mystikhybrid Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) Hi people, I am working on a horse armor mod which will add armor to the Shadowmere horse. I am finished with the model and texture, and am now trying to skin/rig it & set it up in nifscope. However I can't even seem to republish the original horse mesh. You too can have horse armor! For only $2.50 USD this magnificent armor will be yours today! (JUST KIDDING IT WILL BE FREE)http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/294935-1325365114.jpg I have modded custom helmet meshes into skyrim before, but with a much more simple rig and skin. This is proving to be much more difficult. I can successfully modify the original shadowmere mesh in nifscope (enlarged eye glow mesh) and republish it and load up the game. However after following the tutorial - bringing the horse model into 3ds max and (without modifying anything in 3ds max) re-exporting it as .nif, then texturing and republishing it with nifscope results in a missing horse mesh (! icon). "Link points to wrong block type" is shown when exporting. http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/294935-1325537877.jpg I followed the tutorial here:How to Get Custom Armor Into Skyrim pt. 1 If you have any success with working in Nifscope and can get this skinned and working ingame, it would be much approciated and you of course will be heavily credited for your help. I am hoping somuchmonsters or someone from the Tytanis team can shed some light as they seem to be expert exporters :wink: Sample .NIF & Texture download:Horse armor resource Edited January 2, 2012 by mystikhybrid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrax Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 You have a bunch of nodes floating around in your *.nif file that aren't linked up to anything- nodes no. 107-111You might want to remove them - they're at the bottom of the file. Another thing I notice is that some of your NiTriShapes have the property arrangement flipped. You want to have the BSLightingShaderProperty listed before the NiAlphaProperty, not the other way around. The game seems to need that order of the nodes. Also your custom mesh has textures assigned to it in the BSShaderTextureSet that are specified as .jpg. Obviously you need to convert them to .dds and fix the filename in those paths. Additionally their paths seem to be incomplete. For instance, you point to "horsearmor01.dds". The path should be "textures\actors\horse\horsearmor01.dds" if you plan to place the textures in that location later on. Also, none of the meshes in your file has the property "Vertex Colors" set to 'yes'.You need to set that to yes on all NiTriShapes; you find that property on the NiTriShapeData node. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DizzasterJuice Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Also, none of the meshes in your file has the property "Vertex Colors" set to 'yes'.You need to set that to yes on all NiTriShapes; you find that property on the NiTriShapeData node. That depends....you only need "has vertex colors" set to yes if you used vertex colors in max and exported it that way. Most of the meshes I've done I left vertex colors unchecked on export and and have it set to "no" in nifskope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrax Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 That depends....you only need "has vertex colors" set to yes if you used vertex colors in max and exported it that way. Most of the meshes I've done I left vertex colors unchecked on export and and have it set to "no" in nifskope. Yush, just this thing uses the NiAlphaProperty, which I've seen behave all weird without vertex colors present for those fur-patches on various creatures. That and look up the ShadowMere's nif file, for instance, and check out the vertexes around the eyes - they'll have a reddish tint and some vertexes are fully red. On the regular horses, vertex colors are set to white, but also enabled in the game's original files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DizzasterJuice Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 (edited) ah ok...makes sense. Also shadowmere has that wierd alpha property:BSNiAlphaPropertyTestRefController -- NiBlendFloatInterpolator- NiAlphaPropertynot sure what that does but the horse.nif just has a regular NiAlphaProperty I'm really loving the looks of this mod so far so I'm hoping mystik gets it working. Edited January 4, 2012 by DizzasterJuice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mystikhybrid Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 (edited) TThanks a ton guys for looking into this. Im new to nifscope. - I was using jpegs for quick texturing and editing, planned to convert to DDS eventually and fix texture paths - good to know BSlighting 1st and NiAlpha 2nd - I didnt use vertex colors in 3DS max (not familiar with them but will read up) so not sure if I need to I think the shadowmere nif differs merely because of the eye glow, but IDK Thankfully Nivea is helping me with this and hopefully has some luck, I have a ton of other armor models in my head. Thanks again for having a look at it, really appreciated! Edited January 4, 2012 by mystikhybrid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mystikhybrid Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 Three cheers for Nivea!! Got the mesh working!Now I just need to somehow combine it with the saddle for a temp/teaser release :D The Official version (post-CK) will hopefully add the armor meshes into normal saddles via a NPC vendor. Planning for around 4-5 to armor styles, suggestions welcome:- Plate/Chainmail armor (current model & texture)- Daedric Armor (will use current model w/ retexture) - Dwarven armor (new heavy model & texture)- Imperial armor (will use heavy model w/ retexture) - Leather Armor (new tight-fitting armor model & texture)- Cloth "Armor" (will use new tight-fitting armor model & texture) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DizzasterJuice Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Three cheers for Nivea!! Got the mesh working! ...suggestions welcome... Great news.....can't wait for this one. I think the warhammer type mount armor would look pretty good on the stocky Skyrim horses.Warhammer mount Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9837265498 Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Warhammer mount would be a beastly looking Ebony set, if you darkened it a tish. Also i am hoping for different undercloths... those tarp-like curtain things they would wear under their armor with different colors and designs on it.It would be awesome if it had a slight wind blown animation or added collision or something like that realistic cape mod for oblivion. You could have them for each of the holds, and when you become thane you horse ( if you have one) will get it as an option at the vendor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mystikhybrid Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 Three cheers for Nivea!! Got the mesh working! ...suggestions welcome... Great news.....can't wait for this one. I think the warhammer type mount armor would look pretty good on the stocky Skyrim horses.Warhammer mount Actually I used that image for inpiration, I belive you posted it in another thread. However I am trying to keep to the ultra realistic look of tamrial, and that spike on the horses behind just looks downright dangerous for the rider lol. I will hoever do a retex using that awqesome texture :0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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