My Sword Nif - - I Need Help !

[Pawellen McGrace]

Hello my friend,

i look for a helper for me...i have nice NIF of my personal sword, and this NIF is funkcional in Morrowind..i need transfer this to Oblivion format...after them will be usefull for all knights and paladins

PS: my NIF is model of MaxEdvin sword of ancient series

 

i kann send NIF by e-mail (300kb)

please help, i wont to use this one in combat against evil and darkness...

 

Protector, the paladin

[Arcanist]

To convert a nif that works in morrowind for use in oblivion you need to use nifskope.

 

Assuming only one mesh and no particles;

 

Open the old nif in nifskope

Find the NiTriStrips branch (mesh and UV info) for your sword and right click it and choose Block > copy branch.

Open up an original game nif file for a sword

Right click and choose Block > paste branch

Go to the very Top and click on NiNode.

In the block details window expand the children and Indicies branches.

Assuming that the original game nif you opened has number of children set to 1 then just change the indicies value to the block number next to the NiTriStrips branch that you pasted in.

The NiTriStrips branch that you pasted in should now be in the NiNode branch and the NiTriStrips branch from the original game sword should be out on its own.

If so then right click the NiTriStrips branch for the original game sword and choose Block > Remove Branch.

Expand the NiNode and your NiTriStrips branches and find the block that has the folder path for your texture file and make sure its correct.

You should now be able to save the nif file (new name suggested) and use the CS to place it in game.

 

I havent actually done this. You may also need to adjust the scale of your NiTriStrips block after you paste the branch into the original game nif. To adjust the scale select your NiTriStrips block and then find scale in the block details window and adjust the value.

 

Hopes this helps and Good Luck

[Pawellen McGrace]

Thanks you for info,

bud have yuz time for do it???? i can send you my old NIF for transfering...you are profi in NIF scope operating a this action takes you only few minits....please

(excuse me, my english is poor, i'm from CZ, and you??)

Nice day

[Arcanist]

I'm pretty busy working on my own mods at the moment.

 

I'll have a go at it but I dont have hours to work on it if it doesnt work straight away. Email me the nif file AND the texture file(s), I'll send you a PM with my email address. If the files(s) are big please send them in seperate emails, I'd prefer it if you could keep the email attachments to 1MB or less.

 

I'm no expert with nif files. I'm self taught and have only just learnt enough to get my own meshes and textures working in the game. I cant do animations and I havent tried custom made particle effects in oblivion and dont think they work yet anyway.

 

Having said all that If your nif and textures work properly in morrowind I cant see any reason it wouldnt work in oblivion.

[Arcanist]

I got your nif file and loaded it up in nifskope.

 

Some info about your nif. Its a version 4.0.0.2 (Morrowind version). The mesh for your sword is actually in 24 seperate NiTriShape data blocks, thats 24 seperate mesh items. I'm not sure why it is in so many pieces, its just the way the original model was created. Each of the mesh peices has its own texture information. The textures are not in a seperate texture file, each mesh peice has its own NiPixel data block. It seems the textures are embeded in each mesh (NiTriShape) data block. The way i make nif files is to have the textures in a seperate DDS file and have each mesh data block in the nif refer to this external DDS texture file.

 

I tried to copy the mesh data blocks from your nif into a version 20.0.0.5 (oblivion version) nif file. This did NOT work. Nifskope gave me invalid linking and data array errors that are beyond my knowledge to fix. I was hoping this would work as it would be the simplest way to convert your nif.

 

Next i imported your nif into blender (3d modeling program i use for making my meshes). Your model imported correctly as 24 seperate mesh objects. Unfortunately the embedded texture information did NOT import.

 

So I cant convert your nif using nifskope they way i hoped to, someone with more knowledge of the nif format might be able to. I can get your mesh into a nif that will work in game but to do so I'll lose the textures.

 

My suggestion would be;

 

Import mesh to blender (done this already)

 

Join the 24 mesh object together to make 2 or 3 mesh objects - handle and blade (i can do this easy)

 

Create a new UV texture map for the 2 or 3 new mesh items (i can do this, takes a bit of time but not to long)

 

Create a new DDS texture file to fit the new UV map. (my 2D art skills are poor, if u want a good looking sword i suggest you do it yourself or get some pro texture artist to do it, i can provide the UV map to base it on)

 

Apply the new texture to your mesh in blender and export to nif (i can do this easy)

 

Use nifskope to cut and paste the new mesh and data blocks into an original game nif (i can do this easy)

 

Redoing the texture is a bit of a pain but the good thing about it is you can create a hi res texture that wil look much better then the original. the original texture is good but compared to oblivion textures its low res and looks a bit chunky.

 

Sorry for the long post, bottem line is i can get your mesh in game but not the texture. Get me a new texture and i can do the rest.

[Arcanist]

Pawellen I'm going to do what i suggested in my previous post and email you back a working nif of your sword. The texture will just be whatever i can manage in a few minutes. I'll send you a UV map too so you can make a proper texture or get someone to do it for you, then just delete my texture and rename yours to the same name and put it in the same folder.