Hair + ears disappearing w/ custom helmet

[irmin]

I'm trying to import a helmet into Oblivion from Fallout 3.

 

I'm aware of how Oblivion removes the hair and ears when something takes up the hair slot in the CS, and that I should use something like the tail slot instead so that it doesn't do this, but when I make my helmet take up the tail slot (or almost any other slot for that matter), it just doesn't appear anymore. Why?

 

I've tried messing around with Blender, and I've tried using Nifskope and viewing similar successful examples of doing what I'm trying to do (e.g.: a bandana mod), but to no avail. My helmet either works fine in the hair slot but takes away hair and ears, or the helmet simply refuses to show if I use another slot for it.

 

I'm assuming I need to do something special in Blender (armatures, re-rigging, etc..), but I'm kind of confused and I've had no results.

 

Edit: nevermind, I figured it out through trial and error. It did have to do with Blender and it wasn't too bad. To sum it up in case anyone ever finds this, I had to import the helmet I wanted to use, then import only the skeleton of a similar helmet that actually worked (this is an option you can choose when importing a .nif). Then I gave the mesh of the helmet I wanted to use two vertex groups (head and neck) under the editing menu, then I had to add an armature to it (named Ob: Scene Root) and I also unchecked envelopes (in case that matters). Finally, I went into weight paint mode (ctrl + tab) and weighted the mesh for my helmet until the whole thing was "painted" entirely. Then I just had to do a little adjusting in Nifskope, and it was done and working using the tail as the equip location.

Edited April 4, 2011 by irmin