Armor Modding - Where to start

[Brosephus]

So I've decided I would like to make an armor mod for New Vegas(despite the fact that I know next to nothing about 3d modeling). Although I have no experience in Blender, I do have some experience using FNVEdit.

 

If you have any tutorials or advice for getting started making basic armor mods, feel free to post them here. Advice/comments are appreciated.

[madmongo]

What you basically need is Blender, some sort of dds image editor, and NifSkope.

 

Blender does have a bit of a learning curve to it. I recommend the free online "Blender Noob to Pro" tutorial. You're also going to need the correct version of Blender. Somewhere on the nexus (might not be under FNV - might be FO3) there's a package that has Blender 2.49 with NifSkope and all of the nif conversion tools, all with versions that play nice together. Some folks have been working to get the nif tools to work with newer versions of Blender. The last time I checked (which was a long time ago) things still didn't work quite right. It's probably best to stick with Blender 2.49.

 

For the texture editor, you can use GIMP, Paint.Net (which is not the MS Paint that comes with Windows), or Photoshop. Both GIMP and Paint.Net are free to download. Photoshop isn't free. Personally, I find Paint.Net easier to use, but GIMP has more features and can do some things that Paint.Net can't do as well or as easily. It's more a matter of personal choice though. Either one works. I haven't shelled out the money for Photoshop so I can't comment on that.

 

Probably a good first thing to do would be to retexture some existing armors and maybe add and subtract some pieces in NifSkope. You've used FNVEdit so it shouldn't be too difficult.

 

The next thing I would recommend is to just import something into Blender then turn around and export it back to a nif without making any changes to it. Then do some simple edits like moving things around. Then create your own meshes and texture them. When you create your own mesh or add parts to an existing mesh, you need to parent the new mesh parts to the skeleton you are working with. Create your own mesh from scratch before you start adding pieces of your own to an existing mesh. It's easier to learn one step at a time, I think.

 

Here's the way I usually do it. First, I import a body mesh for the body type that I am making an armor for. You want this for two reasons. First, you want the body mesh there in case you need parts of the body to show, and also so that you can sculpt your own mesh around the body so that it has the right proportions. Second, you need the skeleton that comes with the body mesh. Once you've created your mesh and textured it, parent the mesh to the skeleton. I almost always then end up editing the bone weights by hand after that as Blender rarely seems to do a decent job at it automatically. Then, take the original body mesh and edit out parts that aren't visible, which means anywhere from deleting the entire body if it's a completely covering armor or piece of clothing to the other extreme of not deleting anything if it's your typical female slooty bikini armor type thing. You want to delete the body parts that aren't visible so that you don't end up with them clipping through the mesh in-game. For example, if you are making a chest armor with bare arms, you want to delete the chest off of the body mesh as this is covered by the armor, but you need to leave the arms so that they'll be visible.

 

Once you have the mesh created and parented and all of that, then export it. Blender never seems to set the shader flags properly, so then you need to go into NifSkope and fix those. Blender also doesn't set the skin type properly for the human body parts so you need to fix that in NifSkope as well.

 

Then try your armor out in-game. Usually I end up finding something that isn't weighted correctly and have to go back into Blender and fix that, but sometimes I get lucky and it just works.

 

There are lots of tutorials out there. I can't remember the one I used when I first started so unfortunately I don't have one to recommend. But if you search they are easy enough to find. And of course if you get stuck, post here with whatever your problem is. There are plenty of folks here with experience that can help you sort out the problems.

 

The nif export options for clothing and armor are different than the settings for exporting a static or a clutter item. Make sure you export it correctly or it will crash the GECK when you try to load it. Also, make sure you select all before you export as Blender only exports what you have selected.

[dubiousintent]

The TESTG site "Utilities" page has links to all of the tools you will need, including the package mentioned by MadMongo (which also has that tutorial). Additionally, you may find the "Glossary" of some help in understanding the barrage of new terms you are going to encounter.

 

-Dubious-

[SGTbayk47]

This is the guide I started with when first trying to make armour mods. In fact, this is the only tutorial I have ever used, and once I memorized the process I can make armours from existing meshes with no problems (though I still refer to the export settings).

 

http://modsreloaded.com/creating-armor-in-fallout-3-with-blender-t3220.html

 

As for learning Blender from scratch, I just used trail and error. I didn't look at guides, I just messed around with the software, saw what did what, and went from there.