How to remove the Ebony helmets faceguard?

[Proximitus]

Hi guys! Bit of a problem here, hope you can help me out! So I'm using a retextured set of ebony armor, and now I was looking for a way to remove the faceguard from the ebony helmet.

 

Someone recommended me this mod. It was perfect and exactly the thing I was looking for, but it still wasn't good enough. You see, it does remove the faceguard from the helmet, but it also removes that piece of clothing it has around the neck, if you know what I mean? And since I find that it feels a bit naked to leave my neck open, the mod also changes the part to red, so it would be cool if it's still attached. So I contacted the original maker of the Open faced helmets mod, whether he could place that piece of clothing back, but he never answered.

 

So I was thinking, how hard could it be to do it myself? I noticed that Full head helmets occupy the head, hair, circlet and ear slots in the CK, and that open faced helmets, like the leather or hide helmet, only use the hair and circlet.

 

But, back to removing that faceguard. I assume I need 3ds max for it? And how easy is it to only remove the part that I want, without messing up the rest?

 

I hope you guys can help me out here, I really do :)

[Proximitus]

So I managed to load the Helmet file into 3ds max and remove all the unnecessary parts. Problem is, I want to export it as a .nif file, but it keeps telling me to specify at least one bone node. What do they mean with that and how do I do it? Edited March 17, 2012 by Proximitus

[aarons6]

think i saw a mod like this already around.. they took the face masks off several of the helmets.

 

 

here it is,

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4866

[PopReference]

I really don't think you need to go all out 3D edit for this type of mod. Stick to Gimp/Photoshop and NifScope.

 

Eplaining every thing in detail would be a pain for me so I'll just give you the steps:

1. Load the Texture in your image editor

2. Mask the area to be transparent in Alpha layer

3. Load the the Helmet Mesh with NifScope

4. Add Alpha Properties for Lighting Shader Properties

5. Change the DismembermentBodyPart type to 131

 

Of coarse that's easier said then done, for the first time, but it's simpler then messing with the polygons in Max.

 

PS: As for why that other mod, and many like it, chose to remove the neck portion may have prevent cliping of the neck through the helmets mesh. The neck partition of the Head mesh is 230 but you can only chose one NifScope.

Edited March 17, 2012 by PopReference

[Proximitus]

@Aarons: You probably didn't read the entire post, did ya?

 

@Pop: I'll give it a try, hope that it works to

[Kaiamai]

@ Proximitus

Hey, I thought I might point you in a direction to help some with the bone node issue. So Much Monsters has a Youtube channel that has a bunch of tutorials based off Max. I'm trying to learn all of this myself so have been using his videos as a reference when I get stuck. Hope it helps you some :D