Attempting simple texture replace. Looks great in Nifskope, no change in game. Help?

[Schmobius]

I am attempting to do a simple texture replacement for my own use and to figure out some very basic mod creation/editing, though if someone wants me to release it, and I can get permission from the mod authors I am taking resources from for this, I'd be willing. For now, let's just assume this is for my own personal game and education, or to help anyone else with a similar problem.

 

I am taking the standalone Silver Shroud Scarf from Hunk92's Fully Customizable Outfits mod, and trying to use the texture from the Stripy Scarf in Eli's Mufflers. I like the shape of the Silver Shroud Scarf as it works with Maxon's battlecoat, and it's the same way I wear a scarf, as I'm too lazy to do anything else with a knot or whatever. I don't like the silver satin-y texture on it though.

 

I'm a bit of a noob, though I've played with the Geck before with Fallout New Vegas to make simple tweaks to stats and I've used the older version of Nifskope to bump up or down the size of armor pieces to stop clipping issues, so I'm not clueless, but I feel like I must be making a dumb mistake here.

 

I got FO4Edit and Nifskope 2, and I finally figured out how to make the texture edit itself. The scarf now looks exactly how I want it in Nifskope by editing the .nif file from the FCO mod and pointing to the .dds file in Elianora's mod. I did set up the resource paths by having it scan, but it looks correct.

 

Changing the .nif made no change to the Silver Shroud Scarf in FCO. This surprised me deeply. It is acting as though the .nif files in the meshes directory are only the equivalent of sourcecode, not something it actually loads into the game. I don't believe that's how it works, but that's how I'd deduce it to work based on observation if I were looking at this for the first time.

 

I decided to make my own .esp file, just to see if it's cached somewhere. (I'm grabbing at straws here, and that's probably a much better practice anyway.)

 

Everything is working fine with the .esp I created, except the texture is still the vanilla one. Stats are what I changed them to, it even creates from the Armorsmith workbench properly with the new name I gave it.

 

I watched a youtube video that Elianora did about re-texturing armor, and it confirmed I had been doing everything right in FO4Edit, although she used a more absolute path with Meshes\ at the beginning of the path, whereas I didn't, as I thought that was the assumed working directory... I made that change, but everything is still as it was in-game.

 

Again, it looks perfect in the render window in Nifskope, and I followed along on Elianora's tutorial of the same kind of change, and I still see the vanilla texture in-game, like it is utterly ignoring my .nif file, and loading another one from elsewhere.

 

What am I doing wrong?

[GrumpGamey91]

Textures are pathed from two points in the .NIF file, but also externally from the materials .BGSM file.

 

In NifSkope the two places to check paths are:

 

BSLightingShadeProperty

paths to the materials file, the materials file is an external file that points to texture files.

 

BSShaderTextureSet

directly paths to texture files

 

The biggest issue I've most often come across are the material's .BGSM files not pathing correctly to texture file located on a player's hard drive.

 

>>> Recommend you open each of the .BGSM files you reference from your .NIF file and ensure that the paths to your textures are correct.

 

You can drag and drop your .BGSM files onto the Material Editor:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3635/?

 

Check tab two, most texture paths are found there.

Edited April 10, 2016 by GrumpGamey91

[Schmobius]

Textures are pathed from two points in the .NIF file, but also externally from the materials .BGSM file.

 

In NifSkope the two places to check paths are:

 

BSLightingShadeProperty

paths to the materials file, the materials file is an external file that points to texture files.

 

BSShaderTextureSet

directly paths to texture files

 

The biggest issue I've most often come across are the material's .BGSM files not pathing correctly to texture file located on a player's hard drive.

 

>>> Recommend you open each of the .BGSM files you reference from your .NIF file and ensure that the paths to your textures are correct.

 

You can drag and drop your .BGSM files onto the Material Editor:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3635/?

 

Check tab two, most texture paths are found there.

 

 

Going to try that out. It does make a bit of sense... I also decided to copy the edited .nifs for male and female to a new directory instead of hacking up another mod's files, and now I have no mesh in the game... again, it does seem like a file not found/path issue.

 

I really hope this is it. Thank you for the input thus far!

[GrumpGamey91]

 

Textures are pathed from two points in the .NIF file, but also externally from the materials .BGSM file.

 

In NifSkope the two places to check paths are:

 

BSLightingShadeProperty

paths to the materials file, the materials file is an external file that points to texture files.

 

BSShaderTextureSet

directly paths to texture files

 

The biggest issue I've most often come across are the material's .BGSM files not pathing correctly to texture file located on a player's hard drive.

 

>>> Recommend you open each of the .BGSM files you reference from your .NIF file and ensure that the paths to your textures are correct.

 

You can drag and drop your .BGSM files onto the Material Editor:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3635/?

 

Check tab two, most texture paths are found there.

 

 

Going to try that out. It does make a bit of sense... I also decided to copy the edited .nifs for male and female to a new directory instead of hacking up another mod's files, and now I have no mesh in the game... again, it does seem like a file not found/path issue.

 

I really hope this is it. Thank you for the input thus far!

 

For your .ESP file, check the Armor Addon section and make sure the paths for Male World Model and Female World Model point to the appropriate directory you placed your mesh files.

 

As materials .BGSM files point to textures you can use a Materials Swap and not have to edit your .NIF file again, that's the good thing. This is how outfits can change colors when a player uses their in-game workbench, the mod .ESP file utilizes a materials swap which references different .dds textures.

 

I've also noticed that some .BGSM files have paths formed using backslashes \ and some using forward slashes / . I played around with both forms for a day to confirm that either a forward or backward slash will work in the .BGSM file.

 

Note:

in the same Armor Addon section - not sure about it's use but - most clothing mods include 02 in the MO2F and MO3F fields. Ya, just zero and two in those lines. If you or someone wants to clarify their purpose I'd love to know what this field represents and why 02 is used.

 

FYI

For those reading this wanting to learn more but are reluctant to dive into NifSkope but find comfort in the application Outfitter. You can change the materials and texture paths for a .NIF file within Outfitter and instantly see the results of textures on body and clothing.

 

Hope this helps

Edited April 10, 2016 by GrumpGamey91

[Schmobius]

So the .bgsm does appear to have helped here. I now have it working!

 

Just for documentation's sake for anyone searching on this thread, I'm still not sure why my mesh wasn't appearing at all for a while... I re-entered the path, though I cut & paste it in the last time too, but now it seems to be working. Maybe it was the material file? I don't know. Also, as my own mesh didn't seem to be showing, I made the .bgsm update on the FCO Silver Shroud Scarf, and that was coincident with my own .esp not only re-appearing, but now carrying the right texture. I'd like to think they are not still conjoined in a way in which that mattered, and that this was pure coincidence, but it's too early to write that off. I may investigate this later when I try to set the FCO mod back to it's own default state and see if that wrecks everything.

 

Also, since I've been referencing other mods when trying to get this working... when I copied into my .esp from the FCO mod, that MO2F field was set to 02. I noticed Eli's Mufflers had no value there, so I removed it from mine. Since I made other changes at the same time, I can't confirm that's what made it work here, but it appears not to hurt either.