Issues with Modelling, Textures, and Insanity

[Allannaa]

I probably need professional help -- and not in a good way.

 

I've either forgotten, or never known, how to distinguish my head from a hole in the ground, but that's secondary.

 

Here's my problem.

 

While Ob has all kinds of fun things one can use in the TESCS to create mods either for personal use or to share, I'd like to make my own stuff. Because of vision problems that I won't go into, it's almost impossible for me to use programs such as GMax or 3DS, Blender, or any other wire-frame based modeller. Therefore, I use and have always used Poser. I don't want to be "talked into" trying these programs; I have them and basically can't use them.

 

I've done a lot of little mods for personal use, but never made my own models or my own textures because frankly, I didn't know it was possible until another modder told me that it was. They've always worked in the past, so, obviously, I do know how to play Ob, and use the TESCS.

 

The tools I have to mod with are as follows:

Oblivion itself, with Shivering Isles

TESCS

Poser 6.0 with plugin to export as 3DS as well as OBJ

DazStudio

GMax with plugin to import 3DS (but it won't even after I re-installed it, and re-installed the plugin) and plugin for NIF

Photoshop 6 (I have 7 but don't like it) with nVidia plugin for creating DDS and n_.DDS

NifSkope

 

Now, here's the scenario, if you will....

 

I can model in Poser and export the file as a 3DS, try to open it in Gmax to make sure it can in fact export as a NIF with proper textures and normals, and -- GMax invariably claims "Improper file format" and refuses to import;

 

I can model in Poser and export the file as OBJ, which GMax will not import

 

I can model in Poser and export the file as OBJ, import it into NifSkope, and export it as a NIF, but none of the textures or normals will load.

 

What I tried most recently is:

Model the item in Poser. Export it as an OBJ. Import the OBJ into NifSkope. Export the file as NIF. Import the NIF into GMax, and try to apply textures (and according to GMax instructions, applying the texture also fetches the n_.DDS file, provided that is properly placed in the Oblivion > Data > Textures > MyCrap folder along with the DDS itself). Re-import to NifSkope to check textures and normals...

 

And at that point, the cave collapses. NifSkope shows the textures, and I have the file path set to Oblivion > Data > Textures. It finds them just fine, but there are no n_.DDS files associated with them, even though the n_.DDS files are RIGHT THERE! which makes them appear as either flat black or "invisible" in TESCS, and presumably in Ob, though I haven't actually tested that yet.

 

As an example, I took the "UpperClassRoundRug" and opened the DDS file in Photoshop. I changed the colour of the rug from reds to blues. I saved it as BlueRug.DDS, then clicked the nVidia tools and created a Normals image, which I saved as BlueRug_n.DDS, in the same folder and so on. In the TESCS it's either flat black or hot pink, with no texture at all. This wasn't even a model I made, this was a simple texture change to something existing, and even that didn't work.

 

I tried going into NifSkope and selecting individual textures and that worked just fine, except that once again, within the TESCS, they didn't appear to have the existing n_.DDS files associated with them, so they were either flat black, or hot pink, once I got them into the TESCS.

 

So...

 

What am I doing wrong? Again, I *have* to use Poser or Daz to create the model, but that shouldn't prevent textures and normals from being applied, and I just don't understand how to go about this.

 

If there's yet another program I need to make this work, that's fine, but what?

 

From the tutorials I see on NifSkope, the imported file format should not matter, since NifSkope is quite happy to import an OBJ file and turn it into a NIF for me.

 

Am I doing something wrong in NifSkope, or leaving out a step?

 

What the heck is happening?

 

I'm perfectly willing to get some sort of texture replacer tool, if there's a download for such things. I'm perfectly willing to follow links to tutorials or other threads that deal with this issue.

 

Below is a screen capture; obviously the textures load but the normals do not. The "black" stuff in the top image is with the Brighten Lights command in TESCS turned off; the bottom image shows it with Brighten turned on, in case anyone wondered.

 

http://i1091.photobucket.com/albums/i384/AllannaaLassevanta/lightoff_on.jpg

[JDGameArt]

My guess is your saving the wrong .nif format, or not correctly pointing to the texture.

 

Are the textures you make the same file size as the original?

 

Ive had Nvidia nif tool export corrupt files, and I had to reinstall it. The new files were smaller than they should be and missing data.

 

Is the format correct?

 

It should be at minimum DXT3 ARGB or preferably DXT5 ARGB.

 

MIP MAPS should be set to generate mip maps. Only time you don't need this is for UI textures ie. icons.

 

Under image options it should be color map, or normal map tangent space, with the compression set to highest 400 RMS.

 

Are the alpha channels correct?

 

Depending on how the .nif is set up it can use the alpha channel on the texture map or not. If it is set to use it, anything you want to show should be white. If its black, or dark gray, it will be transparent or semi-transparent.

 

 

[Allannaa]

My guess is your saving the wrong .nif format, or not correctly pointing to the texture.

 

Are the textures you make the same file size as the original?

 

Ive had Nvidia nif tool export corrupt files, and I had to reinstall it. The new files were smaller than they should be and missing data.

 

Is the format correct?

 

It should be at minimum DXT3 ARGB or preferably DXT5 ARGB.

 

MIP MAPS should be set to generate mip maps. Only time you don't need this is for UI textures ie. icons.

 

Under image options it should be color map, or normal map tangent space, with the compression set to highest 400 RMS.

 

Are the alpha channels correct?

 

Depending on how the .nif is set up it can use the alpha channel on the texture map or not. If it is set to use it, anything you want to show should be white. If its black, or dark gray, it will be transparent or semi-transparent.

 

 

I did notice sometimes PS refuses the export so maybe that is part of the problem. As far as the format, where do I find that setting and I can check? On MIPs, I could swear I had it checked in, but will double check. And Alphas is a new one on me, didn't know I needed to check that.

 

I had -- briefly, before a kitten got on the keyboard -- a web page from *somewhere*, a tutorial in which the guy had screen captured the PS screen with the nVidia filters loaded -- and I can't find it now to make sure my settings are his.

 

Thanks for the quick answer, I'll await your next with great anticipation!

[JDGameArt]

In Photoshop... When you go to save.

 

File> Save As> .dds (make sure its flattened)> Then a window will pop up. This is where all the settings for the .dds file are set. It will have the Nvidia logo etc...

 

Once you have this window open set the dop drop down to DXT5. Under Image options make sure its color map or normal map: Tangent space. The compression is important and should be set to highest 400 RMS. MIP Map generation is in a seprate box and should be set to Generate MIP maps.

 

None of this matters though if the software isnt working correctly. Try and make an exact duplicate of a known working texture map. Open it, dont change a thing, save it... It should be the exact same size as it was, and of course work.

 

The alpha channel stuff I was talking about in this case was mainly for the texture map / color map. In Photoshop go to channels > and you will see RGB / red / green / blue / alpha If the .nif file isnt set to use the alpha channel for the color map it doesnt make any difference any way. If it is, then white area will be 100% solid, black area's will be 100 % transparent, gray will be semi-transparent. The normal maps ( _n.dds ) alpha channel is always used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Allannaa]

In Photoshop... When you go to save.

 

File> Save As> .dds (make sure its flattened)> Then a window will pop up. This is where all the settings for the .dds file are set. It will have the Nvidia logo etc...

 

Once you have this window open set the dop drop down to DXT5. Under Image options make sure its color map or normal map: Tangent space. The compression is important and should be set to highest 400 RMS. MIP Map generation is in a seprate box and should be set to Generate MIP maps.

 

None of this matters though if the software isnt working correctly. Try and make an exact duplicate of a known working texture map. Open it, dont change a thing, save it... It should be the exact same size as it was, and of course work.

 

The alpha channel stuff I was talking about in this case was mainly for the texture map / color map. In Photoshop go to channels > and you will see RGB / red / green / blue / alpha If the .nif file isnt set to use the alpha channel for the color map it doesnt make any difference any way. If it is, then white area will be 100% solid, black area's will be 100 % transparent, gray will be semi-transparent. The normal maps ( _n.dds ) alpha channel is always used.

 

Angilla -- I'm starting to think the trouble isn't with the texture or the _n.DDS file.

 

Everything is set as your instructions show. Opening and saving a stock Ob texture worked fine, and went into the TESCS just fine. The things I'd made still did not.

 

So I opened NifSkope and loaded the original Oblivion NIF It loaded fine, but the file path names were full path --- that is to say, textures\clutter\upperclass\UpperClassRug02.dds (and so on for the fringe and the fringe_n.dds)

 

Imported into TESCS, it also worked fine, just like it should have.

 

Now, obviously, I didn't want to change every round rug in Oblivion to look like mine, thereby crashing the game and opening Oblivion gates in the real world, so here is what I did:

 

Went into Oblivion > Data > Meshes > Clutter > UpperClass

Selected UpperClassRugCircle01.nif

Right-click copied UpperClassRugCircle01.nif

Pasted UpperClassRugCircle01.nif into "SMA" (It stands for SuperMansionAlla)

Right-click Renamed the file in the new locastion as MyRoundRug

 

Next, I went into Photoshop and opened Oblivion\Data\Textures\Clutter\UpperClass\UpperClassRug02.DDS (which was the texture that NifSkope showed associated with the original mesh)

Used Photoshop Image > Adjust > Color Balance to change the original rug from shades of red to shades of blue (this is a texturing operation I have performed literally thousands of times for texturing in Poser; I am fairly well known for object textures in that "community", since I use photos, scanned images of my own skin or cloth or other household stuff, and produce so-called photorealistic textures -- in short, I know how to make textures)

Clicked File > SaveAs > Oblivion\Data\Textures\SMA\MyRug.dds, selected the defaults just as you had instructed above

Clicked Filter > nVidia > NormalMapFilter

DE-selected Add Height, DE-selected Using multiple layers, DE-selected Swap RGB

Selected Filter Type 4 Sample, minZ0, Scale 5

Selected Animate Light under 3DViewOptions

DE-selected Average RGB in the HeightSource (AlphaChannel is greyed out there and unselectable)

Selected Max (R,G,B) in the AlternateConversions block

Selected Height in the AlphaField

... and clicked OK to save as MyRug_n.DDS to the same filepath above

 

Both the DDS and the _n.DDS appear to have saved correctly, in that, they're both in the same folder.

 

So, this experiment worked fine.

 

But, I have modelled an object, "DressingTableClutter" -- a tray holding a couple of perfume bottles and a hairbrush, but it's modelled as one item with separate textures (You can see it in the screenie above) because this way it is, in fact, ONE thing, and not 10 little things that the collision/havoc would have a blast knocking on the floor every time I walk into that particular room in the game.

 

I won't go into the headaches I endured getting this Tray.OBJ file turned into a NIF .... Suffice to say, I finally DID manage it.

 

But when I load it into NifSkope, the file paths look different.

 

For instance, the original, untouched Ob rug as well as my re-made, re-textured rug, show texture paths as c:\oblivion\data\textures\sma\myrug.dds and myrug_n.dds

 

But -- the dresser set just shows \sma\dressertray.dds

 

It's not showing the total file path as the other files do -- is THIS what's gone wrong, and if so, how on earth am I to fix it?

 

In NifSkpe under View > Render, I do have the correct folders entered; I can post a screen capture of that menu if that would help.

 

The rug works -- even when I exported it as an OBJ, and re-imported it to NifSkope to re-save from OBJ to NIF. I did nothing different from the time I created the finished dresser tray in Poser onward -- but yet all I'm getting is either hot pink, or flat black, as in the screen capture.

[DrakeTheDragon]

The texture pathes in NifSkope have to either be full path starting from your drive letter (then it's incompatible with everybody else's folder structure and can only be used by you, never shared with others) or starting with "textures" (that way everybody can use it no matter where the game's installed). Anything else the game will not be able to use, while NifSkope pretty well might be. Depending on how it's exported and from which modeling app it is very common to end up with messed up texture paths in the NIFs. Just make sure to fix them in this case before trying them out ingame.

[Allannaa]

The texture pathes in NifSkope have to either be full path starting from your drive letter (then it's incompatible with everybody else's folder structure and can only be used by you, never shared with others) or starting with "textures" (that way everybody can use it no matter where the game's installed). Anything else the game will not be able to use, while NifSkope pretty well might be. Depending on how it's exported and from which modeling app it is very common to end up with messed up texture paths in the NIFs. Just make sure to fix them in this case before trying them out ingame.

 

 

Thanks, Drake, that may indeed be the trouble (and I know you helped with another similar question I had, so double thanks).

 

Tomorrow I'll start fresh and see what happens, thanks both of you!

[Allannaa]

I think the problem is with file paths, so I took a screenie of my NifSkope window to see if this suggests anything to anyone.

 

http://i1091.photobucket.com/albums/i384/AllannaaLassevanta/NSSetting-1.jpg

 

I don't get it.... stock Ob NIFs will load with the correct file paths showing, as the little inset shows. But my NIFs don't.

 

What the heck, you know?

[DrakeTheDragon]

Like I said, don't expect the texture pathes to be correct when coming out of any modeling app or some similar software. You have to "make" them correct yourself afterwards in NifSkope.

 

The settings for the game pathes will not affect the string values of those NiSourceTexture properties. They are for making things work in NifSkope, not in the game.

 

I'm on an installation where the whole game path feature from NifSkope doesn't work at all and my meshes are still all working, because all the game cares about is the exact texture path in such a property, not if your game pathes are set up correctly in the NifSkope settings. As long as you make your texture pathes all start at "textures" both programs will be able to find them. And again, there is no automatic way to get this done for you nor is there any guarantee it will be like this after export from anywhere.

 

I've got Blender running on my Mac, while the game's installed in a Windows 7 virtual machine, different drives and all. Neither does detect game pathes work in the virtual machine nor can both pieces of software ever use the same files or folders (different virtual/physical drives). But I take care the texture pathes in the NIFs point to the right files and are written correctly, relative pathes from "textures" down to the files, and everything's working after this step.

 

There's nothing wrong with your tools. You just have to fix those pathes manually. (Of course, depending on which apps you are using one could configure these to create only correct texture pathes on export to begin with, but that's not at all required as long as you fix them yourself afterwards in NifSkope, and not all such software can be configured like that to begin with.) Simply double-click those strings and rewrite them by hand.

Edited July 31, 2011 by DrakeTheDragon

[JDGameArt]

Yep pretty much what Drake said.

 

I export .nif from 3ds Max. When they come from the modeling program it shows up in NifScope as the complete file path. If I have the complete file path, the textures show up in NifScope which I keep just for quick reference while making stuff.

 

Before releasing I'll delete the first section of the file path so it might look something like textures\myFolder\myFolder\myTexture.dds...

 

Hope that helps.

 

Edit: Heres a SS.

 

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/1566738-1312166846.jpg

 

 

Edited August 1, 2011 by Angilla