Custom Armor

[FuzeTek]

Can someone plz help me with this, I want to take a .obj Model and turn it into a custom armor in Blender. I've found some tutorials on this but none of them really explain the process, another issue is that the base model I want to use is in the T-pose and Im having a serious problem with the mesh coming apart when I rotate the arms.

Would it be better to just make a body replacer? Since its for a total conversion I dont want the armor taken off

 

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/147/captureyo.jpg

[Ghogiel]

Can someone plz help me with this, I want to take a .obj Model and turn it into a custom armor in Blender. I've found some tutorials on this but none of them really explain the process,

as in specifically what do they not explain in the process? and what tutorials?

 

another issue is that the base model I want to use is in the T-pose and Im having a serious problem with the mesh coming apart when I rotate the arms.

repositioning the mesh is fairly straight forward. you can either do so by soft selection. or move the skeleton to a T pose, rig the arms. move skeleton back to A pose. Or create a couple bones, rig the mesh. move the bones to position the arms, make new bind pose for the bones. delete bones. now it's roughly positioned and ready to be adjusted then rigged to the actual F3 skeleton.

 

as for the mesh coming apart, just weld it together. Which you will probably want to do anyway when you rig it. you can just split the arms by material id at export.

 

if the meshes UV is mirrored, I would just delete one side of it, slightly offset. and just reposition that one side, it might be a quicker work flow. :shrug:

 

Would it be better to just make a body replacer? Since its for a total conversion I dont want the armor taken off

 

not really. I think a scripting solution to force equip the outfit, and not being able to remove it would be the easist solution rather than making it a body/race replacer in and of itself< that strikes me as problematic.

[FuzeTek]

I was looking at I think Malos's tut? says about deleting all the skeletons Before editing then Importing them again, I dunno

but I was wondering, If the base body clips through the armor will it mess th model up ingame? like will the body show through when you put the armor on? Ive started making it not clip but it looks too bulky

 

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/3650/captureogf.jpg

[FuzeTek]

well Im trying to test quick to see if I can get the armor ingame, I know the arms arent lined up, I made the skeleton and uniform parented and exported to nif, but it shows up invisible when i change the vault suit to the new model, so I tried opening the upper body.nif, deleted the body parts and copied the branches. When i try to load this the geck crashes everytime

 

 

Now I get this

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/9003/capturenh.jpg

[FuzeTek]

equiping it ingame it teleports around the floor following the player and its huge!!! Wth

[Ghogiel]

If the base body clips through the armor will it mess th model up ingame? like will the body show through when you put the armor on? Ive started making it not clip but it looks too bulky

not at all. your outfit does not in anyway have to completely envelope the vanilla body mesh.

 

the only real constraint on how you model and proportion your outfit is the skeleton itself. All your joints in your mesh will have to be fairly near the skeleton. the vanilla body is a good template to use to see where the joints are, with in reason, you do not have to make the arms, body, legs etc as thin or as fat as you like.

you can get away with some deviation, but elbows, knees, shoulders etc will cause you some annoyance when you rig it.

 

 

as for why your test failed. can't say, i am guessing either texture or shader set up is incorrect.

[FuzeTek]

Ok I think I got it, I think what happened is I selected the skeleton as well as my mesh when i exported it. now the armor is all shiny ingame and I dunno if its a texture issue or the material settings in blender.

New question is, if I export my armor with the leon head model on it will the entire model show up when the armor is equipped? I dont want any vanilla mesh to show, i want the uniform and the head, or do I have to make the head seperate like a mask? I wanted to do it all in one file so I wouldent have to worry about the head being too big n such

 

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/972/capturerwb.jpg

[Ghogiel]

Ok I think I got it, I think what happened is I selected the skeleton as well as my mesh when i exported it. now the armor is all shiny ingame and I dunno if its a texture issue or the material settings in blender.

 

shininess is likely due to you specular map. In F3 these are stored in the normal maps alpha channel.

 

New question is, if I export my armor with the leon head model on it will the entire model show up when the armor is equipped?

yes. just make sure you set it up in the GECK, it uses the biped slots relating to the head as well as body. or both the vanilla head and your head will be displayed at the same time.

 

I dont want any vanilla mesh to show, i want the uniform and the head, or do I have to make the head seperate like a mask? I wanted to do it all in one file so I wouldent have to worry about the head being too big n such

Well you wouldn't have to worry about the head being too big. it'll be the same size in relation to the body in game as it is in the blend scene. I would probably make the head a separate nif. this way the outfit can be used with actual working heads, and not just a head that's actually a helmet. It wouldn't actually add much extra work.