Trouble getting new armour in game.

[HSovieticus]

I made some slight modifications to the geometry of the Merc Charmer armour, as well as a complete retexture of its 2d image data. I decided to see if I could get these changes in game, so I followed Miaxs' "GECK Manual on 3DObjects." I saved the new texture as .dds and put it in the proper folder. I exported the new model as a .nif, using the recommended settings. Then I whent into nifskope and first changed the diffuse textures. It seems to work in GECK and in game, but only when the texture path is unique to my computer, beginning with C://. Otherwise the part of the body with the new texture is invisible in game. I would like to get the textures to show up with a texture path that starts with "textures\." So that is my first question: why is it like that and how do I fix it?

 

Next, I tried to get the new model in game. I launched the two copies of nifskope, I copied the NiTriStripsData block from the new model, and I pasted it over the NiTriShapeData block in the old model, then I saved, exited, and reopened so that I could delete the old NiTriShapeData block, which I did. I cannot show you the result in game because all the screenshots were pitch black, but I can tell you that it looked bad, with tons of odd shapes everywhere and the left half of the screen was obscured. It looks just fine in nifskope, but not in GECK or in game. I have attached the image from the GECK, so you can sort of see that it does not look like it should. For reference, I've included the GECK image of the .nif with only the textures replaced. So my second question is just like before: why is it like that and how do I fix it?

 

Thanks for your time.

 

 

EDIT: to update, I have tried several more thing. I have tried not deleting the old data block, and I have tried mesh -> triangulate on the original NiTriStrips to convert them to NiTriShapes before copying them over to the base mesh. No luck with either attempt.

Edited June 17, 2011 by HSovieticus

[HSovieticus]

I've uploaded some in game screenshots of how it is not supposed to look. I've also tried several more things like changing the number of the new NiTriShapeData block to match the one it replaced, as well going through the new NiTriShape and NiTriShapeData block details to see if they match the base. No luck. But I have done one thing that made a strange sort of difference: I changed a few of the options in the shader flags drop-down list like Miaxs' ashtray to MrBlockHead tutorial said to do. It looks different in GECK, so I am about to test it in game.

[HSovieticus]

As you can see in the attached image, checking those options in the shader flags drop-down list, "SF_MULTIPLE_TEXTURES" and "SF_EMPTY," actually made the new part of my model invisible, and also made some strange grey lines with a greyish sort of impression of what my model is not supposed to look like. Confusing, isn't it?

 

I'm done for the day, so if anyone has any suggestions or advice, please tell. I'll see you in the morning.

Edited June 17, 2011 by HSovieticus

[HSovieticus]

I'm back early. I gave it one more shot before going to bed. I did a fresh export from blender, this time using the armour mashups tutorial by I dont know who, and it worked just like that. Didn't need to use nifskope at all. From what I had read, I figured it would be a lot harder than that. Maybe someone needs to update the FAQs.