Adjusting armors/helmets sizes from skinny to big

[SkjoldBjorn]

I have been making some armor meshes, and i understand how to morph skinny to big meshes covering, they all say you need to move verts around i get it.

so when you start moving verts around, preferably using proportiional edit, you are supposed to import a big body mesh (examplearmor_1) and drag the verts until you cover the body mesh. (painful work)

But im stumped, im making helmets for the armor sets now and there is no reference head like all the other body parts, you have one head and thats it.

So how do we scale these helmets to fit big and small models?

[anb2004]

i'd say trial and error, thats what i do tho. kept blender, nifskope open and run skyrim to see the result in game, when i was trying to shape imperial helmet into those troy/spartan helmet look alike couple weeks ago, so if its to big or to small than just head back in blender to tweak it again, simply replace the mesh than back to skyrim again to see the changes. guess i'm a really an alt tab guy. Or you can just importing the _0 and _1 vanilla helmet as reference.

[SkjoldBjorn]

Wait wait, you run the game and the modeling program at the same time? Does the game let you replace or modify nif files when the game is open?

Man making _1 out of _0 is really tiresome after a while. Im able to get models working, but the _1 meshes looks so big and clumsy, no matter how smooth i try to move the verts they always end up to big, but so does any vanilla armor i've tried on a huge body..so i guess there is'nt really any way around that.

 

Not sure how this is in 3ds max, i've tried the morpher and that did not go well, when i finally got it working it applied extra verts on the model, which of course makes skyrim confused.

 

EDIT: had to test having the game running at the same time, did not work, so i got that confirmed.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Sk8on

[anb2004]

well, it worked for me ever since F03/FNV as long you already placed your own mesh (replacer or standalone) before you start skyrim, i.e you replacing vanilla hide helmet with your own helmet mesh, but yes sometime the game cant recognized the changes so all i do is rename the mesh with just typing random number/alphabet at front than back to the game, unequip and re-equip the helmet, it should give you the popular <!> sign (cant find the mesh) than just rename the mesh back at it was and ingame you should see the changes. pretty stupid i know, but it worked tho.

 

about sizes, yup i do have the same thing no matter what changes i do in blender it always end up to big or way to small, but wth because i was modding for myself, right now i just modify the _0 one, and replace _1 with it.....was hoping someone can inform a better/easier way to work this skinny to large morpher thing or maybe better a new version of Conformulator tool by scanti that can work with skyrim and not just for helmet will be awesome.

[Ghogiel]

The conformulator won't be useful for making morphs in this sense really.

 

anyway for helmets, the only time anything changes between the _0 and the _1 morph targets, is the lower half of the neck. The head part never actually changes shape. Meaning 90% of the helmet is unchanged. basically to make the _1 morph you just soft select anything that hangs down past the mid neck and scale it out a little bit by normal

 

If you need an actual ref model, just import the ebony or daedric helmet _0 mesh. that neck/head part under the helmety bit is probably very accurate proportionally to what the head_0 morph is.

[SkjoldBjorn]

Thanks Ghogiel, i just realized this myself as i was working with 2 hood meshes, the greybeard hoods are identical in shape except from the clavicles beeing dragged out abit, probably to better fit the broad shoulders a huge character has..oh well this made my job a little easier!

I was afraid i would have problems with this on my viking project as there is a few new helmets involved. I may not be a good modeler, but it is a lot of fun involved just modifying excisting meshes and bringing them into the game. I need to learn 3ds max for modeling, i feel blender is a little clumsy..og well at least 249b is, 2.61a seems to be a good improvement however, but then again, im a newbie, so anything i got to learn will seem hard or impossible to start with.

[SkjoldBjorn]

Well infact i just used my _0 helmets, renamed them to _1..there was no reason to do anything with them as the hood did not clip through anything, that goes for both female _1 and male _1.

so the hoods are done, thanks for the tip with the neck, i will remember this til my next project. Most of my helmets so far does not cover the neck at all, so i think this will save me a lot of work actually. Good to know!