Blender, Nifskope and What Now?

[BlueSteelRanger]

Right, so, I finally caved and got Blender. The good news? The latest version is adaptable with the blind-assistive things I need and thus, use. Which is awesome. A definite improvement over my first Blender encounter!

 

Anyhoo, I'm still trying to figure out this modding thing. Everyone says you need Blender and Nifskope.

 

I have:

--Blender

--Nifskope

--GIMP

--Skyrim Creation Kit

 

How does all this work together? I wish to create an armour set (Two actually), and a custom race based off the Khajiit model but I think if I learned how the Blender-Nifskope combination worked, I could do this.

Any ideas? Perhaps a tutorial I missed?

 

--BlueSteelRanger

[ghosu]

Can't help you on that because i'm using other programs BUT i would highly recommend to start with static objects like a weapon to learn the basics.

 

Ten times easier to accomplish than rigged stuff like armor, clothing or body parts since they need to be weighted/skinned to the skeleton to stay/morph in the correct position when your character moves.

Edited November 20, 2013 by ghosu

[BlueSteelRanger]

Hmm. All right. I do want to design a weapon set to go with the pair of armour sets I'd like. (I confess: Said armour and weapon sets when done, will be a hopefully Skyrim lore-friendly adaptation of Optimus Prime and Megatron's armour appearances. Or am I just that strange? Heh)

[BlueSteelRanger]

Hm. I think I was unclear somewhere. ....What I get for writing at 3 AM, heh. What I mean is, how do Blender, Nifskope and the Creation Kit go together? In other words, what do I put where in order to modify it, then put it into Skyrim play? Every tutorial I've found is about as clear as mud on that part.

[ghosu]

The common workflow order is:

 

3D editor => sculpting/texturing software in combination with image edior

=> NifSkope => Creation Kit

 

3D editor: Blender,3DsMax,Cinema4D,Maya,SketchUP

sculpting/texturing: Mudbox, zBrush, Sculptris

image editor: Photoshop, GIMP

 

Blender is used to create a rough low polyogn 3D model, afterwards you load it into sculpting/texturing software (like Mudbox, zBrush or Sculptris) to subdivide your model to become a high polygon model.

 

You sculpt more details and adjust the shape, create a normal map (a texture that simulates the sculpted details) of this high polygon model and transfer it to your low polygon model. Afterwards your texture, using the software mentioned before you can paint directly on the 3D model - and fine tune the texture using an image editor like GIMP or Photoshop.

 

If you create weighted stuff like armor you have to export your final low polygon 3D model back to Blender to skin it (attach the mesh to the skeleton/bones so it stays in position when the character moves), if its a static object like a weapon you can directly export the low poly model to NifSkope.

 

In Nifskope you can use an original vanilla object .nif (= a container format that contains 3D model and various other settings) as reference and replace it with your model, you can adjust other stuff like texture paths and shader settings, scaling and whatever as well. Then you save the whole thing as a new .nif and place it in Skyrim\data\meshes\blabla\

 

Finally you use the Creation Kit to import the .nif to the game, when it comes to a weapon you simply copy vanilla armor forms as reference and link them to your new files, adjust values like armor rating, damage whatever, make it craftable or place it in the world - save the whole thing to become standalone and you're done.

 

To extract the game's original files (.nif container and .dds textures) as reference you need a tool named FO3 Archive Utility to open the game's archives in Skyrim\data\ ARCHIVENAME.bsa - and to save the textures as .dds you need NVIDIA DDS PLUGIN for Gimp or Photoshop.

 

As mentioned before i'm using different software but you can check out my tutorial in my signature - explains the whole process of weapon creation/import - to get a rough idea, works similar with other object types. And i'm pretty sure you find quite all necessary tutorials in both tutorial stickies on the first page of the MOD TALK section.

Edited November 20, 2013 by ghosu

[BlueSteelRanger]

::blinks:: ....I did not expect I'd have to get even more tools for this. One said I needed a Fallout Creation Kit. I don't even have Fallout. Another said a program that costs well over $1000 -- My adaptive reader costs that much. Now I'm really confused and getting to the point where I'm not even sure I can do this. Or should.

[ghosu]

I just listed available software, you only need one of each category.

Blender,Sculptris,Gimp,Creation Kit,NifSkope,FO3 Archive Utility,DDS plugin - all you need, all free.

Edited November 20, 2013 by ghosu

[neomonkeus]

I would first get a working workflow and just get a really basic model ingame, something as simple as a box. I know it sounds simple but getting that far is a good goal to work towards.

 

A lot of modders pick things because they look cool or they perceive them as easy such as tweaking armour. This has several additional requirements that something like modelling a weapon does not require.

 

 

The optional tools are dependant on how detailed you want to focus on each "sub-area" i.e Gimp -> texturing, Scupting -> detailed models.

You actually need things like Sculptri if you are using one of the latest versions of Blender as the sculpting system is on par with it.

 

Either way, sculpting is something that you should think about further down the line as an advanced topic.

 

Like Ghosu said, the basic workflow is Blender for modelling, NifSkope to clean up/prepare the nif -> CK for in-game logic.

You will need to decide how to get between Blender and NIfSkope.

You have a few options, interchange format or niftools nifscripts for Blender.

The first relies on picking a format such as .3ds or .fbx

The second is using the 2.49 version of Blender and exporting to a supported format and tweaking it. This option is more robust but has more steps involved.

 

Just out of curiousity, what is the nature of the impairment as that would also have a bearing on what workflow may suit you better as you said you had previous difficulty with blender?

[Terra Nova]

::blinks:: ....I did not expect I'd have to get even more tools for this. One said I needed a Fallout Creation Kit. I don't even have Fallout. Another said a program that costs well over $1000 -- My adaptive reader costs that much. Now I'm really confused and getting to the point where I'm not even sure I can do this. Or should.

You can do this. The actual modeling process is less stressful than actually getting it in the game, from my experience.

[BlueSteelRanger]

All right, I've got coffee and a decent night's sleep (Sans extremely noisy neighbours to whom I will soon be giving a talking-to for a month straight of nightly disturbance). Anyhoo. I'm coherent and can get my English out without sounding like my reader went out and had a few too many. However, be warned, it is phonetic so if I butcher names, I apologise in advance.

 

So.

 

I've got Blender.

I've got GIMP.

I've got the Creation Kit.

I've got Nifskope.

I've got this thing in my NMM called "BSAdopt".

 

I have....zero experience using any of these. They don't exactly teach us blind people that kind of thing in school. So I quite literally have no idea where to start, how to pull this off, how it all goes together. Any of that.