Need advice on adding static items

[toon20s]

Hello everyone. I am seeking advice and help on how to add a static item into the game to be used with my mod. I am currently laughing not from joy or happiness but from stress, to prevent me from pulling my hair out :pinch:. I am following a tutorial by Elianora , which is explaining how to mash meshes on static items in Outfit Studio. However, when I load the meshes I want to put together (L1_Shack_Single_PlankLng04_Brkn & DinerDoorSingle01) I see that there is no texture loaded; I locate and add the proper textures and get the objects in place. At this point I am thinking it is complete and move on to her next step (not sure if I really have to). I extract the Nif and open it in NifSkope, this is where I get confused. The objects have no texture and are all grey. So my question is, when I save the final product in OS, does it not save the textures related? If not how can I keep those textures associated with the right objects? My second road block is adding a static item from scratch into an esp that has no static items in it. In the tutorial she already has pre-made items in there that she can duplicate and make the changes. How does one add a brand new item into the esp using FO4Edit?

 

I tried for a while and could not figure it out, every time my wife talks to me I am so aggravated I catch my self acting like Marcy Long. Any help on these matters would be a blessing from Talos.

Thank you in advance.

 

Tutorial I am following:

Edited October 6, 2016 by toon20s

[Ethreon]

Did you tell Nifskope where to see your texture so it can display it? Otherwise, if you look at it in CK and it's fine, you're good to go.

[TrickyVein]

There is absolutely no reason to use outfit studio for when dealing with statics.

 

My advice would be to get rid of this extra step and the confusion it causes by just copying and pasting blocks from one .nif to another just within NifSkope. Get the latest version here.

 

Since Fallout 4 uses materials, if every BSTriShape has a valid material path in its respective BSLightingShaderProperty property, it should be fine. When copying nodes from one .nif into another, you'll have to provide unique string names for BSTriShapes as well for materials. You can do this by right clicking on the name field in block details and providing the path that's required for whichever copied-in nodes.

[VIitS]

I'd agree with TrickyVein, when I mash things together I just use "Copy Branch" and "Paste Branch"* from one .nif to another. You then just need to make all the copied NiNodes children of the main NiNode and change the "Name" (string index value) for the BSLightingShaderProperty so it points to the right material file (you can change the BSTriShape name if you want, but it only matters for ease of understanding when looking at the nif).

 

If you don't know how to set texture paths like Ethreon said, it's pretty easy.

 

Options -> Settings -> Resources, then set the file path.

 

*If you use copy/paste branch instead of just single copy/paste, all the connected meshes/properties/etc... go with it.

[damanding]

As for making the textures appear in Nifskope, it's under Settings>Resources. You can have it auto-detect the game folder. If you are like me and have your game on a small SSD with unpacked resources & your projects on a second drive you can point to that too.

[toon20s]

 

I'd agree with TrickyVein, when I mash things together I just use "Copy Branch" and "Paste Branch"* from one .nif to another. You then just need to make all the copied NiNodes children of the main NiNode and change the "Name" (string index value) for the BSLightingShaderProperty so it points to the right material file (you can change the BSTriShape name if you want, but it only matters for ease of understanding when looking at the nif).

If you don't know how to set texture paths like Ethreon said, it's pretty easy.

Options -> Settings -> Resources, then set the file path.

 

Ok so I auto detected the paths. I am a bit confused because it auto detected ...Fallout4/Data/Textures, which is not an actual folder. Could it be targeting the .ba2?

This may also sound stupid, but for clarity, do I use unpacked textures or use the actual game texture file?

[TrickyVein]

The filepath is the same regardless of whether the asset is in an archive or unpacked as a loose file. On a related note, 'archive invalidation' refers to enabling the game to read loose files.

 

NifSkope's been updated a lot recently, so it may even be able to retrieve/display textures from inside of archives, now - it has a feature to browse archives as well - but historically if the texture isn't extracted as a loose file, NifSkope hasn't been able to display it.

[toon20s]

http://9.t.imgbox.com/euZfN69d.jpg

 

So where would I go from here to link the texture to this object?

 

EDIT**

 

Ok so after some snooping, I finally have gotten it to work, I think. I added the archives and pulled the nif straight from the archive instead of the unpacked files. Now I see textured objects.

 

So from here, after I set up the objects the way I want them, is there anything I should do before closing the project and move on to the next step?

 

As for the next step, how do I add this new .nif to my .esp? Do I use FO4Edit, and if so how do I do this? I am attempting to add a door. It's not for the workshop, just to be used for my mod.

 

Thank you

Edited October 6, 2016 by toon20s