Help With Mesh/Texture Editing

[Vargtiken]

Hey all. I'm fairly new to modding, modeling, and .nif's in general, so I'm posting here in hopes that you can help me out.

 

My current project is to take two body mods and combine them. One has a very nice overall look to it, but doesn't have extra features I want. To do this, I am editing the mesh of the first mod. One of the mods does not come with a .esp file, while the other one does. Both of them come with the custom meshes/textures they use.

 

Now, I take the model as a .nif and import it into Blender. In order to import it into Blender, I had to go into Nifskope, change the version numbers, and delete the BSLightingShaderProperty blocks on the NiTriShape blocks. This deletes all of the texture information, as well. I add the parts I want to add to the mesh and export it.

 

So, the only thing that's different from the original mod is that I have added a part onto the mesh.

 

Reopening the model in Nifskope, it's solid white EXCEPT for the parts I added on in Blender. (Here's where the first question comes in. I added two different parts through Blender, and only one of them renders with any amount of shading/depth. The other one is flat grey - not white like the rest of the body. Did I need to apply materials/shading to the model in Blender before exporting? If so, how do I go about doing this in Blender 2.49? (Tutorials appreciated!))

 

Even though it is solid white, I figure "Okay, it's just because I deleted all the shader/texture information. No biggie." Under each Tri-Shape, I create another BSLightingShaderProperty, and under that I make a new BSShaderTextureSet. Following the information from the original mesh, I reapply textures to all of the model parts. Using the textures for the 2nd mod I downloaded (the one with the added bits that I just modeled in), I set up the extra parts of the mesh so they have the new textures linked to them. (My setup is a little weird. I have my Nifskope linked to display textures from Skyrim's Data folder (for the mods I have installed) AND another folder that I have set up where I unpacked all the textures in the .BSA. This seems like it would be fine, because I just assign textures from both paths. In game, wouldn't it know to just grab the same texture filename from the .bsa? In this case, because all of the textures I am assigning belong to the mods, the files all exist in the Data/Textures folder. Is there anything wrong with the process?)

 

So. I have a completed .nif file, which I have linked to all the necessary textures in Skyrim/Data/Textures (because all the textures belong to the mods themselves.) Because it's decidedly easier, I decide to name this .nif after the model included in the mod that came with the .esp. To me, this seems like it would work. Instead of grabbing the file that came with the mod, it grabs my edited file instead and puts it in the game.

 

However, when I go in game, I get the "mesh not found" placeholder of the red triangle with the white exclamation point in it. The rest of the mod that came with the .esp works fine. (There is a different model that shows up perfectly fine. Only the model I edited does not show up.)

 

Any ideas? As I said, I am SUPER new to this whole thing. I feel I've learned quite a bit about modeling and .nifs, but setting up and linking everything still doesn't really click with me.

 

Thanks for your time and effort, everyone!