TUTORIAL: How to add modified meshes using outfit studio + Blender/Max etc.

[ruddy88]

Hey guys and gals, Have seen a few people asking about this and had to give myself a crash course in it recently to try figure it out.

I did have some fundamental help from a fellow modder in the chatroom but unfortunately I havent been able to remember who it was exactly to credit. But if you see this let me know so I can credit you for getting me on the right track.

 

Anyway, This is just a quick text tutorial on how to modify vanilla meshes in whichever 3D program you want, and then use outfit studio to export it into NIF files ready to be used in game.

(This is a copy and paste from a post I made on a nexus mods FB group).

 

 

For anyone who's wanting to import modified vanilla meshes back in to fo4, here's how I went about it using blender and outfit studio.
First, open up outfit studio (OS), go to new project and in the first window, select choose from file and find the vanilla nif you want to modify, if it has multiple parts to it then just choose the main part of it in the drop down box. If you want all the parts to it then you may need to repeat the whole thing for each part as I believe when we export it will only export the part you'd selected as a reference, I'm not 100% sure on that though. In the next window select clear outfit.
You'll have the nif loaded into outfit studio now with the part you chose highlighted in green text.
Right click that text and choose to export shape to OBJ.
This seems to export a lot better than trying to export in nifskope.
Open up a new project in blender, clear everything in the screen and go to file\import\wavefront obj.
Navigate to the obj you just exported and make any modifications to it you want.
Then go to file, export, wavefront obj, and save the modified obj to somewhere (helps to have folders for each step),
Open up outfit studio again, new project.
In the first window you want to choose a reference file, this should be the same original nif you used earlier, or at least something similar (uses same body parts).
In the next window, again choose clear outfit.
When you have the outfit studio window loaded up with the vanilla nif you then want to delete any of the other shapes, leaving only the referenced shape (the one in green), do this by just right clicking and choosing delete shape, this is only for nifs with multiple parts. Now right click the green text again and choose import shape from obj.
Navigate to your modified obj file.
Keep doing this until you've added all the obj shapes you want to be in your nif.
Go to file, export, export as nif (not with reference).
You'll now have a nif with the correct tri shapes loaded in with all the right skin instance data and all nested correctly.
The last step is to check the BGSM material files are correct (or your textures won't load).
Open your nif in nifskope. You will a seperate bssubindextrishape block for each obj you imported, expand the tree to select the bslightingshaderproperty block.
In the bottom window it will have the options for that block, the second line, titled "Name:" is where you allocate a material file, it may be blank or it may already have one, if you need to change it or add one to it then right click the value and choose edit string index, enter the path to your material file, assuming the root is already at data/materials/
Eg: for combat armor you would start at "armor/combat/combatarmor_torso.bgsm"
That should be it, now you just need to place your nif into the correct folders along with any custom textures and bgsms, and it SHOULD load up fine in game with all the correct weights and animations.

Hope that helps, seems to be a lot of people confused with how to get it to work and so far most people have only had luck with using 3ds max (which has the option to export as nif).
Not sure if there's any downsides to doing this way, and there's probably some redundant steps in there, but this has worked for me.
I am still trying to work out how to add custom meshes using blender and outfit studio and will be experimenting tonight to try get it to work.
Once I've refined this whole process in also thinking of doing up a PDF tutorial on nexus if you guys think it'll be wanted.

[jeffglobal]

This should work with an alien obj as well, meaning, a vanilla shirt as a reference for the alien piece never before in Skyrim or Fallout...no? Is there something about the vanilla assets themselves that make OS work?

 

Gonna retry a helmet (failed magnificently today using Lucy Liu remade basefemalehead.nif [and the bone one, yes], I assume because of all those bones to modify facial features*) and a costume, to see if this works as intended. If so, then Eli's tutorial with them and it becomes craftable!

 

Can't I do the same thing with the CBBE body for a modified CBBE body that looks like that android in Ex Machina? I really would like to get that working...should be: Open Outfit studio, load reference, drop in obj CBBE modified body, copy weights, export nif without reference...if I understand you correctly...I've been getting NO errors with other things I've been doing in OS recently...

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* https://www.dropbox.com/s/to60aj9yb55viax/Lucy%20mesh.jpg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1xlgryxe02bx5gz/WTFface.jpg?dl=0

 

[Edit] Yup, anything can be brought in with the proper reference and maybe even without a proper reference! Woohoo.

Edited February 9, 2016 by jeffglobal

[Elianora]

And once you have your model made, here's how to add them into the game

[jeffglobal]

 

 

And once you have your model made, here's how to add them into the game

 

 

Yup, I already studied that, but I have to watch it again and spacebar as I do that for my stuff. Just learning about F2 made life way easier... You can't reverse engineer and learn about F2, imo.