Blade & Soul - Divine Emissary (Gon/Yun Outfit) Mod

Immediately after I posted the Jin Divine Emissary, a new patron asked if it can be applied to Gon and Yun. I explained that all races and gender have their own individual package, except for special cases like the Cutting Edge outfit. I also promised to add the two to my TO-DO list, so we shall be seeing these two outfit mods in this week's post.

The reason I can do both mods is because the missing meshes issue  in the Jin mod is not present in both the Gon and Yun mod. As such, the recoloring to remove shadows can be performed without much fuss. Also, the layout of the meshes (other than skin layer) in the UV map for all three races are aligned, so I can easily copy-paste-delete the unwanted portion. The aligned meshes also make it easier to copy the addons and alterations, including the Diffuse, Mask, Specular and Normal, from the Jin over to the Gon and Yun. 😃

As mentioned above, the UV maps for the three races are the same. So as expected, their outfits would also looks exactly the same.

Since I have already talked about the outfit in details in the Jin Divine Emissary post, I will skip that for the Gon and Yun. Instead, let us look at the original outfits below. For the sake of non-players, the one on the left is Gon and the one on the right is Yun. Players probably can easily tell from their pose and inherent body shape. 😄

Front View - Original Outfit

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit

The outfits look exactly the same but the tattoo just below the bra seems to be rounder on the Gon as compared to the Yun.

Rear View - Original Outfit

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

Everything looks identical from the rear too.

Side View - Original Outfit

Same for the sides.

Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

For the two mods, I tried to give them the same look as that of the Jin. This is possible for the Yun because skin layers under the bra and skirt are all present. The Gon outfit, on the other hand, gives a bit of a problem due to the missing skin layer on the outer sides of the thighs. 😓 The leg guards, in addition to the skirt, actually hides the missing mesh so it is not a problem for the original outfit.

However, I intend to modify the leg guards and remove the skirt completely, so inevitably exposing the missing layer. 😓 There are two ways to solve this. One is to keep the leg guards as they are (i.e. cowboy style leg guards) and remove the skirt completely. The second method is to modify the leg guards, to the Jin style, but keep the side portions of the skirt to hide the missing layer.

Well, the cowboy style leg guards does not look that attractive to me 😆 so I chose to go ahead with the second mod. However, just simply keeping the sides of the skirt, while cutting away the mid center and rear portions seems weird. Thus, I modify the retained portions of the skirt into armor pieces like those on the shoulders. Let's check and compare the two modified outfits below.

Front View - Modified Outfit

The leg guards in both have been modified to that in the Jin mod.

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The bras on both outfits have been modified and the tattoos below them have also been removed. This was due to recoloring to remove the shadows.

The skirt on the Yun is totally gone but something remains on the sides of the Gon's outfit. You can see them more clearly in the side image.

Rear View - Modified Outfit

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The shadows beneath the bra straps have to be taken care of too.

Side View - Modified Outfit

You can see the Gon mod included two armor pieces by the sides of the waist. They are used to hide two holes between the edges where the thighs meet the waist.

Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit

I just realized from the image above that my Gon has such thin torso around the abdomen and my Yun seems to be top-light and bottom-heavy. 😓

After seeing all three versions of the mod, which one do you like most? Personally, I think it looks best on the Jin. Not sure if it is because of bad customization on my Gon and Yun though. 😰

That concludes the Divine Emissary for all three races. Watch the video, captured in the in-game Tailorshop (since I did not have the outfit on my Gon and Yun), for a better look.

Sorry for the late post and if you actually read my last previous post, you may have guessed why it is late. 😓 This video creation was not without incidents too. If you are interested to know what happen this time round, you can read about it just below this video.

If you don't want to read about it, you should probably stop now...

The video creation was completed two days back, but I guess I got to experience the sequel of "Curious Case of Missing Video" as explained at the bottom in the Gon Grand Enchantment post. 😱

Well, after that horrible experience prior and defiant to pay for another license, I uninstalled the new version and reinstall the older version of the editor, as suggested by the developer's customer support. But now, it seems the editor is chunking up even more problems in my face.

For the first compilation, I left the editor compiling through the night (which I mostly do because video compilation can take a looonngg time). In the morning, the dialogue box appeared, as usual, to indicate that the compilation is successful. But to my dismay, it gave me an eleven seconds duration video which should have been one minute plus.  😓

For the second time that I tried, the editor crashed at ten percent of compilation. 😰

And on the third run, it finally produced my one minute video. BUT! The footage froze at the ninety percent mark of the video while the music continues playing.

The fourth try gave me an eleven seconds video again..... And the fifth try, footage froze at ninety percent again.... 😱

Finally, I gave up and downgraded the output from 4K definition to 2K definition. It finally gave me my video in its entirety. 😩

Wow! I have produced over fifty videos without much problem (but only the last four videos are made with 4K definition) and now, it starts to throw all sort of tantrums? Especially after the developer has the newer version to sell? I am beginning to become paranoid that my usage of the editor is being monitored. 😱

Sorry to make you guys read this yet again.. 😥 Maybe I should ditch this video editor that I am using.. Any suggestion for a better video editor?

Download Link for Gon 
Download Link for Yun

Blade & Soul - Grand Enchantment (Gon Outfit) Mod

Some time in early May, a patron requested for the Gon Grand Enchantment outfit, so we will be looking at this mod in this week's post. There is almost no need to mention anything about the origin of the outfit, or how to obtain it because, I am sure that every player would recognize it as Zulia's outfit and knows where to get it.

But for the sake of newbies, especially those that create level 60 character from the start (and thus, skipped lots of story contents 😅 ), the Grand Enchantment can randomly dropped off the Final Boss - Hive Queen in Temple of Eluvium raid dungeon (a.k.a. Vortex Temple - VT) or bought from NPC vendors at the nearby Dasari Garden Trade Post after defeating the Hive Queen ten times.

What puzzles me the most is not that exaggerated huge ribbon that hangs at the back of he outfit but the name of it. If we followed the storyline closely, we will know that Zulia, or rather Sanzu, is also known as the Grand Enchantress - one of the original Eight Masters. Being the leader of the Aransu clan, the Grand Enchantress - Sanzu actually wears a red-white outfit known as the Aransu Apprentice.

You can see Sanzu a.k.a. Zulia in both versions of her outfits in this video below.

In Blade & Soul, outfits often play an important role of determining who the wearer represents and what they stands for. The Aransu clan's uniform is unique in it's utilization of diamond symbols and red-white color tone. Sanzu's uniform is also similar in that sense, although there are some design differences. However, the Grand Enchantment, which relates to the Grand Enchantress, seems way off with the color cyan replacing the red. 

The storyline did not reveal how exactly Sanzu eventually became Zulia. But from bits and pieces of information, it seems to be that Sanzu along with the rest of the Eight Masters challenged the Dark Emissary Jinsoyun to a fight that ended with Sanzu's sacrifice. The rest of the Eight Masters escaped to find and help the prophesized hero (the player) who will eventually defeat Jinsoyun. 

After the defeat, Sanzu might have been saved or resurrected by Mushin who then use her as a pawn in his proxy war. After the resurrection, Sanzu discarded her Aransu identity and adapted her alter ego Zulia, named after the founder of her clan - Zulia Aransu. With that, she also discarded the red-white Aransu Apprentice outfit and began to wear the cyan-white Grand Enchantment.

In my opinion, the red-white version should be the one to be named Grand Enchantment, since it is the version that is worn by Grand Enchantress Sanzu. The cyan-white version might be named Mushin's Puppet. 😆 But that might give away the plot. 😅

But enough about the rant. Let's take a look at the original Gon Grand Enchantment below.

Front View - Original Outfit

The exaggerated ribbon aside, the Grand Enchantment is actually bits and pieces of parts worn over the inner clothes. For example, the apron or shroud at the front torso.

One of the other parts is the cotton leggings.

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit

Then, the trumpet sleeves or maybe elbow guards that is also separate from the main piece.

Rear View - Original Outfit

That is what I call an exaggerated ribbon. 😅

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

Side View - Original Outfit

Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

If we look closer, we can see that the separate pieces are all tied down by lots of strings and knots. This is the other unique design of Aransu clan uniform.

Looking back, I had done the Jin Grand Enchantment mod way back in 2017. But I have not written a post on it because it was not made available to players yet, and I made it to get back at Zulia for what she did to the Hongmoon school... Okay... I also hated her horrible mocking laughter. 😠

In the Jin (Zulia is a Jin in case you did not know) mod, I have shortened the front and back aprons, plus made the sides of the bra translucent. Later in a revised mod, a patron requested to have the huge ribbon removed.

One year on, I decided to do something different on the Gon mod. Although I still shortened the apron, I kept the front portion longer. And instead of a translucent layer on the sides of the bra, I gave it a laced layer.

Let's take a look at the modified version below.

Front View - Modified Outfit

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The front apron has been shortened and now has a tapered end instead of square.

Rear View - Modified Outfit

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit

Hmm... I think I made the back apron too short. And that is after I made the effort to extend it... I blame it on the inherent Gon's butt. 😅

Side View - Modified Outfit

Oh! I kept the ribbon. 😆

Side Close-up View 1 - Modified Outfit

Next, the laced bra. Check the image below if it is not clear enough.

Side Close-up View 2 - Modified Outfit

I kept the bottom back portion of the bra because there is supposed to be a groove at the area where the breasts connects to the torso. It might look weird if I laced the whole area, so I kept the cloth there to pretend that it is hiding the groove behind it. 😅 

We have reached the end of this post. Check the video for a closer look at the mod. I have simplified the video to a before/after look style without too many fanciful stuff because I don't really know if people are interested to watch those. 😰

Curious case of missing video

Sorry guys. There will temporary be no video. Not because I am slacking or lazy, but something curious happened to my LICENSED copy of video editor which prohibits me from getting the video out. If you are not interested to hear my rant, you should stop reading now. 😓  

You have been warned.

As written in the last part of the blog, the video is all done up and ready for exporting. And then... the video editor crunched up a video with missing footage at the front as you can see in the video below. The front portion of the video is missing where you can see the title Blade & Soul. I will not be publishing this video in public domain on YouTube. It is only viewable for people with the link.

After going back to try to fix the video, the editor suddenly gave up and crashed on me, while putting up a dialog to perform an auto update to apply bug fixes. I guess... "OK, let it do the update. What could go wrong?"

But after the update, the editor prompted me with "You have been using trial version of YYY editor for a long time and you should purchase the actual version." (something along that line) and provided me with a link. I was like "What the hell is this? I paid for a licensed software and now it is asking me to purchase (with discounted rate at US$20+ that is, it would be close to $40 for my currency 😦 ) this new update version where they apply a bug fix?". I tried applying my original license key but the updated editor rejected it as a key for older version of the editor. 😲

There is no way I am paying for another license while I am making these videos to show audience for free. So I emailed the developer and they replied (at least they still get back to me within 12hrs) that I can uninstall and reinstall the old version. 😳 So, that's it... The old version still got that same bug where it can't generate the front portion of the video under certain criteria.

If you are wondering why I bothered buying the professional license in the first place. Well, the trial version cannot export the video in mpeg or higher quality. I wanted the video to look good, so I purchased the license thinking of it as a one-off expense. Didn't thought they could pull a stunt like that... But imagine this. If I am suppose to be a professional video editor and have a tight deadline to meet, I would have no choice but to purchase the new license, with this seemingly timely bug that appears at the most crucial moment...  😨 

This is depressing... Seeing how I did all these for free but people out there are just trying to suck up all the money in any possible way... 😩

If you have read everything up to here... Sorry for making you read this. But also thanks for lending an eye. 😥

Download Link

Blade & Soul - Divine Emissary (Jin Outfit) Mod

It seems we have not looked at a Jin mod for five consecutive weeks, and thus, we have the rather new Jin Divine Emissary outfit in this week's post. This outfit was first made available for limited time sale in September 2018 on the online Hongmoon store, together with the Shadow Walker.

For some reason, I find that the Shadow Walker outfit looks kind of like the black Superman costume in comics. And it looks good too even for a mono-color outfit. If not for the burglar style head band, I might have considered buying it. 😅

The Divine Emissary's style on the other hand, is based more on a mixture of ancient civilizations. The helmet for male characters look like headdress worn by ancient Korean military officials, while the female head crest, which looks like a Valkyrie's, leans towards the Norse Mythology. Finally, the bird like structures on the shoulder guards emit ancient Egyptian essence. Not forgetting the decorative trinkets that is of oriental decent. In a descriptive word often used in my country - Rojak. 😅

Just for some fun fact, Rojak is an oriental style fruit-vegetable salad which ingredients can include pineapple, mango, cucumber, bean sprout, smashed peanuts with palm sugar paste. However, the ingredients may also vary across different culture and countries. For example, Indian Rojak kept the ingredients, chosen by customer (which may also include seafood), separate from the sauce. As such, the food name also becomes a descriptive term for mixture or eclectic mix. 😆

But that being said, it does not mean that being rojak is bad, because it depends on how well the different parts can be mixed to give an elevated final product. Fortunately, the Divine Emissary is able to achieve this result. 😄

Let us take a look at this rojak outfit below.

Front View - Original Outfit

Hmm.. Which culture is the leather skirt and leg guards from? Game culture? 😆

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit

The bra is made up of two layers where two metal caps rest upon a cloth which wraps around the body.

Rear View - Original Outfit

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

We can see the golden bird head structure on the shoulder guards.

Side View - Original Outfit

Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

A series of tattoos can be seen wrapping around the upper arm and just below the chest level. However, the characters or symbols are just scribbles that do not give a hint of what they mean. 😓

For the mod, I first removed the skirt because the panties actually looks the equivalent of a leather sport shorts. After removal of the skirt, it was revealed that the outer side of the leg guards actually join with the outer side of the shorts. It looks something like the cowboy style of wild west. As such, I trimmed the top outer side of the leg guards so that they no longer touches the shorts.

Next, I took a look at the bra and found that there are actually two layers. So I took away the cloth layer leaving the metal caps which covers the entire lower part of the breasts. Having a bit of room to play around with, I trimmed a slight curve into the metal caps to reveal a little portion of the under boobs. 😅

Finally, I need to recolor those darker skin areas which are affected by shadows. Because of this, the tattoo just below the chest level was also erased.

Take a look at the modified outfit in the images below.

Front View - Modified Outfit

As seen above, the skirt has been removed and the top part of the leg guards trimmed. It is shown as 'modified' in the image because it is not just a simple erase but shifting of pattern textures in all the texture files to give it a presentable look. 

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit

We can see that the cloth portion of the bra that wraps around the body is no more. Only the two metal caps remain in place.

Rear View - Modified Outfit

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit

There were shadows from the bra and skirt, on the back and thighs, so I have to repaint the skin layer to remove them.

Side View - Modified Outfit

Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit

This mod should have been pretty simple but I had some trouble repainting the thighs to remove the shadows. It is due to missing meshes in the UV map for the thighs and butt area. For some reason, the mesh for those areas are not saved into the UV map. Thus, I cannot see the boundaries or edges of the meshes and have difficulty trying to match their color. In the end, I had to make estimation and that ends up causing that dark patch around the thighs. 😰

That brings us to the end of this post. Take a look at the video to have a better look at the outfit.

Download Link

Blade & Soul - Unchallenged (Gon Outfit) Mod

We have finally arrived at the last piece of Unchallenged outfit, which is for the Gon race. The first piece was done for the Jin race somewhere in October 2018 but since it was not easily obtainable, I left out the mod for Gon and Yun. With the game updates, players can now purchase the outfit from the Zaiwei Achievement vendor after defeating the final boss in Irontech Forge - Chief Mechanizer Yoong under five minutes.

As such, I was able to obtain it for my Yun and therefore tried out the same Jin mod on it. A patron likes the mod and ask for a Gon version. And that led us here today.

Since our fate to own this outfit no longer lay in the hand of our RNG goddess and super rich whales 😅, I can easily get the outfit for my Gon. So I can finally make a video to show the outfit without using the in-game Tailorshop, which can get repetitive. 😆

By the way, 'whales' originally refers to those top gear players who bought in-game stuff, to gear/power up their characters, by spending real life currencies. But the line has blurred to refer to any top gear players. 😆

As seen in the two previous Unchallenged mod posts, we know the Gon version would look exactly the same. But let's review the original outfit below for the sake of non-players.

Front View - Original Outfit

The same black colored coat and spiky armor pieces can be seen above.

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit

Rear View - Original Outfit

The power pack and cable are also present.

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

Right Side View - Original Outfit

And also the huge metallic glove on the right hand.

Left Side View - Original Outfit

Left Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

To be fair to the three races, I made the Gon mod similar to the Jin and Yun. Or maybe just being lazy. 😩

The mod involves removing the extra armor pieces with spikes, the power cable and the vertical center portion at the back of the coat.

Although the outfit is similar, I found out that the meshes may not be exactly located at the same position on the texture. It is understandable that the skin layer may be different on the texture, due to the inherent different in the body shapes of the three races. Most of the time, the armor/outfit pieces can be found in the same location.

However, some of the pieces for the Unchallenged outfit are not found at the same location so I cannot do a easy copy/paste delete from the Jin or Yun texture. So, some of the deletions need to be traced and erased manually like working on a new outfit. 😩 On top of that, not forgetting the recoloring of skin layer due to shadows.

Front View - Modified Outfit

The spiky armor pieces on the abdomen and thighs have been removed.

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The bra has also been trimmed a little and the metal cap, which was blocking the mouth, near the neck area has been removed.

Rear View - Modified Outfit

The vertical center portion at the back of the coat has been erased.

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit

No more hindering power cable too. 😅

Left Side View - Modified Outfit

Left Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit

Right Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit

Hmm... Although the mod outfit is similar for all three races, it seems the Gon version looks best. Is it just my imagination or the effect of the Gon body shape? 😕

Anyway, this brings us to the end of the Unchallenged mod. Watch the video to have a closer look at the modified outfit.

After making so many mod videos, I was beginning to wonder if anyone actually appreciate the videos for entertainment or just checking out the mods and abruptly stopping the video halfway. This thought arises because in YouTube, I can see the average view time and how far into the clip was watched, of the individual videos. I realized not many watch the entire video and is wondering whether I should still make full video clips like these. 😕

Download Link