neomonkeus

If there is not material then the plugin will export goemetry only. If there is a material, it will require a texture and as explained above, that must be UV' (un)wrapped for the texture to appear coorrectly. Note that the pathing will be generate using the relative system for the game being exported, so you generally have to replicate the pathing. Although NifSkope allows you to use an absolute path (C:\.....), F:03 & F:NV use relative pathing where the root is the ...<install_location>\Data\Textures , where a texture uses Textures as the root Textures\meshes\...\..\diffuse.dds

Hi Guys, Just downloaded all versions of 1.1.3, recommended auto-link and all files in the "Files" sections download fine. Could have been an intermittent problem, checked the sourceforge.net site status no mention of problems. If you have any additional problems, drop me a pm. \Neo

The installer does not support 3.3, try with 3.2. I am currently trying to build a new installer for the latest version, but its just pita behind the scenes too.

The NiTriShapes store the same information as the NiTriStrips, the converter will just work with map 1-to-1. The storage is not the problem, just when its loaded into GPU how things are streamed, stored and cache, the latter where the optimisation is key. Cache access is quicker than reading from external memory, but its a balancing act of keeping things you are interested in, with stuff you nolonger need. Having to look for information that is not there is what the article means by cache misses and avoiding that is optimal

Here is a previous response to TriStrips v's TriShapes - http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=3967 @vforvic - that has more to do with the nif.xml when Skyrim support was being added, that has been fixed in subsequent versions.

A greyscale image is called a bump-map, its not the same as a normal map. A normal map (*_n.dds) is encoded data, specifically the normals of the face/polygon, represented by a image/texture/map. You should not do it manually as it not colors that you are editing, rather data. I would google, normal map baking, hi-poly -> low resolution modelling.

You are better off not using NiTriStrips, they were orginally used for hardware limitations, but with modern hardware they can be seen as less optimal, use NiTriShapes. The point about them being under a single NiNode. This also occurs with object grouping and single object, multiple material export -> split to single material per TriShape. .Nif format only supports one material per TriShape (also code dependant on situation, but it doesn't make any difference, I can't remember the old code). There is nothing wrong with grouping Trishapes under NiNodes, its mainly used to apply common transformations to a group of objects, eg scale, translation, rotation. You're not going to "break" anything. :wink:

The 2.49 plugin does not guarantee maintenance of vertex ordering between import/export. However, you should be able to import one, re-export that and alter the mesh to make the alternate mesh, in theory.

There is no reason why you can't bake AO or high detail into your maps. You can have different NiTriShapes point to different textures or you can combine them into one and map. Aside, this also applies to Oblivion.

Material color (assuming diffuse or ambient here) is ignored, a default value will alway be written for it. Even if they weren't the texture takes prioirty and textures are required. So by in large material "colors" are ignored.

Yeah, you need to give us who developed it as its not the Niftools one. We don't have a 3.7.3 version :wink: I suspect it is probably The Figments or wix's in which case there are known issues.

Do you mind renaming the topic, niftools -> organisation, plugin -> 3DS Max Nif Plugin. Also can you clarify which version of the plugin are you using as it really helps.

What exactly are you changing, "colour" is very vague.

I doubt you really want to use QSkope, pyffi is a command line based tool. What do you want to do?

It only selects vertices which are unweighted. A face will only be selected if all the vertices comprising that face are selected. This is a blender mechanic.

As knowledgeable as LHammond is, I highly doubt he would know, mainly because we don't. Currently there is no active developer working on the plugin. However, there are people working on various unofficial versions (ie., code hasn't been reviewed and tested for comparability and merged back in the official code repository); incluuding www182 who used Figments version as the base, and Elaphatrom who uses another base. In both cases we are in contact with the authors and the latter case recently enough we hope to start looking into starting the verification process to at least get the code on a branch to start into a code review. That seems to be quite active but it depends what version of Max you are using. For the latest news on development check out the Niftools forum - Development - 3ds Max : http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=20 Side note : Niftools -> organisation, 3ds Max Nif Plugin -> addon/

I suspect it is some BSLightingShader issue, possibly vertex colors, normals, flag settings. There are a few topics on that have cropped up on the niftools forums so possibly check those out for solutions - http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/search.php?keywords=skyrim+black+texture

Expand your screen full, there is a button near the bottom :wink:

For anyone who stumbles across this post, Blender 2.49 is the current recommended version for import/export as of posting. Check the wiki for latest recommended version. - http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender The new "Blender Nif Plugin" is in development but not production ready. You can use whatever version of Blender you want for production. Then get your model in Blender 2.49 either using the .blend file as is with legacy compatibility mode enabled or use a data interchange format such as .3ds or .fbx. Don't use .obj as as recommended above as it does not support many of the features used by nif, vertex weighting for example.

If you want to use Blender as your 3d modelling application these are the recommended versions - http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender Install as ordered in the list.

Have you weighted your mesh?

Its actually due to sourceforge's setup. Each "project" is assumed to be one application only. Niftools has many project. Even back when Niftools was moved to sf.net,it allowed you to store multiple applications but the project handling doesn't reflect it. This has lead to no end of confusion. NifSkope is the default "application"/project which is why the latest version link points to that. This has also lead to confusion amongst users as to the overall name of the project versus the tools. The reason it was chosen not to have many separate projects was to keep things in one place and maintainable. I agree it is completely stupid as sf.net allows you to host many applications but it was a tradeoff. As for why there are 3 files, again down to project management design. On a per project basis sf.net is able to detect what OS you have and will select the appropriate download, .tar.bz is the linux standard, just as zip/.exe is for windows but ..... back to the same issue with NifSkope being the default it doesn't do it correctly for other applications. So its just a case of knowing which one to grab. Again you are completely correct about the documentation too, but that is whole other kettle of fish. Anyways, we are aware of these project management issues and we have some stuff we are investigating some alternatives to improve the situation.

Its not "not modder friendily", its as mod friendily as it always was, its just that the level of support is not there. There is two reasons. One previous games had incremental steps, which only needed small changes OB -> FO3 -> F:NV the format remained relatively the same. Whereas SKY added lots of new stuff, so it better to compare the jump between MW & OB in how different they are. The other being getting people interesting and giving time to help improve the tools is really killing things.

Wow..... way to overtake a topic. @lazerlemon, it really depends on what you want to do. Given your experience you should be able to make new models pretty easily, then its just a case of getting into the nif format. The workflow is not particularly user friendly as a Blender/Maya user I am sure you are used to using the newer versions but only older versions are currently supported. If you are more interested in content then you should check out the Creation Kit. It is a content editor. Again it really depends on what area you would like to concentrate on, quests, content placement, item statistics, etc. I would check out the creationkit.com wiki or somewhere with tutorials such as tesalliance.org From there the rabbit hole is as deep as you want it to go.

If you are using the recommended versions you should get auto-installers which should locate things for you. What are you doing when you got that screen?