Why do we need materials for making new functional meshes ?

[steviex34]

Hello. I am a beginner in static meshing. Why does placing new meshes and textures into the correct directory - Fallout 4/Data/Meshes, Fallout 4/Data/Textures, and then converting custom textures with Photoshop/Gimp and custom meshes with the Elric program, and then opening the newly converted mesh model into the creation kit does not works ?

[84Cronos]

1. Make sure that your textures do have the correct format(e.g. BC3/BC7)

2.  Make sure that your mesh and textures are in the correct directory according to your .esp. For instance: Meshes/myMod/myMesh.nif         and      Textures/myMod/myTexture_d.dds       and      Materials/myMod/myMaterial.BGSM

3. IF USING NO MATERIAL FILE: Your BSTriShape within your nif should have a BSLightingShaderProperty. Said ShaderProperty comes with a BSShaderTextureSet node which you can use to point to the directory where your textures are at. You can look at existing Bethesda meshes to see which index numbers you need to use for your diffuse, normal and specular textures.

4. IF USING A MATERIAL FILE: Make sure that your material files points to the correct textures. Make sure that the path to your material file is set correctly within your nif under the BSLightingShaderProperty node. Again: You can take a look at how Bethesda sets up paths in their nifs.