Mod Creation - Desperate for help.

[Durkfer]

Well, I've had this idea for my own custom mod for a while now and a week ago i decided yeah, im going to try to do this..

My mod: I am making a mod that adds a completely custom 3D mesh made with Maya 2016. The mesh is an armor piece that consists of a small metal chest brace, two straps hanging down the front of the torso slightly seperated, and 2 holsters on each side..

The point of my armor is to add holsters which will work in co-herence to the visible weapons mod. Instead of floating guns, wearing my armor will insert the guns into holsters instead. (will be adding custom gun placement aswell so they are in the holster and i know how to do that part already)

 

 

SSOOOOO getting on with it.. I've done the 3D model in Maya,I have 3 OBJ files making the armor. (one for the holsters, one is for the metal chest guard, and the last is the straps hanging from the chest which the holsters are stuck to. i've exported them to mudbox and created a normal map, and an Ambient Occlusion map for each. I've also added paint layers so the items are totally completed (in my mind) in mudbox.

BUT when i export said completed items with maps to maya, the painting completely disapears and my item turns white.. (because of the ambient occlusion im assuming)

SO How does one take a completed OBJ or FBX (the normal and ambient occlusion maps in 16bit .tif format.)

and get the paint to show when importing back into mudbox?

 

 

EDIT: Also, once i have the painted item and what not in Maya, im pretty sure i have correct tutorials saved to have said item (or in my case the 3 different OBJ items) to the body and finish importing them into a NIF from Nifskope.. Do i need a BGSM file? or can leave that part blank (NAME) and link the maps seperatly? (Normal, Ambient Occlusion, and finally texture. - Am I missing a map or two is that why its white?

 

 

 

PLEASE help me

Edited March 18, 2016 by Durkfer

[crimsonmatrix]

Okay, I'm going to preface this by saying my experience is focused around Blender and a few other 3D aps. This may not be applicable to your situation, as I've not used Maya or Mudbox. However, it may be of some use.

 

First off, to the best of my knowledge, I've never be able to export shaders from one 3D platform to another, and certainly not with a .OBJ file. Each render engine is its own beast. The only way to get around this is by baking out diffuse, spec, ao, normal, etc maps and then using these maps to control the shaders in your target application. So whenever I pull an OBJ into blender, I have to recreate the shader network I want and plug in the maps I've baked out from other software.

 

Furthermore, for Fallout 4, you will need a .BGSM file for your object. The .BGSM is responcible for telling Fallout 4 how to configure its shaders (or materials) for the object you're adding. In that file there are references for the maps you've baked out. There's an editor floating around the Nexus that should allow you to modify an existing .BGSM to get your maps hooked up.

 

So to sum up, you need to take your maps and hook them up to Maya's shaders/materials system to get them to show up there, and then do the same thing in a .BGSM file to have them show up in NifSkope and the game.

 

But again, I've not worked with Maya, so this is just my general 3D knowledge talking here. If anyone with more specific information wants to hop in and correct me, please be my guest.