Need some help with a nif

[SkjoldBjorn]

Well a few days ago i started a project to remodel the nightingale hood, i removed the facecover and facemask, i thought it would be simple and followed several tutorials and finally managed to complete the product in blender, attatched the skeleton, and gave weight to the finnished model, then when i got it back to nifskope, everything looked good, skeleton was in place after a few adjustments, it looked it like it should have, BUT! I started looking for the Trishape data, now i tried copying trishape data etc and attatching childs to parents so on and so on, but im out of luck, the model seems to get unstable the more i try to fix this stuff, so anyone interested in taking a look at this nif? the rough work is done, i just need som help with the final. I started doing this just a few days ago, so my experience is low at best at moment, i still got a lot to learn, my real area is cell creation.

 

 

I don't think there is much work left to do on it, it's just the final part of the nif that needs work before it can be used in the game, i have changed the version numbers etc back to vanilla skyrim, but im missing trishape data and this is where i got lost, copying trishape data from the old model does not seem to work. But i got something called Tristrips and tristrips data instead of trishape, tristrips was not in the original model, so this is where im stuck, i must be doing something wrong here?

 

If any modeler or someone with a fair know-how of nifskope and export/import could assist i will provide the already exported nif of this hood from blender.

 

 

Thanks in Advance.

- Sk8on -

[SkjoldBjorn]

Sorry guys, i really hate to bump, but here it goes. I really want to know how to get this model working. Edited December 22, 2011 by Sk8on

[throttlekitty]

Uncheck export as strips in whichever exporter you're using for starters. We have export tutorials for Blender and Max, have you read either?

[SkjoldBjorn]

I don't have 3ds, so im using blender, followed videotutorial and the html, but there was a few things that was not clear during the tutorial, so thought it was not for a newb like me. Im originally a cell creator, so this was a new world to me.

I managed to get everything right, until the point where i exported my nif from blender to nifskope, i used the standard fallout 3 profile for export and used the very same import properties as the video and html instructed. I got all the bones right too. What suprised me the most is that a "helmet" item like the nightingale hood had so many bones and body parts it had to fit, so i spent a lot of time getting it right, even when i imported the skeleton only right ontop of the reworked model.

 

I just came to the conclussion that this tutorial is made more for people who already know a little 3d and not for people like me who know nothing about it.

But im willing to learn and i think i came far as well, but some things was more difficult than others.

 

I also tried to take a fresh .nif from the bsa extracted folder and do it all again, but i still could not get it right, though i did find out that i did not attatch the UV image the last time, something i did now.

One more thing that i find wierd is the hood itself it had 3 nifs, one named cowl_0.nif and another called cowl_1.nif, they seemed to share the same properties, and they were the same model.

the last one was just the unequiped version of the hood.

 

Thanks for the reply, i appriciate that very much! I also have to say that i do not like bumping posts like this, but i was really stuck and could not figure it out. :)

Edited December 22, 2011 by Sk8on

[SkjoldBjorn]

Allright i have been trying to get blender and nifskope to cooperate, but it seems that everytime i export models from blender im stuck with tristripsdata, which something that won't help me, i followed the tutorial for blender/nifskope import/export to the letter. But it seems like bones does not align correctly even if i don't even move the model, i tried moving the bones and model and export then import into nifskope many times, but it seems that this changes nothing.

Im looking for a way to export the models without tristripsdata and the regular trishape that is supposed to be there. Im getting sick of blender and the fact that following tutorials does not get me where im supposed to. And yes, the textures are not showing either, but im not sure if they are supposed to, the model is completely white after loading it into nifskope.

 

a) How can you uncheck tristrips in export with blender?

 

b) When you are asked to attatch things such as "rclavicle" to your model, mine is a hood are all 5 (neck, head,spine, Rclavicle and Lclavicle) of them just going to get attatched to the hood itself or do i have to select induvidual faces and attatch them to those? It seems like you have to because if i try to change position manually in nifskope i move the whole parts of the model.

 

c) why is the textures gone and the model white after loading it back into nifskope?

 

d) i have Maya 2012, but there are no plugins for it, is it even possible to just use .obj and do the rest in nifskope? since i have the original, copy-pasting properties or at least to some point copy properties that needs to be there for it to work

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[throttlekitty]

a) Working off memory, it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure there's a an option to toggle Shape/Strips on export.

 

b) You will need to go through the weight painting process to bind vertices to the bones to get it to animate properly.

 

c) Blender isn't updated for Skyrim yet, so you'll need to either manually or copy/paste a BSLightingShaderProperty and associated TextureSet. Make sure both blender and nifskope are configured to use proper texture paths or else they or the game won't find and render correctly.

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender/Configuration

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope/Setting_the_Texture_Search_Path

 

d) You can, but not for skinned meshes (such as armor or clothes), static models only.

[SkjoldBjorn]

Well i cannot find that export option under the standard fallout export setting that im supposed to use.

 

here is a pic

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j183/Siomir/Blender.jpg

 

I have followed the tutorial after the letter, and i could not see anything they did there that would change this, so there must be something im doing wrong.

[Werne]

Uncheck Stripify Geometries and it will export the mesh in NiTriShapes. Edited January 6, 2012 by Werne

[SkjoldBjorn]

Thanks a lot!

[SkjoldBjorn]

Thanks a lot for the help Throttlekitty and Werne, i got a lot further now, at least im not stuck in the tutorial because i missed something. It's obvious that i should have used the nifskop forums as well abit earlier as i did see quite a lot of people asking for help there.

I got one more question which is not nifskope related, i see a lot of models having 3 different nif's..for example the cowl im currently modifying

 

cowl_0.nif

cowl_1.nif

 

and there was another one, but that is just the unequiped version of the hood, and that is something i can modify later on.

 

Anyhow, what do they do? They have the same properties, at least from my own eyes when comparing cowl_0 and cowl_1 with 2 different nifskope windows open. Im just curious.