First armor modded from scratch - origin and mapped skeleton questions

[mmdestiny]

Hi all,

I have been working on my first scratch-made armor. I would like to preface this by saying all my modeling I do in Cinema 4D (that's what I'm trained on), which unfortunately can't export to nif, so I export to obj, import obj in 3ds Max 2015, and re-export to nif.

I'm on a bit of a timetable here, because my free 30 days of 3ds Max are up in 2 days, so I reeeeeeeeeeeeally want to get a working nif exported by then. I can handle anything after that at my own pace.

 

Anyways, for simplicity's sake, imagine the armor as being sculpted straight off the 1st person arms (it was). I know the positioning of all vertices at the attach points, as well as the origin on the object, is right because of this. Once I've imported to 3DS I've confirmed this, the armor lays perfectly over the base arms if I import both at the same time, and the origins are in the same location. I've followed the tutorial linked on the forum's master tutorial list for exporting with the vanilla skeleton.

 

However, after exporting to nif, if I compare my mesh vs vanilla in nifskope there's glaring differences. My mesh did not export with the bones despite everything being selected, the node type is BSTriShape instead of BSSubIndexTriShape, and the origin of the mesh is different.

 

I figure I'll move my mesh until it's overlapping the vanilla at the proper position. After doing that, I booted up Outfit Studio and used that method to copy the bones and weights over from the vanilla to my armor. No errors, and the bones appear in nifskope.

 

When I went into the CK to see if it previewed, or in game, however, nothing shows up. No crashes, but nothing is there.

 

I am not sure if this is because of my mesh exporting as a BSTriShape (even though the tut seems to indicate it shouldn't) or the origin of the mesh being different (and perhaps forcing the mesh to improperly attach?).

 

Any guidance would be appreciated.

[Perraine]

If you're not doing any exotic bone weighting (say for a dress or such) then you can import .obj files directly into Outfit Studio, and let it add the skeleton and do the weighting for you. (make sure that Fallout 4 is the selected game, so you get the correct skeleton) You may have to do some manual repositioning, but that is usually fairly straight forward.

 

I've also found that sometimes I need to let both Nifskope and Outfit Studio import and export the .nif file a couple of times before it will show up in game. There is obviously some "flag" or line of code or ... something, that isn't there to start with, but once both programs have chewed on the mesh a couple of times, it seems to work.

 

I'm sure someone will come along and give a proper explanation, all I know is, the above procedure works.

[mmdestiny]

Thank you very much Perraine, I will try your advice when I get home tonight. I have heard something about if there is a bone that doesn't find a vertex to attach to that can cause problems, but all the vanilla vertices were preserved (but maybe moved a little) so I don't THINK that's it.

[mmdestiny]

If you're not doing any exotic bone weighting (say for a dress or such) then you can import .obj files directly into Outfit Studio, and let it add the skeleton and do the weighting for you. (make sure that Fallout 4 is the selected game, so you get the correct skeleton) You may have to do some manual repositioning, but that is usually fairly straight forward.

 

I've also found that sometimes I need to let both Nifskope and Outfit Studio import and export the .nif file a couple of times before it will show up in game. There is obviously some "flag" or line of code or ... something, that isn't there to start with, but once both programs have chewed on the mesh a couple of times, it seems to work.

 

I'm sure someone will come along and give a proper explanation, all I know is, the above procedure works.

This information was a God-send Perraine, thank you. I haven't gotten it to appear in game yet, but the export does look identical to the structure it's supposed to, and I can see it in CK without crashes.

(***EDIT Interjection: IT WORKED! :D ***)

This is good, in more ways than you know! It may take some time to work out the bugs, but this proves that I can continue creating, and in my software of choice (and the one I have infinitely more knowledge of...lol). I now know I no longer have any REAL need for 3DS (though it certainly did streamline a bunch of little things). I've waited years for a C4D nif plugin, but it's not even necessary.

The only question mark remaining is texturing using this method. The real pain about the C4D->3DS->nif method was sometimes textures wouldn't make the transition well and I'd have to redefine them in 3DS. My test tonight I exported an untextured mesh, but I'm HOPING that because Outfit Studio created proper texture nodes, I can define the textures in nifskope no problem.

(***EDIT Interjection: IT WORKED TOO! :D :D ***)

 

Thank you again!

Edited April 25, 2018 by mmdestiny

[Perraine]

Glad you got it working :)

 

As far as texturing goes, I'm pretty crap at it, but I do know that Outfit Studio doesn't alter UV Unwrapping, so as long as the item has a UV Map, textures should be able to follow the mesh from C4D --> .obj --> .nif with no problems.