Trying to Create "FirstAidKit" Belt/Armor

[Lyssinna]

First thing I notice is there is no BSDismemberSkinInstance, which means you never rigged/skinned it to the outfit/body? Next thing I notice is that there is no normal map selected for the boxes, which you need to do or the textures will show up odd. I assume you edited the jacket UVmaps yourself so they fit some custom texture you made instead of any vanilla textures.

 

You should copy the shaders from a working vanilla clothing texture, it will help you keep them correct.

 

 

Now the main major issue, you have re-UVmaped all the boxes. They will now never be able to display any vanilla textures ever again, to fix this you must start all over again. Do not touch the UVmap unless you plan to remake the textures to fit them, which is impossible with your current UVmapping it is far to warped to display any textures properly.

 

Fluttershy would make a very good medic/follwer. :smile:

 

That's really odd, as I ended up simply adding the boxes to the medical coat exactly as it was from the original Arcade's coat. Maybe I sent you the version before I did that. Sleep deprivation is a horrible thing you know.

 

As far as the jacket is concerned, I plan on adjusting the cross logo texture and I never intended to adjust the UV Map there at all. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I guess I sent you an older version.

 

As for the boxes, that's just fine. All I originally did was scale them and position them correctly on the coat. So I'm guessing going through 3D Blender, the UV Maps will remain intact as long as I don't hit any UV Map settings?

 

So to summarize (and to make sure I'm understanding you correctly), all I need to do is import the firstaidkit.nif, duplicate it, import the .nif for Arcade's Jacket (female) then position and size the boxes correctly on the coat.

 

Afterwards, would the simplest solution be to delete the coat (and any other piece aside from the boxes), export the .nif with the two boxes and then use NikScope to make a copy of the female Arcade's coat and copy/paste the entries of the boxes to the adjusted coat? Or would it be better to construct the entire thing inside Blender and then just use NikScope to verify that textures are working correctly?

 

As long as Blender imports and keeps the UVMap, it sounds like this won't take long at all. :)

 

(My big mistake was using a guide on how to create armor from scratch. The problem was I never knew which parts were safe to skip and which weren't. I'm not doing that at all, I'm basically just putting existing pieces together. Oh well, not the first time I've made then 10x harder than they should have been for myself. :) )

 

And you're right, she would. It's going to be the coat for Velvet Remedy, a follower of Fluttershy for my "Gardens of Equestria" mod based off of Fallout: Equestria. :D

 

And thank you again for your help. Trying to find help without looking at YouTube videos (*shudder*) is nigh impossible these days.

[nivea]

Well you seem to be skipping the whole rigging/skinning/weight painting thing again, you can not skip that part.

 

1. Import box and coat in blender.

2. Position boxes as you want.

3. Rig/skin/weight paint boxes to the coat or body. Your guide has that included in it.

4. Export whatever you edited or want to (coat + boxes or just boxes).

5. Check over shaders in nifskope, correct what needs to be corrected using a vanilla ARMOR as your guide it needs to look exactly like the vanilla one.

6. Put in game.

 

Do NOT ever UVmap anything unless you plan on make new textures to fit that new UVmap, anyone using vanilla items should most likely never need to UVmap anything. You can really mess up your stuff if you didnt save before doing it lol.

[Lyssinna]

You. Are. Wonderful.

 

It took some time to get all the pieces together. And I had a bizarre issue where every time I imported the skeleton.nif mesh at the end of the process, the lids of the boxes would suddenly reset to full size (I ended up using the "clamp to" condition to the boxes themselves).

 

But it WORKS. The textures are perfect (though they aren't pulling the FO:E ones for some reason, but I'm sure that's probably a directory issue or something similar) for the boxes and the coat.

 

Now comes the catch and it's purely an issue with design. Placing the boxes on the legs (where the coat normally moves around anyway) causes them to shift and warp. I know that has entirely to do with how the animation for the coat model works and there's no fix for that. So I might have to go back to a different location, possibly on the back hips (though then they would clip chairs whenever she sits) or maybe a larger single version on the back (which potentially has the same issue. I can't use the sides of course as they would clip any single-handed weapon (and I noticed the default hand position is VERY close to the hips).

 

But the point is that you showed me exactly what I needed to do. I can't believe that I actually skipped the very beginning of the whole damn guide. Yes, I'm an idiot. And thank you all the way to the moon for actually taking the time to tell me what I did.

 

I also took your advice and saved at every single step of the process so I can easily go back and adjust as needed.

 

Thank you another million times.

 

If you're by chance interested in seeing the final result (and you happily can take half credit for any meshes I make from now on), I'm keeping a running development blog at mlp-novelidea.deviantart.com.

 

:D

 

That reminds me, I'm placing you in the credits for this. ^^

[nivea]

Yeah that is the problem with some places you want to put items, I suggest you skip the legs, crotch and shoulders until you better understand rigging those tend to be my problem points. They warp the most imo.

 

Try not to use the skeleton.nif btw, it will cause issues where body parts (arms, hands, neck) will not line up correctly. Instead import the skeleton from the vanilla female body (since your using female) or if that gives you issues the body you are making the item for. Never use the skeleton.nif for making armors unless you have a real reason to do so and know how to fix the problems it makes.

 

 

Most people do not notice clipping issues with sitting down, but most people will notice clipping with hands and weapons. So I would say back hips or even alittle higher on the waistline.

 

I am glad we have figured out, if you have more issues feel free to let me know. I may not have time to make stuff for others but I am always around to try and point people in the right direction at the very least. :smile:

Edited March 30, 2015 by nivea