Error importing tesla cannon .nif into Blender

[Crowley9]

I am having trouble importing both the regular Tesla cannon and its prototype into Blender. I am using the 2.49 portable preset version of Blender. Importing the model gives the error message "Scene needs camera for billboard node (add camera and try again)." I am not sure what all problems this causes, but one immediately obvious one is that the imported model lacks collision box. Viewing the pre-imported .nif file on Nifskope shows it to be normal, with the collision box intact. What puzzles me is that these two appear to be the only .nif files where importing gives me this error. I tested this on other weapons, including other shoulder-mounted weapons, and none of them give me the same error. I am at a loss what is happening.

edit: Trying out different import settings I found that whether or not I have "Combine NiNode + Shapes Into Single Mesh" still brings up the same error message, but it results in different parts missing from the imported model.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Crowley9

[DaleTheeMagnificent]

I'm not really sure what that error is, to be honest but here are the settings I used to get it to import. (It will still throw the error at you, but you should get everything in.)

Make sure all these options are selected.

Import Animation

Import Extra Nodes

Combine NiNodes + Shapes

Realign Bone Tail + Roll

Send Geometries to Bind Position

Send Bones to Bind Position

 

And just in case you have issues exporting, I did a run of that and these settings worked. (I didn't do anything but move a few pieces into different spots.)

 

Left Options.

Export Geometry Only

Force DDS Extension

Stripify Geometries

Stitch Strips

Smooth Inter-Object Seams

Flatten Skin

Export Skin Partition (You can probably get away without this.)

Combine Materials to Increase Performance

Fallout 3

Middle Options

Metal

Solid

None

Right Options

Default Type

Z Buffer

Shadow Map

Empty

Unknown 31

Export Dismember Body Parts

 

Hope this gets ya up and running my friend.

[quicksilver500]

It'd be worth ditching 2.49b and going with the latest blender with Niftools available, I'm using version 3.2.2 right now and I can tell you it's one hell of an upgrade. The meshes 3.2.2 exports are a lot more performance friendly as well. Not only that but there are no issues on my end importing any vanilla weapon meshes.

Other than that, the error message here can tell you a lot about what is causing the import error. There are certain properties and nifblocks that Blender can't import, no matter what version you're using. I'm not sure if there's a workaround for this as I'm not familiar with what's going on on a fundamental level, but I've found that blender has issues with Billboard nodes (as in your case) and nitristrips or shapes that have the NoLighting shader. Deleting blocks that have these properties from the source nif before you import them is the best option, as long as you're not trying to edit those blocks specifically. Thankfully these properties are usually only found on special effects applied to meshes, in your case the bilboard node is for the electrical effects inside the barrel of the Tesla Cannon. If you don't want to edit this part of the weapon you're in luck, you can simply delete it out of the base nif and import easy peasy. If you do want to edit this part of the mesh it's probably easiest to simply do it in Nifskope my scaling the vertices using the Transform function, more in depth editing than that will be more difficult unless you upgrade to a newer version of Blender and Niftools.

[Crowley9]

Yeah, I ended up deleting the billboard node in Nifskope and putting it back in after I exported the altered mesh. The end result seems to be working.