Blender to NifSkope: Is There an Idiot's Guide?

[Danneyo]

Hey! So, i've been working on my first mesh in Blender, and it's almost done, (Still looks pretty crap, but i just want it to work first). Problem is, I have no idea how to actually get it from Blender to Nifskope with everything I need. I've made the Trigger and Hammer separate objects, as well as installing a previous blender version with the NifSkope plugin. Is there an idiots guide lying around that might help explain how to proceed? If you have any advice, it would be greatly appreciated.

[madmongo]

Since it has a trigger and a hammer I'm assuming that you are making a weapon. All you need to do is export it from Blender as a nif. Blender will only export what you have selected, so make sure you select all before you export. Then just export it as a nif. In the nif export option, click on weapon under collision options, and you'll need to make sure that Use BSFaderNode Root is checked. That should be enough to get it into a nif.

 

You don't need to actually load it into nifskope, although depending on what you named your trigger and hammer you will end up having to load it into nifskope to change the names to match what they need to be for a weapon.

 

There are plenty of weapons tutorials floating around that will give you more details.

 

The easiest thing to do when making a weapon is to start with something that's kinda similar. Modify the trigger and hammer to suit your new weapon, and create a new mesh for the stock and barrel and whatever. Doing it this way makes sure that all of the parts are in the right place and have the proper names, etc. Saves you a lot of work and fiddling.

[Danneyo]

Now i'm having an error when I try to export to a nif. :\

 

[M48A5]

You are not doing it correctly.

 

I recommend you go back to the Blender - NifTools page and read the notes. http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender

 

Make sure you have all the correct tools.

[madmongo]

It looks like you are using Blender 2.76. I don't think anyone has made the nif tools work with that version of Blender yet.

 

Somewhere on the nexus (might be in the FO3 section, I don't remember) there's a complete package with Blender 2.49 and all of the nif tools, all with versions that work properly together. That's the only version that I know actually works. I've heard of folks trying to get the nif tools to work with newer versions of Blender, but the last I heard there were still issues that hadn't been resolved yet.

[Danneyo]

Ok, I've managed to get through most problems. Now I've gotten my mesh into the game as a new weapon and it works fine. However, the textures aren't working in Nifskope, the GECK, or the Game. I've changed the texture paths to the Data folder, selected the folder in the tender settings, ext. But it always just had a grey texture. No invisibility or flickering, but the texture I added isn't showing.

[madmongo]

The textures need to be in the textures folder, not in the data folder with your mod. You can put them anywhere you want in the textures folder, but I always put them in a folder with the name of the mod just to keep things organized (in other words, [fnv base directory]\data\textures\MyModName ).

 

Let's say for example you've got textures like MyWeaponStockTex.dds and MyWeaponTriggerTex.dds, etc and they are in \data\textures\MyWeaponMod.

 

In nifskope, open up the nif for the weapon, and the stock object should have a texture path of \textures\MyWeaponStockTex.dds for the first texture, and \textures\MyWeaponStockTex_n.dds for the second texture if you made a normal map for it. If you didn't make a normal map then you can leave the second texture blank.

 

If you have everything set up rigth in Blender and you have the texture in the right place when you initially map it to your object, then Blender will add the textures correctly for you and you shouldn't have to go into nifskope to fix it. If you've screwed something up though, nifskope is the quickest and easiest way to fix it. You can also replace the texture in Blender to fix it.

 

If you are making a static or a weapon, then Blender will export the nif just fine and you don't need to do anything with nifskope. If you make clothing, Blender never seems to set the flags correctly and you have to go into nifskope to fix that. If there's a way to get Blender to set the flags correctly for clothing, I haven't found it yet.

[Danneyo]

I did all of the first part already, setting up the mesh and texture pathways within data, ext.

 

I originally added some textures in blender to test out my UV map, but I force deleted them, since the .nif plugin wouldn't work unless I deleted them.

[madmongo]

What exactly do you mean by "wouldn't work"? What error did you get?

 

You are going to need the textures and UV maps defined in Blender or the nif won't know how to map the textures onto the objects.

 

Are you using Blender 2.49 or are you still trying to make 2.76 work?

[Danneyo]

Something along the lines of "cannot include texture, either delete it or map coordinates to UV map"

 

I thought I did, but probably not.

 

2.76. And I thought I'd gotten it working since they seem to export correctly for the most part.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Danneyo