GECK help - need some clarification

[chrisinnyshotgun]

Ok, in a different topic, I was asking for a list of tools I need to retexture an ingame item, so that I wouldn't have as much work to do making new toys. I was told I needed Nifskope and GIMP, along with the GECK. However, yesterday Moraelin posted the following(this is his whole post):

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You don't even need NifSkope at all, actually. You can do retextures, even as new items, purely in the GECK. Everywhere where you can set a .nif, you can also assign new textures to the mesh parts in the .nif. You have a table with the list of parts and the textures. You do have to declare the texture records in the GECK first, then you just have them in a list when editing that table.

 

The advantage is that basically you don't have to distribute the .nif too.

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Ok, I figured out by playing with the GECK that I can retexture parts of a weapon with other ingame textures(for example, taking the hammer of a 9mm pistol and changing it to the texture of a 10mm pistol). I got that part figured out. My issue lies in the last line of Moraelin's post:

 

You do have to declare the texture records in the GECK first, then you just have them in a list when editing that table.

 

Could someone please tell me, in simple, easy-for-a-GECK-newbie-to-understand english, what exactly he means and how I go about doing that? Even if it's sending me to a webpage that gives the answer, any help at all is greatly appreicated. Thank you greatly in advance.

Edited February 19, 2011 by chrisinnyshotgun

[kibblesticks]

Ok, in a different topic, I was asking for a list of tools I need to retexture an ingame item, so that I wouldn't have as much work to do making new toys. I was told I needed Nifskope and GIMP, along with the GECK. However, yesterday Moraelin posted the following(this is his whole post):

-----

You don't even need NifSkope at all, actually. You can do retextures, even as new items, purely in the GECK. Everywhere where you can set a .nif, you can also assign new textures to the mesh parts in the .nif. You have a table with the list of parts and the textures. You do have to declare the texture records in the GECK first, then you just have them in a list when editing that table.

 

The advantage is that basically you don't have to distribute the .nif too.

-----

 

Ok, I figured out by playing with the GECK that I can retexture parts of a weapon with other ingame textures(for example, taking the hammer of a 9mm pistol and changing it to the texture of a 10mm pistol). I got that part figured out. My issue lies in the last line of Moraelin's post:

 

You do have to declare the texture records in the GECK first, then you just have them in a list when editing that table.

 

Could someone please tell me, in simple, easy-for-a-GECK-newbie-to-understand english, what exactly he means and how I go about doing that? Even if it's sending me to a webpage that gives the answer, any help at all is greatly appreicated. Thank you greatly in advance.

 

Hey I think what he means is, you have to right click in the "Texture sets" list (found under the Miscallaneous drop down menu) and click "new". Then you add your custom textures in there and it creates a new texture set that you can apply to any object.

 

A word on the settings:

Diffuse: Your normal texture

Normal/Gloss: Where you add normal maps. The file names for these must end in _n. There are many useful tutorials out there on creating normal maps with gimp.

 

The rest of the settings can remain untouched until you want to start adding glow effects and stuff.

 

Hope this helps in some way =]

Edited February 19, 2011 by kibblesticks

[davidlallen]

Personally, I find it easier to use nifskope and make a copy of the nif. Using nifskope to change textures is pretty easy. But YMMV.