Meshes with Variant Textures

[Mithril97]

Hi all~

 

I had a problem that bugged me enough to start posting here for some help.

 

The meshes 'mageapprenticerobesf_0.nif' and 'magejourneymanrobes_0.nif' (and their _1 versions, which I assume are for beast races or NPCs or something), use multiple textures for the different versions of the robe.

 

As far as I can tell, 'mageapprenticerobesf_0.nif' is for the female version of the Novice Robes of [school Name] and the Master Robes of [school Name], and 'magejourneymanrobesf_0.nif' is for the female version of the Apprentice, Adept and Expert Robes of [school Name].

 

These meshes link to a texture called 'robe.dds' or 'robes.dds,' depending on the mesh. However, present in the texture BSA are the following additional textures: 'robe_variant1.dds,' 'robe_variant2.dds,' and 'robes_variant1.dds.' These textures seem to be the different robe colors for different skill levels. The Novice and Master robes are a different color despite using the same mesh.

 

I'm trying to make a replacer mod that replaces these mage robes with the Tavern Clothes, which uses 'wenchoutfitf.nif' and its relevant textures. However, I can't for the life of me figure out how to make this mesh use the variant textures. I've tried assigning it to use robe.dds, just like the mageapprentice mesh does, but all three skill levels show up as the same color.

 

I'm using the textures from Danariel's Tavern Clothes Retextured with her permission, and I'm trying to assign each one of her lovely recolors to a different skill level of robe. Has anyone figured out how Skyrim meshes implement these variant textures?

[jhardingame]

You'll have to wait for the Construction Kit to come out. They used the same thing in GECK, called "Texture Sets". Essentially, it allows you to apply different texture variants to 1 single mesh. But yeah, it's not anything you can do through nifskope. I don't know if it's possible using TESSnip, as I've never messed with it. If it's not, then you're gonna have to wait for the CK to come out.

[Mithril97]

Ah, okay. That's disappointing. Was it done at the object level? I never did much for Fallout with the GECK, but it seems like, if it's done in the game's mod tool, which has no mesh editor, then it must be done to the object template itself, right?

[jhardingame]

Something like that. In GECK, there was actual tab for texture sets, and you pretty much just choice the texture, and gave it an ID reference. When importing something like armor, when you're at the import screen (which will show the armor after you import it into GECK), there's a list of all the separate mesh parts that appear to the left of the render window. After that, you just click on the mesh part, texture set screen pops-up, and you choose the texture from there. It's actually really easy and really useful, as it saves up hard-drive space so you don't have to copy over the same mesh more than once.

[Xoruam]

I'd like to ask something pertaining to the discussion.

 

I downloaded a mod that replaces the wedding dress along with two versions of the same textures, the textures are located in a different folder than the 'nilla dress tex.

What I want to do is to create a copy of the dress/model and make it use the alternative textures. I'm searching around CK for something that would give an idea how to do this, but so far I've been unsuccessful. I noticed that there is an option to select different texture sets, but for the love of me I can't find any way to actually create new ones. Do I need more tools to do this? Alternatively where can I find tutorial that could help me? I'm completely new to CK, and I looked at the wiki, but the amount of tutorials and their sorting kind of scares me, and searching didn't help so far.