3DS Max: How do I get this panel / menu appear?

[Elianora]

Eh, I still can't get it to work the way I want. Somehow the export brings wrong kind of meshes into the nif and f*#@s up the weights in OS. I've given up. I guess I'm not making these armours. I don't know enough about 3ds Max and I don't have the patience to sit through 50 tutorial videos :|

[KorinOo]

I never used Outfit Studio, so I don't really know how to help with that. That being said, I would suggest trying this:

 

Tinkering with export options. I would start by unchecking "flatten hierarchy" and "remove unused bones". Or unchecking only one of them. Just play with those options...

OR

Open your exported nif in NifSkope in one window and your original armor (before edit) in another. Delete the mesh block in the original nif. Then copy your edited mesh (with skin block) from your exported nif, into that original nif. This way you will have exactly the same file structure (and skeleton) like the original nif. Just remember to rename the mesh nodes so it doesn't have the same name as bones.

[Ragicka]

 

Here is what you should do:

1. Start 3dsMax and open new scene (empty)

2. Import the armor piece you wanna edit. Import it with skeleton.

Note: It should have "Skin" modifier on it in the "Modify" tab. http://s11.postimg.org/7xtwd69lf/Untitled.jpg

3. Edit your mesh (delete polygons you don't want)

4. Export it (with skeleton and skin modifier selected in export window)

 

That's all. It should work. As long as you are just deleting polygons, you don't have to re-skin the whole mesh.

 

 

Holy smokes! That does work, not sure why it works but it does. Here I am, overthinking things and making it harder than it needs to be. Just snippy-snip and Bob's yer uncle. I was expecting, at the very least, a re-do of the BS SubIndex Modifier and nifskope edits but everything actually looks ok.

 

One thing I have noticed is that nifskope shows the new model above the grid while showing vanilla models below the grid. Is there a trick to reconciling them to copy/paste branch trishapes? Or is it just me?

 

Eh, I still can't get it to work the way I want. Somehow the export brings wrong kind of meshes into the nif and f*#@s up the weights in OS. I've given up. I guess I'm not making these armours. I don't know enough about 3ds Max and I don't have the patience to sit through 50 tutorial videos :|

 

I just went straight from max to game, haven't tried passing it through OS yet. Don't give up, just take a breather. Here are my max import/export settings if you want to compare. For export, be sure to edit Weld Vertices: to 0.0

 

[jeffglobal]

 

 

Ok, you can throw that tutorial out of the window :smile:

 

Here is what you should do:

1. Start 3dsMax and open new scene (empty)

2. Import the armor piece you wanna edit. Import it with skeleton.

Note: It should have "Skin" modifier on it in the "Modify" tab. http://s11.postimg.org/7xtwd69lf/Untitled.jpg

3. Edit your mesh (delete polygons you don't want)

4. Export it (with skeleton and skin modifier selected in export window)

 

That's all. It should work. As long as you are just deleting polygons, you don't have to re-skin the whole mesh.

 

Also, for people who try to learn from that tutorial- don't. It skips a lot of things that are important when working with skinned/rigged objects. It works if you follow it in 100%, but it doesn't teach you enough to actually allow you to work on your own. And let's face it, you are reading it to learn a little more than how to import and export that exact jetpack.

 

 

Ok Korin uh oh,

If that is true, and I will try that, I will send cookies.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9hj5avoi6x127xb/Fallout4%202016-01-15%2019-15-43-22.jpg?dl=0

 

Can I fuse vertices? Cause sometimes when I do it f's up the mesh. When you say export with the skin selected, do you mean with the object selected, select the skin modifier? What do you do with the BSmodifier above that; what if the mesh you're working on is in a set of 2 objects, how do you save then, Korinuhoh?

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2jqfmfdss2yd7uq/20160116_094439.jpg?dl=0

 

Those answers would be more cookies sent.

Edited January 16, 2016 by jeffglobal

[KorinOo]

Yep, welding vertices may produce artifacts or break the whole skin modifier. If you really wanna do that, then I suggest doing it right after you import your original mesh (before you edit it). Select all vertices, set welding radius to 0,0 and weld them (this way you will weld only those vertices that got split during import). After that, you might wanna reset the smoothing groups, so all polygons are in one group (otherwise you might have some artifacts in normal maps in-game).

 

When I said "skin selected", I meant to have the "export skin modifier" option selected in export window.

 

The BS subindex modifier is for marking the polygons you would want to hide if the character have a different armor piece equipped. It allows you to mark the polygons to be assigned to "body groups" like torso, head, legs, hands, etc. For example, lets say you have two armor pieces, a shirt with long selves and big gloves. The shirt is set to "torso", and the gloves are set to "hands". If you equip them both at the same time, you would see a nasty clipping between the gloves and the end of the sleeves. But, if you mark most of the shirt polygons to "torso" and the ends of its sleeves to "hands", and then equip the gloves, the shirt polygons that are marked "hands" will become invisible and there won't be any clipping.

 

Does that make any sense to you? It's hard to explain it without going too much into details.

Edited January 16, 2016 by KorinOo

[jeffglobal]

 

 

Yep, welding vertices may produce artifacts or break the whole skin modifier. If you really wanna do that, then I suggest doing it right after you import your original mesh (before you edit it). Select all vertices, set welding radius to 0,0 and weld them (this way you will weld only those vertices that got split during import). After that, you might wanna reset the smoothing groups, so all polygons are in one group (otherwise you might have some artifacts in normal maps in-game).

 

When I said "skin selected", I meant to have the "export skin modifier" option selected in export window.

 

The BS subindex modifier is for marking the polygons you would want to hide if the character have a different armor piece equipped. It allows you to mark the polygons to be assigned to "body groups" like torso, head, legs, hands, etc. For example, lets say you have two armor pieces, a shirt with long selves and big gloves. The shirt is set to "torso", and the gloves are set to "hands". If you equip them both at the same time, you would see a nasty clipping between the gloves and the end of the sleeves. But, if you mark most of the shirt polygons to "torso" and the ends of its sleeves to "hands", and then equip the gloves, the shirt polygons that are marked "hands" will become invisible and there won't be any clipping.

 

Does that make any sense to you? It's hard to explain it without going too much into details.

 

 

HOLY Mackerel, I just welded the wayward vertices, selected all the polygons, made them smoothing grp 1 and viola.

 

Then I dare you to answer me this:

I have a nevernude mod and when she stands like this, she exposes herself...I first tried to just uniformly scale the clothing because local movement didn't have any affect. I will have to undo that...

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/np7jbj0op2ahyca/Fallout4%202016-01-15%2017-04-53-41.jpg?dl=0

 

Maybe it's an outfit studio thing, and it was suggested I use push, but idk what that is yet, though I will learn it, the person that suggested it is good at 3ds max, what would you do?

 

Actually, the most detailed answers to me are always most useful...

 

Oh, and I'm sry, I ate your cookies.

[KorinOo]

There are two ways to fix this.

-Easy, but imperfect: Just move the vertices a little further away from the body in that area. Moving vertices does not change their weights, so you don't have to worry about breaking the skin modifier. On the other hand, you are not changing their weights, so you will fix it in that pose, but then it might start clipping in another.

-Hard, the way it should be done: Fix the skinning by weight painting in 3ds max, so the shorts and the body vertices have (almost) identical weights in that area.

 

 

And don't worry about these cookies. I wouldn't eat the anyway. My mom told me I shouldn't accept sweets from strangers.

[jeffglobal]

 

 

There are two ways to fix this.

-Easy, but imperfect: Just move the vertices a little further away from the body in that area. Moving vertices does not change their weights, so you don't have to worry about breaking the skin modifier. On the other hand, you are not changing their weights, so you will fix it in that pose, but then it might start clipping in another.

-Hard, the way it should be done: Fix the skinning by weight painting in 3ds max, so the shorts and the body vertices have (almost) identical weights in that area.

 

 

And don't worry about these cookies. I wouldn't eat the anyway. My mom told me I shouldn't accept sweets from strangers.

 

 

There may be many ways to skin a cat, but I have never done weight painting...but I'll try after I delete polygons and see if the game crashes...

 

I tried the first way and no good, she looks like she has a package...

 

Would you know if Outfit Designer is a finger painting way of doing the same weight painting?

 

ty for any info.

Edited January 18, 2016 by jeffglobal

[DogtoothCG]

Eh, I still can't get it to work the way I want. Somehow the export brings wrong kind of meshes into the nif and f*#@s up the weights in OS. I've given up. I guess I'm not making these armours. I don't know enough about 3ds Max and I don't have the patience to sit through 50 tutorial videos :|

 

1. Import your model, ensure that import skeleton is checked, and leading to the correct filepath.
2. On Import, duplicate your model remove any modifiers present
3. Ensure that your copy is centered (both geometry and origin align with the original).
4. Enter edit element mode (press 5 on the keyboard), select and delete the elements you do not wish to be present in your new model.
5. Select "skin wrap" from the modifier drop down, ensure "weight all verts" is enabled, and select the original model as your reference model.
6. Add a "Bsubindexmodifier", and create your subindex array in accordance with that of the original model.
7. Delete the original model, and only the original model.
8. Export as .nif with default settings (not export selected).

Let me know if you have any more problems!

[rickerhk]

Eh, I still can't get it to work the way I want. Somehow the export brings wrong kind of meshes into the nif and f*#@s up the weights in OS. I've given up. I guess I'm not making these armours. I don't know enough about 3ds Max and I don't have the patience to sit through 50 tutorial videos :|

You can use Outfit studio to remove triangles.

Load your project into OS

select the shape you want to edit

change the brush to mask. Mask the vertices that you want to go away.

Invert the mask when done. On the menu, 'brush', then 'invert mask'

On the menu, go to 'slider', new ZAP slider (will zap UNMASKED vertices on that shape)

Give the slider any name

'Save as' another project name (Optional. just the way I do it). Save it with the reference body (default).

Close OS then select your project in the body-slide dropdown.

Click on the 'zap' box for the slider you made.

click 'build'

I usually take the resulting NIF and create a new project with it, or use Nifscope to delete the reference and other shapes, but you could also just open the existing project, file->load outfit (check the 'keep other shapes' box), browse to the new mesh and load it. Then delete shapes you don't want.