Adding Assets to Fo4 using Fo4 Geck

[Deleted24263589User]

I am hesitant to post this because I feel that this is the wrong section and i wish to not get banned

 

Long story short I need someone to help me get a custom model/textures into Fallout 4 or to even link me somewhere that can help me. I have searched far and wide from Youtube, Bethesda Forums, G.E.C.K wiki, Reddit and here and cannot find anything. If i missed it maybe someone can link me? I searched for keywords such as "adding asset into Fallout 4", "add custom model into fallout 4", "adding custom asset to [insert a bethesda game]".

 

Now I am willing to compensate whomever can help and I will let you know how far I got. I am trying to put a pancake that gives you health into fallout.

 

• I have created the model in Maya, converted it to .nif
• I have created the textures and maps in photoshop and converted them into .dds
• i have placed them into my Fo4 data in their respected files
• I have opened the .nif in nifskope but cannot get the textures to load, nor be read
• I have found in the GECK where to right click > new to create the new item, where to add the effects etc., however whenever I try and load my .nif a big red exclamation mark appears
• I have done retextures in the past for Fallout but that really isn't a mod, but I know how the file structure works

 

 

I feel like this is the same as adding an armor set to the game or anything else, but even when it comes down to it, i still do not know how to do that or what to correctly search on google to find it. I thought: "It's only a pancake". If anyone can be of assistance please let me know. Also please feel free to PM me.

 

Also let me know if I put this post in the right place. If this is in the wrong place, before the mod deletes it please tell me where to ask my question.

 

Thank you

 

-Fael

 

 

[TrickyVein]

If NifSkope isn't reading your textures then you haven't configured filepaths correctly in NifSkope's settings to look in Fallout 4's data folder. Regardless, how the model renders in NifSkope shouldn't matter as long as it works in the game.

 

If you have done that, then the textures are actually messed up. Are you using intel's .dds plugin for photoshop or Texconv?

 

Compare your .nif to a vanilla .nif which functions the same way. Are the BSX flags the same? BSShaderLightingPropety's set the same way. Etc.

[Deleted24263589User]

If NifSkope isn't reading your textures then you haven't configured filepaths correctly in NifSkope's settings to look in Fallout 4's data folder. Regardless, how the model renders in NifSkope shouldn't matter as long as it works in the game.

 

If you have done that, then the textures are actually messed up. Are you using intel's .dds plugin for photoshop or Texconv?

 

Compare your .nif to a vanilla .nif which functions the same way. Are the BSX flags the same? BSShaderLightingPropety's set the same way. Etc.

 

So going into photoshop the one that is default installed is the one I have been using:

NVIDIA Texture Tools for Adobe Photoshop Located at instructables

Adobe Photoshop Version: 2015.0.0 20150529.r.88 Creative Cloud

 

For the Nifskope I have been using the cram box as my "vanilla tester". I should be doing this right but I have been using Bethesda Archive Extractor to extract the cram.nif into my data folder of Fo4, then doing the same for the textures.

D:/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Fallout 4/Data/meshes/SetDressing/FoodAndFoodWare/Cram.nif

D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Fallout4\Data\Textures\setdressing\FoodAndFoodWare

Loading the above extracted file in Nifskope I have the issue:

""failed to load file header (version 14020007, 20.2.0.7)""

"failed to load nif from 'D:/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Fallout 4/Data/meshes/SetDressing/FoodAndFoodWare/Cram.nif'"

The model does not load, so I must be doing that wrong because when I tried to load my pancake from:

D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Fallout 4\Data\meshes\SetDressing\FoodAndFoodWare\pancake.nif

It appeared.

 

I have also gone into render > settings > Rendering and added the folder above to the respective areas. Even then just to see errors in the future I right clicked on my pancake > texture > edit uv and

"Could not load texture data for UV editor."

Which i assume is still with the issue above; however its what a "how to said"

 

Just incase I am using Nifskope 1.1.3 revision 36ebfdd

thank you this is very appreciated

Edited May 8, 2016 by Guest

[TrickyVein]

You have to use NifSkope v. 2.0 to view Fallout 4 .nifs.

 

Here's a link to where it's being updated.

[Deleted24263589User]

You have to use NifSkope v. 2.0 to view Fallout 4 .nifs.

 

Here's a link to where it's being updated.

 

Alright, I got that up and going and the cram is beautifully textured. i will look at it tomorrow and compare and contrast differences.

As the notes said unfortunately import is turned off and when I try and load my pancake.nif i get this error:

Block 3: 896 invalid indices in NiTriShapeData.Triangles

Block 9: 4846 invalid indices in NiTriShapeData.Triangles

I will reply in a post tomorrow to compare and contrast with what you said earlier, But i will have to use the other nifskope.

When it comes to the .dds plugin which would you recommend: ntel's .dds plugin for photoshop or Texconv.

I will redo the entire pancake, textures all and get back

thank you so much again

 

[Deleted24263589User]

You have to use NifSkope v. 2.0 to view Fallout 4 .nifs.

 

Here's a link to where it's being updated.

Alright update time:

 

I managed to get my pancake into Fallout 4, placing it in a location and walking up to it in game, there it was untextured and floating. So i can get a non collisional, non textured, non touchable, etc... object into the game.

So I opened up my vanilla cram and my pancake which I re-exported to the .nif that Nifskope 2.0 can read (just like the vanilla cram) so i have them side by side; It was structured as so

0 NiNode

1 BSXFlags

2 bhkNPCollisionObject

3 bhkPhysicsSystem

0 NiNode

4 BSTriShape

5 BSLightingShaderProperty

6 BSShaderTextureSet

I would like to state that the textures for the cram are loaded and it looks great. And i can even go to my pancake and point the textures to the cram to have a cram pancake, but that is not what I want. So I looked at my pancake and it was missing some of the files that the cram had. So i went to the cram and right clicked > block > copy branch and then right click > block > paste branch on the BSXFlags and the BhkNPCCollisionObject branches and pasted them on my pancake. In the end this is what the structure looked like:

0 NiNode

1 BSXFlags

2 BSTriShape

3 BSLightingShaderProperty

 

4 BSShaderTextureSet

5 BSTriShape

6 BSLightingShaderProperty

7 BSShaderTextureSet

8 BSTriShape

9 BSLightingShaderProperty

10 BSShaderTextureSet

11 bhkPhysicsSystem

11 bhkNPCollisionObject

3 BSLightingShaderProperty

4 BSShaderTextureSet

0 NiNode

I have tried re numbering and stuff, however the textures still hate me, as well as gravity it seems. Below is a link attaching to dropbox which has the data files and structure I am using if you wanted to play with it.

 

Dropbox Link

 

Thank you again.

[TrickyVein]

The .nif that's inside of the link doesn't match what you seem to have written, but there are a couple of things to say here:

 

bhkNPCollisionObject should link to bhkPhysicsSystem in Data and should link back to the node which references it, the "collisionobject in the Target field. So in the block details of a NiNode or BSTriShape you should link to the "CollisionObject in the Collision Object field, then in the block details for the "CollisionObject, link to the Node in the Target field.

[Deleted24263589User]

Should eash Tri Shape reference a different bhkNPCollisionObject or can they all reference the same

 

Alright here is what I did:

- Each Trishape references a different bhkNPCollisionObject in their Collision Object Field.

- Each bhkNPCollisionObject individually points back at their respected TriShape in the Target field.

- Each bhkNPCollisionObject simultaneously point at the only bhkPhysicsSystem in their Data field.

I gave each different Trishape a separate bhkNPCollisionObject so that they can be re targeted back.

(i think I am starting to get a hang of it. Thank you again.)

 

If this is done correctly what would be the next step?

Edited May 8, 2016 by Guest

[TrickyVein]

Well I'm pretty sure having multiple collision objects all link to the same physics system would make the game crash or not work as intended. I've never seen an example from the game where this is done.

 

BSShaderLightingProperties all have to be unique as well even if the same material reference is used for each of them.

 

There's no reason to duplicate the collision data for each BSTriShape in the .nif if you only want to make use of the one bhkphysics system. Just one node has to link to it, which is usually the root node.

[Deleted24263589User]

Well I'm pretty sure having multiple collision objects all link to the same physics system would make the game crash or not work as intended. I've never seen an example from the game where this is done.

 

BSShaderLightingProperties all have to be unique as well even if the same material reference is used for each of them.

 

There's no reason to duplicate the collision data for each BSTriShape in the .nif if you only want to make use of the one bhkphysics system. Just one node has to link to it, which is usually the root node.

 

Alright this time I cleaned it up that way, each shader is unique and the one collision object targets the primary node data pointing to the physics and referenced there.

 

I tried putting my pancake.dds onto the vanilla cram box and it didnt work; however the cram texture can appear on my pancake. So the issue here are my textures somehow; even though i followed the tutorial on intel's site as well as other sites. I am using the Intel's .dds plugin for photoshop. The way I save them is:

File > Save As > Intel DDS

with the settings pictured below. I feel as if i can get those to work then everything might fall in place.