Need help making a skeleton for new playable race

[Gamerboy385]

Skyrim is my first modding tool and I've only had 3Ds Max for about a month now. I've been trying to make a brand new playable race from scratch with a new skeleton.nif, mesh.nif, etc but I'm not sure how the skeleton needs to be structured so that the game doesn't crash to desktop every time I highlight my new race in the player race menu.

 

Do I need to have a _1stperson skeleton.nif as well? I've noticed that there's a lot of stuff that's in the regular skeleton that isn't in the skeleton in the _1stperson folder.

 

The _1stperson skeleton.nif also has several NiNodes between the "NPC Root [Root]" node and the "NPC COM [COM]" node, which are:

NPC LookNode [Look]

NPC Translate [Pos ]

NPC Rotate [Rot ]

 

My theory is that these are what allow the player to control any race that uses this skeleton. The only problem with this is that none of the playable races reference the skeleton in the character\_1stperson folder.

 

tl;dr:

How do I make a skeleton for a playable race?

[Gamerboy385]

I'm pretty sure I have the basic skeleton right with all the bone names, but it's all the extra stuff that allows characters to do things like hold a weapon in their hand when they have it drawn, or cast spells.

 

The WEAPON node, for example, seems to be causing an error when I try previewing my custom race in the CK.

 

"MODELS: Weapon bone (WEAPON) on () does not have zero children, weapon reparent may fail."

 

There's also the magic node that I'm really confused about. I have no idea how to get that to work, there's several child nodes for those in Bethesda's skeletons that I don't know anything about.