Focon v.0.04.0 ReadMe.txt

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See Examples.html for some examples of conversion.

1. Dislaimer
2. Purpose
3. Installation
4. Usage
5. Options
6. Hints and credits
7. Copyright
8. Bugs and issues
9. Contact


1. Disclaimer

  This program is freeware and may be distributed as long, as the archive content is not altered.
  No warranty of any kind is expressed or implied. The author won't be liable for any loss while using or misusing this software. If you agree to that, you can use this program.
  You can can send any feedback to address given in paragraph 8.

  
2. Purpose

  This program copies facial features from input to output file. Correct input/output is FaceGen Modeller file or Oblivion savegame.

  This program doesn't copy race, hair, eye color or texture (see 6.5). You may think of it as a face transplant. The intention was to create a little util (which it is) to copy photofitted face of my choice from FaceGen to Oblivion.


3. Installation

 3.1 Requirements

  Hardware - Focon has smaller requirements than Oblivion, it should work on any 32-bit processor which can run Windows, with 64 MiB and more RAM. 

  Software - Windows 32-bit, 2000 or XP. Focon was tested with Windows XP SP2 and SP1.

  You also need FaceGen 3.1 files or Oblivion 1.0.228 (version 125 savegames). Other versions may work, or may not, always make a fresh backup before testing. Xbox savegames should work, but I haven't tested them, because I don't have them.
  Alternatively, you can use Memory Scan & Load function, which will copy data from memory of Facegen.
  Beware, this program WILL alter your data, so make backup of your saves before using.
  If your savegame doesn't work with Focon (ie. causes Access Violation, creates a mutant or something similar) you may consider sending it together with an error description to my e-mail address.

 3.2 How to install

  Just copy the whole directory structure to the directory of your choice, I'd suggest the Oblivion savegame folder, usually %HOMEPATH%\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion. You may delete examples to save space.
  After first use of Options dialog Focon will create INI file named Focon.ini in Application Data folder of current user. Focon don't modify registry.

4. Usage

  Shortly, you load donor file with Input button, load acceptor file with Output button and perform transfer with Copy Face button.

  4.1 Memory Scan & Load
  Attempts to read face data from FaceGen's memory. If succeeded, loads face to buffer. Try not to tamper with FG during copying (this is very quick, so don't worry).
  This function is experimental, but seems to work with Facegen Demo 3.1.4.
  This is ALTERNATIVE to "Input" button (4.2)! 

  4.2 Input (Donor)
  Click to navigate to the FaceGen file/Oblivion save to select your face donor if you prefer to load face data from file.
  This is ALTERNATIVE to "Memory Scan & Load" button (4.1)!

  4.3 Output (Acceptor) 
  Click to navigate to the FaceGen file/Oblivion save to select your face acceptor.

  4.4 Input type or Output Type
  Shows type of a given file, usually Oblivion (PC) or FaceGen.

  4.5 Input Name or Output Name
  Shows PC's Name if the file is an Oblivion savegame. If it shows something different you may encountered a bug or version incompatibility.

  4.6 Input Race or Output Race
  Shows PC's Race if recognized, or "Unknown" if not. Applies to the savegames only and is present for information only. 

  4.7 Average Deviation
  Shows some statistics, usually from 0-100 range. The less, the more average or attractive is the face, but consider it only a rough estimate.
 
  4.8 Max Deviation
  Again, some statistics. It rarely exceeds 6000-7000. Probably some monsters can have it higher. It could be very disturbing, but I've never seen such one.

  4.9 Apply Shape
  If checked, the shape of donor's face will be transferred. If not, the acceptor's face shape won't be altered.

  4.10 Apply Tone
  If checked, the tone of donor's face will be transferred. If not, the acceptor's face tone will remain intact.

  4.11 Apply Tweaks
  If checked, assymetry data (tweaks, differences between the left and right halfs of face) will be transferred. You can only transfer or reset it.

  4.12 Reset Tweaks
  If checked, assymetry data will be reset, so your donor will have a perfectly symmetrical face, just like a freshly created Oblivion character. It will make the face somewhat prettier. Keep in mind though, than even the top-models don't have fully symmetrical faces.

  4.13 Create Default FG File
  Will create a basic FaceGen file, without texture data. This face looks like a young male Caucasian, I suppose. You may use it as your Acceptor, to store some faces, or as you like.

  4.14 Options
  Options dialog, allows to change settings. See section 5.

  4.15 Copy Face
  Performs writing of converted face to the output file. Creates backup of previous face, with BAK suffix. It overwrites previous backup file with the same name without warning, so beware.

  You will see "File backup created" info. If you see "Can't save backup! Error: <number>" there was an error with creating backup (no room? shared access?) and the face isn't transplanted.

  4.16 About
  Shows About box, with a number of version.

5. Options

  Options dialog allow you to change settings. After first Focon will create Focon.ini file in your Documents and Settings/Application Data folder. You may delete it to restore default settings or use "Default" button.
  User is not supposed to edit Focon.ini manually, so please be cautious if you decide to do so.

  5.1 Savegame Path
  Path to Oblivion savegame folder of current user. This is used by all load and save dialogs. You may change it to different folder if you want to feel safe.

  5.2 Apply Shape
  Corresponds to 4.9 button.

  5.3 Apply Tone
  Corresponds to 4.10 button.

  5.4 Apply Tweaks/Reset Tweaks
  Correspond to 4.11 and 4.12 buttons.

  5.5 Show Debug
  Shows some debug info in About box and several popup windows (some debug info cannot be turned off).

  5.6 Max Float (default: 20)
  Change maximum float number accepted. Most pretty faces has it maxed at 5, theoretically shouldn't be higher than 10, but ocassionally it is ("Number too big" error for example).

  5.7 Max Buffer Size (default: 3000000 bytes)
  Size of memory buffer for savegame, it may be smaller than actual savefile, but you may want to change it a bit in some cases.

  5.8 Start offset (default: 130000)
  Value used in calculations and to determine seek range. You may want to change it if you get an "Cannot find name" or "Number too big" error.

  5.9 End offset (default: 3000000) 
  Value used in calculations and to determine seek range. Like 5.8, use to wide/narrow a seek range, cannot be higher than Max Buffer Size.

  5.10 OK
  Accept values and create/update settings file. That X button in a corner works just as fine.

  5.11 Default
  Restores default values of options.

6. Hints and credits

  Thanks to all people mentioned in this paragraph.

  6.1
  You can see values of variables (when creating face in Oblivion) with use of CWN (Characters With Names) mod by Rick. You can invoke character appearance creation by using console ("`" key) and entering "showracemenu".

  6.2
  If you want to copy your own face, you may photofit it with use of FaceGen, copy with Focon to Oblivion savegame and load. However, the exact appearance is texture dependent. I don't know if Oblivion stores texture in savegame, besides, FG texture doesn't look quite nicely. In order to preserve as much look as possible, you should select (None) in Texture Details, and then work with tone (in FG - Texture Symmetric) values.

  6.3
  If you want to become Khajit or Orc or Argonian you may install alternative model to FaceGen, namely FaceGen Modeller - The Oblivion Version V1.0 by Scanti.

  Photofitting with this model is somewhat tricky. You have to made your photofit with default model, save, then remove its components (Change Polys) and add your race components, finally load your face into it. You can also use Focon to apply face to saved argonian/orc/whatever face if you wish, but FaceGen doesn't store model information, so result is the same.

  You ought to remember, than if you become an orc you will change much. If you have a long nose, your orc will have a long nose according to orcish standards only, which makes it very short afterall. The same with eyesockets, face width, general skin color (although dark races remain darker) etc.  You can play with Age and Complexion sliders in Oblivion, it may change your face a bit in the proper direction. 

  6.4
  Oblivion wraps your face onto race model, which is a little bit different for every race. You may consider this when modelling your face with FaceGen:
 
  - Argonian - is quite different, you should see to believe...
  - Breton - human type, Breton is good for many brunettes
  - Dark Elf - elvish type, is narrower than human and has longer face, Dark Elf is good for Asian faces, but default one has small width
  - High Elf - elvish type, high elves are really tall, but face is similar to other elvish faces
  - Imperial - human type
  - Khajiit - cat-like, has shortest face
  - Nord - human type
  - Orc - like human, has smaller, skewed eyes, very short nose and much longer jaw. And teeth.
  - Redguard - human type, Redguard has darker tone
  - Wood Elf - elvish type, Wood Elf has darker tone

 Focon won't load very-very strange face from Oblivion save (you will see "Wrong number - Number Too Big" message), this was intended to prevent Oblivion from potential crashes although Oblivion seems to be quite liberal in that matter.
 You still can copy a strange face from FaceGen to Oblivion however, and it will load in Oblivion. Interestingly, after "showracemenu" Oblivion will change this face to a bit more civilized version (compatible with race model) but will leave many features untouched.

 Some races cannot be edited with Focon - this includes Dremoras, they're just generic ones. My game always crashes when I try to edit them with built-in editor, or restores previous face when I use Focon.

 Vampires may be edited, but their look is dependent on their stage of vampirism. And there is a bug with Oblivion, it sometimes change face (without touching face data in savegame), in this case try restarting Oblivion.

 6.5
 If you want to copy your whole face (head?) beetween games, you may use Wrye's Bash by Wrye, which will copy all Oblivion specific features, including hair etc.

 6.6
 If you have FG Demo and Focon crashes on your system, you may consider using it only for copying your face data from the memory to the file, and use other tools to process this file further.
 In such a case Focon shouldn't crash exit if you didn't load other output files, so you can create several files by simply repeating Memory Scan & Load and Copy Face, and moving/renaming the backup file.

 6.7
 If you get "Number too big" or "Cannot find face position" errors or your game is corrupted you can change seek range and/or max float in Options dialog. It often helps. You may also change PC name from "Test" to something more unique. 
 
7. Copyright

  FaceGen Modeller is copyright (C) 2004, Singular Inversions Inc.
  Oblivion is copyright (C) 2005, Bethesda Softworks LLC.


8. Bugs and issues

  Won't process in proper way an incompatible version of savegame (that is other than 125 or identical). You may send me such a file with some kind of description, so I will be able to correct that. 

  Probably can cause Access Violation or crash when you open file dialog, although I have improved stability (fixed some memory leaks). Unfortunately, it doesn't crash on every system, so it's rather hard to figure it out. And if it crashes, you may restart Focon and try again. It seems to be related to some versions of system DLLs (COMCTL32.dll?) and Borland WinHelpViewer module, which improperly allocates/frees small fragment of memory.

  Theoretically, Mem Scan & Load could cause Access Violation if it failed to find the proper memory region (program does only minimal error checks), but I've never seen that on my test platforms nor got any bug reports with that issue.

9. Contact

  You may send files, bug reports, suggestions and corrections to saikokila@gmail.com. Please state at least your operating system version, processor type and RAM quantity. And version of Focon from the About box, please.
  Please include [Focon] tag in subject of your message, to prevent it from deleting by my anti-spam, thanks.


Copyright (C) 2006 Saiko Kila