NPC does not pull arrow from quiver when drawing bow.

[RatB0Y68]

Okay, so I made a custom elven arrow projectile & ammo type for a follower. The quiver is essentially the vanilla quiver with different texture paths & lighting properties (shinier).

 

All of the mesh data is intact, you compare the vanilla mesh with the modded one in nifskope & it has all the same properties except textures.

In the CK, the custom ammo type is assigned the custom projectile & the projectile has slightly less gravity but is otherwise the same settings.

In game, with the vanilla elven quiver (or any other), the follower will pull out the arrow when they do the bow draw animation. Normal.
With the modded custom quiver equipped, my follower will not pull out an arrow & it will instead look like they are pulling an un-nocked bowstring.

The bow is fired normally either way & in both cases the projectiles, normal & custom, appear & are shot at the target, so I don't think the loose arrow meshes are the issue.
What I don't understand is how reassigning textures to the quiver mesh is enough to make the arrow invisible when the weapon draw animation plays.

This is a bizarre issue to be sure, does anyone have any ideas?

[anjenthedog]

To be honest, idk. But, I'll toss my two cents in anyway

 

arrows aren't real. (and I don't mean that as haughty snark). you're not pulling an arrow-item from a quiver.

 

That is, just because you edit the mesh/texture used in the quiver instantiation doesn't mean that the mesh/texture used for a nocked arrow has been edited (either in the third person or first).

 

That is, you don't literally pull an arrow from the quiver, any more than when you put on clothes, the body under those clothes is the body used when unclothed.

 

Remember that every aspect of this stuff is just an elaboration on old fashioned paper cutout dolls

 

So, I'd ask: Are you sure that you edited all of the associated arrow variant resources used in the entire transaction?

 

in any case best of luck. Maybe I'm reading your post wrong, idk, but it sounds like you overlooked the nocked arrow instantiation.

[IsharaMeradin]

I'm currently looking at a bolt quiver mesh (it is what I have on hand). Arrows and bolts are both set up the same way.

 

You should have an NiTriShape node that consists of the central arrow mesh. It should have the text label of 'Arrow0'. This node should be separate from all the other NiTriShapes.

 

The tree is something like:

BSFadeNode

other things

NiNode

NiTriShape: Arrow0

NiNode

NiTriShape: Arrow1

etc...

 

The bow animations get the ammo appearance from the Arrow0 NiTriShape. The text label must match or there will be no visible ammo in the animation. Double check your NIF file and make sure that you did not accidentally change any text labels or re-arrange their order.

[RatB0Y68]

I think I see the problem.

I have the arrow0 shape, but when I opened up the elven quiver mesh to start editing it originally, it was named arrow:0.

I'll try removing the colon & see if it works.

[RatB0Y68]

Update: Renaming the arrow0 node hasn't worked, my follower still draws an invisible arrow.

I'm posting a screenshot of the mesh in NifSkope, perhaps if you can see the mesh, you can tell me where I've gone wrong.

[IsharaMeradin]

Sorry about misleading. The font in NifSkope is hard to read at times. The colon should be there. 'Arrow:0'

 

Plenty of mods re-color ammo and do not have this issue. Not sure why your recolor would be any different.

[RatB0Y68]

Yep, I'm stumped. I looked up the vanilla elven quiver mesh in the archives & it looked exactly like this. I added the colon back & it still didn't work.

I'm going to try running it through Nif Optimiser, see if that does anything. Thanks for your help so far.

[scorrp10]

Work it through.

Replace your modified .nif with original one, make sure it works.

 

With both original and your edited one opened side by side, repeat your changes in the original. Do not copy-paste. You say you just changed some textures, right?

[RatB0Y68]

Yes, I open up the vanilla elven quiver mesh in Nifskope using the archive browser & I swap out the vanilla texture paths for my own textures in the custom directory.

I then alter the lighting properties - the specular strength, the 1st lighting effect & the environment map scale - to make it brighter and shinier. I do this for each trishape.

The vanilla mesh works. I tested it in game on my own character, I can see the arrow pulled out. The animated arrow remains invisible with the modified quiver mesh though.

[IsharaMeradin]

Could it be something with the lighting properties? Try just changing the texture file first.