LoonyMods

Hello, I was going to try to get into making some custom .nif's to replace the vanilla armor/clothes. Before I put hours of work into it, I decided to try to simply get a path laid out of how I would import/export the nif files so Skyrim SE would use them correctly. To sort this work flow out, I used the Bethesda Archive Extractor to unpack all of the meshes and textures. I then moved them into the game's Data folder - all of that works fine and everything shows up correctly. Next, I use 3DS Max 2018 (with a .nif importer/exporter plugin which I'm relatively confident works as expected) to import the vanilla extracted .nif file of the Stormcloak armor, and without editing anything within 3DS Max, I tried to export the file back into a .nif. I used Nifskope to get all of the tags for materials correct, and looking at the actual game file and my reexported file in Nifskope shows no discernible difference. The exported .nif file is even almost the exact same filesize. Despite the fact that it opens up fine and looks exactly the same in Nifskope, when booting up Skyrim with the vanilla .nif overwritten by the exported .nif, my entire character disappears. Not only that, but poor Ralof is invisible as well. Both of us are physically there as normal and all interactions work normally, but for some reason when anyone (PC or NPC) is wearing the reexported .nif, they are simply completely invisible. I'm aware it's a common occurrence for first-timers messing up some flag or material checkbox or something and having only that part of the player's mesh disappearing, but I've seen nothing about the entire model vanishing. Any help on this?

SPECULAR ISSUE SOLVED The normal map I was using was actually mostly transparent but didn't look that was in 3DS Max... Opened it up in GIMP and realized it was almost seethrough. Made it 100% opaque and specular effects work. Big takeaway from all of this is that models (at least, stationary decorative ones) need normals and tangents to receive lighting properly, and don't mess up your normal maps. I'd consider this thread closed now, thank you for the help maxarturo!

LIGHTING ISSUE SOLVED It was the tangents, not vertex colors. I was looking through the vanilla statues in Nifskope, and gandered at the values in the vertices in their BSTriShapes, and noticed the vertices had tangent values, whereas mine did not. I originally overlooked tangents to the point where I just didn't even check the "Update Tangent Space" box when exporting the model from 3DS Max. Well, I exported it again just now with the box checked to see what would happen, opened up the new model in Nifskope, and it actually works. It lights up correctly, and when the light moves around the lighting of the model moves with it. I copy pasted it over the last version of the .nif in the Data\meshes\clutter\statues folder, booted up the game real quick, and checked - and it works in game too! So yeah, except for the missing specular effects, the statue now lights up correctly! No vertex colors required! Settings for like the two people years from now who run into the same weird issue in their first modding experience: The settings in the BSTriShapes - Pretty much everything default, in the Vertex Desc make sure Vertex/UVs/Normals/Tangents are checked. The settings in the BSLightingShaderProperty - Shader Flags 1 are Specular/Receive_Shadows/Cast_Shadows/Own_Emit/Remappable_Textures/ZBuffer_Test like maxarturo said; Shader Flags 2 is just ZBuffer_Write Just make sure when you export from Max that you check Normals and Update Tangent Space in the export settings.

None of the parts have NiTriShapeData anywhere in their hierarchies. In fact, they're all BSTriShape (probably because it's not Skyrim, it's Skyrim Special Edition). In addition, when I try to rightclick on any of the BSTriShapes, and then go to Block > Insert and add a NiTriShapeData, it is created completely outside of the model, not inside any of the hierarchies, so it doesn't apply to any of the parts pretty sure. The option doesn't even show up if I rightclick and look through the Nodes instead of the Blocks. Finally, I actually opened up the looooooong list of vertices in the BSTriShapes and poked around a bit and all of the vertex colors are pure white.

All of the Shader Flags 1 were already applied, but I didn't have Vertex Color or EnvMap Light Fade applied for the Flags 2. However, when I turned on the vertex color flag on any piece, it turned the piece black (and I toggled Vertex Colors in the Render tab so it just wasn't working). In 3DS Max, the materials applied to all the parts have the Vertex Colors checkbox checked so they should be there. In addition, there weren't really any normal maps applied. I went back and just applied a "blank" normal map (just that light blue color across the entire texture), and it didn't fix the "turn to black" issue. So I guess it's narrowing down to Vertex Color not working. As for the whole specular thing, well, as I mentioned, no normal map before. Even after I plugged in my ghetto version of a normal map, nothing changed. So I messed with the specular settings in the BSLightingShaderProperty, turning the glossiness and specular strength crazy high and crazy low with no effect. TL;DR - Shader Flags 1 all correct, turning on Vertex Colors in Flags 2 turns it completely black, and normal map should be fine but still no specular effects.

Hello, I'm trying to replace the vanilla statues but the lighting is being a pain. I use 3DS Max to put it all together, and it seems to be fine in there, having the correct texture brightness and specular effects. Each material simply consists of the base color texture with no other maps. I went through and made sure the normals are all pointing out correctly. When opened up in Nifskope, however, the material seems to break, or at least not work how I want it to. The base color texture shows up, but no specular effects. In addition, with Do Lighting off (so no simulated lighting) the base texture is the correct brightness, but as soon as it's turned on to simulate any lighting the entire model gets noticeably darker (not pitch black, mind you). Finally, when I boot up the game with it all configured to replace the vanilla statue, it shows up fine, but the lighting is... weird... It's too dark in general, and shadows just aren't working. I tested some additional light with the Candlelight spell, and while it brightened up the rest of the room, the statue remained dark. But when I walked around to the back of the statue (what in Max and Nifskope would be the "front" direction pretty sure) it all suddenly started to get bright to match the rest of the room. Any ideas on what to do? TL;DR - 3DS Max model has base color and specular and looks great, when moved to Nifskope no specular and no shadows or effect from lights, in game shadows are broke and lighting is wonky. What now?

Thanks, I solved the issue myself by going back through the Max file and tinkering in Nifskope. The base I actually had forgotten to collapse into an editable mesh, and I went through the materials and corrected some issues with shaders and light levels and the like. Also, as far as the parts showing up, it was due to some parts being flagged "Model_Space_Normals" in their BSLightingShaderProperty and some not (the ones not flagged that not showing up and vice versa).

Hello! I've been struggling for a few hours trying to get a model put together in Max over to Special Edition (and work). The end goal is to replace the vanilla statues in the game with custom ones - so no animations or skeletons, just a simple stationary 3D model. When in Max, it looks fine, and when I open it up in Nifskope it also actually looks just fine. But when I put it in data\meshes\clutter\statues\ with the same name as the original it's replacing and boot up Skyrim to check, half of it is missing and the half that's there has no texture. The model has two parts in Max - the body/hands/head which were all combined from separate meshes into one, and the base decoration of the statue - and when opened up in Nifskope all three body parts show up as separate shapes and the base decoration brings it up to a round four shapes (in addition to the collision mesh which seems to work fine). But all the parts show up with correct textures. Simply copying/pasting the .nif file over to the correct game data folder seems to break it. I attached an image to show what I mean. Is this a common issue, or more of a "first-time modder" issue?