Tutorial: 3ds Max Skinned Meshes Into Game

[Vannus]

a couple thing to clarify..You are confusing body meshes, which use Object space normal maps, which being object space mean that info is 'baked' into the map, they ignore tangent space vectors, which is why no normals are needed.... to every other mesh in the game which do use tangent space normal maps and do need normals. Whats all this about with vertex color? you either have used it and exported it, or you haven't. Probbaly the one thing to note is that you might have needed to fix it a bit if the mesh you exported is a vanilla one but modified, sometimes it screws up a few verts..obviously you would tick vertex color in the export dialog if you are using vertex color on your mesh..I'll also note that any geometry changes you make will fubar the BSdismember Modifier. I just delete it and add a new one before export, just give it a scout to see where the partitions are so you can put them back/ make similar ones.

Thanks for the clarification. This is one of the problems with my lack of knowledge when writing the tutorial, but I'm glad you've been able to clear it up. I've added references to your comment in the tutorial now for people to read as they do it, so they know.

 

I'm not sure what the issue with Vertex Colour was, but seriously, without it—on my body mesh, at least—the diffuse texture wouldn't display. And I mentioned this step as being important because the current version of MaxTools produces incorrect Vertex Colour data (or it's just default settings I'm using. I could probably clear it, but I haven't used Vertex Colour much!), or at least unusable. Clearing it and re-setting it in NifSkope to pure white fixed my texture issues.

 

@Vannus, Amorilia's nif.xml currently breaks a few things in anticipation of a new NiFskope build, you may want to point to mine for now.

Thanks. I didn't notice this as it may have been updated since I was using it, and I haven't had issues—at least, not evident ones. I've updated the post to go to yours by default, and included Amorilia's in an alternate link.

 

Good Tutorial.Seems to be a extreme lack of Tutorials on this forum.

Until we have updated tools and information sorted out, there won't be too many. There's workaround-ish ways to get some things to work (but not all) or bad information that needs sorted, for example.

2nded. Workflow is in flux. And should mostly be used for experimentation more or less, not necessarily for final assets (it may have some kinks...). Once more is known, then compiling for easy to read, noob friendly tuts make more sense.. I saw people wasting so much time doing these very hack work flows like 2 years after F3s release, even though at that point you can just press export more or less. Less time faffing and more time modding over such a large user base could have saved countless man hours. As long as we all know this is probably going to a bit of a waste of time at some point and is probably error prone, then it's all good. Just think of it as experimental workflow to try to break stuff and figure out why... And report any finding to the pool.

Well said (both of you). I tried to get this point across in my notice at the top of the tutorial. I totally agree that this is just a temporary method. I'm hoping the tools will be updated soon so we don't need to do this, but certainly I hope to help people currently with this tutorial. When the time comes, I'll definitely make this clear in the main post so people don't inadvertently follow it.

 

And to everyone who's thanked me so far, thank you too! I'm very glad I was able to help someone have some results :)

[Ghogiel]

 

I'm not sure what the issue with Vertex Colour was, but seriously, without it—on my body mesh, at least—the diffuse texture wouldn't display. And I mentioned this step as being important because the current version of MaxTools produces incorrect Vertex Colour data (or it's just default settings I'm using. I could probably clear it, but I haven't used Vertex Colour much!), or at least unusable. Clearing it and re-setting it in NifSkope to pure white fixed my texture issues.

 

Yeah kinda. You CAN get correct vertex color if you reset it back up in max and go through some work arounds. The body meshes do require a flood filled white vertex color, It's probably a shader requirement for them..though other things do not, and use vertex color in the usual fashion. So for bodies it's probably safer to just flick the array on in nifskope. Anyone using vertex color in a specific way would have clocked onto what they should probably be doing.

 

the workaround if your vert paint is fubar would be to export with an older version of the exporter to a F3 nif and jump it about in nifskope.

[ArisonC]

Great tutorial. But I always run into problems when trying to import skeleton.nif. How to avoid?

 

http://i43.tinypic.com/21ak1ol.jpg

[Ghogiel]

You can't avoid the bone rotations getting f***ed up, It's a plugin issue.

 

Doesn't matter unless you are animating. I usually rig without envelopes anyway, more than one way to skin a cat..

[ArisonC]

You can't avoid the bone rotations getting f***ed up, It's a plugin issue.

 

Doesn't matter unless you are animating. I usually rig without envelopes anyway, more than one way to skin a cat..

 

Thank you sir. :rolleyes:

[Vannus]

Yeah, the important thing is that the weights remain correct. It won't matter how the bones are aligned unless, like Ghogiel said, you're animating.

 

You may need to twiddle with the Skin modifier a bit after some extensive editing, as I've found the weights sometimes totally mess up. It was quite a shock when I found this problem in the game, haha; vertices were all over the place. I found that rearranging the order of the Skin modifier in the stack fixed the problem after twiddling—I had been using Edit Poly modifiers to non-destructively make my edits, and the order they're in with the Skin can affect the weights.

 

Also, it looks like the BSDismemberSkin modifier in MaxTools hasn't been updated for Skyrim either, as the Body Part (for my mesh anyway) were just numbers: 20 (body), 26 (shins), 22 (forearms). Remember to reassign these areas if you're adding new bits to the mesh! The 'Sel Unused' button can be a real help for assigning unassigned sections. Do not select anything in the Body Part drop-down, as I think this may break the assignments; I'm not certain, though.

[ArisonC]

Yeah, the important thing is that the weights remain correct...

 

Finaly, it's worked, thank you very much. lol

[Ghogiel]

Yeah, the important thing is that the weights remain correct. It won't matter how the bones are aligned unless, like Ghogiel said, you're animating.

 

You may need to twiddle with the Skin modifier a bit after some extensive editing, as I've found the weights sometimes totally mess up. It was quite a shock when I found this problem in the game, haha; vertices were all over the place. I found that rearranging the order of the Skin modifier in the stack fixed the problem after twiddling—I had been using Edit Poly modifiers to non-destructively make my edits, and the order they're in with the Skin can affect the weights.

skin has to be at the top of the stack... well right after the BSDismember modifier.< which might be essential this time to get skinned meshes to work, previously in F3 you could export without dismemberment, it just wouldn't happen in game is all.

 

Also, it looks like the BSDismemberSkin modifier in MaxTools hasn't been updated for Skyrim either, as the Body Part (for my mesh anyway) were just numbers: 20 (body), 26 (shins), 22 (forearms). Remember to reassign these areas if you're adding new bits to the mesh! The 'Sel Unused' button can be a real help for assigning unassigned sections. Do not select anything in the Body Part drop-down, as I think this may break the assignments; I'm not certain, though.

you can add any of the body parts. It'll just export with whatever you select in the partition field. which you just have to swap for a number in nifskope, eg 32 for torso.

Edited November 28, 2011 by Ghogiel

[jimhsu]

Finished the entire tutorial, new meshes are not showing up. I tried adding a new mesh (NiTriShape) to an existing mesh, and while the existing mesh shows up fine, the new mesh is invisible. Everything is properly rigged and BsDismembered in 3ds Max. Took BSLightingShaderProperty from the existing mesh for use for the new mesh, with changes to the textures. Made both _0 and _1 models as well as first person models. Am completely out of ideas now.

[Ghogiel]

have you changed the body part in the dismember partition to something like 32(or whatever)?

 

if you left it default then it' should be something like bp_torso or soemthing, which is wrong, and probably causes errors.