Attempting to get into the modding scene for Skyrim

[Darkonus]

Really simple stuff. I hear NIFskope and Blender are two programs I would need to make or edit Skyrim meshes and the properties of said meshes. I download them, I install them.

 

I'm not an idiot, I promise, but what I am is new to modding outside of playing with .XMLs. Tried to do some models for an RTS game but it only supported a 3ds max 9 file format, which is an outdated version on top of 3ds max being expensive to unreasonable extents. So yeah... No. Making textures in GIMP; nice idea, don't understand how I would go about making one myself but I've been modifying the original ones without any trouble yet.

 

NIFskope has been working, but only partially. It refuses to load textures but it does show the mesh at least. I'm honestly not 100% sure what I'm even supposed to DO with NIFskope but the original intention was to edit glow maps - which I haven't found, by the way. Really just have no idea.

 

Blender just isn't letting me load .NIFs. I can't find an .NIF plug-in for the most recent version of Blender and when trying to use an older config couldn't actually see any of the .NIFs at all regardless of where the folder was.

 

And I'd also like to be able to make .ESP files, which I also do not know how to use.

 

This thread was set up the way it was to make my individual issues more clear, just to make sure anyone willing or able to help with one or two issues doesn't see a wall of text and decide to help someone that seems more suited to their tastes. My experience with modding communities has been about the same with any other corner of the internet; people aren't nice and don't go out of their way to help without a reward to reap. So I'm trying to be as flexible as possible considering the scale of my request(s) here. I really have almost no idea what I'm doing and limited programming knowledge if any, but I'm not asking for someone to teach me how to make the next player-released Skyrim expansion. I've made models before using a 3ds max trial, so I can probably wing it with Blender, but I do need to get it working first, any pointers or redirects to tutorials to understand how a .DDS file decides what part of the image goes where on a mesh would be fantastic, and I would absolutely love someone basically spelling out from A to Z how to get NIFskope working and how to make .ESPs for Skyrim.

 

Yeah, so that's about it. Any help at all would be great. I haven't been able to find anything like a tutorial regarding any of the subjects but, I also haven't looked as hard as I could. There's a certain point where trying to figure out how four different things work while balancing the need to do a ton of other stuff in real life gets too stressful though. I figured just asking for help couldn't be too bad, right? Thanks in advance.

[CampanaAliquanta]

Collection of links to various tutorials: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/471428-modding-faq-how-to

 

You can export an .obj file from nifskope that you can then import into blender. There are quite a few blender tutorials on the wiki which might help too, since the blender UI is supposed to be pretty non-standard. I wouldn't know as I've never used anything else.

[Darkonus]

Thanks for the links and for replying so quickly. I'll go look through that stuff, hopefully I'll be able to find what I need and close up shop or at least remove a few of the things from that list.

[ghosu]

Hi

 

EDIT: Damn, too slow...well i leave it anyway :D

 

There are several tutorials about those matters on this board, check them out.

As far as i know, i'll copy some stuff 'bout textures from my other posting:

 

Textures:

 

There are several texture maps for each model, for example the human head:

 

http://f.666kb.com/i/bzeurxeyczkdq9ped.jpg

 

For weapons there is the diffuse map with the skin on it, a normal map and i don't remember the last one...was some kind of bump map if i remember right. As you've already found out it is no big deal to change existing textures with Gimp or Photoshop.

 

How to create them yourself? Well i can tell you how i do it...i use "Mudbox", that is an autodesk software to sculpt and texture models. For weapons you just have to get some images from a real weapon or materials, you can load your model, project the images over it and just use some kind of brush to copy them directly to the model. If you've got a perfect model of a weapon and an image from the side it only takes a few seconds to copy it 1:1, great software.

 

From this texture you can create the other maps, there is a Photoshop plugin for normal maps used in weapon texturing. I haven't found anything good to replicate the maps for faces, i'm playing around with a tool called "crazybump" atm but here is a good thread 'bout this stuff:

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/476227-skyrim-nif-files-with-underscores/

 

Blender:

Took me a while to find a working combination with Python and PyFFI. This site list a version combination that should work: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender

If not, just use google...Blender, NIF, Python should bring up some sites with working combinations.

 

Here is a thread 'bout NIFskope and the modified .xml:

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/469935-modding-skyrim-with-tessnip-and-nifskope/

 

Oh and finally a very good thread with tutorials, that should answer most of your questions:

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/471428-modding-faq-how-to

 

Hope i could help,

greetings

Edited December 16, 2011 by ghosu

[Darkonus]

Okay, alright, I give up. I guess I'm waiting for the creation kit for stuff we'd need .ESPs for, since I can't get FOMM to recognize a single one of my attempts at fooling it into thinking Fallout is there, so that's out. On to the next random thing I decide to try.

 

Edit: Freakin' joy of joys, I tried too hard and FOMM deleted the data folder for Skyrim.

Edited December 16, 2011 by Darkonus