Some questions about modeling armor meshes

[skyrimisokiguess]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm working on a mod that will let armor get damaged, and visually update to a damaged version. Coding the durability and item swapping framework is straightforward enough, but I have no experience with modeling Skyrim meshes, so I have a couple questions about that.

 

1: I'm trying to use blender to edit existing meshes. I can import/export with PyNifly, and that seems to be working well, but when I try to edit textures they get messed up (see attached image). Has anyone seen this before? If not, what other setups do people use for creating meshes?

2: When I do manage to successfully create armor meshes, what's the best way to handle the high/low weight versions? Would I be best off using bodyslide for this, even if I just want to make them for vanilla bodies? It makes the most sense as this way you only create one mesh, but I guess I just want to make sure this is how other modders handle it.

 

Thanks,

v