apoc's genshin uncensored

Update, Apologies, & Rants

Published: December 13th 2023, 12:06:53 am

Ok, let me first start off by saying, I am making this post not just to provide feedback and updates, but also to get some stuff of my chest. It's nothing major , but I feel as though I owe some people some explanations.

The first is an apology. The original plan was to make a mod for Alhaitham, for a person that I had previously worked with. Since the person in question, was not demanding it done right away, and I still have to update them on its progress, there isn't a priority for me to rush out something that is low quality.  Though, I do understand, if anyone was expecting it, I apologize for not being able to deliver it.

I might go through some revisions and change some details, but I do plan to get it finished, though, it may have to be delayed a bit.

Secondly, I would like to address the uncensored nilou mod. This by far is the biggest reason the delay took so long. Despite uploading it, after working an entire  month on it. There are a lot of issues that people, ( myself included ) seem to have with it, and I understand them. There are also some things that I found interesting, that I didn't think people would care about. So I wanted to vent my frustrations, and express my process while making it.

Chances are, I will probably end up remaking a good portion of it.

Before that, let me express the idea I had behind it. What usually ends up happening, is that I set out a few principles I have in mind when making these mods .  The goal is usually to remove the parts that I think doesn't fit with there models, or perhaps were covered up intentionally.

With older mods, this is very noticeable. And you can usually see where there intentions were. But for newer mods, the design decisions become a bit less obvious.

Now, in hindsight, the obvious reason they do this is for texture space. See models, only have a limited space of textures they can work with. They want to compact the game as much as possible. a 1024x1024 space texture can only render so much stuff before the image gets blurry.

So to compensate for this, Instead of having one giant hair texture, they split parts of the body off into other sections to compress space.

This isn't a problem that is hard to solve, but you can see how much details they try to jam into one small space. Almost every part of the texture is being used, so what ends up happening, is that there is no room to add newer details , without removing old ones, or loosing quality. This is also why upscaling to proper 4k is way to tedious for me, since I don't like shortcuts that affect the final quality, (even though I do it all the time ).

Again, this isn't a problem that is hard to solve, but what it means, is that other than a simple re-texture, most modders cannot do much with certain characters that have this level of complexity, since there is alot to beware of.

The biggest issue is when it comes to UV mapping. When you want to create a mod that has extra parts, the simplest way is to add extra space to the side, too add any additional pieces. This is mainly the reason why texture mods, dont work universally with other mods. Cause some mods modified the UV in someway.

The tricky part is when you want to edit existing pieces. Unwrapping it doesn't give you the nice layout you see in the image, you will have to manually edit the seams, and carefully peel it back in the way you desire. And sometimes that can take days just to line them up. But all in all, the process doesn't take more than a week.  In fact, after 5 days, I was finished with the mod. The quality and textures, weren't really up to standard. But it was a simple edit. at least I thought it was. Cause you see, there is always an issue.

Its pity I didn't take any screenshots to show you, but the underwater texture for her panties was a pain the ass to fix.

Small or tall characters don't really do this, but medium sized characters do. Sometimes when swimming, they will open there legs and stretch them to simulate movement. For characters with pants, its not noticeable, but for characters with underwear, it creates a stretch and deform on the mesh. Since I can't adjust the animations, and I never bothered to create a new mesh for her legs, I never knew how bad it was.

But boy was it bad, I'm talking about horrible stretching. The only way to resolve this issue was to create a separate underwear that was either super thin, or super thick. The entire process took almost another week so solve. And adjusting the weights didn't work either. Since her other animations would be effected as well. But at least I learned how to fix it in the end.

But speaking of weights , lets talk about her belly button ring.

This was the main feature I wanted in this mod, since NO other mod I saw, had a belly button ring. I thought I was going to be a unique and novel experience. But nope. As the saying goes, "if a road is left unwalked, its probably a dangerous path".

I gathered a bunch of reference materials on what I wanted it to look like, so I wouldn't go in blind.

but eventually settled on this one

This was so pretty, that I realized I had to recreate this. I even planned to change the lil diamonds into lotus flowers. The original concept I had was much different than what you see now

But there 2 major issues I found when making this. 3, if you count technicalities.

Number 1# was that I ran into a vertex limit. YES thats right. Even with the vertex limits raised, I actually used up all of the 3dgimi's resources and had the model break on me. (it could also be cause I made her breast too smooth )

( these went through so many changes )

but a  More literal interpretation is that it stopped rendering after one half of the body was drawn. So I had to scrap the idea and start over.

What your are seeing now, is a dumbed down simplified version of it. Still looked good imo.

issue Number 2# was the animations.  I knew I wanted this thing to be animated and I wasnt going to settle for less. So I figured, I will do what the pros' do, and map the animations to another part of her mesh. Turns out, thats not how it works. I learned 3 things from this mod, that I wish I had knew while working on my hutao mod.

• 1, animations work by deforming the mesh around a bone, not the bone moving it.
• 2, if mesh is directly ontop of the bone, the mesh can be made to LOOK like it is moving.
• 3, if the mesh is not ontop of the bone, the mesh will deform into (not move) to where the new bone is. This will create a massive distortion effect that sometimes looks like your mesh is going haywire. That's just because the mesh is being too heavily influnced by the weight + distance

this is the reason, I struggled with clipping issues on my hutao mod . After finally looking at the nilou mod, I realized what my mistake was. I not only had to remake the chains, so they flowed better, I also had to very carefully adjust the weights using multiple sources, to stimulate the effect of moving with her body. and when I say carefully, I mean carefully.

Normally weights are affected by a ratio of 30-50% of the bone's movement. (if not 100%)... but for the belly button jewel, I had to use  0.02% of the bones influence.

In hindsight I could of kept the original design, but I didn't like how the mesh didn't rotate in the direction I wanted too. so I opted for smaller chains and less complicated design. Not only does it keep it from lagging as much, it also helps with vertex limit. And looks alot smoother when moving.

I know alot of people aren't really happy with the finalized design, but I did try my best. If I redo the belly button ring, I will most likely remove all the animations and make it static with her body, like the picture below.

Now lets move onto the mask. Adding nilou's mask was more of personal choice, since again I was shocked by lil mods had it. So I wanted to create something people would be proud of

Now the inspiration for the mask, went something like this , but sadly once again, I was met with limitations. Namely the transparency

Now in hindsight, I know how I can do this exact decoration, but it will take alot of time.

In order to make things transparent, you have to make the entire hash ( data file) its attached too transparent. So if I wanted to make a transparent mask, I would need to make the entire head its attached too transparent. There is no way to make transprent parts. Again, after working on this mod, I realized that I could of attached this mask to the Dress file, and merged both Dress+Body together, since they share the same texture.

But at the time, I was thinking that far ahead, since its already been weeks, and I still wasn't close to done with this mod.

So I used an alternative design to help design the mask mesh.

The issue wasn't designing the mask, but not breaking the vertex count again while creating the mesh.

Ultimately, I decided on settling for a more unique texture, since I wasn't a fan of how the holes looked on nilou.  So this became the final basis of my design.

I was not about to animate all these moving parts separately, so I opted to keep the whole mesh conjoined. Looking back on it now, I really like how these images looked in my head. If I was creating a animation for myself, I would of loved to go all out on these designs.  But I must keep it faithful to the original as much as possible.

Since the mask was a personal decision, I didn't think fit with the rest of her original design. I didn't really care how it looked and I figured that no one else would care either. So I had planned it to be a patreon reward to show my thanks.  but to my surprise, there are more people that thing like me than I realized. So I am now wondering if I should just include it in the base files.

Now all that being said, the mod was completed just before her birthday, In fact I wanted to release it during that time, but when I allowed people to vote on the mod, I always tell them to leave there feedback on what they wanted to see.

The only person to leave there feedback had requested a short hair version. So I wanted to make sure there version was added in as well. Only problem was... they never stated what type of short hair they wanted. So I grabbed some references and found ones that I really liked .

This was what I had originally in mind. She looked so pretty and thought it would fit nilou so well. So I didnt think it would take more than a day...

Sadly it did.

And after spending an entire week on this, I couldnt get it right. idk what it was, but short hair was hard to pull off. Again, looking back, I could of just cut nilou's original hair in half, and created a short hair that way, but I just feel scummy, taking shortcuts that anyone else can do.

So I finally gave in, and opted for another redesign

This image was the closest anime image I could find that resembled short hair. and was the basis for my hair design. Sadly I don't think I did it justice and I personally wanted to redo it, but time was already over and december had crept in. So I just swallowed my pride and left it at that.

The next issue was making it look less boring, cause when I took off the accessories, it looked out of place, and even with them on, it didn't match the new design

So I sadly I had to spend another or 2 tweaking her designs until I was satisfied . Truth to be told, I am happy with how it came out. But man , if I could go back in time and tell myself not to sweat the small stuff , I would.

What started off as a 1 week mod, mission crept into a month long project. That I dont think many people were too satisfied about. Hence why im making this apology post.

I understand that when modding is involved, that this is all just fan made stuff , and not everyone expects people to go the extra mile. , But I for one, dislike it when people pay for a service in any capicity and don't get there full results from it.

So moving forward, I plan to spend another week or 2, fixing some of the errors. For starters, I wanna redo the hair. I know only one person wanted it, but since people have been asking me for modifications in regards to swapping pieces around, I figure its the least I can do.,

I plan to keep the same flowery designs, but go for something more natural like this. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to leave them down below.

next, will be the belly button redesign.

I want it to be elegant and beautiful, so I wont settle for something simple. I also do plan to keep the animations if possible since I worked so hard on it, but if its too hard, I will just remove them..

-----------------------------------

Third thing I wanted to adress in this post, was the upcoming uncensored mods.  The primary goal of this patreon is to make at least 1 uncensored mod a month. There is an entire list I would like to get too.

- Lisa

- Yae miko

- Nilou

- Rosaria

- Lynette

- sucrose

- Nahida

- ganyu

- kuki ?

- fischl ( with proper backwing) + full see through clothes 4k textures

- yaoyao ( longer dress, shorts converted )

- yanfei ( shorts converted into tights, + thicker model ) + panty version)

keep the uneveness of shorts. 4k textures

- Xinyan

- xiangling (enhanced not uncensored)

- amber ( uncensored + enhanced )

- sayu

- barbara (enhanced) + 4k textures

- goruo ( belly button shown)

- kaeya

- ningguang + 4k textures

- kujou sara (enhanced + 4k textures)

- yoimiya (enhanced, shorter skirt, bandages reworked, assets removed + 4k textures )

- Raiden shogun ( Breast window adjust with underwear )

- Beidou ( cut line through breast to expose cleavage. +

4k text adjust to panties)

- Kirara?

- Alhaitham (buff )

- Yelan ( Probably not cause there are so many of her )

- itto ( noodle arms buff )

- klee ( add proper shorts )

- Navia

I plan to do every single person on this list + many more to come as they get released, but obviously some are a lot more complicated than others. there are a few names missing obviously, but they either probably have been done, or im currently working on them.

But if you want a character to receive priority, feel free to vote on the December poll.

I know $5 is alot, and I don't want to make it feel like im taking advantage of people, but this hopefully keeps alot of extra requests to a minimum. ( cause I cant say no for some reason )

At the moment, there is a tie between Navia, and beidou

if, there is no tie breaker, I will end up doing both.

Don't worry, I dont plan to go crazy, and I do already have an idea of what I plan to do for them. As always, the goal is to keep the original design, just remove the censorship, while also any enhancements that might fit there character ( like dehya's scars ). so most likely, these edits will be simple.

Beidou will be first, since I own her, and I will do navia second while I wait for her to be released.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last but not least. While working on the Nilou mod, the winter contest came up and surprised me. I want to try entering it, but I have no ideas for a skin.

A friend sent me this to work on. If you have any other alternate ideas, PLEASE let me know. I want to finish something at least by the end of Christmas, so I have time for any other adjustments I need to make, will have to be done. So the sooner I get the idea the better.

With that being said, sorry for the long ramble post. I know many people probably wont read these, but its nice to get them off my chest.