the nifskope

[StahlPunk]

i've searched the internet and this forums but i cant find a tutorial on how to operate the nifskope can anyone give me a quick rundown please

 

edit: ok just found a tutorial on nifskope and im suddenly not sure if it is the tool i need. im wanting to design my own custom weapons and clothing. any one know what tool i need?

[ihateregisteringeverywhere]

Blender. Gimp. Nifscope comes in later.

[StahlPunk]

ah ok thank you

[dezdimona]

you can alter existinfg nifs and create new clothes and armor by editing two nifs without blender or gimp!

[lonewolfkai]

you can alter existinfg nifs and create new clothes and armor by editing two nifs without blender or gimp!

 

 

how, because i cant use blender to save my life?

[ihateregisteringeverywhere]

Click on a part you want to copy, this will select a branch in the left-side list, right click on the list, select copy branch, paste that into a weapon/armor you want , increse the number of children in the main NiNode, refresh the children list, add the new branch to the list of children - voila. Add new meshes like this, remove old meshes by deleting their respective branches, you could also transform the meshes in nifscope - move, rotate, scale, edit the UV mapping and change textures. Just don't forget to end up with the right amount of children nodes in the end. Sanitize->relink arrays and reorder blocks and you're all set.

 

You can even animate things in nifscope but honestly - that's just hella confusing.

 

But that's still just mix and match you know?

[worm82075]

I'm what you might call a Nif-scope modeler. I've made some pretty extensive alterations with Nifscope

http://i39.tinypic.com/k39fg6.jpg

This is by far my most extensive alteration to date. Took me five days, about 30 hours total.

 

What is the most distinctive feature of the great white shark? Why, it's teeth of course. If any decent representation is to be made it must have lots of teeth.

 

Mod Journal:

 

First thing I tried to do was to copy/paste vertices and triangles from another mesh(ingreddeadrothteeth) but I couldn't figure out the bone bounding so my new vertices just stayed in place as the shark animated.

 

Given my limited knowledge of rigging I needed to do this all in Nifscope without exporting to 3ds and thereby removing the rigging. In order to accomplish this I needed to use existing vertices and triangles from the head bip partition. I was in luck though because the GrWhSh has recessed eyes and this mesh has two convex eyes that total 76 vertices and 120 triangles.

 

The first step in this long and tedious task was to 0_0_0 all 120 triangles.

 

Next step was to move all the vertices where I wanted them and then re-number the zeroed triangles accordingly. To assist in this task I like to number the vertces by changing the generic 'vertices' name(this is not saved in the nif and will have to be done each time a model is loaded). If you double click the 'vertices' name at the beggining of the line in Nifscope it will allow you to edit it and if while editing that name you press the TAB key it will go to the next one ready to edit. If you are moderately proficient like I am in repetitive tasks you can go through about 500 vertices in 15 min numbering every fith one 5, 10, 15, etc.

 

Problem: There isn't enough vertices to make the teeth 3D so I need a stencil effect. This is a pretty good size mesh and I don't want to stencil the whole thing because that doubles the polys.

 

Solution: The teeth are made of two triangles each flipped out so both sides of the 2D tooth is textured. There is your isolated stencil effect at no cost to overall poly count.

 

I've made a total of 36 lower teeth (three rows of six) and ten upper teeth to emulate this pic

 

 

I intentionally avoided mimicing scale,snout length and jaw arc. This is a Nirn Great White and it has evolved to resemble an Orca in girth and jaw arc.(hmmm... maybe i'll make an alteration to my alteration)

 

After the tedious task of untanglining the UV was done(make 1 to 4 triangles then adjust their UV as you go...ok...good tip) I then had 8 vertices and 28 triangles left over.

 

I was now ready to clean up and test.

 

Major Problem: Firstly I removed the unused vertices, pruned the unused triangles(when I did this I was forced to remake the skin partition and this could be the root of the problem) , updated the vertices and triangle array's, updated all tangent spaces and then saved the nif.

A little snag (see composite pic).

 

I'll keep working on it periodiclly in an attempt to get it working but I'm attaching the mesh(saved just before the clean up) and texture so if anyone more knowledgable about nif structure wants to tinker with be my guest.

 

Moving on for now to making skin, teeth and fin ingredient meshes. Later I'll try using the remaining vertices and triangles instead of deleting them and see how that fairs.

 

Update: Thanks to Koniption's insight I have figured out the cause of the problem and it is now rectified. turns out some of the normals got flipped I made them point outward and the mesh now works perfectly (in the CS, haven't tested it in game yet)

 

You can change coordinate locations within the data lists to manipulate a mesh. You can even add new vertices and triangles so long as it's not a creature or npc. The tricky part to doing clutter and statics is resizing the havok because the object vertices and triangles will be highlighted upon selection but not the havok vertices.

[lonewolfkai]

Thanks for the help guys! I had all the steps done, but i dont think i had my children increased, which was probably why the copied mesh wasnt showing up in the game.

[ChalkLine]

How do you get some of the mesh, but not all?

 

I want to cut the 'skirt' off the Legion Cuirass, and replace the the skirt on the Blades' Cuirass with it. On the Blades' Cuirass the skirt is a separate mesh, but on the Legion Cuirass it is not.

 

(Btw, thanks guys. Now I know where I've gone wrong on the few experiments I have made. Very useful help)

[BossDweebe]

Yes Nifscope can be very useful. Blender is much later for me.

I have never touched it. (too thick)

 

NifScope is limited however. You cannot trim anything that is in one piece.

So you are out of luck with the Legion curiass.

Maybe the reason the Blades curiass is not one piece is it may have been

modelled by a different person.