Custom mesh helmet not working properly ...

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Good morning everybody!

 

So, I made a custom piece of armor / clothing.

I never thought that I would do this ...

 

It is just a simple helmet that I made from a custom static mesh.

 

But in the game when I equip it and move my character, the helmet does not quite "follow the head".

When the character is idle and moves the head a bit (when you are in 3rd person view), or when I turn the view and the character turns their head, the helmet always is a bit "off", like it is not attached to the head.

 

I have everything in the CK set up properly, I copied the armor record and the armor addon record of an existing helmet in the game (the army helmet) and just replaced the mesh with my own custom mesh.

So all the keywords, slots, ... is set up properly.

 

This leads me to believe that something in the NIF file is wrong.

What do I need to change or edit there to get this to work?

 

I just made a static object (with collision) in 3dsmax and exported it as a static object, because a helmet is just a static mesh, it does not need to move like clothing.

At least that is what I thought ...

[RoNin1971]

Instead of a helmet I'm doing something similar with a santa hat, which is my first 'head gear' as well. There is more to it then just replacing the mesh. I've been working on it with Outfit Studio, using a tutorial, but have yet to get it to work in CK/the game.

The nif should be ready for that though, I just didn't have the time to do the CK part yet. So I'll try to keep you posted on my 'experience' if I do get it to work properly.

[DieFeM]

Afaik all wearables need to be "bound" to some skeleton node(s) so they follow the movement of the npc, also those bounds need to be "weighted", that means, at least as I understand it, how "deformable" is the wearable in a given node.

 

For this end the easiest way is using Outfit Studio, in which you can use a similar wearable object from which you copy the bone weights.

 

You only need to translate, rotate and scale your mesh until your mesh is superimposed on top of the original one, then set the original one as reference (right click "set as reference"), and copy the bone weights on your mesh (right click "copy bone weights"), the default settings use to work fine.

 

If you get an error when when exporting to nif, try increasing the "search radius" when you copy the bone weights.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Afaik all wearables need to be "bound" to some skeleton node(s) so they follow the movement of the npc, also those bounds need to be "weighted", that means, at least as I understand it, how "deformable" is the wearable in a given node.

 

For this end the easiest way is using Outfit Studio, in which you can use a similar wearable object from which you copy the bone weights.

 

You only need to translate, rotate and scale your mesh until your mesh is superimposed on top of the original one, then set the original one as reference (right click "set as reference"), and copy the bone weights on your mesh (right click "copy bone weights"), the default settings use to work fine.

 

If you get an error when when exporting to nif, try increasing the "search radius" when you copy the bone weights.

Ok, thanks, I will try that.

 

I know that "bone weights" are a thing but I thought for something that is not "deformable" like a helmet it would not be needed.

But I will try it ...

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

OK, so I did the whole "copy bone weight" thing in outfit studio and now when I equip the custom helmet or try to preview it in the ck, the game (or the CK) just crashes to desktop.

Do I need to run it through elrich again after doing the outfit studio stuff?

 

I am getting an error on nif export ("the following shapes have unweighted verticies").

I tried to set the "search radius" to the maximum value, but that did not help, I still get the error.

 

I tried to run the exported mesh through elrich and it just crashes.

Edited December 9, 2021 by YouDoNotKnowMyName

[RoNin1971]

This is the tutorial vid. I'm using.

Probably not the best out there (no text comments, so a bit hard to follow), but it basically comes down to what DieFeM wrote.

[South8028]

Clothes don't need collision. Just pivot the parent mesh 0.0.0. assign material and export as pe weapon. Next, import your helmet and head (BaseFemaleHead) from caracterassets into os. Click on the set reference head so that the caption turns green. Go to the helmet and select Copy bone weights. Remove the set reference from the head. Delete the head mesh. The first time you copy to the mesh, only bones are copied, weights are not copied. Weights do not need to be copied. But if you want to have weights, then you need to copy the bones to the helmet again. Go to "bones", and hold down the alt brush to remove all weights (the brush is configured in the brush settings).Next select one "head" bone and paint over the helmet completely red, one weight - one bone, this is no deformation on movement, solid structure. Save the project. You can immediately export nif, or you can build it in bs by finding your project in the list.

[DieFeM]

I am getting an error on nif export ("the following shapes have unweighted verticies").

I tried to set the "search radius" to the maximum value, but that did not help, I still get the error.

Note that wearables have various meshes, one nif in which the file name uses to be appended with Go, this one uses to have dynamic collision, and is the one you see when you throw it to the world, there are two more meshes which names are appended with male an female (or some form of abbreviature), which are the one the npc actually wears.

So yo need to make sure you are using an actual wearable nif as reference because those are the ones that contain proper bone data. I say so because I deduce you're using the wrong nif as reference, therefore you're copying no weight data.

If that's not the case try using another wearable as reference, or you can use the body, I use to get better results using a wearable of the same type tho.

Edited December 9, 2021 by DieFeM

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Clothes don't need collision. Just pivot the parent mesh 0.0.0. assign material and export as pe weapon. Next, import your helmet and head (BaseFemaleHead) from caracterassets into os. Click on the set reference head so that the caption turns green. Go to the helmet and select Copy bone weights. Remove the set reference from the head. Delete the head mesh. The first time you copy to the mesh, only bones are copied, weights are not copied. Weights do not need to be copied. But if you want to have weights, then you need to copy the bones to the helmet again. Go to "bones", and hold down the alt brush to remove all weights (the brush is configured in the brush settings).Next select one "head" bone and paint over the helmet completely red, one weight - one bone, this is no deformation on movement, solid structure. Save the project. You can immediately export nif, or you can build it in bs by finding your project in the list.

Thanks!

That worked!