Help with my body mod NSFW

[thePhilanthropy]

I don't use Blender, but in 3ds Max there is a function called Reset X-Form. It basically deletes the history of changes that were made to the mesh (sort of finalizing it). That is a very important step before you export your mesh to a game engine.

It really sounds like that is what you're doing wrong. I have no idea how to do that in Blender, though.

Also, simply renaming the bones from another skeleton (armature) just doesn't cut it. Learn how to properly weight-paint. You'll not succeed in finishing your replacer without that skill.

PS: can you upload your nif or a screenshot of the file from within nifskope with all blocks expanded? Maybe you simply need to adjust some things in nifskope for it to show up.

[kraxyk]

Ok thanks all. I will give all of those ideas a shot. But what I did see was that I import and export with a scale correction of 1. By default its ten so maybe that's why it looked tiny in yours

[kraxyk]

Odd, when I imported the upper female body it was waaaaay smaller than yours, so I'm not sure what to tell you. If it matches in yours, though I guess it'll be ok. You'll still need to import the vanilla skeleton.nif (located in your data/meshes/characters/_male directory) and parent the mesh to THAT so it works ingame. I don't think it will work with you building a skeleton from scratch.

 

-Razorpony

 

Ok I tried and it still did not show up in the game. My game either crashed when I executed the sexchange command or if it did the command I was still missing the mesh. In blender I selected my mesh (not armature) and then selected the Skeleton and I made it parent

[thePhilanthropy]

Ok I tried and it still did not show up in the game. My game either crashed when I executed the sexchange command or if it did the command I was still missing the mesh. In blender I selected my mesh (not armature) and then selected the Skeleton and I made it parent

 

Did you weight-paint the mesh to the skeleton?

 

And again: please provide the nif or a screenshot of its sctructure (in nifskope). That might give us further clues.

[kraxyk]

Ok I tried and it still did not show up in the game. My game either crashed when I executed the sexchange command or if it did the command I was still missing the mesh. In blender I selected my mesh (not armature) and then selected the Skeleton and I made it parent

 

Did you weight-paint the mesh to the skeleton?

 

And again: please provide the nif or a screenshot of its sctructure (in nifskope). That might give us further clues.

 

I forgot what weight-paint is um but here is the nif and I will try to get a screenshot

 

So basically you want me to create vertex groups? For what? Arms, Upperbody. Like that?

 

ScreenShot

 

Nif File

[thePhilanthropy]

OK. Got it.

 

First, let me say this: This is a Poser model, isn't it? I'm very certain of that. You cannot release this as your own work, unless you want to break the law.

 

Now to the nif:

Wow, basically everything is messed up. Don't worry. This can be fixed, but it will require you to learn a lot of things.

 

Why isn't the mesh showing up ingame? for several reasons:

1) the structure is wrong.

Your nif file is structured like this:

NiNode Bip01

-->NiNode Scene Root

----->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 0

----->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 1

----->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 2

----->etc...

 

it should be:

NiNode Scene Root

-->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 0

-->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 1

-->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 2

-->etc...

 

my guess is that this happened because you parented the mesh to the armature. don't do that.

 

2.)the texture paths are wrong/non-existent

your file:

NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 1

-->NiTexturingProperty

----->NiSourceTexture skintexture.dds

 

should be:

NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 1

-->NiTexturingProperty

----->NiSourceTexture textures\characters\imperial\female\FootFemale.dds

 

without a texture, the mesh is invisible, ingame.

 

3) the mesh is not skinned. That means that you didn't weight paint it. Meaning, it will not play animations at all. The vertices have no connection to the bones of the armature, in other words.

 

4) the mesh has a non-uniform scale. What I mean by that is that it's scale is effed up. In a previous post I said something about "reset XForm". That's a 3ds Max specific thing, so it's probably gonna be called something different in Blender.

I tried to google for a solution in Blender and came across this:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-567106.html

this post is important:

Anyways, freeze transformation is called Apply Scale and Rotation WHICH IS WHAT tijos have said if you bother reading :D

 

Ctrl + A with the object selected in object mode will "freeze transformation".

 

Good luck.

 

 

--------------------------

 

Other tipps:

 

Take a look at other body replacers and try to understand how they did it.

 

go here and read some tutorials:

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Portal:Modeling

 

try something easier first, bofore tackling such a complex thing. Work yourself through the tutorials until you have a decent understanding of 3d modelling in general and until you can use Oblivion-specific tools reasonably well.

regarding 3d modelling, here are some skills you will need to have in order to succeed with this:

-modelling (polygonal modelling, box modelling. etc)

-UV mapping

-weight-painting

 

 

 

I know this looks like a lot to learn, but there's no way around it.

 

Good Luck!

 

 

PS: Since you can't release that mesh anyway, you will have to create your own. One way would be to model your own mesh around the Poser mesh. Not only will you end up with a low-poly mesh (which is easier to manipulate), but you will also have something you did yourself.

[kraxyk]

OK. Got it.

 

First, let me say this: This is a Poser model, isn't it? I'm very certain of that. You cannot release this as your own work, unless you want to break the law.

 

Now to the nif:

Wow, basically everything is messed up. Don't worry. This can be fixed, but it will require you to learn a lot of things.

 

Why isn't the mesh showing up ingame? for several reasons:

1) the structure is wrong.

Your nif file is structured like this:

NiNode Bip01

-->NiNode Scene Root

----->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 0

----->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 1

----->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 2

----->etc...

 

it should be:

NiNode Scene Root

-->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 0

-->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 1

-->NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 2

-->etc...

 

my guess is that this happened because you parented the mesh to the armature. don't do that.

 

2.)the texture paths are wrong/non-existent

your file:

NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 1

-->NiTexturingProperty

----->NiSourceTexture skintexture.dds

 

should be:

NiTriStrips Tri Scene Root 1

-->NiTexturingProperty

----->NiSourceTexture textures\characters\imperial\female\FootFemale.dds

 

without a texture, the mesh is invisible, ingame.

 

3) the mesh is not skinned. That means that you didn't weight paint it. Meaning, it will not play animations at all. The vertices have no connection to the bones of the armature, in other words.

 

4) the mesh has a non-uniform scale. What I mean by that is that it's scale is effed up. In a previous post I said something about "reset XForm". That's a 3ds Max specific thing, so it's probably gonna be called something different in Blender.

I tried to google for a solution in Blender and came across this:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-567106.html

this post is important:

Anyways, freeze transformation is called Apply Scale and Rotation WHICH IS WHAT tijos have said if you bother reading :D

 

Ctrl + A with the object selected in object mode will "freeze transformation".

 

Good luck.

 

 

--------------------------

 

Other tipps:

 

Take a look at other body replacers and try to understand how they did it.

 

go here and read some tutorials:

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Portal:Modeling

 

try something easier first, bofore tackling such a complex thing. Work yourself through the tutorials until you have a decent understanding of 3d modelling in general and until you can use Oblivion-specific tools reasonably well.

regarding 3d modelling, here are some skills you will need to have in order to succeed with this:

-modelling (polygonal modelling, box modelling. etc)

-UV mapping

-weight-painting

 

 

 

I know this looks like a lot to learn, but there's no way around it.

 

Good Luck!

 

 

PS: Since you can't release that mesh anyway, you will have to create your own. One way would be to model your own mesh around the Poser mesh. Not only will you end up with a low-poly mesh (which is easier to manipulate), but you will also have something you did yourself.

 

I agree with that except I cant get the curves right so for personal use and non distribution as a newbie mod (non released) I was just going to use the poser model. The other thing I could do is use a free program called make human which produces low poly people. If I ever wanted to release it. And that I can't claim as my own but they don't require any rights on it. As long as its not commercial.

 

Thank you for all your help I will check out the rest of the thread and stuff tomorrow. Just figured I would address that first.

 

P.S. Thanks again for all your help

 

P.S.S The funny thing is I am good at 3d modeling, just not people ;)

[kraxyk]

 

3) the mesh is not skinned. That means that you didn't weight paint it. Meaning, it will not play animations at all. The vertices have no connection to the bones of the armature, in other words.

 

 

ok so I fixed everything so far except the vertex groups. So should I delete my bones that I made. And then select the verticies, add them to a group and then parent that to the skeleton.nif's bones?

[thePhilanthropy]

 

3) the mesh is not skinned. That means that you didn't weight paint it. Meaning, it will not play animations at all. The vertices have no connection to the bones of the armature, in other words.

 

 

ok so I fixed everything so far except the vertex groups. So should I delete my bones that I made. And then select the verticies, add them to a group and then parent that to the skeleton.nif's bones?

 

no you actually weight-paint it (witht some sort of brush) in a 3d application, like Blender or 3ds max.

here's what you do (should be the same for every app):

(0. start a new scene)

1. import the skeleton (armature in blender). That's the file "skeleton.nif" inside your "oblivion - meshes.bsa".

2. import your mesh

3. play around with the mesh until it fits to the skeleton. Do not touch the skeleton!

4. reset XForm or whatever it's called for your app

5. apply a "skin modifier" to the mesh. This could be called different in blender. Google it.

6. add the bones you want to the skin modifier (should be some sort of list)

7. set or paint the weights for the vertices.

7a. little trick: rotate the bones to see how the mesh deforms. and repeat step 7 until it looks good. Just make sure you have a way to reset the bone to its default rotation (e.g. by setting keyframes)

8. select your mesh and export to nif

9. make sure the nif exported alright (check my earlier post or whatever)

10. test the mesh ingame

 

steps 5-7 are the actual weight-painting. maybe you should read a tutorial or two about it first?

 

setting the weights for each vertex manually (e.g. with nifskope) is possible, but it's too complicated to get any good results that way.

 

Good Luck!

 

 

EDIT: most of the mistakes you made earlier, should not even happen when you export it to a nif from blender.

[kraxyk]

 

3) the mesh is not skinned. That means that you didn't weight paint it. Meaning, it will not play animations at all. The vertices have no connection to the bones of the armature, in other words.

 

 

ok so I fixed everything so far except the vertex groups. So should I delete my bones that I made. And then select the verticies, add them to a group and then parent that to the skeleton.nif's bones?

 

no you actually weight-paint it (witht some sort of brush) in a 3d application, like Blender or 3ds max.

here's what you do (should be the same for every app):

(0. start a new scene)

1. import the skeleton (armature in blender). That's the file "skeleton.nif" inside your "oblivion - meshes.bsa".

2. import your mesh

3. play around with the mesh until it fits to the skeleton. Do not touch the skeleton!

4. reset XForm or whatever it's called for your app

5. apply a "skin modifier" to the mesh. This could be called different in blender. Google it.

6. add the bones you want to the skin modifier (should be some sort of list)

7. set or paint the weights for the vertices.

7a. little trick: rotate the bones to see how the mesh deforms. and repeat step 7 until it looks good. Just make sure you have a way to reset the bone to its default rotation (e.g. by setting keyframes)

8. select your mesh and export to nif

9. make sure the nif exported alright (check my earlier post or whatever)

10. test the mesh ingame

 

steps 5-7 are the actual weight-painting. maybe you should read a tutorial or two about it first?

 

setting the weights for each vertex manually (e.g. with nifskope) is possible, but it's too complicated to get any good results that way.

 

Good Luck!

 

 

EDIT: most of the mistakes you made earlier, should not even happen when you export it to a nif from blender.

 

ok so I have my mesh, with bones, with weighted verticies. But for an annoying reason, the armature is a seperate mesh instead of part of my femaleupperbody. So do you know how I can get it to be part of that one mesh. I could try a modifier. The reason I need it under one is because I can't parent/weight the verticies to another meshes's bones.

 

well I added an armature modifier and linked it to the armature object. Exported and still it does not work