Adding a melee Weapon

[TheSaintJamez]

Ok so i made a weapon for melee and i have it in Nifskope. Do i Animate it here? If so how? Also how do i texture it? It wont let me. there are no texture slots. Edited February 15, 2011 by TheSaintJamez

[Moraelin]

As someone who practically specialized in melee weapons, maybe I can help.

 

For textures, hmm, that sounds weird. You should have a BSShaderPPLightingProperty record in your NiTriStrips. That's where you set the textures. The easiest way to get one is to basically start with an existing weapon, import or copy-and-paste your own mesh from the other .nif, copy the NiTriStripsData block from your mesh, and paste over the weapon's NiTriStripsData block. That will replace only the mesh, but leave the rest of the structure as it was, so you know you have all records you need. Now delete the branch you imported, so all that remains is the old weapon with the new mesh.

 

For animations, the easiest way -- and certainly the one I use -- is to not bother with animating it. Just use the game animations. Which is to say, if your weapon is, say, a one handed sword, just make the item of type one-handed melee, and it will automatically be swung like all other swords and knives.

 

Melee weapons are easy too, in that they're static objects. Just make sure the centre of the coordinate system is where the centre of the fist holding the weapon is, and it will be held right.

 

So now pretty much you just need to get it in the game.

 

So you open the GECK, load the FalloutNV.esm, look for the melee weapons. Pick one that is sorta similar to yours (e.g., a chinese sword if you make a sword, a pool cue if you make a two-hander), edit it, change the form ID, save, say "yes" when it asks if you want to create a copy. Now you can edit this new record and set the values for your weapon and path to your .nif file. Don't forget to delete any overriden textures, if present, since yours will likely be pointed at in the .nif file.

 

Most weapons have a static 1stPerson record too. Here you can apply higher res textures for your weapon when seen in first person. And melee weapons are viewed very close to the weapon, so a good case can be made for using them. Alternately, you can make the ordinary textures high-res enough and not bother with extra hd textures for first person.

 

At any rate, you'll have to do the same spiel as above. Duplicate a 1stPerson record, set your nif, set or delete the texture overrides as apropriate. Set the weapon record to use this newly created 1stPerson record.

 

Now all that remains is to get it in the game. Well, easiest way is to put it in a crate and give it to some vendor to sell. So, you duplicate a crate, delete its existing contents, drag and drop your weapon record into the list of contents of the box. Open a shop map, drag and drop the crate into it. Set the shopkeeper as owner. Voila, now you can buy the weapon in game.

 

From here you can either position the crate neatly in the shop so it looks natural, or just give it a very low y coordinate so it's buried and inaccessible to the player. That also means the player will have to buy it instead of stealing it.

 

Alternately, you can drag and drop the weapon record into an existing container contents list. E.g., if you add it to the Goodsprings school safe box, the player will find your new weapon in that safe.

 

Happy modding.

Edited February 17, 2011 by Moraelin

[TheSaintJamez]

Thats a lot to take in

[AllanOcelot]

Hes made it sound over complicated. ;-)

dont worry, it really is simply to do, my tut should be up soon. Got my mic today.

[Moraelin]

It's easier than it sounds, really.