HELP - Custom creature using custom skeleton

[McPaddington]

Hi there.

 

For a few days I have been working on my own custom creature, and I have come quite far, but have hit a massive roadblock.

 

The problem is that my creature simply will not move (Bip01 and Bip01 NonAccum translations/rotations do not work), and animations will not play on him. This is something to do with the skeleton or mesh, or somehow rigging/weighting data being lost when I import into Nifskope... I have absolutely no idea what the problem is and I have no way of being able to tell.

 

To begin with, here is my skeleton:

http://dumpt.com/img/files/p31r76aszrkgypj8nwd9.jpg

Next up, here is my mesh:

http://dumpt.com/img/files/f2cwjfrw7og1ew3f549l.jpg

Now, I have been using a reference mesh when editing mine is Nifskope...

http://dumpt.com/img/files/ugcqrypduxeqeqrl8vks.jpg

...and as you can see, all the bone NiNodes (47-75) are all disconnected from each other, connected only to the root. This is also the same for every official mesh I've looked at in Nifskope.

So, I tried replicating this with the bones in my mesh by right clicking my skeleton inside the mesh .nif file and selecting Block > Flatten Branch. I also deleted the Bip01 and Bip01 NonAccum bones from my mesh file, as they are not present in the reference mesh .nif I am looking at.

However, this did not work also, and my creature still does not have any root translation / rotation working, and my animations still will not work on him.

If anyone has had this problem before, and has any suggestions on what I can do, please help me out here, because this problem has had me stuck for days.

Thanks for any help.

NOTE: I made my mesh and skeleton in Blender, and exported them with Nifscripts.

Edited April 7, 2015 by McPaddington

[McPaddington]

UPDATE: I have worked out that animations play just fine on the skeleton, but for some reason the mesh still isn't moving. It is as if the mesh's weighting data has been lost or is not working.

[McPaddington]

UPDATE 2: I now have animations working on both the skeleton and the mesh, but for some reason the mesh is always stretched ridiculously. Tweaking with it doesn't help - It's always either too small to see, or so big that it fills up the whole sky.

 

I have verified that the scales on all the objects have been reset, so I have no idea what's causing this.

[mindboggles]

It's very difficult to see much from the pictures, I'd really need to see the nifs in detail. But for exporting the rigged mesh Nifscripts need to cull any extra bones that aren't rigged and flatten the hierarchy on export, I don't try flattening in Nifskope. It's proper for all the bones that are left to appear disconnected, the game should already have that info with the exported skeleton because the two work in conjunction.

 

You need to make sure when your exporting your rigged mesh that you don't collapse your skin and dismemberment modifiers, if you don't see a dismemberment skin instance within your NiTriShape block you need to keep playing in Blender with your modifier stack (if Blender has one?) and your export settings until you do.

 

When your exporting your skeleton make sure you don't flatten the hierarchy and don't remove unconnected bones.

 

When I'm testing my animations I only ever test on the skeleton in Nifskope and leave it to the GECK to see what the skinned mesh is doing.

 

You might need to head into your .kf files into the NiTransformInterpolator and it's data and just check that scale data hasn't been set there.

 

Hope some of that helps.

[McPaddington]

It's very difficult to see much from the pictures, I'd really need to see the nifs in detail. But for exporting the rigged mesh Nifscripts need to cull any extra bones that aren't rigged and flatten the hierarchy on export, I don't try flattening in Nifskope. It's proper for all the bones that are left to appear disconnected, the game should already have that info with the exported skeleton because the two work in conjunction.

 

You need to make sure when your exporting your rigged mesh that you don't collapse your skin and dismemberment modifiers, if you don't see a dismemberment skin instance within your NiTriShape block you need to keep playing in Blender with your modifier stack (if Blender has one?) and your export settings until you do.

 

When your exporting your skeleton make sure you don't flatten the hierarchy and don't remove unconnected bones.

 

When I'm testing my animations I only ever test on the skeleton in Nifskope and leave it to the GECK to see what the skinned mesh is doing.

 

You might need to head into your .kf files into the NiTransformInterpolator and it's data and just check that scale data hasn't been set there.

 

Hope some of that helps.

 

 

Ok, I made sure that for my mesh, the bone hierarchy is flattened and non - skinned bones are removed. Also, I ensured that for the skeleton file, the hierarchy remains intact.

 

I tried it again in the GECK but the mesh is still being stretched into the sky.

 

I have uploaded my Mesh and Skeleton files in a .zip below:

[mindboggles]

I've had a look at both your nifs and for the most of it they appear okay. There are a few things that need fixing, in your skeleton mesh the scene root node [0] is an NiNode which needs to be set to BSFadeNode. In the rigged mesh the BSShaderPPLightingProperty needs to have the Shader Flags with SF_Skinned set (that should make a difference), and just something I don't use the NiStencilProperty or the NiSpecularProperty.

[McPaddington]

I've had a look at both your nifs and for the most of it they appear okay. There are a few things that need fixing, in your skeleton mesh the scene root node [0] is an NiNode which needs to be set to BSFadeNode. In the rigged mesh the BSShaderPPLightingProperty needs to have the Shader Flags with SF_Skinned set (that should make a difference), and just something I don't use the NiStencilProperty or the NiSpecularProperty.

 

I changed the NiNode in the Skeleton to a BSFadeNode, and changed the shader - related properties you mentioned in the mesh file, and now my mesh works properly in game without messing up!

 

However, root translation and rotation is still not working for some reason...

 

Thanks for your help so far though! :)

[mindboggles]

Good you've got that bit sorted, I might have to have a look at a couple of your .kf files to see what's causing those issues.

[MarchUntoTorment]

Holy s#*!, is that TARS?

[McPaddington]

Holy s***, is that TARS?

 

Yep ;)