Blade & Soul - Alpha Hunter (Jin Outfit) Mod

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for your support for this blog and hope that you have enjoyed the mods and contents. It has been fun but this will be the last of my weekly post as my focus has changed. Bread and butter is always the main concern in this world that we live in, and as such, I will not be posting on a weekly basis anymore while I focus on the more important issue.

If you like this blog and the mods, you can either follow me on this blog or subscribe to my YouTube channel. In this way, you can get notification when I post anything on either platform, without need to check every now and then for new upload or posting.

Well, that get the announcement out of the way, so let's get into the mod for this post. 

In the last six weeks, I have been filling requests so in this post, I will be working on an outfit which I have been looking forward to work on from awhile back. I had actually played around with it a bit when I first got my hands on the outfit, but was disappointed when I found out that the skin surface is missing a large portion under the bra. I had intended to streamline the bra to leave just the stripe in the center but alas... 😞

By then, some other outfits grabbed my attention so the Alpha Hunter was 'relocated' to the back of my mind. 😅 

It was after NCWest introduced the Alpha Agent that my interest in Alpha Hunter reignites. For information, the Alpha Agent looks much the same like the Alpha Hunter, except that the red cloth has been replaced with a purple color, and that NC decides to suddenly be more conservative and covered up the under boobs. 😅

A patron thus requested to have that cover (you know what cover 😏 ) removed. Unfortunately, it seems like the textures for  Alpha Agent is saved using a different format and thus can cause the game to crash upon repackaged. I tried many methods but still could not get it to work so it was left on the shelf. However, this led me once again to the Alpha Hunter which is in the same package and so we finally see it here today.

Alpha Hunter is a very beautiful outfit with design concepts from Roman and Iron age Europe. The layout of the red cloth is similar to tunic worn by ancient Romans, while the armor pieces has the essence of Iron age Europe. And since it has hunter in its name, leather component is also an essential part of the outfit, for example, the half-pants and side guard.

Take a look at the images below and decides for yourself.

Front View - Original Outfit

From the front view, we can easily identify the three types of material that are used in this outfit. The cloth and armor pieces have the essence of Romans and Iron age as mentioned above. But what about that bra... 😆

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit

The bra looks like a modern day sports bra, except that it uses metal, leather and nettings as material, and left the under boobs exposed. 😅

Rear View - Original Outfit

The way the red cloth is loosely drape on the body has the essence of the Romans' tunic.

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

The leather pieces reminds me of the Romans' gladiator's outfit.

Right Side View - Original Outfit

The leather pants, or rather, half-pants covered only the left leg. The right leg is instead protected by a leg armor.

Right Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

Although I mentioned that the armor pieces have essence of Iron age armor, they also possess an element of fantasy.

Left Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

Does the outfit looks alpha enough for you? 😃

As mentioned earlier, I had tried to mod the bra area at start but found holes waiting under the bra. 😦 So, this time round, I simply remove the netting on the chest area, leaving the bra otherwise untouched. I also need to get rid of the shadow beneath the netting layer.

Next, I took off all the red cloth and leather hoping there will not be any more holes. Luckily for us, there isn't any. 😄

Finally, looking at that half-pants, I am really tempted to recolor the entire left leg to skin. However, I notice that the leather pants is actually a layer above the skin layer as seen from the left side image. If I recolor the pants to skin, we will have a thicker left leg, which will look unbalance. 😰

So, for the final mod, I left it at the removal of netting, cloth and leather. Check out the simplified outfit below.

Front View - Modified Outfit

As seen above, all the red cloths and the leather protector on the left waist have been removed.

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The netting above the bra on the chest area is now removed. If I try to remove the black-grey area of the bra, we will immediately see holes pop up. 

Rear View - Modified Outfit

The half-pants can be seen much clearer now that the leather and cloths are gone.

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit

I kept the netting, on the bra, at the back because it does not look nice with just three wires as the frame. 😰

Left Side View - Modified Outfit

As mentioned earlier, the proof that the pants is a layer above the skin can be seen in the image above, where the skin of the outer left thigh is exposed under the pants.

Are you wondering why I did not remove the entire pants then? Well, the exposed skin is just what it is - a small texture of the outer thigh. If you still do not get what I mean, it means that if the pants is removed, we will only see the outer thigh while the entire left leg went missing. 😨

Right Side View - Modified Outfit

I kept the red cloth on the arms because the arms may become disconnected if the cloths are removed.

Right Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit

With this we have come to the end of this post. Hopefully, I can find time to post another mod soon.

Before the short (or maybe long) goodbye, check out the video which was captured in the Forgotten Forest - a playground for the alpha, in the Gunwon City map.

Download Link

Blade & Soul - Dragon Knight (Jin Outfit) Mod

Exactly one month ago, a patron saw the Gon Dragon Knight mod and asked if I can do one for the Jin version. After clearing away the duo mods of Scarlet Empire and Aurora, I can finally work on this mod that is more time consuming. 😅
  

By now, everyone should be very familiar with this outfit and mod since this is the third one to be done. And looking at how the Gon and Yun Dragon Knight have the same appearance, it is expected to be the same for the Jin.

However, the mesh structures for the three races can be quite different. For the Yun mod, I can recolor the entire lower back to skin tone because the surface is considerably smooth. But that is not the case for the Jin version. Uneven surfaces can be seen quite clearly after I recolored the area to skin tone so I had to retain the armor layer. 

The original outfit can be seen in the following images below.

Front View - Original Outfit

The similar outfit consists of silvery armor pieces over a darker and duller inner layer.

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit

The two spine-like structures similarly wrap themselves around the legs.

Rear View - Original Outfit

Eagle-eyed patrons will be able to see that the entire torso, except the cleavage area, is actually in a same layer. If the torso surface is totally smooth, it can even be mod into a bikini armor. But alas... 😥

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

The butt region is observed to be a bit squarish just like the Gon and Yun versions.

Side View - Original Outfit

Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

The time consuming aspect of this mod is the need to properly align the skin layer over the mesh and after that, carefully erasing all the unwanted areas.

Because the armor and skin is now on the same layer, it can cause some overlapping of skin-armor boundary to occur. As such, the erasing work need to be conducted carefully, not only on the Diffuse texture but the Normal, Specular and Mask as well.

After much work, if you look at the mod close enough, it is still possible to see overlapping occur. 😰

Well, you can check out the modified outfit in the images below.

Front View - Modified Outfit

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit

Both thighs have been recolored to skin as seen in the images above.

Rear View - Modified Outfit

The rear view looks similar to the Gon with the retained armor that stretches down towards the lower back.

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit

But the G-string is same for all three. 😆

Side View - Modified Outfit

The sides of the torso is also in skin tone after the mod.

Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit

After doing the three mods, I am not satisfied with the butt area due to the existing of sharp edges when looked from the side. This is due to the mesh structure and cannot be helped... Perhaps I should not turn the whole area into G-string. 😔

The other unsatisfactory issue is the overlapping of skin-armor boundaries (a.k.a. color bleeding). To perfectly solve this, I may even need to recolor on a per pixel level but that would be too time consuming. 😰

Anyway, this completes the Dragon Knight series.

You can watch the video to get a closer look at the mod and see whether you can spot the color bleeding. My Jin character is lucky enough to fish this outfit out of the recent trove, so you can get to see the mod from different angles.

Download Link

Blade & Soul - Aurora (Gon/Jin Outfit) Mod

After recovering from the charger explosion (or rather smoking 😰 ) saga, I guess I will take things easy, for now, and thus decided to do an easier mod. Therefore, I will work on the Gon and Jin Aurora since they are quite easy, and the request was made three weeks ago, a day after I posted the Yun Aurora mod.

Since I already have the Yun mod template and the meshes for all three races are well lined up, it is easy to just copy the modified parts over from the Yun. What is left are the erasing of extra clothing and shading away of shadows.

With the details about the Aurora outfit posted in the previous Yun Aurora mod, there is nothing much to add on, except a question of why the Aurora is found in the Sandstorm Temple which is surrounded by a desolate desert. 😅

Seeing that the outfit has almost no relation to the natural phenomenon, I guess it might be meant to point to something else... like the other meaning of rise/dawn of something or even the Roman goddess of dawn.

The outfit's name does not seem to have much relation to a goddess either so I guess the remaining possibility would be the 'rise/dawn of something' part. Indeed, the outfit is a random drop from Rukesh who was obsessed with finding a new way to achieve transcendence. However, at his final discovery which should have been the dawn of his transcendence, it also marks his downfall when he fell under the devastating effect of the artifact. Picture again, the legless man that is bind to a headless genie. 😨

That might all have been just my willful guess but at least it has a link somehow. 😅

Let us take a look at the original outfit below, with Gon version on the left and Jin on the right.

Front View - Original Outfit

If we compare the Gon and Jin outfits to the Yun, we can be sure that they have the same appearance.

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit

The same goldish dress enhanced with metallic guards on the shoulders, forearms and legs.

Rear View - Original Outfit

The mantle and two goldish straps are also present for the Gon and Jin Aurora. But do not ask me whether the writings on the mantle are exactly the same because it is a language of the fantasy world of Blade & Soul. 😅

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

Side View - Original Outfit

We can also see the feathers between the shoulder guard and bracer.

Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

As mentioned earlier, I intended to replicate the Yun mod on both the Gon and Jin outfits. That means trimming the mantle to dress level, trimming the dress by a little, cutting the inverted 'V' shape into the sides and finally, removing the straps, that links the dress and leg guards, on the outer thighs.

Let us check the two mod versions below, similarly with Gon version on left side and Jin on the right.

Front View - Modified Outfit

As seen above, both dresses have been trimmed to end at the edge of the white line.

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The chest areas are 'opened up' but it is less obvious on the Gon version due to inherent difference in body shape.

Rear View - Modified Outfit

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The mantles on both outfits have been trimmed until slightly above the edge of the dress.

Side View - Modified Outfit

Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The two side images above show the inverted 'V' cut into the sides of both outfits and the straps on the outer thighs are no longer present.

With this, Aurora for all three races have been completed. You can watch the video to take a better look at the mods.

Since I do not have the outfit on my Gon or Jin, and the outfit is individually bind, I can only create the video with the help of in-game Tailshop. The scene is also set in the Silverfrost Mountains map but in a warmer and greener landscape of Evergreen village.

Download Link for Gon
Download Link for Jin