Blender Export Problem Fixed: Invisible Arms in First Person

[SickleYield]

AcidRain and I found this while working on the Fantasy Figures clothing and armor project. As far as I know it's for Blender, but it could conceivably apply to Max users. This fixes the problem that when you export a cuirass or shirt, the arms are invisible in first person mode ONLY. If the whole thing is invisible all the time, you have a skeleton problem and didn't read my tutorial's troubleshooting section.

 

But if you DO have invisible arms just in first person:

 

Prevention

 

If you import a mesh that has separate arms and upperbody and merge them, you may or may not have the problem. If you had different materials on them before joining in Blender, they will export as separate even if merged, and you will have no problem. In fact, this is a good technique for seamlessly editing various parts of a mesh at the same time, as long as you remember to keep the materials different.

 

HOWEVER: If the arms and body have the SAME material setting before you join them, they will stay permanently joined. You will then see invisible arms in first person in playtest.

 

FIX

 

If you've already done all the work on a mesh, it's too late not to make the error, and you don't want to start from scratch, do this.

 

1. Open the defective mesh in Blender. Go to edit mode.

 

2. Select the vertices that you want to be part of the arms. Delete them.

 

3. Save as a new filename, e.g. "MyCuirassArms."

 

4. Now AFTER you saved, press undo. Invert the selection so that the body is now selected, not the arms. You might have to adjust selection so there's no gap between arms and body.

 

5. Delete the body section.

 

6. Save as a third filename, e.g. "MyCuirassBody."

 

Now you'll have to export the body and arms separately and rejoin them in NifSkope, but this is easier than redoing your whole project.

 

Maybe no one else had this problem, but you never know.

 

SickleYield out. I need a nap... :closedeyes:

[SickleYield]

Sorry to double post, but I found a better method for splitting parts of a mesh into sections in Blender:

 

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Multiple_Materials

 

Basically you can assign different materials to any set of vertices and then they'll export as different parts.