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Posted

Hello,

 

How do I import .NIF files to Blender? I am trying to get a mesh to work in the creation kit and I need to create a collision mesh for the .NIF but Blender is a piece of **** and can't import .Nif files. However there is, apparently, a way to do it, but apparently there is also no official Skyrim support for it.

 

Also, how do I even GET the custom mesh into creation kit as an actual thing? It's a custom creature mesh (with textures etc.) and I want to put it in CK but I have no idea how to do it and all the guides are really convoluted, don't go into much depth, and generally aren't very helpful at all since they assume you already know a lot about Blender, which I don't.

 

I've been through many guides, none of them helpful, none of them telling me what I need to know. I tried installing blender 2.49, python, etc. but I'm having no luck.

 

I really wish I had someone who could do all this for me so I could focus on building my dungeon myself, but of course nobody helps and nobody cares. Every time I ask for help on here no one ever responds or gives a useful response, so it's all very frustrating to say the least since the only person I can rely on is myself.

Posted

I took this from: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_an_armour_for_Skyrim._Part_1 It shows the process of getting .nif files into Blender.

 

It uses creating armor as the base but should work for creatures. Once the creature is in Blender, you will need to rig it to a skeleton. The link I provided shows all the steps, just REPLACE when it talks about armor with your creature .nif.

 

Hope that helps as I've never tried creature .nif's before...

 

"As Blender has not yet been fully adapted to Skyrim, to be able to import the nif files into it you have to change some properties in NifSkope. Do the following:

  1. Open the body you are going to work on in NifSkope (in the example, we are using femalebody_0.nif)
  2. First step is to edit the NiHeader settings:
    1. In the Block details section, expand the NiHeader property as shown in picture Editting the NiHeader in NifSkope
    2. You'll see that the User version property has a value of 12. Double click on the 12 and then change it to 11.
    3. Then go to the User version 2 property, that has a value of 83. Double click on the 83 and then change it to 34.
  3. Next step is to delete the BSLightingShaderProperty:
    1. Expand the NiTriShape node as shown in picture Deleting the BSLightingShaderProperty
    2. Select the BSLightingShaderProperty node and press Ctrl+Del or right click and select the menu option Block -> Remove Branch
    3. Do this for all the NiTriShape nodes the mesh has (if it has more than one)
  4. Save the modified nif file. This modified nif is the one you will be importing into Blender.

Repeat these steps for all the Skyrim meshes you need to import into Blender.

Now you can import the body parts into Blender. To do that use the menu option File -> Import -> Netimmerse/Gamebyro (.nif). If you cannot find that option it is because you haven't installed NifScripts. Follow the instructions given here: Installation of Blender to install everything you need."

Posted

I tried this and it didn't really help. I couldn't get past the first step since all the options listed in the guide aren't even there for me.

Posted
  On 3/15/2015 at 8:55 PM, ScarletPox said:

How do I import .NIF files to Blender? I am trying to get a mesh to work in the creation kit and I need to create a collision mesh for the .NIF but Blender is a piece of **** and can't import .Nif files. However there is, apparently, a way to do it, but apparently there is also no official Skyrim support for it.

 

Also, how do I even GET the custom mesh into creation kit as an actual thing? It's a custom creature mesh (with textures etc.) and I want to put it in CK but I have no idea how to do it and all the guides are really convoluted, don't go into much depth, and generally aren't very helpful at all since they assume you already know a lot about Blender, which I don't.

 

(I've only done static meshes but can help with the basics).

(This is longer than I planned, but may be helpful to others who are starting out, as it covers some things that have changed since earlier tutorials)

 

For some of these steps, older tutorials mention using Chunkmerge or Nifconvert, but NifUtils is newer, and has generally worked for me. http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4128

 

(1) Import nifs into Blender.

- you have to prepare the Nif first. If you're not seeing the options ScrollThief mentioned, go to View --> Reset Block Details. In the bottom pane, you'll see NiHeader as the top entry. Expand this, and make ScrollThief's changes. You also need to delete the collision branch (CTRL-Del to delete the entire branch) in addition to the shader properties nodes.

- NifUtils can do this for you, but doesn't delete the collision node (so have to go back to Nifskope anyways) and sometimes accidentally deletes nodes that you need.

- If there are any mesh nodes not named NiTriShape (like BSLODTriShape), you need to rename them to NiTriShape or you will get an error when importing into Blender.

- Use Blender nifscripts to import. I use the settings from this tutorial, but I change scale to 100 (as I use Blender 2.73 and the models end up gigantic otherwise): http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/15690/?tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D15690%26preview%3D1

 

(2) Import Collision meshes into blender.

- use Nifutils to extract collisions into a Nif file

- open the nif file in blender as above

(depending on the file, it may be easier to create your own collision mesh based on your new mesh, rather than recycling the original collision; in Blender, I copy the mesh into a new layer -- select the mesh, duplicate, don't move it, click 'M', and choose a new layer, and remove the materials. Then use methods like remove duplicates and decimate to reduce the poly count. Then do #4 below.)

 

(3) Get nifs from Blender to CK

- the tutorial above covers exporting and prepping the nif file for Skyrim (NifUtils seems to correctly prep the settings, but you'll have to then go into Nifskope to add in the texture nodes); to copy texture nodes, go to file --> new window, open the skyrim nif with the textures you want, CTRL-C on the texture node, go to your nif file, click on the NiTriShape node, CTRL-V to paste. If it pastes in the root and not into NiTriShape, it means there's something wrong with the settings in your node, so go back and make sure you did the above correctly.

- save the new nif file in a custom directory in Data/Meshes, and then use it in a new object (apparently you can also drag-and-drop a static nif file, but I haven't had any luck with this)

 

(4) Add collisions to nifs

- use Nifutils to add an exported collision nif file (exporting from blender follows same steps as above) to a mesh nif file

- then do #3

 

Note 1: Creatures probably have a lot more nodes than static meshes, so you'll have to find a reference as to what to do with those nodes.

 

Note 2: You won't find any guidance for Blender in the skyrim tutorials, because there's a ton to learn and there is already a definitive intro guide: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro . It covers Blender 2.6+ but I've heard that you can find an older version for 2.4.

(I use 2.73 which has an easier UI than 2.49 and helpful plug-ins; you can't import/export nifs, but going back and forth is simple: you save an imported nif from 2.49 as a .blend file, open it in 2.73, edit, then save as a *legacy* .blend file, and re-open in 2.49 and export).

 

Note 3: Another helpful link for Skyrim meshes: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Skyrim_common_mod_issues

 

Note 4: Meshes can only contain triangles. There is an option in Blender to convert everything to triangles (necessary if you use Remove Duplicates or Decimate) -- in 2.73, it's CTRL-T in Edit Mode.

 

Note 5: Here are a few troubleshooting reminders I keep in my personal how-to text file. They're for Blender 2.73.

  Quote
Texture not showing
- make sure in texture mode
- properties --> shading --> GLSL
- Material --> Shading --> Shadeless
Texture oddly light
- Textures --> Image --> uncheck Use Alpha
See through transparent textures
- Properties --> Shading --> Backface Culling
Face missing (or black in CK/Skyrim -- may be normal in Nifskope)
- check normals, flip if wrong (Ctrl-F)
- ***if face not a triangle will not appear, make triangle (Ctrl-T)***

 

 

Note 6: Some helpful Blender 2.6+ plug-ins:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D%20interaction/Align_Tools

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/Blend_Library

http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.com/2014/06/addon-parent-to-empty.html

Posted

Ah this is helpful... however I'm a little bit stuck on the collision part, I used NIFUtils ChunkExtract on the NIF... but it says "No chunks found", what should I do?

Posted
  On 3/16/2015 at 4:53 AM, ScarletPox said:

Ah this is helpful... however I'm a little bit stuck on the collision part, I used NIFUtils ChunkExtract on the NIF... but it says "No chunks found", what should I do?

 

Not sure I can help. Never had that problem. Is there a collision node in Nifskope?

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