whiterabbit0

If you have different types of Bones on your screen you're accidentally importing other skeletons other than cherry's. Make sure when you're importing your NIF files from the Skyrim BSA extraction that you're NOT importing the skeleton or cameras. I'd have to see what exactly you're doing but when you start with a blank MAX file, first you open Cherry's skeleton, that's the ONLY skeleton you want, and it's your first operation, then you load everything else in.

You can always add a new BSDismemberment Modifier right in max, and select all polygons. set it to "Torso" Then once the model is imported into NIFSkope, you need to manually edit the Properties of the BSDismemberment for your character from "Torso" to "32" which is the Skyrim ID# for Torso. Also, yes this is how I have been doing my model editing, I create two morph targets for _0 & _1, then take a 3rd copy that is default, apply the morph modifier to it, then add in the breast weighting & the smooth modifier. Then on export I simply change the sliders and export each state with the appropriate body. IF YOU DO THINGS THIS WAY IT IS 100% IMPORTANT THAT YOU DELETE THE MORPH MODIFIER IN NIFSKOPE. The model will not change once it's been exported, but as DizzasterJuice explained when he originally put forward this idea, it will crash your skyrim on-load if it's in the final NIF. My logic for doing it this way is I have fewer situations where I load things into the game and I get a vertex explosion when using the weight slider due to the _0 and _1 model vertex weight being different. @Frozzled If you're interested in doing your own brand new content, you will have to create some UV Maps as well as associated Texture DDS files. I'm personally still unclear how to apply NiAlpha settings in Nifskope, so I can't really advise you on that. But all of these elements are important. If you're in the business of making a new armor though, I would recommend you at least put together a polygon model. (just build it up on one of the body models) and then we'll have something to at least go off of / reference to help you with the rest. Standalone armor insertion has been enabled by kind of a makeshift CK that the nexus community has cooked up, so even pre-CK you can create new content, it's just a lot of tedium.

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/534407-modding-armor-for-chsbhc-bbp-tutorial-for-3ds-max/ This is a good starting point. Obviously cherry's mod probably isn't your desired starting point but, the general process of importing stuff into studio max, doing stuff to it, then exporting it & patching it up to be game ready with NifSkope is all the same regardless.

You'll need to be a bit more specific than that. What step are you trying to do exactly?

<-- Person who made the Nightingale armor. Cherry's tutorial is kind of a starting point for where to go and what to do. I used it to get an understanding of what was going on and then apply that. I actually don't follow her tut exactly, as I don't copy the underlying body mesh weighting, rather I use the original armor vertex weighting and then add in the breast L&R bones and then paint what I feel is an appropriate weighting for that armor. This way all the other bits and pieces of cloth weighting & skirt bones don't get lost. However, you have to try and play the matching game if the armor you're working on has visible torso, because the weighting for the armor still has to match the weighting for the body behind it or they'll desync, which is what made the forsworn project somewhat difficult. But I digress, this is why my armors all have varied levels of bounciness. When I get around to making Nordic Plate armor, yeah it's not gonna bounce at all, cause it wouldn't make sense that it should. (that and it's one less step to worry about YAY!) Initially I'm going through and making as many armors as possible with what I think should be default weighting. At a later time, probably when the CK makes this crap less tedious, I will be going back and making more animated versions with actual interior meshes for people who want to use skimpy/transparency textured models that I've noticed get a lot of attention.

The CHSBHC Mod has keyframed animations. However the prebones, obey Havok Physics. IE when you jump the character's boobs do have lag, then float momentarily at the apex of the leap. So it has both. I wish I knew enough Havok to change it to fulltime physics. I dunno, maybe cherry will figure it out.

Are you using soft selection? Soft selection speeds the process up immensely if you learn to manage how to adjust the tool so it affects larger & smaller regions. 3DS max has a fairly steep learning curve. Until you learn about all the stuff it has to help you go faster, you tend to go ultra ultra slow. (I'm still learning, I'm used to Lightwave 6 from like.. a decade ago) It literally has taken me days of struggling with NIFSkope & 3DS max to make a couple useable meshes. But I'm pretty anal about things, so if I see a stray clipping issue, or a buggy poly in game, I'll spend the time to go back into 3DS max and hunt the bugger down. Especially with some of the more complex armors, it's usually not even a misplaced vertex, but rather a vertex that is improperly weighted, which turns out to be a real pain to fix.

Re-skinning things is an art form. Yes in theory you can be lazy about it and just make sure no underlying polygons are showing on the exterior texture but the end result will reflect that laziness. Ideally you want to be mindful of the shape you're creating. IE : Does this look believable? Should there be a bulge here? This piece of armor has a cape / loose cloth, should it hug the body or sort of fall off into space? Does this make the model look fat? (Am I trying to make the model look fat deliberately ?) etc etc.

Edit, Nvm! figured it out.

OK so I ran into some problems in 2012 with the straight copy / paste method for bone weighting, however using the Skin Wrap modifier and adding the CHSBHC Base mesh in to the input, what seems to be at this time an alternative method. I'll update if it in fact works. EDIT > Update I get nice weighting colors on the mesh when I select different bones, so that's always promising. OK so I finally got to the import stage, NIFSkope happily loads my model, it looks fine. I go place it in the game directory and game loads, but once I equip armor, immediate CTD. Yes I have my weight slider adjusted all the way down, I have a copy of the _0 file and labeled it the _1 file just in case. Since they're just morph targets anyway it shouldn't be a problem I would think. The only difference between my new NIF and the original is the original still has the underwear trishape. Same number of Polys & Verts on the actual model. I'm stumped = ( I followed the tutorial to the letter.

Wow, that is very very detailed. I see where I was going wrong now! (I didn't do that smoothing step and I was copying bone weights from the wrong thing!) Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! <3 One last question, you mentioned that it was ok that there was a different number of Trishapes in NIFskope, does that mean that I can delete submeshes (IE underwear that is completely the wrong size) and save myself some work? I was under the impression that the new model had to have an identical number of verticies as the old one in order for the skin to map out correctly. Thx again! <3 One little contribution : Hotkey for changing between 1 view window and 4 views on 2012 == Alt + W

lol clicked the link like "goddamn she works fast"... but not quite XD

Works in progress.

Oh wow, that's a bit more than I was expecting. Thank you o_O. On a side note, opened up Savior's Hide. It's fairly terrifying. There's like 9 sub-pieces

I have 3DSMax 2012, I have NIF tools & NIFSkope too. But it's become pretty clear to me that I'm doing something horribly wrong XD, I moved like 4 verts on one of your files and couldn't manage to get it to load in game. I'm not too familiar w/ 3ds max though, I learned animation on Lightwave 6 like 10 years ago. It's been awhile... I was trying to work on forsworn since that seems to be everyone's favorite model to mod. But I moved 4-5 verts on your prisoner outfit (I was trying to remove some of the deadspace between the model & the cloth) but I somehow managed to mess that up too. =\ I'm getting stuck in two areas, one is getting the armor to receive weight mapping from the breast bones, and the other is I haven't quite figured out NIFSkope yet. The tutorial I was using though swears that NifSkope is gonna be obsolete once the CK comes out, I hope he's right. Edit: tutorials I've been using are the set from SoMuchMonsters. .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L40qoiuUXL4 <-- Link has a period in front to stop it from auto-hotlinking the entire vid.