New to modding Help

[Skree000]

the reason i asked is because you are extracting your Vanilla fallout3 meshes with BSA unpacker into your WORKING Fallout3 folder. This is a NONO.

 

Remember when i said 'make a folder named after yourself, and place it in fallout3/data/meshes/ and fallou3/data/textures'

 

Do that. And put your extracted stuff there. If you DONT, and put it instead in root fallout3/data/meshes, Your game will be all screwed up, and the game will reference those files instead of the ones its supposed to use.

 

Whenever you extract BSA archive data, put the files somewhere where the game CANNOT reach them, UNLESS it is instructed to do so.

 

 

Placing a nif file in Fallout3/data/meshes/dungeons/vault/ etc etc Is FORCING the game to load up all files in that folder whenever you play the game, and USE these as defaults for whatever vanilla meshes they were supposed to have.

 

You NEED to place them in Fallout3/data/meshes/YOURNAME/ or your game will be broken!

 

 

btw. partitioning a drive is fine, dont assume im your enemy or something just because i was nasty lol. I only asked because i saw you extracted the files to the same folder you play the game from, and want to help you prevent screwing up your game

 

 

BTW here is the Niftools Forum , where you can can search and see if anyone else encounters the same problems you are having, then find out how they fixed it

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/index.php

 

You're a good person, i think you have alot of motivation and energy, and can really have great successes in your mods. I think you'll do great things!

You just need to take your time, and dont rush through steps. Youll only make it harder on yourself ;)

[ChrisPydtank]

Is it to late to fix the folder??? if i put them into my own named folder right now??? in what way will it affect???

 

Ok so What i think your saying and correct me if im wrong... when I first extract/downdoad any mesh or texture... I should put it in the directory but not in its actual place but in the Data folder under meshes and texture have my named folder with my stuff... when I fix it up then I put pull it back one folder to sit in the data/Meshes:Textures folder, with or without sub dir??? and then it wont load all my stuff but only what I say... correct???

 

And because rust aint that shiny and the "_n" is the file to show shinyness could this be the reason why I didnt get "_n" in my converting???

[Skree000]

no, _n doesnt just come out of thin air. You have to make that texture yourself.

 

You dont even need a normal map because if you use The Blank one, it will work just fine. In my original instructions i mentioned using the Blank vault door normal map along with your custom color diffuse map

Those together will have the perfect result when applied to the Vault101 door, as mentioned above a few times.

 

 

About the folders, its not too late.

 

When fallout3 loads up, it looks for any custom files you have loaded into its DEFAULT directories (which are /meshes/, /textures/ and /sounds/.)

 

It will only look in predetermined locations to find meshes, such as the original file paths listed in the BSA archives (ie.. /meshes/dungeons/ etc.

 

if your vault door is placed in /meshes/ChrisPydtank/ it will be bypassed. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT!)

 

 

Otherwise, Vault101's door will now be replaced with yours. Thats not what you want. You want a NEW vault door right? Not to replace the original.

 

 

Once you have placed YOUR custom vault door with your custom number in it, in a folder named after YOU, (ie /meshes/ChrisPydTank/)

Go into GECK, duplicate vanilla Vault101 door, rename it to your own choosing, Then for the mesh, Pick your new custom vault door)

 

Then your done.

 

NOW, the game WILL find your custom door, located in /meshes/ChrisPydTank/, which is where it should stay.

 

As soon as you start exporting assets and placing them in VANILLA subfolders, the game will start screwing up and replacing them with whatever you have placed there.

 

You HAVE to have them in your own custom named folders at all times, or else Fallout3 will start replacing things with whatever you feed it. (Bad results, unless you REALLY want to replace things instead of adding new)

[Honeybiscuit]

the latest nif scope is 1.20 or 1.021 http://sourceforge.net/projects/niftools/files/nifskope/

[x BattleHeart x]

Yay!!!!! I looked everywhere because of the same problem...thanks guys the latest version worked for me too :D

[ChrisPydtank]

ok well since im all good for the moment... id like to ask about "*_n.dds" more... its to show shinny or not am i right? im using gimp... i got a plugin so i can edit .dds files...

 

Now i loaded the silencer_n.dds I got coz the normal one im changing to make it more new rather rusty etc... so i am gonna paint it black... but of course _n.dds is the thing i wanna know so i know what effect it will have to the change...

 

All I want is a simple detailed outline of what it is properly, how it is used and how it works so I can "make" my own per say...

 

This way I can understand better of what im looking at...

[Skree000]

the normal maps represent lighting information, stored in 3 colors, RGB channels.

 

R (red) is left/right, G (green) is up/down, and B is depth or occlusion.

 

The fourth channel in the texture is the alpha channel, and THAT is the specular (shiney-ness) map.

 

 

So its actually 2 textures in one. The 'purple-y' part is the normal map, then when you click to show the alpha channel, thats the specular map.

 

Spec maps are black and white.

Normal maps are grayscale with 3 channels, making them end up looking a purple.

 

To make one either use the Nvidia Texture Tools normal map filter for Photoshop, or use Crazybump

 

 

DO NOT fill in your normal map's RGB channels with black. If you dont really know what to put in there, put 128,128,128 grey in Red and green, and fill blue with white. Then work on your spec map.

The end result is a purpley 128,128, 255 flat purple color for RGB channels.

 

This will output a neutral or 'flat' normal. This is the 'no bump information' color.

 

Black will look all screwed up, so will white, or grey, or any non-blueish color, since blue channel is expected to be mostly white, if not pure white.

[ChrisPydtank]

So what your saying is that tool can actually do it for me in a way??? does the file change to _n itself or is it a manual indication??? and does this spec texture get recognized by NIFSCOPE and placed in game to all lighting situations... or does the game itself recognize the mesh from the .nif file can "reflect and refract" light on its texture?

 

are you also telling me that if i change the rusty look in a new looking blackish texture that the alpha etc will look all screwed up??? coz i was gonna make the color more of a black grey looking... coz they aint like a pure black... I guess it wouldn't reflect light much either... so maybe even leave out the specular mapping???