AION - Heavenly Tunic & Leggings Mod

In this week's post, we will be looking at the cloth version of the Heavenly set's chest and leg armor, which are 2 separate pieces. As compared to the plate set, which looks uncomplicated, and the leather set, that looks like cloth armor; the design of the cloth set is very unique (or some would say weird), looking like a hybrid of flower, butterfly and chameleon.    >.<

What do I mean by hybrid of flower, butterfly and chameleon? Well.. the first cue is that flower in the middle of the chest and the extensive uses of colorful layered petal design, which resembles petals forming a flower. This layered petal design can be seen prominently on the skirt, the bottom extension of the chest armor and the trumpet-styled sleeves.

The butterfly-feel comes from the neck lace, which extends upwards into a collar, that looks like butterfly's wings that are stacked together.

But the most prominent aspect of the dress is probably the curvy chameleon tail that trails  from the back of the skirt. 

Let us look at the images of the original armor below.

Front View - Original Armor

Front Close-up View - Original Armor

Would you agree that the armor gives a very flowery feel by looking at the two images above?  :D

Other than looking similar to butterfly wings, I think the collar also resembles some part of a plant, isn't it?

Rear View - Original Armor

Ahhh... Here we can see the curvy tail. It doesn't have the exact same texture or shape of a chameleon's tail, but that curvy part at the end really reminds me of one.  XD

Rear Close-up View - Original Armor

Nice bare back there!   :D

Side View - Original Armor

For the mod, I kept all the designs because I find them so unique.  :D   The exception is the trumpet sleeves that looks so 70's.  ~.~

So, let's look at the modified armor below.

Front View - Modified Armor

First of all, the skirt and chest bottom extension are trimmed to show off more of her leggy legs. But you can see the flowery design remains though.

Front Close-up View - Modified Armor

Secondly, the trumpet sleeves are shortened with the intention to reduce the circumference of the opening. But it seems I ended up trimming too much though.  >.<"

Front Close-up View 2 - Modified Armor

Third part of the mod is on the chest, repainting the cloth covering her cleavage into skin, and of course, at the same time, I have to remove the flower that blocked my view.  XD

Other modification on the chest also includes turning the cloth texture, on the torso, into transparent texture. Fortunately for me, the straps, that run right through the middle of the breasts, can sufficiently cover the nipples, so I don't have to crack my head trying to find ways to conceal them.   XD

Side View - Modified Armor

We can also see the transparency on the sides as well.

Rear View - Modified Armor

The rear view looks almost identical to the original armor because I kept the tail and its accessories. On top of the fact that, the back is really bare and has nothing else to modify?  XD

Just one last thing that I find on the chest armor is that it seems to have some kind of bust shrinking effect, as opposed to the Sea Feast chest armor's bust boosting effect.   -.-"

So, that's all for the mod and you can watch the video for more details of the mod.

 Download Link

AION - Heavenly Breastplate & Greaves Mod

In the previous post, I have shown a mod on the Heavenly Jerkin and Breeches. So in this post, we'll be looking at its plate version (Breastplate and Greaves). Just to make it clear, the chest piece of this armor set does not include the pants (i.e. not 2-in-1 armor), unlike the newer armor sets, such as "Sauro Commander" or new abyss armor set, where most chest piece also contains the pants. Thus, I am actually mod-ding the chest and pants separately, which is actually twice the number of graphic files of a 2-in-1 armor.   >.<"

 

Anyway, this plate armor looks... surprisingly... like a real plate armor! Unlike the leather version which looks like a cloth dress. But who really cares if a leather or plate armor looks like cloth in a game anyway, as long as they are given the correct attributes, such as toughness. Right?

 

So let's take a look at this armor below.

 

Front View - Original Armor

Front Close-up View - Original Armor

As you can see, the chest portion of the armor has a plate metal texture and the pants is a shorts with plate leg-guard over a cloth stocking. The part of the armor that looks like a "skirt" is actually an extension from the chest piece, which gives the armor a kind of like-a-dress feel.

 

Rear View - Original Armor

Rear Close-up View - Original Armor

From the rear close-up, we can see 2 rings wrapping around her upper thighs, which I think looks weird. And the angle at which the "skirt" lifts off the waist is a bit exaggerating.   ~.~ 

 

Side View - Original Armor

Although the armor doesn't looks too complicated from the screenshots, the same cannot be said of the mesh. The torso portion of the chest piece is actually separated into 3 parts (bra, side-back, tummy) and this makes mod-ding more difficult because removal of wrong areas can leave holes, plus the impossibility to simply paint everything to skin color, due to discontinuity between the parts.  >.<"

 

Due to the design of the mesh, I have to keep the bra intact, with its neighboring areas, and add a belt at the waist to hide the discontinuity between the leg armor and the tummy. 

 

Let's see what I managed to do for the armor below.

 

Front View - Mod Armor

Front Close-up View - Mod Armor

As seen above, the tummy area has been modified to skin followed by a "belt" to hide discontinuity between tummy and leg.

Front Close-up View 2 - Mod Armor

The bra is mostly intact, except for the modification of the plate metal texture over the full breasts, into transparent mid and under. Simply using a dull metal plate to cover the sensitive points is... dull.... so I duplicated a little flowery design there.  XD

 

Rear View - Mod Armor

Rear Close-up View - Mod Armor

From the rear views, we can see that the extended "skirt" portion, that looks weird, has been removed and the shorts was converted into a panties style, without the 2 strange rings around the thigh.

 

Side View - Mod Armor

While recording the video, I have also noticed normal defects around the butt area. For those interested, normals are data points that tell the graphic renderer how light is bounced off a surface, so that the surface can appear curvedly smooth or angularly flat.

The designer probably did not need to pay attention to that area because it was mostly obscured by the existing "skirt". But it now becomes prominent after removal of the "skirt". How I wish I could mod the mesh too...   D:
 

Anyway, check out the video for more on the mod. 

 

 

Download Link

 

AION - Noble Sky Dragon's Hauberk and Chausses

In the previous post when I was modifying the Noble Sky Dragon's Tunic and Leggings, I also took a peek at its chain version (Noble Sky Dragon's Hauberk and Chausses) since it is time for a chain armor mod. The design for the chain set looks very similar to the cloth one, although the mesh is kind of different, especially for the upper torso, as I will discuss later.

 

As for the chausses, nothing much needs to be done as it is just a simple short skirt that looks something like 2 pieces of short cloth covering front and back, and 2 extra scale-like 'covers' that are on the sides of the upper thighs. The funny thing is that the hauberk itself has 2 long pieces of cloth, running down the sides to the knee level, that totally covers the 2 extra 'covers'.    ~.~ 

 

After describing so much, I guess it's time to show the original armor.

 

Front views - Original Armor

As you can see or rather can't see, the 2 side covers of the chausses is totally hidden by the 2 pieces of long cloth. And you probably will not see them in the mod version either because I had removed them to give her leggy legs a super high cut.   :p

 

The hauberk design broke the upper torso into 3 parts, namely the upper back with side, upper front torso (a.k.a. breast) and lower torso. And because of this, I got into some trouble trying to give the hauberk a bare shoulder look.   D:

 

Rear and Side Views - Original Armor

From the two views, the armor looks complicated. Is it really possible to mod a bare back and shoulder out of it? Well... let's take a look at the mod version below.

 

Front Views

 

Rear and Side Views

Ahhh! Does the mod armor looks 'cleaner' now?  :p

 

I gave her a bare shoulder, bare back and what's that...? A fiery bra? From the still images, you probably can't see it but there is actually flame-colored fluid moving on the bra.  O.o

The "Fiery Bra" actually came as a surprise to me as well. It all started with the 3 parts torso that I had mentioned earlier. Due to the separation of the parts, I have problem matching skin color between the top and breast area, and on top of that, there's also slight discontinuity in the mesh where the 2 regions meet. The image below can explain better.

Color Mismatch and Discontinuity

This issue does not bother the original armor because well.. it's armor pieces that are put together and thus, mismatched color and discontinuity is acceptable. Unfortunately, we can't have that happening on the body layer itself, can we?    >.<

After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally decided to cover the breast area in a transparent bra. When it was all done and I looked at the character in game, I was amazed to see the fiery bra instead! And it looks so cool that I decided to keep it.   :D

 

The fiery nature has probably been included in the mesh meta data because if we look closely at the original armor, there's a little flame movement on the frame of the armor as well. I guess it got kind of extended due to the way I applied the colors.   @.@

 

By the way, to make the fiery bra 2 points more sexier (and I do mean literally 2 points), I had secretly added something. It is slightly more obvious in the still images because I was looking to capture that precise moment, coupled with the correct lighting condition. In the video or in game, the fluidity of the flame mostly conceals that 2 point sexiness.  :p

 

But I am guessing some people might prefer to admire the smooth contour instead of some concealed sexiness, so I have also created another mod, which involves a ring around the breast region, to hide the discontinuity, as shown in the image below.

Front Views - Alternate Mod

So which version would you choose? Check out the video for the fiery bra (Ring mod not included - that sounded like a phrase from some commercials  :p   ).

 

Download link

 

 

AION - Noble Sky Dragon's Tunic and Leggings Mod

Welcome back for the second post of the week and in this post I'll be showing another level 55 armor set, but in this case a cloth set. This particular armor set belongs under the category of "Balic" design, in which the armor pieces are crafted by players using "Balic" materials, which are looted off defeated Balaur (NPC Dragon race). If you are thinking that it is pretty gruesome to kill something and then fabricate their bones and skins into an armor, you are probably right... But think of those animal skins that some people wear or use (crocodile leather bag, animal skin winter clothing as examples) and you will know this happens in real life too.    D:

Anyway, back to the topic, this armor is actually one of the first few that I had tried to mod on, but was not very successful due to lack of experience. I got frustrated after several failed attempts and thus, left it sitting in a folder for the past few months. Recently, I took a peek into the main folder and there it was, quietly waiting to be rediscovered.

The main problem faced with this armor was that I lack the means to see overlapping layers and what texture is being drawn onto the mesh or simply skipped (as in a hole when top layer is removed  ~.~  ); thus, the armor ended up with holes and loss of continuity of character skin layer.    >.<   But after these few months of doing mods, I think I have finally learned enough to complete it.

Let's us now look at what the original armor is like.

Front and Side Views - Original Armor

Rear Views - Original Armor

From the above images, we can see that the original chest armor does not really look that extraordinarily special, except for some draconic essence (scale and claw like design). The leggings consists of 2 pieces of cloth (front and back) with a pair of stockings. Well, well. Cloth again... We know what's going to happen to them.   :p

The problem that I encountered was with the chest piece, where I tried to reveal more skin at the side of the torso. Let's see what I have managed to do now, that I had failed before.

Front Views

As you can see, I got the chest piece to reveal a little more skin and kept the modified bra from the initial mod. That's why there's no transparency (which I have applied in overdose in the past few posts) here.     >.<



Rear Views

The back was also trimmed off a little and off goes the 2 pieces of cloth to show off her leggy legs.  :p

Side Views

Oh and by the way, just for information, this chest armor is one of those that have the full body skin underneath the bra. This means that if the bra is taken off, we can see the full breasts (Yeah! No hole   :D  ). But since I am not doing that, I did not bother to include the nipples; so even if the bra is taken off, we will only be seeing something like a mannequin, such as the one in my previous post "Tiamat Guard's Jerkin".   XD

Finally, check out the video for some great views. The video was taken at an elevated location and you can see the lake, sand and even wild life, if your eyes are not too focused on the mod, that is.  :D

Download Link
 



AION - Guardian Brigade General's Breastplate and Geaves Mod

In the previous few posts, we have looked at leather, cloth and chain armors, so I guess it's time for plate armor again. In this post, I will be working on another Abyss grade armor which consists of separate chest and leg pieces. What attracted me to work on this armor set is its uniqueness among its peers of chain, leather and cloth.

I can still remember when I first set foot in Inggison and can't help but to notice this group of "models" who are kneeling before the room of Empyrean Lord Kaisinel (they have been there since AION 2.0... and still "respectfully" on their knees in AION 5.1, after Kaisinel has been long gone     ~.~ ). If 2.0 and 5.1 doesn't seem that much of a difference to non-players, well... it's been 6 years in our world and given that 5 minutes in our world being equivalent to 1 hour for in-game time, that would work out to be approximately 72 years for in-game time!   @.@

But what's most prominent about this group is the one commander who seems to be leading the unrelenting "worship" by standing right in front of the group. Look at the image below and you will see.

Unrelenting Loyalty
(kneeling since AION 2.0 and still continuing in AION 5.1)

The commander just seem so outstanding (other than the fact that she is "out" of the group and "standing" instead of kneeling   XD   ) and authoritative... Somewhat like a Valkyrie, don't you think so?

Although I had previously complained about the difficulty in obtaining new Abyss grade armor, this older set, which is for level 55 characters, is much easier to earn by the time AION 4.0 is released. To make it sound even better, the same skin is also applied to lesser grade Abyss armors (e.g. "Guardian Patrol's" set) that cost much less (89,000 Abyss Points and zero medals) for both the breastplate and greaves. So for high level players, this is not difficult to achieve.

Let us now take a closer look at the original armor to see what can be further modified.

Front Views - Original Armor

The first thing that caught my attention is probably the 3 layers covering between the waist and upper thigh. Two of those inner layers are part of the greaves and the outer most layer is part of the breastplate. The 3 layers don't seem to offer more protection or warmth because they don't really cover much either.   -.-"  

So, I'll be trimming around that area for a better leggy view. Why hide the legs when the mesh gives it a thigh boosting effect, right? If you are confused by what I just said, well... I mean that the greaves' mesh actually boost the size of its wearer's thigh, something similar to the bust boosting effect of the "Sea Feast" chest that I mentioned before in my "Ballerina" mod.     

 

Rear Views - Original Armor

Side View - Original Armor

What else did I modified on the armor? Take a look below.

Front Views

For the first modification, I trimmed the waist area of the breastplate to show off more skin on the side of the thighs and trimmed the skirt portion of the greaves to cover only the front. But as usual, I got a little stingy with the material for that small piece of cloth, such that it doesn't fully covers the front of the panties as intended.  >.<"   But I guess that's fine because for the second part of the mod, she got more protection with a shiny plate panties as shown below.  :p

Rear Views

And for the last part of the mod, I removed the cloth on the tummy and modified the plate bra into transparent bra.... yet again!  XD    Fortunately, the frame of the bra beautifully hide the sensitive areas (a.k.a. nipples).   

 

Side Views

Eagle-eyes viewers may also notice that I had modified the stocking on her right leg to transparent one too.  :p   Unfortunately, most part of the stocking is covered by the sabaton and not worth mentioning. 

 

With this, I wrapped up this post and if you did not get enough look at the armor, check out the video. 

 

 

 

 Download Link

 

AION - Rentus Recovery Cloth Armor Set Part 2: Rentus Recovery Tunic and Ophidan Legging Mod

As promised in the previous post, we'll take a look at how we can take our armor customization to the next level through the use of skin mods. In order to achieve my desired customization, I have modified both the Rentus Recovery Tunic (or Rebel tunic) and the Ophidan Legging. So without further delay, let us look at the before and after screen captures.

  

Front view - Before and After

Can you guys spot the difference?   :p   

In case you have difficulty spotting the changes, the following 3 screen captures will point them out for you.   :D

Front view - accessories removed

Well, for the first thing, I removed the golden, mini wing-like accessories located at the front of her waist, which I had mentioned in the previous post. Not only does it not change color with the tunic, but it also looks out of place with the replaced skirt (Ophidan legging). So, off it goes!    >.<

Front view - Full to partial armor

The next item that I mod is the chest area. Although the full chest armor looks nice, it gives this strong, hard feel of a plate armor. As such, I decided to have it mod into a bra-type armor, to give it a softer, clothier feel. It's a cloth armor to begin with, isn't it?  XD

 

Actually I also tried removing the sleeves but it exposed some discontinuities between the upper arm and the main body, so I scrapped the idea.  ~.~

Front view - Trimmed skirt

For the last item on the list, I finally got to the Ophidan legging. Readers who have followed this blog would have probably guessed what I intended to do... My love for leggy-ness.   :p

 

If you did guess correctly, well congratulation, but sorry...  no prize to give away   :'(    As a consolation, you can download this mod from the link at the end of this post.    :p

 



Anyway, I stripped off the cloth part of the skirt to reveal her full legs, but the front portion seems empty because the 'feathers' do not cover the area. I would have replaced the area with the same feathers but it is beyond my access to mod a solid object into a translucent one.   ~.~

 

Instead, I trimmed the around-the-wait skirt into a triangular portion that specifically covers that empty area. Hey! I even added a little design on that small piece of cloth.  :p

 

So, what do you guys think of this fully customized armor set? Or do you guys have some improvement tips (except nude  >.<  )?

 

 

 

 

Download Link

 

AION - Veteran Hunter's Chausses

As promised in previous post, I'll show you guys the leg armor (pants) which I had used to create a match for the Rebel Chain Chest armor. The pants that I used is in this post's title, namely the Veteran Hunter's Chausses. This leather leg armor can be bought from the "Fortuneer" NPC who are stationed at Cygnea or Inggison fortress, with their special reward tokens which are given for completing their daily quest.

 

By the way "chausses" is used as the standardized naming convention for leather leg armor since Aion 4.X, similar to "hauberk" which means chain chest armor. I actually googled those terms, when Aion NA started using them, and they are actual terms used to describe armor in older days (12th to 15th century). See.... we do learn something while playing games :p

 

Anyway, for people who are wondering why my character is wearing both chain and leather at the same time, it is because they provides different character stats (e.g. chain has higher physical defense, while leather provides higher evasion rate). Another reason is because, the original matching pants, Rebel Brogans (i.e. Chain Leg armor) cannot be altered to what I need due to the mesh not following a tight leg shape, as illustrated below.

 

Can't change the baggy pants into a tight fit leg :(

As the image above has shown, I can't modified the "baggy" pants into a tight leg shape if I cannot change the mesh, which determines the surface shape of the armor skin.  :(

 

With everything explained, let's now look at the before and after modification images.



Front view

Rear view

Close-up view

Some people, who has an eagle-eye for fashion, will probably frown at the mismatched chest and leg armor in the above images, but I had actually used that leather top because it has a neat cutoff at the waist line, such that the leg armor can be shown clearly without any obstruction. I modified this leg armor to match another chain armor, remember?   :)

 

To prove my point about the matching, watch the video below for the chest and leg armor worn together.    :)

 

 

Download Link
 

AION - Remodeled Danuar Tunic

In this post, I will be featuring one of my favorite armor skin in Aion, the Remodeled Danuar Tunic. This armor set is only buyable using Ancient coins from the Shugo in Cygnea or Enshar.

 

As Aion players will know, Shugos are from a scientific/engineering proficient civilization. Thus, the armor sets has that engineer feel, with plenty of bolts, gears, straps and what else but pockets!

 

The reason why I chose the cloth set is because it looks cute, especially with the headband, as compared to the plate helmet that looks like a hell-spawn soldier or chain helmet that looks like a toy soldier. Don't belief? Look here. ~.~

 

Remodeled Danuar Headgear comparison

Although I find the plate and chain headgear kind of weird, I have to salute the designers for putting in lots of efforts to give the different armor sets their individual unique looks. Plus, the leather headgear actually looks pretty classy too.

 

Hmm...from the above image, it looks like there are only 2 straps running down and covering her breasts? Of course not! Surely NCSoft will not do that... but can't say the same for this xFormer, who just can't resist the temptation to be naughty.   :p

 

Well, if you guys are wondering what have I did to this beautiful skin? Like Nike's motto suggests "Just Do It!". And so, I did! I strip all the clothes from the upper part of her body, plus a piece of  cloth that is "blinding" my sight, by covering her butt and back of her legs.

 

So, what's left on her? Let's take a look. :p

Front view

Rear view

Side view

For some reason, she reminds me a bit of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider after the back piece of cloth is removed. Would you guys agree?   >.<"

 

The top part of her body is left with straps, bolts and gears... Bad xFormer! >.<    And that butt area is where I felt looks like Lara. Maybe it's because of that hot pants.  :p

 

Well, let's take a closer look.

 

Front Close-up view

 

Side Close-up view

And finally, the video. Enjoy!

 

Download Link