What sort of error causes an armor to be invivisble when worn

[TheRomans]

Sometimes you find a article of clothing or armor in a mod that causes the covered body section to vanish with no covering visible. What sort of error causes this. I am guessing it is something to do with the model .nif not fitting the body slots selected.

[Lanceor]

Probably a missing mesh. Items in the "real world" will either have that exclamation mark or WTF message, but worn clothing and armor would simply be missing. In some cases, it could also be a missing normal map.

[TheRomans]

I looked in the CS and the data files for the mod, It has a path assigned to a mesh file, and the is a mesh file in the data files. There are corresponding texture files and normal map files, but I do not know how to check to see if they are assigned to the mesh or how to look at the mesh.

 

I think the error is something else though. I think it is something like that the greaves are assigned to the legs, without transparency, but the the assigned mesh does not actually cover the legs.

[Lanceor]

The body slots only determine "what to displace when equipped" - they have no effect on where on the body they'll appear. You could have a pair of socks take up the gloves slot for example. When equipped, it will cause gauntlets to be unequipped, but any worn boots will stay on.

 

To check the texture paths, NifSkope is probably the best tool to look at meshes and do some minor editing.

[mhahn123]

Gender specific armor/clothing will do what you have described. More specifically a female only cuirass equipped on a male character will cause the torso to vanish.

Edited September 27, 2013 by mhahn123

[TheRomans]

This one (Artefacts of the Ancestors 1.3) has M and F files for the Cuirass, greaves, boots and gauntlets and unisex files for the helm. It is the greaves that are affected. The esp has file paths for both male and female sides.

I have seen this happen a few times with pieces from others mods, but I do not recall the specific ones. I have started using my limited CS skill to fix a few minor errors in mods I have installed, but one seems outside that possibility for me, becasue I know nothing at working in or with meshes or textures.