Rigging for Fallout NV/3

[InfiniDragon]

Hello all, this is my first post officially on the forums (I've been browsing and viewing the forum under my brother's login for a while now). I've just started getting back into modding for this game and I have a few questions in regards to rigging a character/custom armor for Fallout: New Vegas. My model is fully modeled and textured, I just need to get a skeleton on it (using the default skeleton provided in the Data folder).

 

1. When using the default skeleton from the Data folder to rig, what bones should you be including when starting to add them in the Skin modifier? As some of you may know, in addition to regular bones, the Fallout skeleton has several Morphs and cameras in addition to the bones; I just want to be sure those don't need to be included when skinning the model.

 

2. Is there any particular program, trick or method that people are using to rig their custom bodies (that isn't in Blender) other than the Skin modifier and a lot of time adjusting envelopes/vertices/blend weights? An "easy mode", as it were? Not asking to be lazy per se, rather an observation I've had. There's a lot of armor out there, and on a lot of it I notice the creators will comment that "they aren't riggers/animators". So I figured I'd make sure I'm not doing it the hard way if there's some common procedure that most people will use. I don't mind putting in the work to just rig it with Skin in 3ds Max if that's what it takes, of course.

 

3. When exporting, are there any particulars I need to set to make sure it doesn't all go haywire when turning it into the final .nif file? Just want to be sure to cover my bases.

 

Any info people who are experienced with custom bodies/armor in Fallout could provide, I'd appreciate. Thanks in advance for your time.

 

EDIT: Oh, and just to be clear, I read the pretty extensive info on putting custom armor in the sticky, just want to make sure of the specifics when dealing with a full body as the tutorial covers just one bone.

Edited September 21, 2011 by InfiniDragon

[Ghogiel]

Pretty much all the bones starting with the Bip01 prefix can be used for rigging, except bip01 itself, ForeTwistDriver which I think is probably a helper bone, I've not seen it used in rigging, and nonaccum if you imported it. forget head:anims and weapon bones.

 

Easy mode for rigging? Well it is kinda easy. after 10mins on envelopes, just play with the weight tool and refine it. There are cool tricks in the skin modifier though. which may or may not be obvious. one cool one I found recently was using mirror and the threshold to rig pauldrons or other attachments hanging off the character. just little things make it less fiddly

 

Skin utilities tool and skin wrap modifier exist if you have use for them. The have uses for copying skin weights between meshes.

Edited September 21, 2011 by Ghogiel

[InfiniDragon]

So everything in the skeleton except Bip01, Head:Anims, Weapon, and ForeTwistDriver should be included (even the Camera I'm assuming).

 

As for rigging with the envelopes, I've found on my model that I'm having to go in and weight by the vertices because the envelopes left to their own devices are screwing up my bends on joints and such. Still, good to know I'm not missing out on some other thing people are jumping on.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm gonna give rigging this thing a try now that I know what to be including (and what not to be). I'll be sure to post pictures and such as it gets done.

[InfiniDragon]

Update time!

 

I've got it in game now (thanks Ghogiel for the info on bones), and it's nearly done, I just have some questions in regards to weighting. When I animate the rig in 3ds Max everything looks golden, but when it goes into New Vegas, there are a couple of problem areas:

 

1. The neck seam. I lined it up perfectly with the head model when modeling, but in game some animations (most notably, the drawn handgun poses and aiming) cause the seam to be blatantly visible were you can see through the model at those points.

 

2. A belt around the character's waist. Most of it looks great but for some reason certain parts of it seem to be collapsing for no reason to the point where it appears black, even in an idle pose.

 

3. First person mode. I'll get these two points of the model (I believe they are part of the character's shirt collar) sticking out and viewable in first person that shouldn't be. Looks great in third person (which is how I play, but still it obviously needs correcting).

 

So basically my question now is this; is there a guide for what bones specifically control what on the F3/NV skeleton, or someone with experience who could tell me what bones the neck area should favor? I've been fiddling with the weights myself but I'm having a bit of trouble getting it just right (or close enough to just right). To help with this because words often aren't enough, I provided screenshots of the problem areas in game. Any help would be appreciated, this is the last hurdle and it's done. Thanks again.

 

http://i.imgur.com/kd5O5.jpg

[Ghogiel]

To fix the neck seam you have to match the vertex weights at that bottom edge loop of the head to the corresponding edge loop on your outfit. Use weight tool. I'd probably just import the head and just attach the head to your mesh, then copy paste the vert weights, saves faffing with the other ways, and there are probably only 16 verts which take only a few clicks each to do.

 

dark faces I guess are tangents being goofy. In nifskope spells>batch>update all tangent space,

 

You need to disable rendering of certain parts of the mesh in first person. When you go to export the mesh, make an extra material and assign it to the arms, ending at the shoulder, look at a vanilla outfit to see what I mean. Basically the second material will split the mesh into 2 separate objects in the nif according to material ID. Then rename the arms objects to 'Arms'. all the other pieces you definitely do no want rendered in 1st person name 'UpperBody'.

 

oh, and no you do not rig to the camera, it's not a bone. I don't even import it when I import the skeleton.

Edited September 24, 2011 by Ghogiel

[InfiniDragon]

Finally, everything is working grand. I just have a couple of minor weight tweaks to do and it's good to go.

 

One minor last question for the road: My model gets affected by the lighting way more than the vanilla models do, to the point where in direct sunlight, she's completely washed out. Is there a shader setting I need to be adjusting, or would something in my map take care of that? I'll be working with it on my own but since the thread is still here I figured I'd ask if anyone knew. If not, no big deal since this isn't a texturing thread.

 

Thanks a lot Ghogiel, some of that stuff I'd never have figured out without your aid. Custom armor in this game and Oblivion were always "the wall", because I'm not an animator and didn't have some of this great info. I can do it on my own now without any roadblocks, it's going to make modding so much more interesting. Thanks again.

[Ghogiel]

Not sure about the material being washed out. I would just say the specular map must to be too bright as a first guess. It's likely down to the material and maps and not what shader it has. though note there is a skin shader, which would be used on bare body parts.