Armor mashup

[Dragonborn502]

Okay, I am new at editing meshes, so I would like to hear some guides from better modders.

How can I make a mashup of couple of different armors?

Just something simple ( well, I am able to put armors together in nifskope and such, but all armor pieces I add from another armor can't be seen in-game)

I know there are some tutorials and such, but I'd appreciate if someone could explain this with his own words.

(Besides, all tutorials have different version of blender, older nifskope, different game and such)

[H3xx]

I would also like a mashup tutorial for armor. I did find one for static meshes, but it doesn't work for armor, at least not entirely.

[gamefever]

Alright I'll give this a shoot just did a Mashup of Ashara, SovnGuard, and Mashup Unp yesterday before bed.

 

With Nifskope opened up on both pieces.

 

Directly Right click on the Piece you want in the window Viewer.

select Block

Copy Branch.

 

Move your mouse to the other opened Nifskope Window.

Right Click (anywhere in the Viewer or on left window.)

Block-->Paste Branch

 

Now the hard part not really :D

 

Armor you are makeing Left Window

Select > 0 NiNode (JUST HIGHLIGHT IT)

Move mouse to bottom window scroll down till you see

 

Num children 43 (this number is the actual number of every piece and node that is in this thing so if its only got 5 then it's just 5)

double click on that number raise it's value by 1

 

Just below that you see this

>Children

right click that and hit Array>Update

now expand the children You'll see a list of every piece in that outfit but now one of the listings says

NONE

 

double click NONE and type in the number value on the left of the object you added....It'll be in the Left Window.

 

Save your work your done

 

 

More to come becuase there's more seroius tricks to this.

 

PS You can see my mashup on my profile, I used it as a PCEAr Plate Replacer.

 

Edit

PPS

Often you'll drag your item over to your "Mashup" and it will be the wrong size when intutivly it should be correct,

instance you pull a UNP belt over to a UnpB body, don't worry the item will adjust to the appropraite location and size in almost every case it's becuase it's a child without a parent NiNode. Once you give that item a parent NiNode it'll orreintate itself to it's parent and then it should appear correct but in some cases it's still not going to fit right.

 

When a piece doesn't fit right and you know you've got an original non ripped peice not Vanilla piece...the reason is simply this. It's common practice to make clothing/armor pieces slightly bigger than the actual body so that they won't clip. However you need a mesh editing program like Blender 2.49b,2.69 or 3ds Max to work the mesh.

 

There's a lot of Armor modder's out there that won't take the time to Clip the Normals from the body mesh or they just don't know how easy it is, a method that I used to make my armor "skintight" and reduce the chance that any skin at all will ever pop through.

 

This of course is not the case when you try to move a CBBE outfit over to a Unp body it won't adjust and fit to the body, this is becuase the outfit was designed from a mesh with a whole other Face count. the only thing you can try in Nifskope is change scale or move it's XYZ orrientation. If you change the scale or XYZ orientation you have to right click the object

Transform

Apply

Edited January 11, 2013 by gamefever

[gamefever]

ProTip

 

Most times you'll open a work someones made and well they don't know much about porting to be honest there's some obvious tells.

 

you see that in the left window the > 0 NiNode should read TXT Scene Root (0)

 

Like this

 

> 0 NiNode TXT Scene Root (0)

 

Now the thing is if that doesn't exactly match the other windows 0 NiNode txt name well guess what you can't move it.

 

But I'm going to tell you that's easy peasy to fix in a jiffy.

click on the 0 NiNode

Move curser to the bottom window

At the top of the bottom window make sure your scrolled to the top

you will see

 

Name String TXT Scene Root (0)

 

Sometimes it'll look like this instead

 

Name String TXT AwesomeBra (some number here)

 

Just right blick on AwesomeBra and select Edit String Index.

Change Awesome Bra to say Scene Root

If you cant find Scene Root type it into the window box that poped up and be case specific and spelling counts

 

Now that bad Awesome Bra is ready to move to your new mashup!

[gamefever]

Now Sometimes you get it into your head that you want to port a piece that relies on a specific bone and it's not there in the other window...

 

well you could copy and paste it, you could make a new one

 

Better yet just make the better choice and move the pieces to a nif that has all the Nodes you need already there.

 

It can be a bit tedious putting in new nodes.

 

So I'm not going into that when there are so so many of these that will already have your missing bone nodes available.

 

 

Next Big thing you will run into while doing a nifskope mashup.

 

Often you'll want to take a piece that has the wrong Body Data Number Value

if you say take Ashara's fur skirt and want to place it on the torso chestpiece guess what you could do all the steps

I outlined above and it still won't show in game.

 

Why?

 

Becuase the nif file says to the game only stuff with BODY DATA 32 matters on the chest piece.

This is also easy to fix.

 

Open the NiNode of your piece

Highlight BsDismemberSkinInstance

Move mouse to bottom window

Expand Partitions

Expand Partitions (Im not repeating myself I mean it)

 

You will see

Body BSDismemberBodyPartType (here it should read SBP_32_BODY) But it wont it'll be the right number for say the tail slot or some other of the bijillain slots doesn't matter

 

Double click the number

type in 32

 

Save Your Work.

 

Edit

 

Continued

 

Now lets say you've moved a whole lot of items over to the nif_0 mesh

It's going to give them odd random numbers and that's a problem

It's also going to give them funny names like a dagger gets named Panty. This is also a problem.

 

So your going to have to Rename and Renumber everything you moved for these reasons.

1st to prevent CTD's in game

2nd if your numerical placement value does'nt line up with the nif_0 and nif_1 mesh then only those extreme weights will work in game.

All the weights between will shoot the mesh out all over the place enveloping the player camera in 3rd person.

The names also have to match and they are case sensitive and spelling senitive.

 

To change the name of the NiTriShape

Highlight it

In bottom window at the top you'll see your Dagger that's been named PANTY

Right click

select Edit Screen Index

Type the name in the little window box

 

To move the NiTriShape to where it should be use

Ctrl Button Up Arrow Key (Arrow key is on your Numberpad)

 

Thats

Ctrl up

 

You can also move it down

Ctrl down

 

having both the nif_0 and nif_1 open at same time helps becuase the Number on the left of the NiTriShape has to match.

 

Now save your work

 

continued

Now sometimes we want to change the color on an object

Example Asharas PanyHose are always going to be green in game even though it's showing up black in your Nifskope window

 

Thats easy to fix to

expand the NiTriShape

expand the BSLightingShaderProperty

highlight BSShaderTextureSet

Move mouse to bottom window

expand textures

 

Here you'll see 9 texture slots

Each texture slot applies a specific effect in game based on the colors of the .DDS texture

The regular DDS is easiest to find it's at the top

It should look like this

texture\armor\MyArmorName\GreenPantyHose.dds

 

Well I want the Black Panty hose well open up your texture folder and find what it's named but I'm betting it'll be simple becuase modders hate hasle like everyone else.

texture\armor\MyArmorName\BlackPantyHose.dds

 

 

Expanded use of Renaming Textures

 

Oh man I really want that Armor Man , DUDE YOU needs to make that CBBE v3 or I won't give you an's Dorsement YO

 

Easy workaround

Select the Body find its texture path

Package your mod with an optional new skin path like this

texture\armor\GamefeverISwayAWESOME\UNPBbodyTexture.DDS

 

You know when a person takes the time to do something nice around here they don't get paid, there's only so many ways we mod users can show our apprecaition even just a nice comment on their personel page is better than a big fat nothing

or even not even a single comment of acknowlegdement that you did something nice...That kinda bites.

 

Protip

Make sure you favorite this page. You'll be hunting forever to find the stuff I wrote here. And it certainly wont be in one place.

Edited January 11, 2013 by gamefever

[gamefever]

Additional

 

Protip

 

Something to Bear in mind and this is very important.

 

MashUps of other peoples work is still not yours in any way shape or form.

 

It's not yours.

Ever have a feeling man I'd should put this bad boy up on's ze NeXusss!!

 

Well forget it becuase you didn't sit there for days pulling individual Vertices around in Blender 2.63 or verision 2.49b

SHUDDER gawd

 

It takes Weeks to make a complete original armor, my first original armor took 6 weeks.

 

So if you post up an armor you did'nt hand make that;s a mashup of other peoples stuff your going to get Banned or at the very least have to meet some kind of condition set by Nexus Staff and possibly offended parties.

 

I don't care if you color the whole thing PINK it's not your's.

Do not ever ever think that a mashup belongs to you becuase it belongs to the authors you borrowed from and its only for personel use ever! No matter how many people plead with you.

 

you can never upload it to Nexus without an expressed permission of every author that had something to do with that piece.

 

I dont care if Ted from accounting made only the the pinkpumps.DDS you have to ask his permission and receive an email that you can send to Nexus Staff like Dark0ne.

Then in your credits you have to credit

 

Credits

Specail thanks to

Ted from accounting for his outstanding PinkPumps.DSS (SiteLink)

--->unless of course he doesn't want everyone to know he made a PinkPumps.DDS

here you also list the Name and piece name of every other author for each mesh and texture.

 

Protip: It's considered good practice to leave a link to the original piece and or retexture you borrowed from.

Moduser's will often see your mashup and think I like that outfit better, if they can't find it they might spam your Comments Page with questions and you take the time to answer and then it gets burried. Then the next guy spams your comment box and a viscious cycle starts.

Edited January 11, 2013 by gamefever

[H3xx]

Congratulations, you just got this page a permanent spot in my speed dial! Thank you for this, I plan to do a lot with this!

[H3xx]

Is it possible to import a static mesh from another nif, and assign it to a bone? Assuming I only want it to attach to one bone and not flex or bend with the body, just follow that one bone and rotate with it? I'd like to bypass exporting and weighting and then somehow getting it to back in.

[Darklocq]

Great stuff!

 

There's a lot of Armor modder's out there that won't take the time to Clip the Normals from the body mesh or they just don't know how easy it is, a method that I used to make my armor "skintight" and reduce the chance that any skin at all will ever pop through.

 

Could you elaborate on this please? I do want to do this but have no idea how (in fact, I'm not even sure what it means. "Normals" to me are *_n.dds or *_msn.dds textures. Heh.)