jaysus Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 welcome to part 2 :) ------------------------- this tutorial is as aimed at more experienced users who know their way through nifskope and how to make a rigged armor meaning i wont explain every single step from blank sheet to ingame model... itll show you how to get a working piece of cloth or armor in the game and is thought to be used with 3dmax but might also work with blender but i cant advise you on an exporter or importer, malo will prolly focus more on blender in his tutorial youll need the following: A SkeletonNiftools 3.1 - (3dmax exporter/importer) good for import but bad for exportNiftools 3.0 - (3dmax exporter/importer) good for export but bad for importNifskope --------------------------- ay lets start kids: -------------------------- make a nice armor model install niftool 3.1 import any vanilla armor and use the skeleton you just downloaded for it instead of the vanilla one delete the armor place your armor and rig it like usual install niftool 3.0 export like you would for oblivion ---------------------------- open a vanilla armor in nifskope and yours aswell in another window in your mesh: right click each nitristrip -> mesh -> triangulate set each nitristrips TspaceFlag to 16 and update the 3 green arrays below (normal, binormal, tangent) rightclick the nitrishape -> mesh -> update tangent space (corrects normals and removes nasty speculars) ----------------------------- the following youll have to repeat for each part: ----------------------------- copy a nitrishape->nitrishapedata of your mesh over a corresponding nitrshapedata in the vanilla mesh like you did in the "mini modelling tutorial #1" (right click -> paste over) in your model go to "skininstance" of that nitrishape and copy its niskindata paste it over the vanilla meshes nidismembermentskinblabla -> niskindata repeat that for the niskinpartition (right below the niskindatas) check under niskindata how many bones and partitions you have and change the nidismembermentblabla accordingly update the bones array ----------- now comes the annoying part... ----------- open the bones array in both your model and the vanilla one check order and names of the bones in your meshes bones array change the vanilla array accordingly - order and names HAVE TO match (the index numbers are different most likely though obviously and have to be taken from the vanilla mesh to get the right names) ------------ change textures ------------ save,dance thee times around your table, sacrifice a beer and hope for sheogoraths good will ----------- enjoy :) ----------- credits: Malo and Growlf for their great adventures into the dark abyss of nifs to get us free boobs... well and me obviously for the serious stuff... :D sry i didnt make screenshots yet and i also need a good server for em... the last had a bit too few bandwidth for you all ;) (1gb per month... sigh) you can check an experimental mod that uses this method here:experimental armor part one of this tutorial can be found here (pay attention to the ongoing thread plz it contains vital information):tutorial part 1 collisions:tutorial part 3 Malo's Tutorial - aimed at blender users Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabbitFly Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 Well I am a bit confused. I am trying to wrap my head around it, and It's a while since oblivion and even then I weren't much of a modeller. What I don't entirely understand is how to replace the vanilla skeleton with your skeleton. Seeing as the vanilla sketelon is considered 1 object, while yours is considered 1 object for every bone refrenence. I dug up the good old Rigging Cutely tut, and am I right to understand that you should add an armature modifier for each bone you want the piece to interact with? before parenting and weight painting the item again for each bone? Or am I missing something. Then again I working with blender while you are with 3dsmax so you might not understand my problem. I guess I can hold out until there are more tutorials around. I am just itching is all :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaysus Posted December 2, 2008 Author Share Posted December 2, 2008 well i can only speak for max and in max you have to specify a skeleton.nif for most armor pieces on import, and if you choose mine you can use it... the vanilla one procures errors... youre not supposed to replace the vanilla one with mine ingame... you just use it in your 3dapp to be able to skin at all... animations might even be possible with itthen you just add a skin modifier to each mesh and distribute it preferebaly to the different elements you made... skinning is rather complex and really needs an own tut... this here is not thought to teach you that its thought to teach you how to get the final rig over to nifskope and from there ingame Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabbitFly Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 No thats fine. I understand this is not supposed to be a skinning tutorial. And I think you answered my question perfectly. I just tried putting some meat around my question to give it more sense in the bigger scale :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaysus Posted December 4, 2008 Author Share Posted December 4, 2008 aight some additional info on skinning basics... since i deem em important ill post em here (they derive from my rigging question thread):=================================== questions:=================================== 1st - if you have a knee cap or elbow cap part in the armor to which bone do you weight it? or should it be weighted to 2 bones (upper and lower arm)? (as there is no elbow bone)--------cleared--------needs two bones------------- =================================== 2nd - if you have parts where the body would be visible... do i need to make a mesh for that part or is there some way to make the original body shine through?---------cleared--------just copy some polies from the body mesh and use these---------- =================================== 3rd - if the armor is divided into elements like vanilla items (abdomen and chest for example) how can i prevent the invisibility between those two parts if the body bends? --------cleared--------same as 1------bind the "joint parts"(not joints...parts/elements) to two bones--------------- =================================== and 4th - how could i allow the extremeties to get shot off?... atm my armor is just one big left leg and thats not really what i want ;)??????????? ---------------------------------------------------- new info: the left lower arm part needs to be seperate and placed in the pipboyoff slot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrometheusTS Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 I have followed the instructions but I come to a halt when I paste over the data in the nif tool ... I get the following errors wheter I paste block or block branches.... http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/7534/89827525wz7.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaysus Posted December 22, 2008 Author Share Posted December 22, 2008 just ignore it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrometheusTS Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 just ignore it...but it dont paste the trishape into the file ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaysus Posted December 22, 2008 Author Share Posted December 22, 2008 i dont quite understand your problem... whenever that error comes up just ignore it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogwash247 Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 Hi, I'm working on a new armor mesh, I've made the mesh, tiangulated, changed T flag to 16, updated blablabla. I copied it over the vanilla mesh, no errors looks great in nifskope, save it and when I load it in the geck, the mesh is all messed up. The texture is fine but the mesh is all spikey and such. What did I do wrong? I've tried changing the Tflag back to 0, same thing. Do you think it has to do with the bones? Do you really need to mess with them(I have no experience with these)? If so I'll probably just drop this project... I'm sorry, you must be getting tiered of whinny mod-noob questions but any help is much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts