[LE] Help - Exporting Bow from Blender: nodes moved

[LeanWolf]

Basically I import a normal Skyrim bow mesh into Blender - no errors and the bone nodes are where they should be.
I touch nothing and immediately export the mesh back to .nif - no errors.
Opening the mesh in Nifskope the bow looks fine but the bone nodes are moved to bizarre new positions. Only the first bow bone node (Bow_MidBone) is in the right place, the rest have gone off in wrong directions. Is there a "don't rotate" option somewhere?

I've exported armors with bones and skinPartitions without this problem, is there something I'm missing?

I'm using Blender 2.77a and nif_plugin-2.6.0a0.dev4.

 

I've asked over on the NifTools forum but that place is a ghost town.

[LeanWolf]

So.. nobody's tried editing a bow with Blender? It's not often I ask for help, I can usually find a hint of a solution somewhere on the net but this one has me stumped. If it's actually an error with the Nif Blender plugin then I'm the only one to have found it and ask about it.

[Fantafaust]

Can you post a screenshot of your import/export settings?

Also, have you read this? Blender - Adjusting And Exporting Weapon Meshes

[CaptainFool123]

Hi, funnily enough i'm currently having the same problem. I'm thinking it has something to do with the exporter. have you found a solution yet?

[Algabar]

TBH, I never worked with bows. So I can't tell you anything from my own experience.

 

For the current version of Blender and the current version of the nif plugin, you may want to have a look at this tutorial (and yeah, using the plugin IS complicated...):

https://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/10525-blender-27-nif-exporter-tutorial/

 

For melee weapons, there's also a working way of exporting without the nif plugin: Export the mesh in 3ds format and import it into an existing .nif file using an older version of Nifskope (e.g. 1.3). Maybe worth a try with bows?

This video tutorial explains the 3ds method in all detail. The vid is old, but at least for swords, maces, axes... the method still works.

[CaptainFool123]

tell me about it, i'm using a dev version of the plugin and had to tamper with the source code to get the thing to even export.

 

correct me if i'm wrong but i'm fairly sure the 3ds format is similar to obj, in that it can't export armatures, which have proven to be necessary for the bow's bones and vertex weights.

 

looking to see if I can use that outfit studio program as some kind of workaround in the mean time

[CaptainFool123]

after a bit of messing about in outfit studio I have got myself a weighted bow mesh in nifskope (though whether it will work in game is yet to be established)

 

this was achieved by using a forsworn bow (with no collision mesh) as the reference mesh/skeleton in outfit studio, then importing the forworn bow nif file again, but edited so that the nitrishape data has my bow mesh instead of the forsworn bow.

 

I then copied bone weights from forsworn bow mesh to my bow mesh in editor, and exported it to nif.

 

I then opened the exported nif and deleted the existing NiSkinPartition node in the NiSkinInstance node, within the nitrishape node of the bow mesh

 

I then right clicked on the nitrishape node: mesh->make skin partition.

 

skin partition options being the standard for a bow, Number of bones per vertex: 4, & number of bones per partition, 7 (as there's only one partition).

Not sure about the rest of the options but i kept them off.

 

I did this and the mess of triangles in the mesh formed into a bow.

Edited December 30, 2017 by CaptainFool123

[CaptainFool123]

I can confirm that after some work in nifskope it functions fine in the game after doing this