Baldur's Gate 3 Model Port Public Release (Patreon)

Download:

Link 

Overview:

We're finally here!  One of the two massive projects I took on last year is basically complete.  I don't expect these will get much use from others but they've been a fun engineering challenge for Axel Black and I.  This post is going to be a long one.

So what is included in this release exactly?  This model port includes almost all current female characters from Baldur's Gate 3, including custom characters, and combines them into a single model.  That model comes in two variants: futa and female.  Within a single model, you can choose the race you want, choose the face you want, adjust the colors, materials, body, eyes, and so on.  Additionally there are choices of hair, clothing, and accessories.  The models are... relatively simple to operate and manipulate.  If you're confused then I'll explain more in the instructions section and you can message me for questions.  Please just try messaging instead of commenting because I can't guarantee that I'm going to see your comment.

One more thing: these models are not for beginners.  You should at least be familiar with the program before attempting to use them because they require you to understand the basics of a few different concepts, such as materials, properties, shapekeys, and armatures.  If you really want to use these models and you have no idea what you're doing, then I recommend checking out Blender Guru's donut tutorial.  It's great for people just starting out with Blender and 3D in general.

Features:

- IK rigged with splines for spine, dick, and tail

- 8 different races, plus a special orc option

- 50+ unique faces

- Dozens of hair styles

- Easily switchable futa and female variants

- Tons of shapekeys for adjusting the body

- Several simple expression shapekeys in addition to face bones

- A bunch of easy-to-use vertex colors for adjusting model color, adding wetness, and cleaning up errors.

- Several pubic hair patterns

- Complex and adaptable materials, ready for both Eevee and Cycles use

- Potentially hundreds of problematic edge cases

- Potentially taxing on your system

- The short ones are a bit... experimental

- The Tiefling tail comes as separate mesh in the interest of keeping things simple.  It might be noticeable in close-ups, but for the most part it's passable.

- BEWARE THE COLON.  It's a bit fucked.  I don't know what's wrong with it.  If it acts up, just find the shape key that it's affecting and apply the colon mask.

- Make sure you have Blender version 3.0 or higher installed.

Instructions:

On the surface the models are pretty easy to understand but they can get a little complicated.  Let's start with the basics:

If you select the rig and look at the properties you'll see a variety of face options.  The basic face shape is Shadowheart, and each other face option is technically mixable.  If you use the Gith or Tiefling faces, they'll automatically adjust to the right body shape.  I recommend not mixing these ones.

Since orcs aren't in the main game I decided to add an option for them.  If you check the shape keys there's an 'Orcify' option that gives the character Orc-ish tusks.  Then from there just choose whatever head, colors, and body you want.  I also included super secret normal maps in the orc folder.  So all together it's not much but it gets the job done.

Unfortunately, because materials can't be switched out with drivers you'll have to go into the material tab to swap them depending on what face you selected.  I could make them drive-able if I combined the materials into single master materials, but that could be a potential nightmare for VRAM.  They already take a while to compile to begin with.

Materials

Here you'll see all of the different material slots corresponding to different parts of the body.  They're pretty self-explanatory, except for the second head slot.  That one corresponds with the ears, and you really only have to worry about that when you're using Gith.  It's a long story.  The ones marked with 'BG3' are universal; you don't necessarily have to change those.

The body material slots (Torso, Arms, Legs, etc.) marked 'Human' apply to every race except for the Gith and the Tieflings.  That means Elves, Gnomes, Dwarves, and even Orcs can use these materials.

If you want to have multiple characters in the scene, remember to duplicate those body materials so you don't have two models using the same thing.

The main thing you'll notice in each of these core materials will be these two node groups.  The one on the left is simple: it dictates the colors that will be used with the corresponding attributes like the skin tone, eyebrows, lips, etc.  It's essentially your color palette.  The one on the right is the skin node group.  This is essentially where everything skin-related gets processed.  It's a beast of a node group, but we'll go over the colors first.

If you open up the color node group you'll see this.  9 colors, each labeled with their corresponding attribute.  I made these mix nodes instead of just regular RGB nodes so that you can easily switch between options or reserve old options in case you change your mind.  I made different color palettes for each different head type, but you can adjust them to be whatever you want.  You can swap them out by clicking the material icon next to the name and selecting a different one.

This is the skin node group.  Yes I know.  It looks like a circuit diagram, but for me it helps to visualize it as a production line from Factorio.  Hopefully you never have to touch anything in here, but in case you want to, I'll provide a brief overview below.

Click here to set the mood. 

On the left is where all of the colors and textures are brought in.  All of those things get processed and compiled until eventually they're combined into a single shader and sent through the output node.  Most of the nodes along the way are labeled.

Let's look at the different sections:

Vertex Color Processing: This is where the vertex color information is brought in, separated into different RGB channels, and shipped out to different parts of the node group to influence different factors, like tan, normal strength, texture blending, and plenty more.

BG3 Texture Processing: This is where all of the game's textures are split, processed, and shipped, similar to how the vertex colors are.

Diffuse Compiling Line: The main artery of the node group.  This is where many of the textures, vertex colors, and palette colors are compiled into a single diffuse texture.

Normal Compiling Line: Much like the diffuse, this is where normal and bump information is compiled into a single texture.

Additional Compiling Line: There are a few odds-and-ends here, including roughness, specular, and SSS.

Hybrid Blending: BG3 textures and Daz textures are mixed here according to the Blend vertex color.  The top row is a legacy strategy that I've mothballed for now.

Utility Texture Processing: The utility textures are used for things like wetness, jizz, and freckles.  They're inserted, processed, and distributed in this section.

Shader Mixing & Output: The top principled BSDF shader is the main shader, and the one below it is used for seams.  Seams are generally used to cover up the seam between the neck and the body or in the genital areas.  I could probably combine these into a single shader, but they work fine separately for now.

That wasn't that bad was it?  The node group looks complicated, but its function is fairly simple.  It's nothing compared to some of the more advanced procedural materials or geometry nodes out there.

Vertex Colors

I mentioned vertex colors earlier.  If you aren't familiar with them then congratulations, you're about to learn about a very powerful tool in Blender.  If you select a mesh and enter vertex color mode, you can assign a color to any of the vertices on the model.  These colors can be transmitted into data to do... just about anything really.

Those 5 vertex colors above each contain 3 different attributes; one for each primary color.  'R' corresponds with red, 'G' with green, and 'B' with blue.  Simply select which vertex color you want to use, then paint accordingly.  For example if I want to add freckles, then I'd select 'R-Nipples G-Freckles B-Dick' and paint with the color green wherever I wanted there to be freckles.  Cool, right?  You wont need most of them, but if you're confused about what some of them do then feel free to message me.

Okay that does it for materials, now for the armature features.

Armature

I've noticed some confusion about armature layers in the past, so I thought I'd explain them here for beginners.  Armature layers are a simple tool for hiding bones when you don't want to use them.  There are 32 of them and you can see above which number corresponds with which layer.  I'll list where everything is below:

1 - Basic bones & IK controllers

2 - Fingers

3 - Genitals and nipples

8 - Dick

9 - Basic face bones

10 - Advanced face bones

11 - Eyes

16 - Tiefling Tail (driven)

17 - Spine Spline IK Controllers

18 - Toes

24 - Dick Spline IK Controllers

25 - Advanced lip bones

26 - Tongue

27 - Beard (currently unused)

32 - Driver bones

You might have also noticed the pose library below the armature layers.  Here is where you'll be able to switch the body types to the short races as well as the original Baldur's Gate proportions, which may help with clothing.  Additionally there are two different hand poses in there that might be of use to you.  Unfortunately they don't work with the short races.

Hair, Clothing, Accessories

Now what about hair and clothing?  Well that stuff is fairly simple.  The hair can easily be added to a model by simply parenting the bones in the hair rig to the corresponding bones in the character rig.  Same with the horns.  Some of the hair rigs are good, some are not-so-good.

The clothing is a bit more complicated.  Currently I have a rudimentary re-targeting set-up that parents the bones of the clothing rig to the bones of the character rig.  It's pretty bare bones and I might improve it in the future, but for now it mostly works.  If you want to parent it to a separate character rig, you'll have to change the targets for all of the bone constraints in the clothing rig.  Sorry.

Additionally my coloring set-up for the clothing is unfinished so it isn't ideal to work with, but you still have some level of customization by editing the three different colors in the node group found in any of the clothing materials.

If you have clipping issues then the models come with several different masks to hide the skin underneath.  However you might need to make your own according to what clothing you're using.

And that's about it.  I'm sure I missed a few things so I'll update this post as I go.  Again, you can message me if you have any questions.

Credits:

Porting - MetalWolfHowl

Texture Projection, Topology, Modeling, and Additional Work- Axel Black

Dicks - Urgarulga

Textures & Misc - Baldur's Gate 3, Daz