Tutorial: Editing the horse mesh

[Gary3]

Hello and welcome,

 

finally we achived a working changed horse mesh in Skyrim.

The credits for this mainly go to zdzichorowerzysta and Nivea, so be sure to give that guys some Kudos :smile:

 

Here is a great guide about changing monsters meshes from zdzichorowerzysta which greatly helped me find out the right settings for my setup:

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/558012-about-changing-monsters-meshes/

 

I'm using 3D Studio Max 2012 with Service Pack 1 (should be available as a trial)

with the NIF Plugin 3.7.2.1 from this location:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5622

 

My version of NifSkope is 1.1.0-RC5 (revision d546a2e)

 

Prerequirements: You should know how to get out NIF-Files from the BSA-Files (described in zdzichorowerzysta's tutorial).

 

One last thing before we start: the tutorial seems to be very long, but the steps can be done within 3 minutes once you are customized with it.

 

So let's start. :smile:

 

1. Make sure the horse.nif and the skeleton.nif are in the folder Data\meshes\actors\horse\character assets\

 

2. Extract all horse textures into the folder Data\textures\actors\horse\

and the file eyecubemap.dds into the folder Data\textures\cubemaps\

 

3. Copy the textures-folder containing the actors and cubemaps folders into Data\meshes\actors\horse\character assets\

(if NifSkope is not setup properly, this will make the texture show up nevertheless)

 

4. Open up 3D Studio Max and import the horse.nif with following settings:

 

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/1047/1importsettingsz.jpg

 

You should get the following view.

There are 4 NiTriShape-Data-Blocks / Meshes in the NIF, the main body mesh, the eyes, the body hair and the mane/tail.

Click on the main body, make sure it's not one of the other three.

If the modifier view on the right side is not already open, klick on the tab with the blue rainbow.

Right click on BSDismemberSkin modifier and delete it.

 

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/5808/2horsemesh.jpg

 

5. Make your changes to the body mesh. I'm going to open the Editable Mesh modifier, click on Vertex and drag some of them out for demonstration.

 

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9618/3modmesh.jpg

 

6. Click on the Skin modifier (so that the next modifier we select will be added on top of it) and select the BSDismemberSkin modifier from the dropdown list.

Open it and select "Torso", then drag a selection box around your complete model to select all faces of the horse body mesh.

It HAS to look this way:

 

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/335/4bsdis.jpg

 

Click directly on the BSDismemberSkin modifier to end the selection (model is no longer red, but faces are selected in Torso).

 

7. Now we are going to export with following settings.

Make sure, all fields are the same as in the image (obey the Default Texture path) or it won't work.

Save the export to a different file than the original horse.nif, e.g. horse_export.nif:

 

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/5189/5exportsettings.jpg

 

8. Make a backup of the original horse.nif

 

9. Open two instances of NifSkope and load horse_export.nif in one (this will be our source file) and horse.nif (the original, we will modify; this will go into the game):

 

10. You can add the texture paths for correct display in NifSkope in the menu under Render -> Settings.

Click on Auto Detect Game Paths, or if it doesn't work, add the folders.

 

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5317/6settingsnifskope.jpg

 

11. I've got horse_exported.nif on the left side and horse.nif on the right side.

Open up the NiTriShape of horse:0 in both.

Right click on the branch NiTriShapeData of horse.nif! and select Block -> remove branch (not just delete, but remove BRANCH!).

 

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/4893/7nifskope.jpg

 

12. Right click on NiTriShapeData in horse:0 in horse_export.nif and select Block -> copy branch.

Right click on NiTriShape in horse:0 in horse.nif and select Block -> paste branch (it will be pasted at the end of the NIF-File, that's correct).

 

http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/8505/8nifskope.jpg

 

13. Click on NiTriShape in horse.nif and enter the node number of the NiTriShapeData-Block (here it is 79, it will differ in your file!) in the Data field.

 

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/7348/9nifskope.jpg

 

14. Right click on the BSDismemberSkinInstance branch in horse.nif and select Block -> remove branch.

In horse_export.nif, click on BSDismemberSkinInstance and in the field Skeleton Root change the value from 0 to its own node number (here 29 in the following picture).

This is, because the root nodes are named different in the horse_export.nif and horse.nif and the branch can not be copied if the node number isn't changed temporarily.

Right click on BSDismemberSkinInstance in horse_export.nif and select Block -> copy branch.

Right click on NiTriShape in horse.nif and select Block -> paste branch (will be inserted at the bottom)

In horse.nif, click on BSDismemberSkinInstance and in the field Skeleton Root type in the value 0 again.

 

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/4677/10nifskope.jpg

Edited March 4, 2012 by Gary3

[Gary3]

15. In horse.nif, click on NiTriShape and in the field Skin Instance enter the node number of the copied BSDismemberSkinInstance branch (as with the NiTriShapeData-Block before, here it is 77, it will differ in your file!)

 

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5567/11nifskope.jpg

 

16. In horse.nif, click on BSDismemberSkinInstance, open the parts Partitions -> Partitions and enter the value 30 in the field Body Part. (horse standard)

 

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/2318/12nifskope.jpg

 

17. In horse.nif, click on NiTriShapeData and change the field Num UV Sets to 4097.

Change the field Has Vertex Colors to yes by double clicking on it.

 

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4659/13nifskope.jpg

 

18. In horse.nif, right click on NiTriShape and select Mesh -> Update Tangent Space

 

19. Save horse.nif in Data\meshes\actors\horse\character assets\ and load the game:

 

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2638/14screen.jpg

 

You not only can edit the horse mesh, but import other meshes into 3D Studio Max, attach them to the body mehs, UVW unwrap/map them and they'll even get affected by the bones/movement! :)

 

(as you will see in my mod: Gary's Real Mare Horse mod, coming soon/nearly done :smile: )

 

And again a big thank to all members of Nexus, who made this possible!

This community is great!

 

Best regards,

Gary

[zdzichorowerzysta]

http://i1104.photobucket.com/albums/h333/izomuli/co_ja_pacze.jpg

 

 

 

 

this tutorial maybe will be useful for some1

[SilverfeetStudio]

Well done Gary! This is a Fab tutorial, really well explained! I know how much you have labored over this the last few days!

 

Edit: Hehe! Got my first Horsey into the game! Thanks again!

 

So I suppose my next question is how to replace the horse mesh with another mesh entirely? For example if I made a lion mesh - how would I Rig the horse skeleton to it, select bones and assign partitions? Btw I noticed your tutorial didnt involve assigning bones like zdzichorowerzysta 's ?

Edited February 12, 2012 by SilverfeetStudio

[Gary3]

Hello Silver,

 

>> Edit: Hehe! Got my first Horsey into the game! Thanks again!

 

Good to hear it worked :)

 

I didn't need to cover the bone issue, because I can leave the skin modifier (which contains the bones) intact for the body mesh (but they CAN be added or deleted). I guess it should be possible to add aditional meshes = NiTriShapeData-Blocks which are not attached to the main body mesh and assign them separate bones in their skin modifier (haven't yet tested this, but will need to do that the next weeks for my mod).

 

With bones and animation, my knowledge is nearly zero, but I'll have to learn this too for my mod, so the next learning curve is already waiting :happy:

 

I think there was a tutorial on this forum covering the assignment of a skeleton to a different mesh, haven't yet completely read it, though.

 

Best regards,

Gary

[SilverfeetStudio]

Hmm I was unable to find the tuturial but I have been having a play around and was so sure that I had cracked it!

 

This was my work flow -

 

Import original horse -

 

Import Lion Model

 

Delete original horse but keep the Skeleton (Bones)

 

Assign the parts of the Lion in a similar way to how they were on the horse and rename them Horse:0 Horse:1 etc

 

Assign the bones to the body parts of the lion using the same original settings as the horse

 

Add a BSDismemberPartion to all 4 horse sections

 

 

I really thought that would crack it but it crashes on export and I cant work out why....If I can get this bit down then its all systems go for completly new monster meshes!

 

I have attached the .max file incase you wanted to take a look -

http://www.mediafire.com/?6049k2y76otn7j4

[Gary3]

Hi,

 

what I just found out:

 

When attaching additional body parts to the horse body, the new part can be uvw wrapped, but when a further additional part is attached, the uvw wrapping of the first part gets weired again.

Aditional: It seems that the skin modifier cannot be created new (or I missed something), but I got a workaround.

 

Solution:

Attach part to horse body

Delete BSDismemberSkin modifier

Add UVW Modifier

Make UVW

Copy Skin modifier

Convert mesh to editable mesh (resulting in the deletetion of the modifiers, but baking the uvw mapping of the attached part into the mesh)

Paste Skin modifier back in

Add BSDismemberSkin modifier

 

-> correct UVW mapping for all parts & correct animation ingame :)

 

-------------------------------------------------------

 

Silver:

The meshes' BSDismemberSkin modifiers all seem to have the BodyPart except for the main body: Skyrim Head

Unfortunately, I cannot say if this is correct/necessary, just a hint.

And there is a second set of eyes behind the eyes in the file without a skin or BSDismemberSkin modifier. Is this wanted?

I don't know if the tip with the skin modifier above will help you, though, because I don't know if you have attached parts afterwards...

 

Best regards,

Gary

[SilverfeetStudio]

Hmm, it could be that but looking at the original horse.nif that has skyrim head for all body parts too. I have tried playing with different settings there and it still will not allow me to export

 

I am going to try to export the lion model on its own and see if thats the problem and get it into the game as a static mesh

 

With the eyes, the horse:3 are the original ones from the horse, the ones behind are from the Lion model, i will delete these and see if it has any impact

 

I will try a few more things later when I get home and report back

 

I really appriciate everything your doing on this Gary!

[Gary3]

Hello Silver,

 

unfortunately, the only thing I get are 3D Studio Max crashes.

Even importing only a part of the lion into the horse.nif and deleting the horse faces is going to crash the NIF exporter.

 

Next step would be to just import a part of the lion into the horse.nif without deleting the horse:0 faces and do the standard workflow.

If that crashes, something with the lion model must be wrong

If that is working -> try to scale the horse:0 faces down so they are inside the lion (I know, that's horribly, but just for test).

 

Important for crashes: When merging two meshes and the material selector is popping up, only the last of the three options must ever be used (something like "leave the materials as they are" with other words...) or the exporter will crash.

 

Best regards,

Gary

[AkariWolfgirl]

So i keep getting the error message "no appropriate import module found" and "improper file format" even thought i am using the same version of 3DS and its only a nif file. Do i need to convert it to an obj?