Bow models from 3ds max to NifSkope to Oblivion

[okokokok]

Hi, I recently tried for the first time to make a bow mod from scratch.

 

Here is what i did.

 

1. I made the model in 3ds max

2. I UVW Mapped it and textured it.

3. I animated it using "Iron Bow" as a guide. with a morpher modifier and with all the keys in the right place.

4. i exported the whole scene containing the morph model and the model with the morpher modifier (the animated model) as a .nif

5. I then opened 2 instances of NifSkope, 1 opening the new .nif file i just made and the 2nd instance i open bow.nif from oblivion

6. I check that the bow animates in NifSkope (it does, quite nicely in fact) I also check that the bow handle is in coordinate 0,0,0 it is.

7. I then copy the NiTriStrips from the animated model and paste the branch over the equivalent NiTriStrips bow model of bow.nif ( I know its a a lot but bare with me brave reader)

8. This is where the first anomaly shows. The Bow is no longer centered in 0,0,0 (Its off 60 units on the Y axis and 6 units on the X axis (but this is probably not important at all))

 

I have reset XForm before exporting by the way.

 

9. i correct the anomaly with the transform tool in NifSkope and chcek that it still animates properly, it still does. So i save it.

10. I open construction set and create a new mod witch contain only this new bow i made. Save it and run oblivion.

11. I look at the bow in-game. It looks fine the model is properly placed in the hand of the player. So I try it out but guess what. It does not animate.

 

There is no animation on the bow what so ever, it shoots arrows like it should and it looks good but it does not animate.

 

Where have i gone wrong?

[wetblanket]

Have you seen this article by Nicoroshi?

[okokokok]

I'm using a newer version of NifSkope. Isn't there any updated guides?

[wetblanket]

There's this and this. Although for Blender, most is probably transferable.

[okokokok]

I fixed the problem.

 

For anyone else that has no idea what went wrong with their bow animation.

 

It seems its DIE HARD IMPORTANT what you name your bow morph. Also make sure the pivot is centered in origo (0,0,0), or wierd s*** WILL occur.

 

Anyway thanks too wetblanket for trying to help me but it just seems like oblivion has a very frail hard coded game engine.

[LHammonds]

There are many objects in the game that require EXACT names for the NiTriStrip or Materials for the game engine to interpret them in a certain way...such as the material needing to be called "skin" to apply the different skin tones for the different races....and "Scb:0" for a weapon's scabbard...and "upperbody" for...eh...I forgot but it's important.

 

As for the morphs, many aspects of the NIF format are still unknown since much of it was reverse engineered and hacked by trial-n-error. (NIF is a proprietary and non-disclosed / non-documented format) Importing and exporting bow morphs by the NifTools team was not actually successful until recent versions. I worked with amorilla until we got the Blender import and export working so we didn't have to do backflips with an ancient version of nifskope as documented in Wendy's bow morph and Nicoroshi's bow morph tutorials.

 

I'm not sure if there were any updates to the max import/export tool to incorporate this new info to allow working bow import/exports. But as noted above, I have several tutorials showing how to make your own bows.

 

LHammonds