problem with egm file for hair mesh

[capman]

Hello

 

I'm trying to create a valid egm file for a particular hair mesh. And I need that because I want to create a hat version of the same hair mesh. The only way successfully doing that is adding hair meshes for the hat and nohat version (one nif) plus the two egm files in a bsa file. If there are no egm files then the hat mesh is ignored, and it uses the nohat mesh for hats ;)

 

However the egm file causes a distortion to the original hairmesh. And I don't understand what causes it.

 

Original

 

 

Distorted

 

 

Difficult to see I must admit ;) Basicaly the effect is a narrower and longer mesh. And the front hair is not straight any more.

 

egm files are created with conformulator, headfemale.tri and exported objects from nifskope.

The hair mesh is from lings coiffure mod, coolhair56.

 

Any obvious mistakes I've done here? Help would be much appreciated,

 

Thanks

capman

[Fumofumo]

I doubt you've done anything wrong in your process, its just that these hair meshes aren't particularly friendly since they never were intended to be used in a Fallout or Oblivion setting. Might try changing the settings of Conformulator though until you get something you like. Mainly the Quality settings and the Conform range...

[capman]

I doubt you've done anything wrong in your process, its just that these hair meshes aren't particularly friendly since they never were intended to be used in a Fallout or Oblivion setting. Might try changing the settings of Conformulator though until you get something you like. Mainly the Quality settings and the Conform range...

 

Thanks a lot for your input Fumofumo. I tried with several settings in the conformulator. Quality to nearest point (face is default) and falloff with a range. What is a sensible range here? Tried 0 to 50 and some inbetweens. Unfortunately I did not notice much if any improvement in the display of the hair mesh.

 

Is it not possible to disable morphing altogether and still have a second mesh for hats? The original hairmesh coolhair56 has no egm file. And looks still great without it. I want to adapt the original hair mesh slightly and set it as hair mesh. Is there a way to do this without egm files?

 

Thanks

capman

[Fumofumo]

The original meshes did not have an EGM mainly because they did not conform well. You should be able to copy the NiTriShapeData of whatever Hat mesh you want then paste that over the NiTriShapeData of the Hat part of the actual hair. Make sure that the NiTriShapeData has Vertex Colors checked to Yes and then update the Vertex Colors Array. You will also have to change the textures of the BSShaderPPLightingProperty to match that of whatever mesh you copied the Data from. I'm probably not being particularly clear about this.. Also, the EGM's are not necessary for the NoHat mesh to show up. It depends on how the actual hat is setup in GECK. If it set to take up the hair space then NoHat is used or if it is a helmet, etc.

[capman]

The original meshes did not have an EGM mainly because they did not conform well. You should be able to copy the NiTriShapeData of whatever Hat mesh you want then paste that over the NiTriShapeData of the Hat part of the actual hair. Make sure that the NiTriShapeData has Vertex Colors checked to Yes and then update the Vertex Colors Array. You will also have to change the textures of the BSShaderPPLightingProperty to match that of whatever mesh you copied the Data from. I'm probably not being particularly clear about this.. Also, the EGM's are not necessary for the NoHat mesh to show up. It depends on how the actual hat is setup in GECK. If it set to take up the hair space then NoHat is used or if it is a helmet, etc.

 

 

Thanks again for helping out Fumofumo ;)

 

I verified my initial assumption that a hair mesh for hats is always ignored if there are no egm files present in the bsa file.

I copied hairbun.nif and its egm files to my bsa, renamed the files, created a new hair entry in my esp and I was able to use a "working" hairbun with both a hat and nohat hair mesh in FNV. Regardless of the hat type the hair mesh for hats was always selected ;)

When wearing no hat, the hair mesh for no hats was selected. Thats how it should be.

 

Now I removed both egm files from the bsa file.

The hair mesh for no hats suddenly had a bald patch. To be expected with no morphing.

And.. when wearing a hat the hair mesh did not change. So the presence of the egm files enables the use of the hair mesh for hats... weird.

Hence my wish for an egm file which enables hat hair meshes but does no morphing.

 

I also checked out that hair biped flag for each hat entry in geck you meant. If you set it then FNV does not use any hair mesh at all when wearing hats. Its what headgearfix.esp does in the Lings Coiffure Mod.

 

Do you have any more good ideas what I could try out?

 

Thanks

capman

[Fumofumo]

Typically when I do my own hair conversions, I do not use a BSA nor egms for morphs... NoHat and Hat versions all work fine. For some reason, Lings and Mikoto's BSA's had a BSA related issue where the hair meshes would be a bit too low due to something having to do nif files not interacting with egms properly when extracted, didn't really look into it in detail because it was a non-issue for me. So, my only suggestion would be to simply not use the BSA for it. You would have to remove any Nifs similar naming scheme and folder designation as well inside those BSA's if you were to use them, etc. Try it out and if that doesn't work, I'll think of something else.

[capman]

Typically when I do my own hair conversions, I do not use a BSA nor egms for morphs... NoHat and Hat versions all work fine. For some reason, Lings and Mikoto's BSA's had a BSA related issue where the hair meshes would be a bit too low due to something having to do nif files not interacting with egms properly when extracted, didn't really look into it in detail because it was a non-issue for me. So, my only suggestion would be to simply not use the BSA for it. You would have to remove any Nifs similar naming scheme and folder designation as well inside those BSA's if you were to use them, etc. Try it out and if that doesn't work, I'll think of something else.

 

We might find a solution yet Fumofumo... ;)

 

So I did some testing without a bsa file. I think the only difference is that egm files are ignored outside of a bsa file. If you don't need egm files then no bsa storage required.

 

This is how the hat hair mesh of the original FNV hairbun "wendy the welder" looks like.

 

 

This is what happens if a new hair entry is created with the hairbun nif, renamed the nif and put it in meshes/characters/hair. Not stored in a bsa file. And I removed my bsa file to make sure there are no conflicts. I guess that is what you meant with nif naming scheme and folder designation?

 

 

The "nohat" hair mesh is used for hats. And I don't know why. I haven't changed anything in the nif file as it already contains a hat hair mesh.

 

What am I missing? Any insights?

 

Is there any chance you could send me a hair style with hat and nohat meshes which works for you? So I can compare?

 

Thanks

capman

Edited February 25, 2011 by capman

[capman]

Ok I think I found a workable solution.

 

Creating empty egm files disables morphing and enables hat hair meshes in a bsa file.

Just create an empty text file and rename it according the egm filename conventions. File size 0 Bytes.

FNV only uses hat hair meshes if the egm files exist. That is my experience.

 

I never got a hat hair mesh to work outside of a bsa file. And I'm testing without any active mods.

 

I can start to model the hat hair mesh now ;)

 

Regards

capman

[Fumofumo]

Interesting, you are right. You do need an EGM to enable the Hat portion of Hair Nifs. Don't particularly know what I was thinking but kudos to you. I guess having an empty EGM is a good work around though to get the job done. Still odd, I swear what I suggested worked before. Oh well.