Confused by imported weapon mod NIFs in 3dsMAX (2016)

[Doommarine23]

Using 3dsMAX 2016

Using https://github.com/figment/max_nif_plugin/releases/tag/3.8.0 NIFplugin 3.8.0

 

I was hoping someone could help me out with a possible problem I've been having with importing weapon mod meshes into 3dsMAX 2016.

 

 

They seem to import fine but my big issue is that they seem to import into the center of 3dsMAX and not where they would logically be.

Like in this example the hunting shotgun's short barrel isn't where you'd logically expect it to be, aka the barrel position in the front of the gun.

Is this normal? Are weapon mods supposed to be centered like this? Any help would be appreciated.

 

http://i.imgur.com/HjYfpsr.png

[TrickyVein]

Mods are placed at where the BSConnectPoint::Parents connect points tell them to be placed in the parent .nif mesh which points to every other mod. Usually it's a receiver, or a 'dummy' .nif which points to a receiver.

 

It's relative to the origin of the mod's root NiNode, which is normally always zeroed.

 

I suppose what you're seeing is a bunch of different meshes being imported and placed at each respective mesh's origin which doesn't take into account where each mesh would be placed according to animation data.

[Deleted15964729User]

Also use that amazing plugin but have 3ds Max 2017 where some oddities like the ones you described are to be expected. Although maybe it's supposed to work better in 2016.

Use Nifskope to finalize things that are more "nif specific".

[Doommarine23]

Just wanted to say thank you to both of you. Its comforting to know this is normal expected behavior and also very helpful to know that I should keep the mod's origin at 0,0,0. This makes editing so much easier for me because before, I was worried if I had to position the mods correctly and all this other craziness. Consider this solved.

 

A piece of advice as well. You can get away with aligning the weapon mod meshes to the bones they assign to in 3dsMAX. Seems to work well for some guns, but iffy for others. Its still worth it though as it makes positioning them for editing a far easier + faster process.