Percevan

You're not sharing much essential information about which 3DS max version you're using, nor which nif exporter plugin. Start there ;)

That kind of issues as generally three possible origins: - inverted normals of the mesh. - flipped UV shells - GPU driver issue. I would start investigating in that order.

Hmm.... I'd rather suspect the gradient texture used by the BSEffectShaderProperty node(s) in the nif files, which you can inspect with Nifskope. And the gradient dds file used can be checked in your usual 2D software, if it's bluish, then it's probably it. Though be careful before editing it, because it can be use by other type of files/meshes. I would make a test first by deactivating, removing actually, the SLSF1 flab "greyscale to palette" (or "gradient to color", I never remember exactly, and I'm writting this from memory) in the BSEffectShaderProperty node, and see how it looks. It's worth trying at least. In anycase, neither the normal maps nor their specular channel should be the cause of such effect. hope this helps.

Very nice, and unique design (in a good way). It looks big too, which brings to mind the idea of fighting it inside some huge dwemer Jaeger. :P

What you describe, impression of depth, would fall into the Normal Maps textures. As you said, just a question of "lingo". ;) There is also the option of using paralax meshes+textures, but for a start I would advise sticking with normal maps.

Hi, Since you're using Whiterun buildings, this new modders ressource, just released, might interest you: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55654/? Regards.

very nice work. :)

downloading. Will try it out tonight after work. :)

http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/forum/132-tutorials/ specifically this one should help you getting started: http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/1920-exporting-static-meshes-for-skyrim-from-blender/

Well that's odd indeed because in your previous files, I found abnormal tangents and bi-tangents. When I updated them, on my side, Nifskope even gave a different array, numbers and, obviously 3D preview of them too. And it made all the difference to me when re-testing again ingame, at the same place, point of view, and hour of the day. On the other hand, I don't understand how your texture order issue could be related to the nif file itself, that sounds like a CK/.esp issue to me. I may be missing something, it's possible, but Nifskope doesn't switch texture sets between NiTriShapes. As for the textures, I think these comes from 'Skyrim Realistic Texture Overhaul", by Frozunswaidon. I opened your Edit2/new nif file in nikscope. Same T & Bi-T issue, as you can see here: http://imagecurl.org/viewer.php?file=13829714923618315380.jpg Sure, the array is "activated" by the correct BS Num uv set flag, except that its an empty array. It should be like this: http://imagecurl.org/viewer.php?file=32433236408241092244.jpg odd, ain't it?

one, if not the most useful IMO is not in the first post (or I didn't see it) : set gamehour to # (subtitute # with the intented hour, of course). I couldn't tweak my enb, or test my custom models without this one. leave the console, and bam! instant change, no wait, no need to tweak the timescale.

You will need either Blender or 3DSMax2012, and of course the free nif plugins. Some, if not all, are even available on Nexus mods

Ok, I tested it. You need to do a simple correction, it will resolve your oddish texture "order" (that's not really the issue actually, but anyway), by letting the normal maps do their job (they can't currently). In nifskope: spell menu > batch > "update all tangent spaces". And save. Right now they are messed-up, probably by the export plugin that you used, I guess. before: http://imagecurl.org/viewer.php?file=39126533374613244348.jpg after TS correction: http://imagecurl.org/viewer.php?file=28711417957072224620.jpg Other than this simple fix, it works nicely. oh, and don't mind the odd dirt missmatch on my screenshots, it's on me, not from your work :smile: (just testing textures right now).

testing right now... back in 5.

You still have some shading issues, as you can see from those darkish streaks, but less of them, so that's better yes. - To get rid of the remaining ones, you'd need to either: set up distinct sm groups between the faces on the side and those on the front, so as to make the corner into a sharp edged, cleaner one. This will look very sharp ingame too (though some textures can mitigate that a bit), and that's how bethesda did a lot of their vanilla meshes. - option 2: look at what I did in my previous pics. I used just a few SM to essentially make clean groups from one block of stonework to the other, but for the corners (vertical edges) I instead added geometry: bevels, or 3 control edges. Hence, the bevels are not just used to adjust the profile, or silhouette of a mesh, they also help in deciding how the shading/smoothing gradient will spread over your polygons. I'm not sure if I explain this in the best possible way, I hope so. Now, not that I want your to suffer more "behind the scene" information overflow about how this works ingame, but I will just add this, though, because it's important for your modeling decisions: since distincts 3DSmax smoothing groups on adjacent faces essentially split the vertices normals, a game engine will actually split the vertices/edges when rendering your meshes - gamebryo/TESV engine is no exception to this. Which means that the _rendered_ polycount will actually be higher than your modeled polycount (at this point, I know that I just lost most beginners, but hang in there, it's worth it ;-) ). This has one important implication: instead of always choosing to split the normals by the use of Smoothing groups in Max, or "Hardenned Edges" in maya (different lingo, same results), you shouldn't not always by warry of modeling actual bevels, because the rendered polycount will not be higher than what you'd get with no beveled edges+split normals. Deciding when to use split normals or bevelling edge depends of your model, your modeling preferences, also how you will unwrap your UV etc. It comes with practice, don't worry. Ok, I'll shut up for now. :smile:

To check further examples, I would suggest googling "3DSmax smoothing groups". There's some youtube vids that might help too, I guess. Depends how you made your collision. I recommend taking a look at the following tutorials... http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/3883-exporting-static-meshes-from-3d-studio-max-to-skyrim/ (collisions covered in the second part) and this one: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Skyrim/Adding_Collision_Mesh_using_ChunkMerge Chunkmerge has been integrated into the NifUtilSuite, and is very easy to use - you get its UI and workflow in a couple of minutes. You can get it there: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4128

Thanks! can you or anyone else see a difference in the smooth shading on my models now? I definitely could in 3ds max, I think I can here too. (...) There's definitely some improvement over the original textures. They look better. That's the point actually: there are no textures yet, in this last image, just a material :wink: (or a blank one at best, though that would not be necessary at this stage). The better the shading control, the better the textures will look, though. If it helps, Windikite, here are two new screenshots... I made a quick pillar inspired by your models/references. On the left one with a sliiiggtly higher topology (less bevel towards the top, since the player will rarely look at them/be close to these parts). First one, a the top, just shows how its would look like ingame without shading control of any sort; bottom, after corrections. Same topology/polycount for top and bottom which, again, illustrates well enough the importance of this modeling stage. Basically, if you see some sort diagonal shadows across your shaded preview, then you probably have to either tweak your topology(add control edges or whatever), or put smoothing groups/hard edges at some key places. Second pic, I colored the different smoothing groups I used - not a requirement obviously, it's just so that you can better see which polygon clusters I selected and slapped SM Grps on. That should help you visualize this approach. Nothing difficult here, just be methodical... ...and economical, since as you can see you do not have to use a new smoothing group number each time you assign one. It's not a performance issue, just a good practice to make you life easier when you need to re-adjust the smoothing groups after you've edited your mesh (and believe me, you will). Hope this helps, /Fred.

Yes. And their work on the Highrock province is a bit more discreet - trailer wise at least - but it's also making good progress, IMO. They especially have great looking landscapes.

Hi, Yes, the polycount is low, don't worry about that. Being attentive to this is always a good practice, if only because it also helps keeping a clean topology when modeling, and obviously because it makes unwrapping uv easier and faster; but for the TESV engine modders tend to greatly and regularly overestimate the polycount impact on game performances (not saying there isn't at all). You could have 5 times as much polygons and not see a difference. Textures are the true bottleneck. Anyway. :smile: About your model, what you could easily do, is adjust the shading. Set up sharp edges here and there, in particular in the recesses of your model. Having all edges with "soft normals" give meshes it this "gummy", undefined look. In your case, you could even have some bevels on the outer corners, and probably should since architectural statics are usually big enough to warrant them - if you have some experience in Unwrapping UV that is, otherwise don't use too much of them at first. Here's an example inspired by your own work, that should better illustrate what I mean: The topology and polycount doesn't change - except where I added bevels obviously. This is called "shading control" (3DSMax users being also familier with the term "setting up smoothing groups", different workflow/tools but same goal), and it's one of the most essential, easy, yet often overlooked part of the modeler job, imo. Hope this helps :smile: As for the export process, you could check the forums of DarkCreations / Beyond Skyrim, there are several tutorials covering this very aspect, from either Blender or 3DSmax as a starting point. And for specific questions, asking for modeling advice like you just did, there even is a sub-section "the atronach forge" dedicated to 3D modeling for Skyrim.

Says the man who did this : :smile: edit: But I'm derailing this thread a bit. Apologies.

looks like a game changer, imo. Impressive work indeed.

Hi, I'm also using maya to model my meshes. But the easiest and cleanest way to export your statics is to load your file into 3DSMax and use the nif plugin, that's what I do. For now, I advise against importing obj into nifskope, though upcoming development versions are improving the reliability of this option. You can use Figment's or ww182's version, respectively: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5622/? http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40209/? There was an old maya plugin, but it's not being developped anymore. You can make a search for it on the niftools forums though. Even though the 3DSmax exporter does a pretty decent job, you'll still need to make some cleaning in nifskope. If you use figment's, start by deleting the old nimaterial nodes. Save your nif. For the Next steps, you WILL need this tool: nifutilsuite. Even if you prefer to stick with your obj/nifskope manual parenting workflow. http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4128 it's pretty easy to use. The nifconvert tab will make your nif much more skyrim friendly. It will convert your root ninode into a correct bsfade node, and iron out a few other things by itself. the chunkmerge tab will create a collision meshe for you, and integrate it into the nif file, with correct parenting. The suite is pretty intuitive to use, just follow the numbered steps on its UI. Lastly, open that updated nif into nifskope and make your last adjustments, texture path, glossiness tweakings, that kind of things. If you have any doubts, there are several tutorials covering the process in more details over at darkcreations. They also have several tutorial about exporting from Blender, and as far as I know a bit more up to date with the latest worflow, plugins and tools than others I've seen on youtube or elswhere.

Well, you could try and ask the two modders who probably knows best about LOD issues (IMHO), over at DarkCreations, Morcroft (Beyond Skyrim Heightmap magician) and Elinen (creator of Hoddminir).

This might help: start by these ones, if only to review the basics and compare to your own workflow: http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/1920-exporting-static-meshes-for-skyrim-from-blender/ http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/4457-exporting-models-from-blender-to-skyrim-because-all-the-other-tutorials-are-missing-something/ then, going further: http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/5604-advanced-blender-269-skyrim-export/ Collisions - though there might be simpler ways to do it, nowadays: http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/1187-blender-in-depth-collisioning-tutorial/ Granted, focused on exporting static meshes, though a lot of settings and steps of the workflow should be useful for other kind of meshes, I guess. As for the normals, two of the most common hurddles are: - inverted Y (green channel), depending of which methods and tools you used to create your normals. quickly resolved in your favorite 2D app. - tangent space issue in nifskope (and yes, usually from your export settings, not nifkope fault) : solved by going to the spell menu, then "update all tangent space". If your tangent space data are grayed out in the property list of your nitrishape data, then it's another easily solvable issue, which we could talk more if that's indeed your issue (and I don't remember all the details just from memory, at the moment). hope this helps!

It was concise and clear. :) You should link this post to your sig, as it will undoubtedly be quite useful to others, considering how frequent this question comes around.