[Skyrim] Body Mesh and Implementing It In-Game (help please!)

[wonderasunder]

#1 I'm very noob at modding or modelling, so please be kind to me about "dude, you should know that this and this is what you should do to—" etc. :D

 

 

Hello! I hope someone can help me, preferably those with experience at editing bodies or making body replacers.

 

 

The project is to derive a male body from a female body replacer. Why? Because I like its general shape.

Understandably I have to modify the chest and crotch area, and doing so is more complicated than I anticipated.

 

The steps I took are as follows:

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

1. Prepared femalebody_0.nif for Blender 2.49b, and imported the .nif into Blender.

2. Selected the skeleton, pressed M, moved the skeleton to another layer, hiding it from view. Only the body mesh is visible now. Saved the .blend file, then moved to Blender 2.62.

3. Appended the skeleton and the body mesh into Blender 2.62 (the 2.49b .blend file opened like a directory in the append window of 2.62). Had to move the skeleton again to another layer to hide it from view. Saved another .blend file (this time created in 2.62). Exported the body mesh into an .obj format.

4. Spent time being nervous about Zbrush, taking a week to get used to its simplest tools.

5. Learned how to import the .obj file into Zbrush. Made multiple mistakes in shaping the chest. After multiple tries I finally got it to the shape shown in the attached file. Exported into another .obj file.

 

 

 

The issue is getting it implemented in-game.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

1. Appended skeleton from the 2.62 .blend file then imported the newly-shaped .obj file into Blender 2.62. Selected the skeleton, pressed M and moved the skeleton to another layer, hiding it from view.

2. Appended the old body mesh temporarily to copy its Bone Weights and Weight Paints.

3. Did not modify the Weight Paints because I do not know what qualifies as "good weight painting"...

4. Deleted the old body mesh, leaving the newly-shaped body mesh as the only object visible.

5. Did not do anything UV-maps related?? Saved the 2.62 .blend file.

6. Opened Blender 2.49b, appended the skeleton and the body mesh from the latest 2.62 .blend file. Selected the skeleton, pressed M and moved the skeleton to another layer, hiding it from view.

7. Selected the body mesh. In the buttons panel, after going to the editing portion (F9), I deleted all the "materials" then clicked 'New' to add a new material. I also clicked 'Set Smooth'.

8. In the buttons panel Shading > Material, I looked for the 'Texture' panel and clicked the little up/down arrow button to choose a 'texture' to assign to the material. In the reddit instruction I'm basing most of my actions on, it said "It doesn't matter what you assign, but you have to assign something." But clicking the up/down arrows and it did nothing, so I just clicked 'New' in the 'Texture' panel and left it at that.

9. Next, I switched to the MapInput panel in the same buttons area and clicked the UV button. I also made sure that the body mesh's parent is the skeleton from before.

10. I moved to I switched to the layer the skeleton is in and put it back in the same layer as the body mesh. Then I selected the body mesh, SHIFT+RMB'd the skeleton, and hit CTRL+P. Chose parent Armature and 'Do not create groups'. Deselected everything, then selected the skeleton, pressed M, moved the skeleton again to another layer, hiding it from view.

11. The body mesh is the only visible object now. I saved a new .blend file, then went to File > Export > NetImmerse/Gamebryo .nif. I looked for the 'Fallout3' button to load the default fallout3 settings. Clicked it, and once fallout3 settings are loaded, I looked for the 'Stripify Geometries' button and turned it off.

12. Hit OK to export the mesh. Prepared the .nif file for loading in skyrim, meaning updating some information (like User Version and User Version 2 values, changing BP_TORSO value to SBP_32_BODY value), deleting branches in NiTriShape that is not NiTriShapeData or BSDismemberSkinInstance, selecting HasNormals > No, and copying the BSLightingShaderProperty from the unaltered femalebody_nif.

 

 

13. Saved the .nif file and tested it in-game. (I'm loading the new femalebody_0.nif in the context of a custom race, so it only applies to one character.)

 

After making my player character strip off their apparel and quiver, I entered the console and inputted "showracemenu." It takes a while to load the custom race with the new femalebody_0.nif to load and when it does, the body turns into a wtf-is-this-even. It doesn't look like a body at all. It's somewhat like this:

 

http://36.media.tumblr.com/7a29468654e65d673bc6d9816ad79e2c/tumblr_mgm3t8eWy81rtaoeio1_500.jpg

 

That is not my screencap, but you get the idea. Mine's got stuff sticking out pointily on the left and looks less 3D and a bit like sheets, though that's probably the textures that I use (Fair Skin Complexion) and that I don't use any ENBs. The legs are flat like that too, in my game.

 

As you can see, it's quite the dilemma. The body mesh isn't like that in Blender or Nifskope at all. It looked fine.

 

So if someone can direct me on how to implement my new body mesh in-game, that would be great. Advice from people who had modified bodies before are preferable, heck even advice from armour makers out there ought to be useful.

 

I don't know how to implement my new body mesh in-game. Please help.

 

Cheers,

wonderasunder

[DixiePig]

Hi.
The weird deformations in-game look to me like the result of problems with your vertex weights.

 

I can't see any glaring problems with your methodology, but there is an awful lot to remember. If you're hitting a wall with this, there's a different, easier way using Outfit Studio, a utility that comes with Bodyslide.

 

If you have a mesh that looks good in blender 2.7x, export it as an .obj. Load up outfit studio by first loading bodyslide, there should be a button somewhere for Outfit Studio.

 

If you click "file>load reference" you can load up the the default CBBE body which you'll use to copy the bone weights from.

Next, click "file>load outfit" and browse to select your .obj file. That should bring iin your mesh; check to see if it has the correct scale and orientation.

 

Next, to get the bone weights, right click on your mesh's entry in the top right window and select the option "copy bone weights". This will transfer the weights from the reference body to yours.

Next click "file>export>nif" and you should get a working, weighted .nif out of it.

 

You'll need to mess around with the .nif file to do things like create the correct material settings and texture paths.

 

I hope this is helpful, If you need answers in more detail then please ask.