 

AION - Jedi Outfit Mod

For the past one year or so, the movie world is so hyped by the "Star Wars" Franchise with the release of "Force Awakens", "Rogue One", an upcoming Han Solo spinoff  and of course, most importantly, the passing of a well-loved leading actress Carrie Fisher (as Princess Leia).

 

In AION, we also have light sabers to play with, although it is called "Aether Blade" in game; and has a sword-like handle design rather than a cylindrical one in Star Wars. It even comes in 3 colors of red, green and blue.   :D 

 

The down side is that only sword wielders get to use them because they can only be skinned onto sword type weapon.     Q.Q  

 

Anyway, that gave me the idea to mod an outfit that looks like a Jedi in Star Wars movie, while wielding the aether blade. So, what does a Jedi looks like?

 

Well, from what I have researched, it seems that a Jedi is normally dressed in really plain and simple clothing, sometimes with a long hooded robe. And you will probably not find more than 3 colors on their clothing.    XD

 

Take a look below at Luke and Obi-Wan from a scene in Star Wars: A New Hope and you will understand what I meant. 

 

Scene from Star Wars: A New Hope
(Image from Starwars.com)

Well, strictly speaking Luke isn't a Jedi yet, at this stage in the movie, but maybe his inherent Jedi persona has driven him to dress like one?

 

Anyway, Jedi are warriors seeking to bring balance to the Force and peace to the universe, so in the course of their training and practice, they may have discarded cravings for materialistic pursuit. Thus, the simple and plain clothing that defines them.

The chest portion of the Jedi outfit consists mainly of a short robe fastened, at the waist, by a cloth/leather belt. Due to the way they wear the robe, it forms a "Y" on the front of the torso. The leg portion simply consists of a loose cloth pants coupled with a leather boots.  Actually this outfit fashion can be found in many real ancient human civilizations too, when zippers and buttons have not been invented yet.   XD

In order to mod a Jedi outfit, I needed a costume without collar and has the "Y" design on the chest; coupled with loose, arm-length sleeve; long loose pants and long leather boots.

With AION being the king/queen of armors and costumes, I never thought I would have problem finding a close match. But how wrong I was, because it took quite a long time for me to find a costume that can closely match the Jedi outfit.

The closest match that I can find is the Japanese Kimono, with the "Y" chest design, belt at waist, matching sleeve and garment extending past the waist. Unfortunately, because the Kimono is a traditional long dress that entirely hides the legs, the designers tend not to pay attention to the hidden legs. The legs turned out to be really skinny and of irregular shape because they can't be bothered with setting 'normals' (a term used to refer to data points that tells GPU the angle in which light reflects off a surface) for hidden areas. In simpler terms, the surface will look smooth with correct 'normals' and angularly flat without 'normals'.

Thus, I discarded the idea to use the Kimono and used another costume which I think was from long ago. However, although this costume meets the "Y" design, belt and boots criteria, it is sleeveless and the pants is just a short. But since I am out of choices, I had to use it but re-painting the arms and legs to the cloth color. So, it ended up as a Jedi outfit with tight sleeve and pants.   D:

Let's look at the final mod below.

Front View

Over here, we can see the tight sleeve and pants, which of course is not part of the original Jedi uniform.

Front Close-up View

Rear View

Rear Close-up View

Side View

As you can see this outfit is really plain with only 2 colors; mainly light yellow on chest and pants, and brown on bracer and boots. If you look carefully, you can also see the aether blade hanging on the left side of her waist.

That's all for this mod but what's a Jedi mod without the famous light saber in action, right? So these images below will show the outfit and aether blade in action.  :D

Striking Stance

Parry Stance

Top-down Slice Attack

Side-way Slice Attack

Combo Slice Attack

Well, if you can't get enough of the light saber action in the images alone, you can check out the video where there is a few fight sequence with light saber sound effects too! But don't keep your hope too high though, cause my video is amateurish and the sound may not match the action exactly. Plus, we can't get to see light saber vs light saber action, where they collide and clash, because game animations do not have that physical contact concept, like in a movie. In simpler terms, the action is a full sequence where sword strikes finish in full swing, without the possibility of being physically blocked or parried.

I got the sound effects free from sweetsoundeffects.com (Thanks to King for sharing). You can even get to see his 2 cute Jedi kittens fighting with light sabers, in 2 videos that he made.   :D

(Note: This costume is an old Children day's costume and I am not sure if anyone else have it  >.<) 

Download Link



AION - Ophidan Hauberk Mod

As a closure to the "Ophidan Armor" series, we will take a look at the chain type chest piece (a.k.a. hauberk) in this mod. Just like all its other versions, this armor is also mainly black color with draconic essence in its design. The armor looks like a jacket with full arm-length sleeve and slightly extended length (up to the upper thigh), coupled with a short skirt. The jacket surface is given a scale-like or snake-skin texture, which looks kind of like a dragon skin. You can also find this same texture on its other versions, since they are all crafted through "Balic" designs, which utilize materials looted off defeated Balaurs (a.k.a. dragon race). 

Without further delay, let us take a look at the original armor.

Front View - Original Armor

Front Close-up View - Original Armor

From the front views, we can see the black color, snake-skin jacket worn over a supposedly lighter colored blouse and skirt. But I think the most eye catching part is the shoulder guard though.  XD

Rear View - Original Armor

Rear Close-up View - Original Armor

Over here in the rear views, we can see the translucent feather tail that is half hidden under the jacket. This translucent feather design is also present in the cloth armor (a.k.a. tunic).

Side View - Original Armor

So, what have I done for the mod?

Well, for the easy part, the skirt was removed (of course  :p  ) and the jacket shortened to just around the waist area. The harder part is the torso area, which is split into 3 major parts by the mesh; mainly the neck, cleavage-tummy area and bra-sides-back area.

Due to these separations, there are discontinuities that need to be managed or hidden. This means that I cannot simply paint the entire upper torso with skin color or even to remove any parts, because that will leave holes.

So what else can I do for this armor with these constraints...?

Fortunately, the mesh retain the shape of the breasts, which means that I can repaint the area into skin color. However, I cannot do the same for the area below the breasts because of the discontinuity. Thus, I have to keep most of the designs around the tummy and middle part of the torso. In addition, the straps that run from the neck to the bra need to be retained in order to hide the discontinuity between the cleavage area and bra area.

Let's see the result below.

Front View

In the above view, we can see the jacket has been shortened, the skirt has been removed and... harpy fighting with griffon...  O.O  Don't worry about them though... They have been fighting there since AION 1.0 and no one ever got hurt...    XD

Front Close-up View 1

Front Close-up View 2

As you can see, the bra area is now replaced by a transparent layer showing most of the breasts but I did shifted the original claw-like design a bit so that they can sufficiently cover the sensitive points. Unfortunately, the lower part of the jacket cannot be done the same way because this layer is actually floating above the center portion. We cannot have a skin layer floating above another layer, isn't it?   >.<

Rear View

Rear Close-up View

From the above rear views, we can see that the transparent layer is extended to the arm and back. Also, as mentioned previously, the translucent feather "tail" is retained because it looks nice.   :D

Side Close-up View

I had to extend the transparent layer to the arm because it would look weird if the arm is just plain skin, without showing the edge or end points of the transparent layer on the upper torso. To solve this, I extended the transparent layer all the way to the hand and kept the original draconic design on the arm.

That basically wraps up this mod. You can check out the video for a better look.
 

 

 

I'm thinking that some may not like the transparent layer, so I also have a version which is just skin color without the reflective and shiny effect. But this version may look a bit weird though, especially on the back.     DX  

 

Download Link
  

AION - Ophidan Tunic Mod

As a continuation of the "Ophidan Armor" series, we'll be looking at its cloth version next, in this mod. In my previous post, "Mix-matching Aion Armor", we have taken a look at the leggings of this beautiful armor and here, we will be seeing the tunic, which is a 2-in-1 chest piece (chest and leg in one armor). Thus, we can admire the leggings again.  :D 

If you can remember or had just referred to my previous post, you will know that the leggings is a skirt with translucent "feathers", which give it a very unique look. However, the chest portion of the armor is a little... hmmm.. plainer; something like a V-neck dress with a low-back design. But the translucent armbands and 2 mini-wings on the back does look nice.

You can see the original armor in the images below here.

Front View - Original Armor

Front Close-up View - Original Armor

Here, we can see the translucent armband.

Rear View - Original Armor

The same translucent feather skirt that we have seen before in my previous post, except that it was dyed white back then.

Rear Close-up View - Original Armor

And those two cute little, mini-wings.  :D

Side View - Original Armor

Although the chest portion is a little plain, the armor still looks great as a whole. And I'm sure there are lots of people who love it, because many were wearing it when it was first introduced; and I can still see some cloth class wearing this skin, even now in AION 5.0.

In order to make chest portion a little more interesting, and keep it inline with the design of the skirt, I basically transformed it into a translucent (or rather transparent) material. You know what that means...  :p 

However, there was a little problem because the chest portion does not sit exactly on the same layer as the base skin. This means that if I paint the chest portion into skin color, it would look like this layer is floating above the base skin. In simpler terms, discontinuity is obvious.

Let us look at the images after mod and I'll explain further.

Front View

The first part of the mod removed the V-neck and the cloth part of the skirt, leaving only the translucent feather skirt and the décor at the back, which we will see later.

Front Close-up View

Next, the tummy area, which was originally covered by black color cloth, has been recolored to skin color. To keep the consistency between the changes applied at the tummy area and the other torso areas (sides and back), the entire chest piece was converted into a transparent armor. But of course, the sensitive points are hidden, by extending the original designs on the bra.  XD 

However, an issue that I have mentioned earlier, caused discontinuity at the cleavage and abdomen region. As such I have added a golden piece on the cleavage between the bra, and a golden "belt" to hide the discontinuity between the tummy and abdomen region. You can take a closer look at the bra in the maximum zoom-in image below.

Front Close-up View 2

Side View

Rear View

Rear Close-up View

From the last three images, you will notice that I have kept the original accessories at the butt area because it is too beautiful a décor to be discarded. Sorry if it has obstructed your view.    @.@

Finally, you can watch the video for a closer look at the mod armor. There's even a bottom-up view where you can see "stars-like light" up in the sky, which are actually not stars but lights emitted by light sources in the Asmodians' half of Atreia (virtual world of AION).  

Download Link
 

Side note on AION's virtual world:

So, why is Asmodians living up in the sky? I think the best way to describe it, is by showing the Atreia globe.

Planet Atreia

Well, the story goes that the God "AION" created this world where all living things live within the planet Atreia, enclosed inside the globe. This idea was probably taken from the belief of our very own human ancestors, that they live on the inside of the Earth. Well... Come to think of it, it actually wasn't that far back.   XD
 

In this still intact globe, lives the ancient Humans (Elyos and Asmodians alike) and many other creatures. Then, AION created Balaurs to police and protect the world. However, the Balaurs became corrupted and began to challenge AION's power. As such, AION ascended talented Human into Daevas to counter the Balaur. Twelve Daevas who exhibited exceptional skills eventually became the leaders (a.k.a. Empyrean lords) of the Human.

A millennium war erupted, as a result, which eventually split the globe in halves. During the battle, the Empyrean lords split up (in numbers and ideology) to defend the top and bottom halves of the globe.

After the globe split apart (a.k.a. Cataclysm), the Empyrean lords that defended the top half was stranded at the top and led the remaining Humans and Daevas, who eventually became known as the Asmodians. While the Empyrean lords that defended the lower half led the survivors to become the Elyos.

So every time an Asmodian or Elyos looked up at the sky, they are looking at their lost half. As to why they are at each other's throat? I'll talk about it next time, when the opportunity arise.  XD

AION - Ophidan Breastplate Mod

The last weekend was a long weekend holiday in my country, because it was the Lunar New Year a.k.a. Chinese New Year. The first day of the Chinese or Lunar calendar coincides with 28 January of the Western calendar, which is a Saturday and thus, most of the workforce get an extra holiday compensation on Monday, since some of the people works 5-days week. So, here's wishing those who celebrate this occasion a Happy Lunar New Year!

There's been plenty of people wearing red or orange (due to them being the auspicious color), firecracker's crackling and drumming (from lion and dragon dance) through the weekend. But what I find most interesting is that "haunting" (or is it solitude) feeling that I felt on the evening of Lunar New Year eve. That's because the roads looked so much emptier and most shops were already closed by the early evening. This is the only time of the year that I can experience this in a normally bustling city. Or maybe it is just that I have gotten too familiar with the bustling scene, such that when everything tones down, it just feels so haunting...   >.<"

Just for a fun fact, there is actually a mythical legend behind the way Chinese celebrates their new year, but I'll put that in the note at the end of this post, because not everyone will be interested in it.

Anyway, enough talk about the holiday and let's get back to today's topic. In the last post, we have looked at the modified "Ophidan Jerkin" and in this post, we will be looking at its plate version, the "Ophidan Breastplate". This armor comes in full black with designs of draconic  essence. However, the major difference is that instead of a full body armor, it is made up of a chest part and a long pants. It also has several scales or cloths that start from the waist and cover the sides and butt area. Let's check out the original armor below.

Front View - Original Armor

Front Close-up View - Original Armor

The plate armor (Breastplate) looks less complicated than the leather one (Jerkin) but still as beautiful, except maybe for the scales at the sides and the full black color that obscure most of the details.  XD

Rear View - Original Armor

Side View - Original Armor

For readers who knows me, you'll probably know that the long pants will be the first sacrifice, and the scales, that are blocking my views, will be the next.   :p

So what else was change on the armor? Check out the images below.

Front View

Yup. Long pants gone - Checked!

Side View

Scales at sides gone - Checked!

Front Close-up View

Front Close-up view

And... Err.. Openings on the bra?    O.O

Well, the mesh below the bra is actually a huge hole so I couldn't actually remove any portion of the bra. So I painted some portions of the bra with skin color to give the illusion that we are seeing now.  XD  



Side Close-up View

Rear Close-up View

Finally! No more cloth or scales to block my view!   XD

So, does the armor looks "cleaner" and sexier now? Check out the video below.



Download Link

Side note on Lunar New Year:

The legend goes that in Ancient China, there is a huge mythical creature by the name of "Nian" (same character as "year" in Chinese) that came out at that specific time of every year to feast on humans. The ancient ancestors were helpless against it until they found out that "Nian" hates loud noises and bright colors (such as red and orange). Thus, on this time of every year villagers will all clad in red/orange, and make loud noises with drums or firecrackers to chase away the creature.

This was passed down over the ages and eventually became the tradition of all Chinese across the world. And in Chinese language (a.k.a. Mandarin), "Guo Nian" (meaning moving onto the new year) symbolizes surviving the year (which is the name of the mythical creature).

So where is this mythical creature now? No one knows. Maybe it died of starvation since it can't eat anymore human due to its weakness being discovered or maybe went into some sort of hibernation...   ~.~

Anyway, what is interesting is that how human tends to held on to such things and eventually turning it into part of a culture, where people will faithfully follow without much questions asked..... even after thousands of years!    o.o