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Creating new armor - got to edit 20+ NIF files?!


ghosu

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Hi

 

I'm working on a new armor set so is this the real deal?

 

Create the mesh, morph the sizes in 3dMax for male / female and skinny/fat for each gender...well this is already fun and takes a while but here comes the big price, to get it into the game you have to create all necessary NIF files:

 

male:

1stpersoncuirass_0.nif

1stpersoncuirass_1.nif

1stpersongloves_0.nif

1stpersongloves_1.nif

boots_0.nif

boots_1.nif

cuirass_0.nif

cuirass_1.nif

gloves_0.nif

gloves_1.nif

helmet.nif

 

... same for female, 22 NIF files in total.

 

And now open EACH SINGLE file in Nifskope, copy/paste and place shaderproperties, adjust the skin values and set up the texture paths...4times for the cuirass since it uses 4 meshes...each single file, that would last forever.

 

Did i miss something and doing it wrong? Is there a way to speed up the whole process? A tool or plugin? I hope so, otherwise this will be my last set of armor :biggrin:

Edited by ghosu
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HAHA! I don't know. But Wath I do is, I open a new windows, open exemple male cuirassM_0.nif copy(hit key: ctrl c) shaderproperties, go back to windows female cuirassF_0.nif paste(hot key;ctrl v) and assign it.
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Dude, i know the regular copy/paste magic...same for textures but it still takes forever. I guess there is no easy way to create a tool to automate the whole process of editing each single file...it would be sooo wonderful to have a single tool with a body mesh in it, you simply drag and drop your armor parts and one click generates and morphs all male/female light/heavy NIF files, could even set up the skin properties and generate the texture paths if you use univeral names for the files like gloves, boots, armor and so on..i would give my left testicle for something like that! Edited by ghosu
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I know, for what I understand nifskoop and niftools plugins for skyrim are base on very old plugins. Those tools are almost abandonware.

The only thing seen to work for bethasda, when you ask for new plugins inculde in Ck they just ignore people.

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I know, for what I understand nifskoop and niftools plugins for skyrim are base on very old plugins. Those tools are almost abandonware.

The only thing seen to work for bethasda, when you ask for new plugins inculde in Ck they just ignore people.

 

Unless you want them fined for violating licensing rules by releasing those things --- well, don't expect it. Yes it's stupid, but that's how it is.

You're probably fortunate that they condone hacking of their files at all, unlike that other company whose name also begins with a B.

Edited by jimhsu
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With SoMuchMorpher you load in your armor parts, attach it to a skeleton, add modifiers and then you morph it - ok, each part = 1x _0m 1x_1m 1x_0f 1x1f, so the minimum is to save 3x4 (gloves,boots,body) + 1x2 (hemlet) = 14 files (13 if you use one helmet for both genders). You can reuse those files for the 1stpersonmodels...great tool btw, helped me a lot (his tutorials as well of course)

 

So you have to morph and save 14 files - that would be ok BUT now in combination with editing 22 nif files by hand in total it's a terrible amount of time just to get it to work, even with copy/paste it's just terrible to realign the settings each time - especially when you use several meshes in one nif. With an enhanced NIF workflow it would be ok, some kind of auto patch function...but as it is now this will be my first and last armor.

 

Hell i would try to do it myself, but i can only mod stuff and have no clue 'bout programming...you could save soooo many hours for all those modders around and i'm sure i'm not the first one that would avoid armor modding because of the actual process :teehee:

 

If someone asks me to make a simple weapon i'm like "Sure, here we go!" since there are only 2 nifs to edit and the whole process (modeling+textures+import) maybe takes an hour. But if someone asks me for armor i'm like "AHH!! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

 

Thy for the link, will check it out and hope for the best.

 

greetings

Edited by ghosu
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?! Like they use nifskoop at bethesda!?! For sure they have better tools, this is what I am talking about. I don't try to blame anybody, it is fun to be able to mod this game. But there no reason to not release something in CK I don't mean nifskoop, but a working nif plugin.
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?! Like they use nifskoop at bethesda!?! For sure they have better tools, this is what I am talking about. I don't try to blame anybody, it is fun to be able to mod this game. But there no reason to not release something in CK I don't mean nifskoop, but a working nif plugin.

 

Yes, that was my point. Of course they have tools custom designed to do this stuff, but you'd bet that those tools were licensed from other companies for tens of thousands of dollars (if they actually did all this stuff in house, Skyrim would probably not be released until 2017 or something). That's actually one reason why they decided to stop using GameBryo (not that it's a "bad" engine as they say, but rather that they're refusing to license it for another TES game, for whatever reason). Anyways, the fact that these tools were designed by other companies means that it's illegal to include them for public use, even if they want to. But the rules don't have stipulations against reverse engineering the code, which is what people are doing right now.

 

Sorry, that's how it works for most modding communities, due to the nature of the game dev industry. I'm sure someone who's actually involved in the industry can comment further.

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