Need help conquering technical difficulties with model/GECK/NifSkope

[CatsWithMachineGuns]

[first post introductory speech here]

 

I'll put up a quick disclaimer and apologize if I'm doing/saying/posting anything decidedly not Kosher in your fine community forum here, and I'll apologize for any possible cringe-inducing failures ahead. Anyway, on with the show.

I've been doing 3D character and weapon model Frankenstein-hackery for the past 7 years, but never attempted to mod anything in Fallout until now. I'm going to be putting the images in spoilers because they show up obnoxiously bigger than I thought they would. Sorry in advance.

 

 

Basically I really really like the Roving Trader Outfit, but I still want my character to wear the Vault 101 Utility Jumpsuit (yes, Vault 101, I'm playing Tale of Two Wastelands) they got from the start of the game.

The obvious idea would just be "Well, I'll just combine the two meshes together and make it its own new outfit to wear, duh"

 

So I went ahead and downloaded an ancient version of Blender (2.49 to be exact) from the paleozoic era with the appropriately prehistoric .nif plugins, python extensions, NifSkope 2.0, the whole 9 yards that every 5+ year old tutorial told me I should get.

These tutorials however, didn't exactly hold my hand all of the way, and despite differences in direction between the two of them, I still was able to mostly go in the direction I presumed was intended to get a mod working. I followed them to a T as much as I could between deciphering somewhat redundant or unclear directions and trying to figure out exactly how Fallout's mod apparatus likes to play ball.

 

It's also worth noting that both the tutorials linked below focus on creating a brand new mesh from scratch or importing a new one entirely, respectively.

 

I'm not trying either of those, I'm simply trying to hack together two vanilla clothing items already contained within the game.

 

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_an_armour_for_Fallout._Part_1

 

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/3ds_Max_armor_to_Fallout_New_Vegas

 

So in Blender I hooked this up, neat. I presumed since both the meshes I combined came from the vanilla game, they'd keep their bone weights, and from what I could tell, they did.

 

 

 

 

 

So then I export it as a .nif, check it out with NifSkope 2.0, and do the removing/copying of branches, keeping the meatcaps, doing the whole thing with the trees, etc, and we end up here.

 

 

 

 

Okay, so far so good. Doing everything that the tutorials are telling me to do so far. Except for the part about changing TSpaceFlag Values from 240 to 16 because quite frankly I'm either blind or that just doesn't exist in NifSkope 2.0 and may or may not be related to why this model doesn't work later down the road.

 

 

I have no idea how critical this step is or isn't, if it is or isn't needed for otherwise "vanilla" meshes, whether or not NifSkope 2.0 automates it without telling me, or if it's hiding in plain view and one of you just need to point out "CatsWithMachineGuns you big dummy, it's right there in front of you!" Like I said, these tutorials didn't exactly help me 100%, hence me making an account to reach out here as my final attempt.

 

Additionally one of the tutorials had this little tidbit in it which may or may not be related to the disaster just ahead, though I'm unsure on whether or not such rules apply to my mod, since as previously stated, I'm just trying to hack two vanilla models together.

 

 

 

 

Moving on, I boot up the New Vegas G.E.C.K., and I can only assume that this is the correct option.

 

 

 

 

Pick Fallout: New Vegas as the master file mostly because nobody told me not to, and this is a mod for Fallout: New Vegas afterall, right? I mean, it's not a mod for Point Lookout, Old World Blues, or Dead Money. I just intend to add this thing to regular New Vegas (and I guess by extension, Tale of Two Wastelands, do tell me if that's a critical piece of the puzzle, please!), so sure, we'll pick that option.

 

Now the fun part. The part where I try to check it out with my minimalist understanding of the G.E.C.K.

 

 

 

Welp, as you can see, it's not there. It pulled a Houdini on me and doesn't appear to load in the preview window. Or does it....?

 

 

 

 

Pan out and turn the camera around a bit, and there it is. The unrecognizable dumpster fire of what I can only presume are the fractured and mangled remains of my mesh, and coincidentally my hopes and dreams as well.

 

So this has more or less been my struggle so far, and I've been fiddling with this the past week and a half between work and class to no avail. Would any of you friendly, handsome, incredibly talented, and patient modders in this lovely community help a stranger be on their merry way with the one and only mod they wanted to create? I really just need someone to point out the obvious-to-veterans, less-obvious-to-newbies parameters and conditions that are optimal to work with, honestly.

 

I'm still not particularly well-versed in modding Fallout as evident by this thread, so I don't know what parts I'm actually doing right or wrong because I have no frame of reference to go off from, and no other finished products to compare results to. All I get is hell and death in the form of a horrific display of catawampus viewed through the G.E.C.K. preview window with no idea where I went wrong while trying my hardest to follow tutorials which may or may not have omitted information critical to the success of mod creation. Any and all help appreciated tremendously, thanks.

[dubiousintent]

First, I am not a model maker, so I can't help much with that. What I can suggest is you try using NifSkope 1.0.22 (which is part of the Blender 2.49b package) or NifSkope 1.3.3 if 2.0 isn't compatible enough, both of which are linked under the "Image Tools" section of the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article.

 

What you are attempting is sometimes called a "mashup". If you haven't already please see 'TIP Mashing Meshes' under the "Custom Items" section of that same article.

 

Hopefully pixelhate (our resident NifSkope guru) or one of the experienced modellers will pick up on this thread. But what advice we have managed to accumulate (including other tutorials) can be found under the "NifSkope Mesh Editor" section.

 

-Dubious-

[CatsWithMachineGuns]

Sorry for the delayed response, but thank you for the information. I'll have to give an older version of NifSkope a try, and thank you for clarifying that what I'm doing already has a specific terminology, I'm sure that'll come in handy later down the road in my crusade. I had briefly glanced at the links provided, but they still seem a tad not-particularly-hand-holdy, as I'm still very, very, very much new to modding anything on the Fallout engine. I'll have to poke around to see if anyone has some convenient video tutorials on hand. I'll keep digging, but thank you very much for the reply!

[dubiousintent]

The "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article is a "resource", not a tutorial. However, every section (where possible) has links to various tutorials (including videos) on their subject matter. These are links that are commonly referred to by posts from throughout the web.

 

If it looks "overwhelming", well that's modding. It is very much not a "user friendly", complex, not well documented process. Which is why people tend to focus on just one aspect of the process, at least initially.

 

-Dubious-

[M48A5]

Sent you a PM.