Meshing problem

[Abusive]

Alright so I use 3DS max 9, and it took me forever to find a working dds plugin as the one hosted on nvidia's site was taken down. Anyways the problem is I can't get these altered meshes to work in game, they look fine in 3DS Max but in nifskope the skeleton and bone nodes look strange. I need someone who can point out what I'm doing wrong, with screenshots here to follow.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

This is the import settings I use.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa167/CCCP-Felix/import.jpg

 

This is the export settings I use.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa167/CCCP-Felix/export.jpg

 

This is the original in nifskope.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa167/CCCP-Felix/original.jpg

 

And here's what mine looks like when it's in nifskope. (The ingame meshes do NOT show.)

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa167/CCCP-Felix/finished.jpg

 

 

I'm new-ish to this meshing business, so anyone who knows about this kind of thing I would gladly welcome any help. Or tutorials even, but I learn better by tinkering honestly. I've not read a single tutorial yet and I've been able to do a lot so I'm pretty proud of that fact.

[JDGameArt]

It's kinda odd that the mesh has arm and hand bones when your importing with remove unused bones checked. I'm not sure why skinning data from the hands would be on the boots.

 

One thing you can try is importing the whole skeleton so your sure not to be missing any of it.

 

Check over the mesh and make sure all the vertex has skinning data. Like if you added anything new and forgot to add weights etc.

 

Export everything, skeleton and all. I see you have With-Animation checked. If this is an armor piece meant to equip in-game export it with-out any animation.

 

Open it up in NifScope then go to Spells > Optimize > Remove Bogus Nodes. This will remove the extra skinning data.

 

Also remember to update tangent space, and Make Skin Partitions.

 

Double check through your mesh too. Make sure each mesh has NISkinInstance Data. (the skeleton)

 

Make sure you have the .nif file pointing to the correct texture location.

 

 

 

 

 

[Abusive]

I'll just describe in detail what I did so maybe it's easier to point me in the right direction.

 

 

I first imported the boots with the skeleton from _male folder, which work normally. I then imported the legs without the skeleton, the mesh I'm modeling around. I then adjusted a few parts to fit the legs, as in scaling and moving etc. Then next I deleted the legs out because they aren't in the original mesh, the legs show from the greaves in the armor set. Then I try to export it to nif, and then that's where things get weird. I try exporting with the whole skeleton and it still doesn't work. I check "remove unused bones" and then in nifskope there's no data for bone nodes or anything, just linked textures. It's something wrong with how I'm exporting, or something I missed while adjusting the armor. I don't know much about this meshing business, so what is skinning data and adding weights? I'm thinking that's the part I'm stuck on because that's foreign language to me.

 

Thanks.

[razorpony]

I've never used Max so I might not be of any help but in Blender the operation goes like this: When your boots have been edited to your liking, select the mesh then import your skeleton.nif. Blender allows you to select an option to import the skeleton only and parent to theselected mesh but I don't see that option in your screenshot. You need to parent the mesh to the skeleton so that it 'takes ownership' of the mesh so to speak. In Blender this is done by selecting the skeleton, hold shift, select the mesh, then press ctrl-p to parent the mesh to the skeleton. I'm pretty sure this is handled differently in Max though. I searched and didn't see any Max tutorials I could make heads or tails of. You could look for yourself and read up on anything involving parenting or rigging of skeletons. Good luck.

 

RP

[Abusive]

Yeah there's not much tutorials for Max it seems... which is a shame because it honestly is easier to navigate and use then blender in my opinion. I'll have to see what I can find later, as for now I am going to put this on a back burner and just enjoy some more oblivion with the screenshot story I've been making.

 

Thanks again.

[BarefootWarrior]

I am still learning 3D Max, but have worked with it, but I use Blender more often. When I edited a mesh lower body mesh (Roberts) and created a new clothing item, I used Nifscope to add the mesh to the same skeleton. That is, I had two windows open in Nifscope, one of my new mesh (and skeleton) and the original I used to make the modified mesh. I then 'copied' my new mesh and then went to the original file and deleted the mesh on that skeleton, then pasted my new mesh on it. Something happens to the skeleton when you import it into Blender and probably 3D max and the new model will not work, but I don't know why.

 

Now I am still in the learning stage of modeling and still have a lot to learn, but this did work for me...just thought I'd pass this along.

 

So, can you paste your mesh onto an existing skeleton rather then use the one that was created in 3D Max?

[Abusive]

I'm trying a branch copy from the new meshes pasted onto the old ones, and I'm going to see if this works. The import or export (either one I don't know) must mess up the skeleton because I see a skeleton as shown in the pics, but it doesn't show up ingame. Hopefully this nifskope solution works, as I want to share this mod once I'm done.

 

 

Then again in reality, I should probably learn more because this is advanced stuff converting between bodies. I figured it was a simple copy+pasta. Durrrrrrrrrrp.

 

 

EDIT: Nope still doesn't work. I get the parts of the mesh that I didn't mess with that show up now, but the pieces I replaced do not work still. This really can't be this hard if there's tons of armor made for oblivion... so I'm at a loss here.

Edited August 30, 2011 by Abusive

[Abusive]

The skeleton shows on my new meshes but it doesn't show the new pieces... Something is seriously wrong with this exporter. Anyone with information that can help gets a kudos point.

[Keirgarth]

Going all the way back to the beginning of this I see that you said you open your mesh, import the leg mesh and move your mesh to fit the size of the leg, then delete the leg. Is it possible that during this process you have accidentally deleted something important to your own mesh?

[Abusive]

No I don't think so because I used the original meshes. All the leg was imported for was to mold the straps on the legs, that's it. The original mesh does not have any legs at all, they are from the pants that come with it. Are my import and export settings right? I might just give up and switch to blender...