Please help me with the 3DSMax to Nif import / export process.

[Squirm]

I'm attempting to educate myself on the process for successfully exporting from 3D studio Max to Fallout 3. Unfortunately, I'm always getting a bad result and can't see where I'm going wrong. Please could someone examine the process I'm following and correct me?

 

I'm using Max 8 service pack 3 with the latest version of the Niftools plug in, and Nifskope 1.0.21 revision 4886.

 

I took an existing nif that I know works in the game, JoeFoxx's Magneto Lazerpistol from his Fallout Classic Weapons mod, with the idea of importing it into Max, then exporting it as a nif again.

 

These are the settings I used for importing the nif into Max:

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/1948/fallhelp1.th.jpg

 

It appears to have imported correctly. Here is the mesh and its textures rendered in Max:

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/4026/fallhelp2.th.jpg

 

These are the settings I used to export it out into a new nif:

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/1002/fallhelp3.th.jpg

 

I then opened the new nif in Nifksope (on the left in the picture below) and another nif that I knew worked in another instance of Nifskope (on the right), so I could block paste the niTriStrips data from the exported nif to the working nif. This one was the Wattz 1000 laser pistol, I was essentially attempting to replace the mesh data for the pistol with the Magneto's.

 

Copying:

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7945/fallhelp4.th.jpg

 

Pasting:

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/5676/fallhelp5.th.jpg

 

I then edited the paths for the BSShaderTextureSet, softcoding the diffuse, normal and glow map textures to the Magento pistol's in the appropriate Fallout directory:

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/338/fallhelp6.th.jpg

 

From Nifskope, I saved the edited .nif mesh as TESTEXPORT.nif into the appropriate Fallout directory:

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5453/fallhelp7.th.jpg

 

But when changing the mesh path for an existing or new weapon form to the location of the new nif, it's all black in the preview:

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/3128/fallhelp8.th.jpg

 

I tried adding a new texture set for the three .dds files (which all appeared correctly in the texture set preview pane) and applying that to the mesh:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/3990/fallhelp9.th.jpg

 

Still all-black:

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/4054/fallhelp10.th.jpg

 

This is what I think I should be seeing.

 

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong.