Melodiana Devblog (Patreon)

A/N: Note to self: Do not write things in black text as Patreon renders transparent images in black, not white. If you do want to read the text (Specifically Slide 34) please right click the image and open the image in a new tab. 

(Slide 1) For some time now I would look at what Alvarna and others would put out and be like, "Wow, I wish I knew how to make armor." But instead of doing anything about it, I would just sit on my thumbs waiting for armor sets to drop onto my lap. Usually that works out more often than not but despite how generic her character is, her armor, specifically that helmet, was not. So I had no real choice but to knuckle down and make it myself. 

Like my initial plan was to hope that someone would make Nephenee or hell, even try to port (Read: Cross my fingers that someone else would port it.) her model from the Tellius games. Well, the only Nephenee card that exists is like a year old and nostalgia goggles made me think her in-game model would be good enough for Koikatsu. 

I had to start from scratch, so what ended up serving as the foundation for Melodiana? 

(S2) Pop quiz: What do these two have in common?

If you answered "Both are related to religion" well...yes, that's true but not the answer I'm not looking for. 

The answer is "Both share the same body." as Silque was used as a base for Melodiana. 

I haven't made a character using Chikarin/the default lass in years. Most characters I make use a card I made in the past as a base. Who I pick is based on general body proportions. For example: Calli was made from Eris due to the fact that they're both tall and have huge tracts of lands. And if I ever do get around to her, Lyre is totally just gonna be Lethe with a ponytail.

The reason why I don't like using Chikarin because I have to spend the first hour throwing out shit I don't want. The body proportions aren't to my liking, I have to adjust for her bulbous head, gotta scalp her to remove her hair, and the number one annoyance because of how it flies under the radar: Her makeup. Like, it's subtle enough that if you're not paying attention you don't notice but once you actually start working on her face you  go "Huh something feels off about th- Oh my god."

Admittedly this does make me a little concerned about my characters ending up looking same-y. Bodywise, I'll give you that. I try to stick to "ideal body shape" proportions because I'm afraid that if I stray from that I'm gonna end up with up an abomination. So it's like, nearly exact same body, adjust height, tits, thighs, and ass to taste. Then again generally speaking anime girls have similar proportions don't they?

I think the only character who dramatically deviates (relatively speaking) from the usual body proportions is Lethe. And that's only because I tried to give her a muscular, runner's build. Everyone else got spaghetti arms. That and Kronii which like, have you seen her? Damn, she S T I C C. Her waist is real narrow too as (I think) the intention was to give her a hourglass like body. 

So not really all that worked up over samey body shape. Now, same face on the other hand, is something I would like to work against. Gotta practice what I preach, right, SAO? 

(S3) 

I'll say it now: The ears are always going to look the exact same. Unless the character is an elf or some kind of animal human hybrid so they straight up don't have ears, I am not going to touch the ears. The default works well enough and like, most of the time the hair covers it up anyways so w/e. 

That said though even for characters that don't have them I don't take them off until I'm done with the face. Ears are useful for determining facial proportions specifically with the eyes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the position of the eyes should be roughly on the same level as the tip of the ears, give or take.

Now that they're scalped the similarities are a bit more apparent aren't they? They got the same nose even. Gonna up the ante a little here gimme a sec...

(S4) 

Y'know initially I was just gonna make this a pure black silhouette but that made it lose a little too much detail so you're gonna have to peep the horror for a bit. My b. I think they look different enough that you can tell each other apart but you be the judge. 

Anyways but enough about that fun little trivia, let's talk about armor. 

The Helmet

(S5) Okay so like, if you're on the KK discord you may remember me bringing this lil' feller up. If I got any of your guys' hopes up that I'd be making them I'd like to apologize. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because of how rare this kind of helmet was as everyone said they haven't seen that kind of helm in KK before. (Someone did bring up that Kanna had a 3D model tho. Naturally since she's the MC of Blaster Master after all. Jason Who?)

(S6) So it was time to pull out the box of scraps and see what I could make out of them. This ran from the somewhat reasonable (1) to the balmy. (2) (Note: This is meant to be part of someone's boot.) If you want to get good at making shit in KK, you have to disregard the original purpose of an item. Don't even think about it because then your mind is going to limit what it could be used for within it's original meaning. Instead only focus on it's shape and appearance. Think abstractly. I learned that lesson from this one Aqua card where back before hair mods existed, the guy made her hair loop thing using an arm bracelet and coloring it the same shade as the hair. 

You can't use a bowl of soup as a bra IRL but you sure can in KK! So don't let logic limit you from what you can or can't do. 

(S7) In lieu of a spiky helm, I ended up using this visor instead. It's a little too round for my liking but it does curve so it's good enough.

(S8) The helmet's little flaps are derived from an unexpected source: Whatever these things are supposed to be. It's part of Prinz's (Azur Lane) hat or something. Well whatever it is, gave it a trim, rotated it, and voila you got helmet flaps. 

Speaking of things unknown to man: Melodiana's got these little pointy things on her helm (S9) that don't really show up in the side view. (S10) It's clearly not an one off thing tho as it shows up in her sprites and various other art so I couldn't just ignore it. So, how to achieve that look, or more importantly, what even has that kind of look? Stumped, I turned to a man of wisdom, a man of unparalleled knowledge: 

(S11) 

Thanks, Genius Kojumbo. 

It's a little hard to tell when it's completely black, but turn it white and now you can see these little outlines that give the helm two tiny spikes. I could also remove the back end of the helmet leaving only the front which just so happens to somewhat resemble the side of Melodiana's helmet. (S12) So bonus points!

(S13) Look at that, all set, right? 

(S14) Nope because the top part of her helm has like, 3 layers. The light blue curve spike, the middle blue layer, overlaid on top of the base blue helm. Just using the Haven Trooper helm wouldn't work as it doesn't have a curve to it so not only is it too flat, but there's no gap between it and the base of the helm. 

(S15) Increasing it's Y scale level does fix it...

(S16) Only from the side. Now the front is off. 

So either I had to pick between the front or side looking off, or look for an alternative. You already know the answer to that so the real question is: How did I find the solution? 

Well up until this point I've been using helmets but alas none of them were cutting it. So I had to broaden my search a bit and I came across this: (S17)

Doesn't seem like much, but wait until I flip it upside down. (S18) 

Doesn't this look closer to Melodiana's helm than the Haven Trooper one? That's what I believed but I think I dumped that idea because it lacked the HT's helmet's volume i.e too thin. It did however have the curve I was looking for and made for good filler material, making the helmet look like a cohesive piece. (S19) 

But enough of that, let's talk about the centerpiece of the helmet: This thingie (S20)

Guess what it's made out of.  

(S21) Tubes are incredibly versatile. s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶l̶a̶s̶s̶e̶s̶ No wonder Space Pirates are so fond of them. 

Jokes aside: They're really easy to draw on because of how straightforward it is. Like, if you draw a straight line on it you'll get a straight line. Which doesn't sound like much until you try doing that on other objects and wind up with either the line being jaggedy, the line going off in a bizarre angle, warping to a different part of an area, duplicating itself, etc. Tubes or Tube2 to be more specific, is so straightforward. That's not why it's so good as the Plane (As in a flat plane not the flying metal tube.) object can do the same thing. But guess what the Tube has over the Plane? Curves. 

Since it's curved, you could achieve a pseudo 3D effect from it. It's so versatile that I've seen be used not just for armor, but for fucking hair as well. That's what makes tubes so useful. 

Anyways...look at the sheen on this thing. Pretty ain't it? (S22) 

This is what it used to look like.  (S23) 

Eyup.

Had it not been for this thing* (S24) her armor would've looked incredibly flat and unimpressive looking. How did they achieve this glow effect? NO IDEA. 

(S25) All I learned from it was by using their settings, anything you made red in the detail mask would shine. Anything colored black will not. This is very easy to make. Just paint everything within your lineart red and everything outside of it black!

(S26) 

You have been using separate layers for your lineart, right? 

I still don't know who made the original outfit but whoever you are, big kudos to you and thanks. Without you her armor would look nowhere near as impressive. 

(S27) 

I ain't gonna mince words: These feathers look shit. 

But I suppose that's what happens when you try to make things out of oversized mouse buttons. (S28) 

I couldn't find good feathers for her helm so I settled for these. The moment I find some tho I am totally swapping them out ASAP. 

(S29) The quadrilateral pyramids are what I call filler material b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶g̶a̶.̶ ̶

(S30) Okay it's actually there to cover shit up as otherwise without them you get this:

...it's not all that much better I'll admit but at least there isn't as big of a gap now. Plus it allowed me to just stick the hair in that block and not have to worry about how the hair is supposed to connect to the skull. 

The Halo

So there was this guide on how to make shit glow and I was like "Oh perfect just what I needed!" 

Cue whydoesntminelooklikethat.png 

Turns out it's only for Studio faaaannntastic. 

(S31)  I ended up doing the ghetto way of making something look like it's glowing: Get a pure white object. Sandwich that object with two colored objects (One bigger to form the outer layer and one smaller to form the inner.) and voila it looks like it's got bit of a sheen to it now.  

Learned that from when I wanted to draw my OCs doing ki blasts and shoot lightning. Use whatever color you wanted your beam and then using a thick white brush, cover 90% of the beam in white from the center outward. 

Good to see that apply here. 

The Rest of the ̶O̶w̶l̶ Armor

(S32) So I scavenged the chestpiece from this SAO card and initially it was going to serve as the base. 

(S33) Sure it had some wonky issues thanks to how the texture is wrapped around it (It is supposed to be a Chikarin head (S34) after all.) but it's not like anyone is gonna notice that part thanks to the hair covering it up. 

(S35) However I came across this thing. It was in the Hand category. You want to know what I was looking for in the Hand category? Hair. A pair of twintails precisely. I'm not a modder so maybe properly categorizing things is really hard. 

Anyways the twintails and this thing didn't have a thumbnail so I was just poking around trying to find that only to get this instead. A surprise to be sure, but a most welcome one. 

Moral of the story: c̶a̶t̶e̶g̶o̶r̶i̶z̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶p̶e̶r̶l̶y̶ ̶d̶a̶m̶m̶i̶t̶ ̶ Usually the fridge won't have your missing sock but in Koikatsu, that's where it'll be. It makes no sense why it's there and the only reason why you would ever check is out of desperation. As such, if you're out of options and can't seem to find the right accessory, dig around in the other categories even if it makes no sense for it to be there cause it just might!

(I really hope this piece of advice gets outdated real soon because boy is that annoying.) 

(S36) I made these mirror plate armor thingies out of spheres. The light blue part is slightly transparent so I had to use the alpha shader for that. The opaque shader curiously enough makes things opaque. You'll have to adjust your shadow color to account for the change in shader btw. 

Fun fact: Apparently these thingies literally are held together by magic. Melodiana shows up in a later game as a DLC character and those things just hover above her skirt. Thank the Maker I didn't go through with my initial idea of trying to strap belts or some kind of hooks to convey that they're being attached to her by something. 

 (S37) Not sure why the right side is nicely curved while the left side is all jaggedy. Since I didn't come up with the idea of using spheres for this (That was taken from the armor where I got the gloss from.) I shrugged it off and decided that's just how it is. 

AgoKnee

These little shits get their own section for how much of a pain they are

(S38) For starters: There's this little gap between them and couldn't find an accessory good enough to serve as a filler material. But that's not the real pain. 

(S39) See this? Looks fine right? 

(S40) Even in different standing poses it holds up.

Now let's try sitting.

(S41) Yeah.

I had a bad feeling when I asked what's the best joint to parent/attach kneepads to and everyone laughed like this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ28FcRePAo

Here's a guide to making kneepads using accessories:

Step 1: Don't. 

Trying to get an accessory to stick to the character's knee no matter their position is an impossible task. 

The actual solution is to edit the texture of say, some boots. Or better yet a pair of greaves that already have kneepads. Those things are properly attached to the character and will not shoot out because the character decided to bend their legs a tiny bit. Of course this relies on having shoes that would suit your purpose. If you don't, well you're SOL try again next time.

That's the  reason why the kneepads are set to Sub unlike every other accessory which uses AccStateSync. (ASS) Well that and the little wings attached to her boots but that's more because ASS doesn't work too well when it comes to shoes as there's outdoor and indoor shoes. Which means it'll work for only one type of shoe, not both. There is a "Both" option but that doesn't seem to work so I just set shoe accessories to sub. Less of a hassle.

Armor Trivia:

(S42) Okay you know this light blue cloth thing AKA the Hagoromo? 

(S43) Yeah it just cuts off. It's ostensibly connected to the pauldrons. In reality I think it's supposed to wrap around her body which the Hagoromo does...

(S44)  but yeah no this is way too high up. And since this is a Clothes Accessory I can't actually manipulate the values of it otherwise I would've shrunk it. There's no other clothing or accessory that would do it justice so I compromised by making it look like it's attached to the pauldrons instead. 

(S45) This illusion is easily broken but hey what can ye do. 

Panties and Pantyhose

Usually the underwear is like, the last thing I do and I don't give a shit about it most of the time. Cause 99% of the time none of the (Official) art show them so like who gives a damn just slap on whatever suits you. However, because Melodiana is from an eroge you do get to see them and since this was supposed to be a challenge where I try to do things I haven't done before, (Namely armor) I was going to try this time around. 

Result?

(S46) 

A for Effort. D for Execution

It looks so flat, doesn't it? That's because I can't make detail masks for shit. Detail Masks make it look like fabric what with the shadows and creases. (S47)

Without it just looks like a piece of paper wrapepd around her. It doesn't look  like clothing y'know? 

I've spent hours trying to make a good detail mask, attempting to repurpose other underwear detail masks for it but it just didn't work out. I couldn't just reuse them wholesale as the front part of it didn't line up with the linework of the underwear. I did try to only use the backside as I didn't draw anything on there but that just made it look weirder as there's only shading on the back but none on the front. I guess I could've tried to bake in shading but baked in shading doesn't interact with the game's lighting engine so it would've looked off anyways. 

In the end I decided to just throw in the towel, set it aside as something to learn next time. I know it's not that big of a deal but like, I imagined this card as bit of a showcase for my abilities. This is supposed to be me at my best so I thought it just reflected poorly on my skill if I couldn't do a simple detail mask. Ah well, everyone has their limits, right. 

(S48) I don't know what's causing those lines BTW. Oh and yeah the armor covers up this big ol gap. Very convenient.

Hair

(S49) Behold: What her hair looks like without the helmet. 

Look at how fucking scrunched her hair looks without the helmet. Ok in my defense I was going to have a different set of bangs...which doesn't really address the issue of her back hair. nvm I have no defense. Ironically enough being lazy and trying to reuse her hair for everything else only caused me to waste more time trying to adjust n' fix it before scrapping it entirely.

(S50) But I digress: you see this shit here? 

(S51) These were the components used to achieve that look

I've got nothing against this kind of split hairstyle, I think it's quite nice tbh. I just hate having to make it because of the stupid shit I need to pull to make it look right. You have no idea how many hair accessories I went through trying to find the right one. 

(S52) The helmet hair is kind of a mess due to the fact that the helmet covers up a lot of things so I can get away with being lazy. But also having to cut things so that they don't clip with the helmet. 

(S53) Removing the Jessie hair filler only makes this problem even further blatantly obvious. That said I think this was a hold over back when I was planning on using this hair for her non helmet versions as otherwise the helmet covers most of the gaps. 

(S54) NGL even with all the fillers there's still some gaps but I'm banking on most people not looking this close into it. For general purposes I think it's good enough.

Speaking of gaps...

(S55) Again, if you're actively looking for them you'll find it but otherwise it should fly under the radar. ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶u̶n̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶

(S56) Ideally, the shading on these things should be darker like so but then it sticks out like a sore thumb in light conditions outside of the default. In hindsight maybe I should've baked those shadows in but myehh would it really work out? 

(S57) PS: It's kind of minor but if your Melodiana looks like this, this means you got the broken version of Creamstar's CM3D2 Hair mod. I think he fixed it recently so y'all should be fine but just in case if you're reading this and have this issue: No your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Her right hair should not be melting in her armor like that. If you do have an issue, let me know and I'll link the fixed version in this post. 

(S58) 

BTW: This was what she was going to originally look like without her helmet. Eyup.

Misc.

(S59) See these highlights? Nice looking, ain't it? Looks like she's got some chromatic abberation going on right? Well I managed to achieve that effect by using the glow dodge tool...which means I had to draw on the eye texture directly. So I don't have a separate eye highlight layer. 

Now I know this may not be all that important to most of you, but some people have come to me asking if I could not bake in the highlights. Why you ask? Well, you can set highlights as their own separate thing. This lets the game to do some funky effects with them such as making them shake n' shit. Apparently this really enhances the effects of highlights in scenes. 

As someone who doesn't touch Studio outside of making display shots, I didn't know that so I decided to keep that in mind for future projects. Well unfortunately in this case I'm too much of a hack to be able to achieve that highlight effect without having to use the glow dodge brush. So baked in highlights it is, sorry. It's not like I just completely ignored what y'all said, it's just that it was either having separate highlights or pretty and more importantly. accurate looking highlights. 

I think Melodiana is going to be the only exception in this regard tho as most characters have pure white highlights so consider this is an one off aight? 

BTW I did check and BOY does Filo and Melodiana look near identical to each other. Like, almost to the point I'm wondering if I could prank people into thinking Melodiana is Filo. Just slap Filo's outfit onto her and title it "Filo from Shield Hero" Then see how long it takes for people to notice the difference. I wouldn't be surprised if no one actually says anything. 

Yeah that'll be my new marketing strategy. Talk about a win win: I can make obscure characters and still get clicks by labeling them as *insert flavor of the month character here*. Shit, if only I finished Melodiana back in March. Would've had enough time to pull that off for April Fool's. Ah well. 

But yeah I think I said what I wanted to say about the creation process behind Melodiana. Not sure what I could cover that I haven't already before but if you still have any questions, feel free to ask below. 

*Here's a link to the armors mentioned: 

https://mega.nz/folder/80oUwIiI#gnRofCCSUz_JaCd2DJFpKw

Hope it helps with your stuff too!