Removing BBB from armor mesh

[RacerPlume]

Hello! Can anyone assist with removing BBB animations from an armor mesh? I've tried a few things in Nifskope like deleting the "op" NiNodes (it crashes on equip), making all those nodes have the same coordinates (the bounce remains).

 

Thanks!

[Pellape]

That is hard I guess. As it is animated but try to Remove Branch instead of just Remove

 

Clkick at the NiTriStrips or whatever you wanna delete or what the animations are really called. I forgot but you know them right? Otherwise give me a DL to the NIF (mesh) and I will scratch my poor head.

 

Choose Block -> Remove Branch and it is just below Copy Branch, 3 rows below Remove... So damn hidden... Should been put direct under remove really to make more sense.

 

No matter what. My extra tip is always use Copy Branch, Paste Branch and Remove Branch when you will combine or split meshes. Single Remove, copy and paste might destroy all connections between the parts inside the object or inside each individual object and make the mesh useless. One single object can be a NitriShape with all stuff belonging to it as one example or NoTriStrips as they are very similar but different. :wink: Same result no matter what...

Edited April 22, 2022 by Pellape

[DrakeTheDragon]

The difficulty here is: Parts of the mesh are rigged to the new bones used by the jiggle animations.

- If you remove bone nodes from the NIF, the connection to the skeleton will be lost and they'll either stretch into infinity (like unweighted vertices or when not using a BBB skeleton) or the NIF file will outright CTD.

- If you set out to remove jiggle from the animations themselves (the KF files), that'll 1) affect more than just the one armor mesh wished and 2) you'll have to do it for "all" animations shipped with BBB (a hell of a lot of work).

 

You will have to remove the rigging to the additional BBB bones from the respective mesh (NiTriShape/Strips branch). However, in Nifskope this isn't exactly trivial to achieve.

The rigging/vertex weighting is found inside the "NiSkinInstance" sub-branch of each. There you'll see a list of bone nodes, which are just references, bearing the same numbers/ids as the real ones. But not all bone nodes will be inside all NiTriShape/Strips branches' NiSkinInstance branches, only those the mesh is actually rigged to will.

 

"Changing" it is really hard, and I'd likely prefer doing it in Blender and exporting again instead. But I think you're lucky in so far as you only need to "remove" the bones you no longer want the mesh rigged to. This should remove their effect on the mesh when animated, if I recall correctly from my own experiments (fingers crossed).

 

Like you already noticed, the "new" bones from BBB should be easy to recognize and distinguish from the Vanilla game's.

 

 

You already learned the hard way not to touch the actual bone nodes from directly under "Scene Root". Remove them, and the rigging won't find the bones the mesh is still rigged to anymore. Move or change them, and every animation will most likely undo every changes you did while playing.

But if you first remove the "reference" to these from inside the NiSkinInstance branches, their presence inside the NIF will become meaningless. (You can leave them in or remove them, whatever you prefer, after all references to them have been removed.)

 

 

Oh, and while Pekka is absolutely right that in most cases it's better to use "remove branch" instead of just "remove", as in most cases you want to remove the entire branch with everything inside, in this specific case the references are just nodes, they don't open and have nothing else inside. Just "remove" will be fine for these.

[Pellape]

Damn, I remember those failed meshes from 2007-8.

 

The thing is I have a similar request but I do not know if I should make a separate posting, not to hijack this thread but I really have a similar or exact same problem that could be fun to solve for both Skyrim and oblivion. let me explain and we might even be able to hit 2 flies in one smash.

 

Bodies is the last thing I wanna edit, because it is so easy to fail and make the mesh useless, because of the bloody bones but so many have succeed with it if we turn around 180 degrees. But adding stuff is easier than removing stuff. It is also the same in CS. Removing stuff can break something else which I suspect break my saves time to time.

 

Okay, lets forget about failure possibilities.

 

What was the request I got? Well it is a question from the one that uploaded this specific armor i am using for Skyrim. I did ask that author, if i could release this specific armor for Oblivion and he told me he loved it but also asked me if I separated the armor inside or if it is still one single mesh. Lets peek at it how it looks like and I like it as it is the only armor I did find for Skyrim that is tasteful, not to skimpy, not to much steel stuff, the perfect armor for the shadier player.

 

Gigadeux: Gigaduex's Armor Sets SE at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

 

Here it is in Oblivion. We are 2 players only that I know use it. Me and SunlitEarth who helped me get it ported to Oblivion.

 

I do think he is frensh as he have problems to read what i type in PM.

 

This armor is in a single mesh. I do not need it separated but he asked me if I did and I said no. I also told him that it is easy to fail and break it.

 

This works for weapons and static objects as i done it before - Separation and the way it can be done could be similar in both BBB that this is about and also at the Gigadeux Armor. he did send me this which shows the blue armor better and also male? I did not knew it would actually fit male chars?

 

 

To the point Pekka: Ship the chatting

I want to test to make 4 meshes. This is my theory how it can be done: lets focus at the legs in this theoretic example

• make a backup of the mesh in case we fail
• Rename the mesh to GigaDeuxLegs.nif
• load the armor in nifskope
• Remove the upper body NiTriShape with Remove Branch
• Repeat the removing for Gloves and Boots
• Save the mesh and make a new copy
• Rename the 3 last copies for each body part to make it easy to import it later to CS

I have never done this. But I really want to try it. Why? I think he wants to add separate enchants i Skyrim. I do not need that. I use jewels and made my enchants in CS. I am OP as it is. But I will release this armor for Oblivion tonight if I do not forget about it as i do other stuff in CS right now. I will release it sooner or later. One step in a time. To many things to do right now. Here is the picture that made me decide to use this specific armor 3-4 years ago in Skyrim. Well 2019 to be exact. This is also the picture that made me find a way to actually get it ported to oblivion with SunLitEarth help as i debated this with her in a pm as she is an Oblivion body modder. I am not. It might even be so she knows how to suceed in removing the BBB? I do not know. i can ask here to peek at this thread if you want me too to get a 3rd modders perspective. We should try.

 

 

 

You better linked to the mesh you want to have edited. Could you link to it so we know which mesh you are talking about RacerPlume? It does not matter how skimpy it really is, just link it... ;) You cannot chock me for sure. ;)

 

When i type this, I do have the armor loaded in NifSkope to see the separate parts. I will not test it anyway until i know that my theory will actually work. As i said, I have to many things on my agenda right now and I do not want to have one more right now. One step in a time as I edit companions right now. If I fail and get vertices all over Oblivion, I wasted my time and your time too. I have seen to many failed meshes... I also saw one here at this forum 1-2 years ago when someone posted a picture from the starting cell, the prison in IC, where one single body or creature mesh did screw up the whole cell...

[RacerPlume]

Thanks so much! Drake, I'll try to poke around the mesh in Nifskope and see if I can do what you suggest.

[RacerPlume]

... But if you first remove the "reference" to these from inside the NiSkinInstance branches, their presence inside the NIF will become meaningless. (You can leave them in or remove them, whatever you prefer, after all references to them have been removed.) ...

Unfortunately, removing the BBB nodes from under the NiSkinInstance branches also removes them everywhere else, including from under Scene Root and therefore resulting in CTD. I tried both "Remove" and "Remove Branch" with the same result.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Huh, that means they must be removed differently. I thought it was done that way... But considering they're the same Ids, it's also not really that surprising in afterthought.

 

Let me see if I can find out how. They're also listed inside some of the array properties of the node itself after all.

 

I did it in the past myself when I messed up an export with custom bones. So there should be a way.

[Striker879]

If your goal is to remove BBB from all armor in your game that has a BBBed mesh then all you need to do is uninstall all of your BBBed animations (e.g. NoMaaM etc). You will then not see any BBB in the game at all but will not run into the infamous boobs to infinity problem.

 

If however you are wanting to keep BBB on all meshes except this one particular armor you will need to do what you have been currently doing ... find a way to remove BBB from this one mesh. Drake knows far more than I do about this, but I believe you may be working in Blender to rerig the armor mesh to a non-BBBed skeleton.nif (i.e. vanilla game skeleton.nif).

[RacerPlume]

Yea I know I could remove my animations but Id really prefer not to if I can help it. Im using Combat Stance and its just soooo much better than vanilla. As far as BBB, its not just one mesh in particular I would like it removed from - I wouldnt mind removing BBB from all the meshes Ive downloaded.

[Striker879]

I understand ... I use some of those animations assigned via Blockhead myself (and wouldn't willingly go without them).