Nif edit - Invisible parts

[Axeface]

Hi all,

 

Im at a loose end here. I'm trying to make a little edit of some armour for my own use.

The mesh is the Dynasty armour. I'm trying to change the texture on the skin parts (Legs/chest).

 

I'm a novice when it comes to nifskope (Used to know but have forgotten), is this the right way to do it?

 

1. Load up the nif

2. Click the part in the render window

3. Expand the branch and find the 'flower' icon, click and locate my new textures.

4. Spells > Update all tangents

5. Save >

 

Done?

 

I've tried many different dds options. I've also tried adding a texture from a completely different set of armour.

 

Help much appreciated

Edited July 21, 2011 by Axeface

[Hickory]

If your skin is invisible, then you have an incompatible body for the armour you are using. The skin in most body replacers is usually footfemale.dds or footmale.dds depending on gender.

[Axeface]

Hey, thank you very much for the reply.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean, though. I'm loading in a nif from a working mod, clicking the body parts that are skin, and changing the texture.

I have no idea about nifskope :D

The part that I am changing are indeed footfemale.dds.

 

I looked at some tutorials and I think i'm doing it correctly.

So i'm guessing i'm either destroying the nif, or my dds files are not compiled correctly. Tried every nvidia export option however.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Axeface

[DrakeTheDragon]

Never touch the textures of meshes using material "skin" and having "upperbody"/"arms", "lowerbody", "hand", "foot" or "tail" in the names of their NiTriShapes/Strips.

Having this combination they're controlled by the game engine and will be using the texture of the race they're worn on, including skin tint and coloration as defined during CharGen, and the game will ignore any texture setting or material attribute changes you make in the NIF.

 

However, making them point to textures without normalmaps causes a "missing normalmap" (pitch-black or invisible) error ingame, although the texture itself will never be used.

 

Additionally, messing with the filenames away from the defaults seems to be able to cause several weird issues, like half-transparent see-through bodyparts and "missing texture" (purple) issues.

 

Have a mesh use material "skin" but no proper keyword in the name of the NiTriStrips/Shapes the game does not know which texture slot of the race to use and can cause pretty weird issues once again.

 

Change the material away from "skin" and it will be like a regular item, no control by the game engine will occur anymore. Then you have to make sure the textures assigned do exist, have normalmaps and are working and fitting properly to the mesh. It will not behave like skin in any way anymore though, so make sure that's really the intended goal.

Edited July 21, 2011 by DrakeTheDragon

[Axeface]

Thankyou! That was the problem :)

 

+ Kudos

Edited July 21, 2011 by Axeface

[parksbanyon]

Never touch the textures of meshes using material "skin" and having "upperbody"/"arms", "lowerbody", "hand", "foot" or "tail" in the names of their NiTriShapes/Strips.

Having this combination they're controlled by the game engine and will be using the texture of the race they're worn on, including skin tint and coloration as defined during CharGen, and the game will ignore any texture setting or material attribute changes you make in the NIF.

 

However, making them point to textures without normalmaps causes a "missing normalmap" (pitch-black or invisible) error ingame, although the texture itself will never be used.

 

Additionally, messing with the filenames away from the defaults seems to be able to cause several weird issues, like half-transparent see-through bodyparts and "missing texture" (purple) issues.

 

Have a mesh use material "skin" but no proper keyword in the name of the NiTriStrips/Shapes the game does not know which texture slot of the race to use and can cause pretty weird issues once again.

 

Change the material away from "skin" and it will be like a regular item, no control by the game engine will occur anymore. Then you have to make sure the textures assigned do exist, have normalmaps and are working and fitting properly to the mesh. It will not behave like skin in any way anymore though, so make sure that's really the intended goal.

Sorry to crash an Oblivion thread, but I'm trying to change the barmaid nif for Sid Meir's Pirates!, and Drake the Dragon's reply seems the most viable description of my problem. I use nifskope 1.1.3, GIMP 2.8.10, and 3DS Max 2010 32 and 64 bit for modding. The nif mod I am swapping in is the ADEC TBBP Body Version 3_0 Nude-5390-3-0. I have included a snap of the barmaid https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3742149/inviiblebarmaid.png, a snap of the files used https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3742149/dds.png, and the nif itself https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3742149/barmaid.nif. I'm suspecting the change of the dds filenames may be a problem? Also notice the brown square that DOES appear. I didn't have the eyebrow dds, and therefore did not alter any of its naming conventions I'm thinking that may be the reason for the brown square?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I really want to master (or at least be functional) modding nifs.