Need help with Nifskope and Armor

[Br0therh00d9]

Hi everyone, I'm not very experienced with modelling but I've recently hit a problem, The Construction Set crashes when I try to render my armour on an NPC, I've tried everything to fix it but I still don't know what the problem is, I can send you file of the armour if you want to take a look at it. Here's a pic of it: http://imgur.com/W0Ko3BB

 

Edit: That is the full set, Ive recently broken the pieces up into parts like the Cuirass, Greaves, gauntlets, ect.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Br0therh00d9

[DrakeTheDragon]

Does it also crash the game or only the CS? The CS isn't exactly what I'd call stable in many regards.

 

But if it's your NIF file's doing, the most likely culprits are invalidities or errors in the NIF tree structure, a rather common source of problems especially in regards of people "merging" several different NIFs into one, just not the right way. Most observed mistake is the erroneous mixture of multiple partial "armatures" during this process, which also happens really quickly, if one doesn't take especial care to prevent it.

 

The NIF tree structure rules are rather strict and most easy to accidentally violate. Things will look totally fine while in NifScope, but the game, or the CS, will never be able to make heads or tails of what it is presented.

 

For people to see these all-too-common, or not-so-common, issues in your NIF's tree structure though, you'll most definitely have to show them either that one in its entirety, or provide some means to have a look at the file for themselves.

[Br0therh00d9]

Exactly, I did cut and paste parts of it, you wouldn't happen to know how its supposed to be structured? If you want I can send you the files and you could help me?

Edited March 17, 2016 by Br0therh00d9

[DrakeTheDragon]

Sorry for getting back at you that late. My free time's really limited for quite a while now, and I'm only getting enough to regularly come here and answer in some topics now and then anymore.

 

I was hoping for someone else of the regulars chiming in here as well in the mean time, but it seems this wasn't the case from all I can see.

 

Well, the most crucial part of an armor NIF tree structure is for there to always only be 1 single "Scene Root" NiNode, NiNode 0 actually, and no others inside this one or anything else on the same level of it either.

0 NiNode "Scene Root"
- NiTriShape/NiTriStrips "MyCuirass"
- - NiBinaryExtraData "Tangent space ..."
- - NiTexturingProperty
- - - NiSourceTexture "textures/armor/myarmor/mycuirass.dds"
- - NiMaterialProperty "mymaterial"
- - NiTriShapeData/NiTriStripsData
- - NiSkinInstance
- - - NiSkinData
- - - NiSkinPartition
- - - 0 NiNode "Scene Root"    <--- this and always only this!
- - - NiNode "Bip01 SomeBoneImRiggedTo"    <--- identical ID as in the list below (direct reference)
- - - ... more bones ...
- ... more NiTriShapes/NiTriStrips like above ...
- NiNode "Bip01 SomeBoneOfTheArmature"
- ... more bones ...

And that's all there is inside it usually. If you see any other structures but the ones listed above, things are likely to be messed up. The "order" of blocks inside their branches doesn't really matter much (some or all armature nodes can come before some or all of the NiTriShape/NiTriStrips branches, NiBinaryExtraData, NiTexturingProperty, NiMaterialProperty, etc. can switch their places as randomly as they like), but their place of inside or outside and of what is seriously crucial, don't have any of the NiTexturingProperty, NiMaterialProperty, etc. outside of their NiTriShape/NiTriStrips block, and especially have "nothing" outside of the 0 NiNode "Scene Root" by any means what-so-ever.

 

If the structuring isn't exactly like above, things are almost guaranteed to be messed up.

Having another "Scene Root -something-something-" NiNode inside the root "Scene Root", or having the name of it messed up, will almost inevitably mean the NIF's corrupted.

Having any of your NiTriShapes/Strips "skinned" to anything else but the primary "Scene Root" armature (the reference inside its "NiSkinInstance") and its bones, is a sure-fire sign there must be a bogus armature somewhere floating around inside your tree, and these NiTriShapes/Strips are definitely not going to show up inside the game or the CS.

 

Now, there are parts of an armor which aren't exactly "rigged" to the armature, but instead "mounted" to one of the PRN mount points inside it, for example shields, weapons, quivers, maybe also amulets and/or helmets and the like, might be connected that way, but that's a rather rare find inside of an armor NIF, unless you mixed these up with the others yourself (though the modeling app should have thrown a fit about them not being rigged to anything/their vertices' bone weights being "0", and them not being able to be exported in that case).

 

I can't promise I'll get around to look into it in a timely fashion, that's why I wasn't offering that kind of help to begin with, but if you're still having that problem you're talking of with your NIF, you can upload it on some file host and PM me a link, if you want. Who knows, I might just get around to it sooner than I thought as well.

[Br0therh00d9]

Thanks for replying, as soon as I get my new PC fully operational I'll try that, and if it doesn't work, I'll pm you the link.

[Br0therh00d9]

...Anyways idk, but here's Wonderwall (Reddit Joke), and the Mod: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6Q7n0V2rV2JX0x4TXNPckI4aHM

[DrakeTheDragon]

Oh, one more little tip when we're talking about "merging" of several NIFs into 1 in a modeling app. I don't know how they're called in the other apps, but in Blender there's an import setting coming very handy in this kind of endeavor.

 

First of all always import a clean armature, that is import your main "meshes/characters/_male/skeleton.nif" file and have the option "Armature only (parent selected)" checked. This will import only the armature and its bones from the skeleton, no Havok parts or collision stuff or anything coming along with it, and give you a clean primary armature you can work with with all the bones you'll ever be going to need already present inside your Blend file.

 

Then, whenever you import another NIF for the parts you're going to merge, make sure to check another import option "Geometry only (parent to selected armature)" and prior to import have your armature selected. This will give you only the mesh parts of the NIF and already cleanly rigged and parented to your main armature, instead of what you otherwise get a completely new additional armature on its own coming with it every time.

 

It isn't exactly an easy task to get rid of all superfluous armatures once you imported them, and especially taking care the remaining armature does have all bones all armor parts require, and each single armor part mesh is properly rigged and parented to the one primary armature as well. So having a clean slate right from the start and never even risking to mess things up, by never importing another armature coming along with the NIFs to begin with, is sure going to be a life saver later on, promised.

 

When there's only 1 armature, and it's named "Scene Root" (no ".XXX" or anything else added to it automatically on import), and every single armor part mesh is properly rigged and parented to it, then chances for the final exported NIF to become corrupt are already really slim from the get go. And don't worry about superfluous or unused armature bones nothing of your meshes is rigged to. These will either vanish on export automatically (export option "flatten hierarchy" I think), or you can get rid of them later in NifSkope (Spells -> Optimize -> Remove Bogus Nodes).

 

And if you're not already doing it, you really should make it a habit to run the common NifSkope validation and clean-up spells all over every NIF you exported every time. "Spells -> Batch -> Update All Tangent Spaces", "Spells -> Optimize -> Combine Properties" and "Spells -> Sanitize -> Reorder Link Arrays, Adjust Texture Sources, Reorder Blocks, Check Links" are the tools I'm never doing without, and I always run them over every NIF file I exported the first time I open it in NifSkope, before doing anything else. Granted, most of these are told to be done automatically on "save", but I'm not relying on that, and having a clean and optimized NIF to work with before I make my post-export adjustments really does come in handy sometimes.

[razorpony]

Looked at the nifs and there are bogus nodes linked. Basically unused 'bones' that don't have a mesh assigned to them. Running spells>optimize>remove bogus nodes will clean them up but it also looks like the greaves only have a pelvis bone left after cleaning, so the legs aren't rigged properly. I'd do as Drake suggested and re-export the armor + skeleton from whatever 3d program you're using.

[Br0therh00d9]

DraketheDragon, thank you! your a legend among me and mer, greater then Tiber Septim, you just saved my HSC project! thank you for helping me fix this. Thank you, and thank you Razorpony for the extra info, may your steed be sharp kind sir and your scales shine, Drake.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Oh my, you're welcome. Just glad I was of help. :sweat: I consider what I mentioned common knowledge, actually, but as this for one is not all that common anymore nowadays, I'm passionately sharing it with everybody who asks. To me it's only natural and not a big thing at all. I think this is the common spirit around here, or at least it's the spirit I was welcomed in when I first joined, and I'm doing my best to return the favor ever since. :wink: