NifSkope

[LHammonds]

NifSkope allows you to open, view, edit and save NIF files. It is very easy to make quick changes to specific properties such as updating/changing a texture path, changing material colors, adding transparency, copying collision models, etc.

 

Tutorials:

• General Purpose - An Introduction
  
• General Purpose - Basic Use
  
• General Purpose - NifSkope Comprehensive Guide
  
• General Purpose - NifSkope Alchemy
  
• Textures - Changing Textures
  
• Textures - Exporting Texture Templates
  
• Textures - Re-Texture Guide
  
• Textures - Multi-Layered Transparency
  
• Textures - Reflective Metal in Oblivion
  
• Textures - How To Fix Hard-Coded Texture Paths in NIF Files
  
• Modeling - Finessing Physics
  
• Modeling - Making New Armor for Oblivion
  
• Modeling - Adding Collision Model
  
• Animation - Basic Animation
  
• Animation - Adding Functional Particle Systems to Armor/Clothing for Oblivion
  
• Fallout 3 - How To Load Hair Models Made For Oblivion Into Fallout 3
  

[LHammonds]

Feel free to reply here and let us know of any additional tutorials or tutorial sites that are out there in the wild that we do not know about.

 

Also, feel free to post any requests for tutorials. I will try to keep a compiled collection of requests on the 2nd post. Bare in mind that requests are generally for ANYONE to complete...not specific to an individual.

 

List of requested tutorials (number on the end is how many times it has been requested)

 

• Any tutorials that explain what the different materials types do?
  

[JimboUK]

I found this very useful, detailed enough that even I could follow it. How To Load Hair Models Made For Oblivion Into Fallout 3 (Don't convert Oblivion stock assets if you don't want the staff to beat you senseless with the banhammer of doom +1) Edited September 12, 2010 by LHammonds
Tutorial added...thanks

[ub3rman123]

There any tutorials that explain specifically what the various material properties do? Might save people a lot of time. Edited September 12, 2010 by LHammonds
Tutorial request added...thanks

[Ghogiel]

Here is the breakdown of the material properties in Bethesda's basic shader in both OB&F2

Diffuse color: In theory this would tint/color the diffuse color of the mesh. However I believe is disabled in Ob. It is removed entirely from the NiMaterialProperty in F3.

 

Ambient color Similar to Diffuse Color. This in theory would tint/color any ambient lighting reflecting off the mesh. But again this is likely disabled in OB and is removed entirely from the NiMaterialProperty in F3.

 

If you use vertex color on a model, this will have the same effect as coloring both of those material properties. If they did anything..

Specular color: In theory this colors any direct light bouncing of the mesh. This seems to be completely overridden if a specular map is present.

 

Emissive color: this controls the meshes self-illumination color.

 

Alpha: This is the global opacity control for the mesh. It will not be enabled unless a NiAlphaProperty is attached to the mesh.

Gloss: This controls the specular falloff. ie sharpness or spread of the specular highlights.

 

Note that in the gamebryo material calls the specular level map a gloss map. iirc anyway.

 

Can someone just check whether the diffuse and ambient color is ignored in OB, then a mod can split this topic if they like.

[LHammonds]

The name of the material can also be important.

 

At least for Oblivion, the game engine detects specially reserved names such as "skin" and "EnvMap2"

[theRoadstroker]

Just to extend LHammonds post:

 

Here are a few more materials that can be used inside nifscope (in Oblivion)

 

Skin = loads your custom skin colours created when you create your characters (apply to the whole object)

 

EnvMap2 = (Environmental Map 2 ) adds a material that acts like a harsh specular map to the object , its used to simulate glass in oblivion and its used on windows and the glass armor. Also glows in the dark alot. (applied to the whole object or controlled by the specular map inside the normal map or a glow map) *Needs Apply Highlight

 

EnvMap1 =(Environmental Map 1 ) acts almost the same as EnvMap2 but it has more softer reflection and has an image to simulate the reflection of the world, it also changes colour with the time - IE: at sunset if the world has a red sky - the thing you apply it to will have a red glow , even if you are indoors. Glows in the dark but more softer. (controlled the same way as EnvMap2) *Needs Apply Highlight

 

Metal = Same as EnvMap1 but has no "Time colour changes" - maybe slightly better Metal look to it. *Needs Apply Highlight

 

Lava = Acts like Water (ironic) - makes the object transparent and add water or puddles to the object. But also removes the Skin (weights) from the object, so if applied on a character it will freeze the character into a T- Pose or some other pose , but works "good" on objects like swords and shields - but its very cpu intensive (applied to the whole object)

 

Hair = adds a special secularity (hair-like) to the object

 

 

I think thats all of the materials I discovered so far.

[ub3rman123]

So just entering in the material properties into the materials name section changes it?

[Ghogiel]

for oblivion yeah, if you use one of the hardcoded names, other wise you will get a standard shader.

 

this is how bethesda used to enable several special shaders as theRoadstroker has pretty thoroughly covered...there aren't many more. maybe 1 or 2 I am forgetting. But glowing in the dark with envmap2? really. I have used it several times. and didn't notice it glowing.

 

there is also 'skin' with the lower case 's'. which is the shader name on female skin, with some modders will only use this one because it is different to Skin apparently, and they like it more. anyway it is just a little thing to look out for

 

And there is the parallax shader, which is enabled by setting the texture apply mode to 'Apply Hilight2'. any map you put into the diffuse maps alpha channel, will be the height map used to do the displacement effect. very simply, parallax uses a height map to displace the texture co-ords to create a 3d effect. Not the sane as parallax occlusion mapping (POM)

 

material names are not used in F3. and all the shaders are accessed in the BSShaderPPLightingProperty under shader flags.

 

I will at some point detail my current knowledge of F3 shader setup. There are a lot there to experiment with. and some are kinda technical in description. + no one has actually experimented.

 

 

BTW- that hair from oblivion to fallout is extremely outdated. and the workflow is very round about, and basically is writen in the time just after fallouts relz, when people were writing tutorials how to nif hack. It is not the best way. and particularly that hair tut is very long and quite complex for something so easy, that it takes 20mins tops to do.

 

that sticky at the top of the Fallout mod talk forum. Why is that still a sticky? why do people still do that workflow. Why is it called modelling? and has nothing to do with anything other than copy and paste of nitristripdata nodes.

 

I have a nifskope dedicated tutorial as well, which i think would be useful for anyone wanting to understand some animation types. Material Controllers

[LHammonds]

So just entering in the material properties into the materials name section changes it?

Kind of. It depends if it needs other settings as well such as the EnvMap2 name...which requires the "Apply Highlight" Apply Mode on the associated NiTriStrip (under the NiTexturingProperty)

 

It may also require addition configuration on the diffuse map and its alpha channel, the normal map and its alpha channel, and possibly the glow map.

 

Example: Reflective Metal

 

Now that I think about it, it would also be important to note the transparency settings as well..but this is also not "just" a NifSkope setting but it is a REQUIRED setting in NifSkope. If you want an object to be transparent, you first edit the NIF, select the Object's NiTriStrips branch, right-click on it and select Node --> Attach Property --> NiAlphaProperty. With the NiAlphaProperty selected, find and edit the Flags value and change it from 237 to 4845. Save the NIF. If you do not see any change in the model, it is because your textures have not been configured to be transparent yet. You will need to edit the Alpha Channel of the Diffuse Map and define what needs to be Opaque or Transparent. 100% Opaque = White, 100% Transparent = Black, 50% transparent = Gray (R:128,G:128,B:128) and various degrees in-between are shades of gray.

 

References:

• Exporting Transparent Textures
  
• Multi-Layered Transparency