Basic steps to make an earring mod?

[TennesseeTuxedo]

One thing I learned from Skyrim is that for their tiny size, a pair of earrings go a long way to glam up an NPC. There aren't any jewelry mods yet for FO4 other than those modding the wedding ring.

 

I'm thinking of taking an easy route and converting a simple earring mod from FONV (with permissions of course) or maybe modifying the wedding ring into hoops. I'm a software developer but light on graphic design skills so I think working from an existing piece of art is probably the way to go for me. I have a done some minor modding, significantly extended a portable tent mod in FONV and have done things like change damage values in FO4 using FO4Edit. I've used nifscope once.

 

Last night I tried to install an FONV jewelry mod into FO4 (NMM) knowing it wouldn't work but thought I might be able to "fix up" the .esp using FO4Edit using an existing FO4 .esp as a guide and turns out that's a dumb idea as FO4Edit can't read the FONV .esp completely which I'm sure is a different format. I actually go it to load by changing the master file from the fonv esm to fo4 using notepad++ but it still had a bunch of record errors (and saw some record text in FO4edit with binary characters which probably means low level offset problems).

 

From FO4Edit, I see that Bethesda may have already put earring slots into the game.

 

Anyway, I'm a bit overwhelmed where to start on this, does anyone have the handful of basic steps one would take to convert say the FO4 wedding rings or an FONV earring mod, whichever is easiest? I know enough to research and fill in details just looking for the basic steps. Thanks for any help!

 

 

[EmissaryOfWind]

Brainpoof's tutorial for making armor mods, it's in progress still but the episodes come out frequently:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCW8BYqMR7Ei21WahZciSqRATOEfjw8H6

 

I'm guessing you can then import the earrings into Maya and replace the wedding ring with them for now, until the GECK comes out and it becomes easy to add new items.

[TennesseeTuxedo]

I was able to unpack the wedding ring using the Bethesda Archive Extractor and then open it in NifSkope. I read up that you can at least scale in Nifskope, so I might be able to change the ring into a hoop earring.

 

But it's not clear to me yet how you attach it to the ear. I can see in the FO4edit where changes can be made to change it to an earring slot but I'm not yet understanding how you tell it to hang from the ear like is there some app like Body Slide where you can move/orient it to where you want it on the ear? I know that probably sounds newbish. Does this approach sound doable or folly?

[Nixsy]

You might need to change the armor slot the item uses and attach it to the correct bones, So that it moves the same way the head does instead of how a hand would move. (If I am totally wrong I have an excuse I just left it my other umm thing)

[TennesseeTuxedo]

You might need to change the armor slot the item uses and attach it to the correct bones, So that it moves the same way the head does instead of how a hand would move. (If I am totally wrong I have an excuse I just left it my other umm thing)

Yeah I think that is what I am asking. What app is used to attach it to bones? Is that also Nikskope?

[Nixsy]

 

You might need to change the armor slot the item uses and attach it to the correct bones, So that it moves the same way the head does instead of how a hand would move. (If I am totally wrong I have an excuse I just left it my other umm thing)

Yeah I think that is what I am asking. What app is used to attach it to bones? Is that also Nikskope?

 

I think so dude, I am just learning this stuff myself, It is possible using bodyslide to export to fbx then import into maya. The tutorial EmissaryOfWind linked above covers it really well =)

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Brainpoof's tutorial for making armor mods, it's in progress still but the episodes come out frequently:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCW8BYqMR7Ei21WahZciSqRATOEfjw8H6

 

I'm guessing you can then import the earrings into Maya and replace the wedding ring with them for now, until the GECK comes out and it becomes easy to add new items.

 

Thanks for this link, this is a top notch tutorial!!! The only minor problem is the HUGE number of software packs needed. I'm convinced I can hack earrings out of the wedding rings with just NifSkope and FO4Edit. For example I see the modder who created the pony tail mod just used those two.