Creating a custom head model for V (tutorial)

Some people asked me about making custom head models for V, i promised to make a tutorial one day, and i finally got around to it.

It's not the easiest type of mod to make, and Cyberpunk is not the easiest game to mod in general, but hopefully, some scripts i prepared could make the process a bit more streamlined.

The tutorial would consist of several parts, and most of it is just general modeling, not anything specific to Cyberpunk. It's meant for people who are familiar enough with Blender (cause i won't explain which buttons you need to be pressing and whatnot), but maybe never done this type of task in particular, and need a few pointers.

The scripts require MeshDataTransfer plugin for Blender, which you can download here (https://mmemoli.gumroad.com/l/tOKEh). It is free, you can put in 0 as the purchase price.

If you know how to edit the head mesh and bake textures and all that, you can just skip to the last part, where i show how to modify all the necessary files for a mod quickly.

Throughout this tutorial, i only edit shape keys, not the base mesh. This is not just a matter of preference, it is necessary to follow this tutorial. Shape keys are very convenient when you need to edit meshes without adding or removing geometry, it's a bit like working with layers in image editing software, where you can stack multiple "layers" of edits on top of the base mesh while keeping the base shape intact.

For the purposes of this tutorial i will replicate Mileena's human head model from Mortal Kombat 1. It's high poly, and has high resolution face texture, just what we need here.

Now, of course it's possible to just import a new head mesh into the game, but there's a problem: in Cyberpunk, head meshes contain like several hundred bones. If you want to try and weight paint that manually, well, good luck with that, but i certainly wouldn't. Instead, i will reshape V's base head mesh to match the shape of Mileena's head, and then bake textures from one mesh to another.

You can check out the finished mod i'll be making in this tutorial here - https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/23904

Step 1: Reshaping the head mesh

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Ok, first things first, we need to reshape V's base head mesh to match our desired target mesh as closely as possible.

Right off the bat, i'll shout out a program called R3DS Wrap (https://faceform.com/), which is great and can almost automate this step, and apparently it now has a free version for non-commercial use. Which i didn't know it did until i checked just now, so i'll be doing everything the harder way, only using Blender.

Cyberpunk meshes are very high poly, which looks nice, but makes them difficult to edit manually. So it will take some work, but nothing too crazy.