[HELP] Getting into Retexturing; Making NCR Non-NCR armors.

[Luckmann]

Hey there. First time I'm actually going to try and make my own, proper, mod. First, let me describe what I am trying to do and what I have managed to do so far.

 

Due to how broken certain mechanics are, particularly relating to the reputation system, I decided that I want NCR Armours without faction affiliation. This is all well and good, but I also decided that as to not break consistency, I decided that I wanted NCR Armours without the insignias. For the purpose of what I am working on right now, I'll boil it down to only the NCR Face Wrap Armor (although I intend to make one for each basic NCR Combat Armour).

 

What I want to do:

1) Copy the facewrap armour stats and remove faction affiliation on the new Armor/item entry.

2) Copy the facewrap armour textures, remove NCR insignias, and use those textures on the new Armor/item entry.

3) Introduce the retextured facewrap armour as a separate item into pre-existing randomized vendor lists.

 

So far, I have managed to get .dds-editing up and running in Adobe Photoshop - editing the actual textures are easy. I can do that. But GECK only accepts .nif-entries, not a list of textures, so naturally I got NifSkope. So what I am assuming is that, since all basic NCR armours appears to share the basic texture with insignias on it (\textures\armor\troupers\trouperclothes.dds) but there is a separate .nif for every separate armour, the .nif:s themselves contain the information I need to change - i.e. what I need to do is to copy the separate .nif:s for each item I want to recreate as insignia-less and then change, in the .nif:s themselves, what .dds-file they should use (i.e. the previously changed trouperclothes.dds, aptly renamed "trouperclothes_noinsignia.dds" by yours truly).

 

So the problem is that despite being up and down the .nif in question (armornvncrtrooperfacewrap.nif) in NifSkope, I can't seem to find anything that lists the .dds-files it's supposed to be using. Nowhere.

 

Am I blind? I'm fairly sure that something is staring me right in the face.

 

Edit: I realize that this is likely a question that crops up fairly often and that there's likely a sea of nooblets like myself that can't work out the sharp end of a stick, but I honestly tried to find a guide on it and fell short. I found lots of retexturing guides on various subjects, but pretty much zero on .nif manipulation & editing, or information on exactly how the two relate and where to find what in a .nif. So I apologize if this is covered often and can only ask you to bear with me (no pun intended).

 

Edit 2: I did eventually manage to find a guide on the topic at http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope/Change_texture.

 

This is all well and good, but the issue still remains, because I can't seem to find the so-called NiSourceTexture.

 

Clearly, I am doing something wrong. :(

[lordsoulstrike]

Hey there. First time I'm actually going to try and make my own, proper, mod. First, let me describe what I am trying to do and what I have managed to do so far.

 

Due to how broken certain mechanics are, particularly relating to the reputation system, I decided that I want NCR Armours without faction affiliation. This is all well and good, but I also decided that as to not break consistency, I decided that I wanted NCR Armours without the insignias. For the purpose of what I am working on right now, I'll boil it down to only the NCR Face Wrap Armor (although I intend to make one for each basic NCR Combat Armour).

 

What I want to do:

1) Copy the facewrap armour stats and remove faction affiliation on the new Armor/item entry.

2) Copy the facewrap armour textures, remove NCR insignias, and use those textures on the new Armor/item entry.

3) Introduce the retextured facewrap armour as a separate item into pre-existing randomized vendor lists.

 

So far, I have managed to get .dds-editing up and running in Adobe Photoshop - editing the actual textures are easy. I can do that. But GECK only accepts .nif-entries, not a list of textures, so naturally I got NifSkope. So what I am assuming is that, since all basic NCR armours appears to share the basic texture with insignias on it (\textures\armor\troupers\trouperclothes.dds) but there is a separate .nif for every separate armour, the .nif:s themselves contain the information I need to change - i.e. what I need to do is to copy the separate .nif:s for each item I want to recreate as insignia-less and then change, in the .nif:s themselves, what .dds-file they should use (i.e. the previously changed trouperclothes.dds, aptly renamed "trouperclothes_noinsignia.dds" by yours truly).

 

So the problem is that despite being up and down the .nif in question (armornvncrtrooperfacewrap.nif) in NifSkope, I can't seem to find anything that lists the .dds-files it's supposed to be using. Nowhere.

 

Am I blind? I'm fairly sure that something is staring me right in the face.

 

Edit: I realize that this is likely a question that crops up fairly often and that there's likely a sea of nooblets like myself that can't work out the sharp end of a stick, but I honestly tried to find a guide on it and fell short. I found lots of retexturing guides on various subjects, but pretty much zero on .nif manipulation & editing, or information on exactly how the two relate and where to find what in a .nif. So I apologize if this is covered often and can only ask you to bear with me (no pun intended).

 

Unlike Oblivion mesh editing where the texture locations are not hidden for FO3 and Fallout NV they are. Take a look at this:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Modding/texturelocation.jpg

 

When you open up a mesh file you can click on the mesh itself to select whatever part you wish to edit. On the left hand side you will see exactly the name it corresponds to. If you look there will be a + sign you will want to click on. Once that is open you will see some other entries under it that give other things you can open up. Most of the time it is the first entry you open up and under it there will be 1 entry most times, if not it usually is the top most one. Click on it and look at the bottom part of nifskope. There will be a purplish icon and a + sign, click on that to open it up and there you will find the textures you want. Click on the purple icon next to the texture entries to select a new texture.

 

Please be aware however you do not want the full file path kept as in C:\program files\steam\common\fallout 3\yada yada yada. The reason being is that all installations are different on different people's machines which can cause problems (missing textures ect....) Instead you want to after selecting your texture is to double click on the path that replaces the original texture and delete everything before texture. Thus ending up with something like this: textures\armor\npa armor\armor.dds

 

As for the GECK that is quite easy, you will want to find the armor you want to make a copy of and right click and select edit. You will want to rename the ID to something else so you do not edit the original. After doing that you will want to replace the first mesh you see under the meshes section for both male and female. After that you will want to make sure there are no scripts attached to the armor. If there are you will want to select that drop down box and scroll all the way up until you get to the beginning of the list and there will be a blank option (just a blank space). After that you just click OK. The GECK will ask if you want to create a new form, click yes as clicking no will rename the armor you are copying. After that you can select however you want to add it in game.

 

If you wish to add it to a container you will want to make a copy of another container and place your armor in that and then place it in game.

 

If you need any questions just PM me and I'll try to help. :)

[Luckmann]

Wow. I really appreciate all the help, but this is all way too weird.

 

This is your screencap, next to a screencap of my own, with the same file.

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/9173/weirdk.png

 

As you can see, my NifSkope looks nothing like yours. For comparison, I opened up the same file as the one you used as an example. Not only are your numbered entries sorted differently, but the properties of entries appear to be different (your palette icon is on #5, mine is on #2; the one that I according to your image should expand to see #3, containing texture information).

 

What version of NifSkope are you using? Maybe I should try to track that one down, because I'm clearly not seeing what you are seeing here (I'm using 1.0.22, revision 8329d39). :unsure:

 

I'll send you a PM if you don't run into this thread again, for whatever reason. I prefer to keep issues open in threads, because you never know when someone else runs into a similar issue. I hope that's ok. :turned:

[lordsoulstrike]

I have the same version as you. The reason it looks differently is because I have all of Windows extra features turned off. As for the number, that really does not matter. I was trying to show that the textures are located right under the main list of that one. I've yet to see where the textures are located (where the arrow points to a blank spot) to ever have any name by it. I learned where they were located by trial and error. As long as you just click and do not change anything you will be fine.

[Luckmann]

I have the same version as you. The reason it looks differently is because I have all of Windows extra features turned off. As for the number, that really does not matter. I was trying to show that the textures are located right under the main list of that one. I've yet to see where the textures are located (where the arrow points to a blank spot) to ever have any name by it. I learned where they were located by trial and error. As long as you just click and do not change anything you will be fine.

I really don't see how that adds up to Windows extra features being turned off or why the numbers doesn't match, but I actually did manage to find it, under #1 (NiTriShape)- > 4# (BSShaderPPLightningProperty) -> #5 (BSSShaderTextureSet).

 

I have no idea why I didn't see that earlier. I could have sworn that I expanded all the strings and checked the Block Details for anything that looked like your screen (listing Textures with Values). :wallbash:

 

Thanks a lot and a kudos for your patience. :thumbsup:

[lordsoulstrike]

No problem. I don't really know either everything was different in yours and mine.

[Caiman]

Thanks! This thread helped me finally finding the texture of the toycar... what a pain in the arse... who thought it´d be funny to put it inside the "dartpistol"? :S