Mask armor problem

[Asad777]

Got some masks from the mods Ranger Armor and Hashshashin Armor by Dimitri Mazieres and there not covering the face properly, showing some holes under the chin and neck area. Been awhile since i messed with mods so i forgotten what i did wrong and how to fix it so any help would be appreciated thanks.

 

 

[DrakeTheDragon]

Masks, as there's no "mask" slot and they need to be mounted to another slot and "head" or "hair" won't do, will not conformulate to your actor's head's shape modifiers from CharGen, nor to facial animations.

Whether it's the "ring" slot or the "amulet" slot or whatever, doesn't matter, unless it's the "head" or "hair" slot it will not change shape when your head does or your mouth moves.

 

So with masks, unlike helmets or hoods, you need to take care that "one size fits all", even if this means said one size must be significantly larger than the smallest, skinniest head shape you got and look rather ugly on it, or it will be too small and cause clipping on the bigger ones. This is especially troublesome when "custom" head meshes come into play, as there's no way for you to possibly be aware of all these heads from the get go while you design your mask shape to cover as many as possible.

[ratkiller13]

Looking at the pic, I would edit the NIF file to change the Z axis to -10 or thereabouts in order to lower the mesh attachment point. Be advised you may need to increase the overall size of the mesh, and a mask that fits human or elf faces won't fit Argonians, Khajiit or Orcs.

[Guinefort1]

Looking at the pic, I would edit the NIF file to change the Z axis to -10 or thereabouts in order to lower the mesh attachment point. Be advised you may need to increase the overall size of the mesh, and a mask that fits human or elf faces won't fit Argonians, Khajiit or Orcs.

Is increasing the size of a clothing mesh in Nifskope even possible for the game? I've tried changing the size of clothing meshes in Nifskope and have never been able to get the game to recognize the size changes - the altered items just appear invisible.

 

Might want to give this thread a peak, as it may prove helpful:

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3042174-mask-armor-problem/

[DrakeTheDragon]

Did you remember to also "Apply" the changes you did via the "Edit" option?

 

In Oblivion there's actually 2 types of translational offsets in NIFs. If you look at a head's NIF for example, you'll see there's a translation on the head mesh, but it's not yet "applied".

 

This makes it so ingame the head will be at the translated position from the "scene root" or "bip01" root node of the actor according to the NIF, but the head mesh's individual vertices still have coordinates relative to the "head" node as the origin, so conformulating via head shape morphs and facial animations still works. Those are stored as relative offsets to the 0 position of the base vertex for every frame, and every base vertex in the head mesh is stored relative to the "head" node the head turns around ingame.

 

But if you move around a part of an equipment or something else worn (i.e. rigged to the actor skeleton) via "Edit" in NifSkope, you always need to also use "Apply" when you're done, so the translation and rotation you did gets applied on each individual vertex in the mesh. For control's sake the actual values inside translation or rotation actually get zero'ed again when doing so, thus when you open "Edit" again it's all back at "0", but the object itself remains in its altered location and orientation. Only then the object is really "moved" when looking at it ingame.

 

P.S.: Why's your link pointing to this same topic?

[Asad777]

well thanks for the reply's but unfortunately im not a modder and anything beyond using TES Construction Set kinda goes over my head lol , the mod these masks come from are taged to the tail slot and seem to work for others looking at pictures on the mod page posted below. I did use TES Construction Set to put them in a little loot chest for myself and maybe that's why i got the holes in the mesh.

 

 

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/8043/?tab=3&selected_game=101&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Foblivion%2Fajax%2Fmodimages%2F%3Fid%3D8043%26user%3D2%26gid%3D101&pUp=1

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/8357/?tab=3&selected_game=101&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Foblivion%2Fajax%2Fmodimages%2F%3Fid%3D8357%26user%3D2%26gid%3D101&pUp=1

[Asad777]

opps dubble posted some how lol

Edited July 15, 2015 by Asad777

[DrakeTheDragon]

It happens sometimes, especially when the site's a little slow due to heavy traffic again, a simple hickup and you're posting twice, nothing to worry about.

 

But no, putting the mask into a little loot chest for yourself is "not" why you got the holes in the mesh. The problem lies within the mask model itself. It simply isn't perfectly fitting your head mesh or shape morphs.

 

The "tail" slot is another commonly used slot for such accessory type items. I totally forgot to mention it. But I personally frown upon using it for anything but tail items, as being a beast race modder myself first and foremost I would never risk killing their precious tails by occupying their slot with an accessory item. However, the "tail" slot, again, just like the others, does also "not" allow for conformulation to head shape morphs or facial animations.

 

My guess is, given the date of the mod and the pictures in its gallery, those people were all using a very old head mesh, most likely all Vanilla even, not yet any of the fancy dancy custom head meshes which since then have been released in large numbers, and that's why their's never had any clipping visible, and you now, on the other hand, are perhaps using one of the more recent developments, like the famous Head06, one of Ren's heads, or Oblivion Character Overhaul even. With these chances are high the mask model, which has been specifically tailored to the Vanilla head mesh back then, will never align to these heads really perfectly and without clipping or the like ever.

 

But even if you're actually also only using a Vanilla head mesh, there's still the probability of you using a more extreme head shape deformation morph from in CharGen, when you created your character at the start of the game, and that's why your head shape now clips with the mask, which simply wasn't designed to fit perfectly to head shapes deformed beyond a certain threshold in multiple dimensions.

 

So if you indeed can't use Blender/3DS Max or NifSkope in order to fix this shape mismatch yourself, there's nothing "you" could do...

...well, unless you mayhaps figure out a way to use exactly the same head mesh these people were using, and without too extreme shape morph deformations made in CharGen as well. But that's about it then.

[Asad777]

Today i did finally find out why that mesh problem happened i was using HGEC body when i created the char and even tho i turned it off the damage was already done.

 

I did make a new game to double check, what you said about extreme head shape deformation morph is spot on. I still had a minor clipping between the mask and the hood ( Nords have such big heads :p ) but the neck was fixed and sense it's all a small issue i can live with it, rather then spending rare free time to learn how to use blender and nifskope for just this single issue. maybe one day i learn it i do have some great ideas ( don't we all :p ).

 

Thanks all again specially DrakeTheDragon.

[Guinefort1]

P.S.: Why's your link pointing to this same topic?

Because I'm a goof. Oops. :sweat:

 

I was trying to link to this one, since I thought it might become topical:

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2913024-playing-with-position-in-nifscope/