Midwest APA MOD

[lyhtem]

Hi Guys

I finally decided to go with release of my Midwestern APA for Fallout 3 and NV

Everything is done i just need some help With Rigging the damn thing,

So far tried but failed miserably, which software would You recommend? any tutorials would be great,

main issue is to get the armor parts not to intersect, another issue is to get the cloth and chain moving

[madmongo]

I personally use Blender for stuff like this.

 

What I usually do is import something similar to what I am making, which would be power armor in this case. I then delete everything except the armature. Now I know I have the right skeleton for what I am doing. Next, I import the new mesh, and parent it to the armature, letting Blender figure out the bone weights. In my experience, Blender does a fairly poor job with bone weighting. Once you have some experience with Blender you can usually predict what it's going to do poorly. So then I edit the bone weights to fix the things that Blender didn't do well. This can be a bit time consuming, but conceptually it's not difficult. For solid armor pieces, you'll want to weight them fully to whatever they are attached to (arm, leg, etc) with no other bone weights mixed in, so they'll move rigidly with the body and limbs. Then weight the flexible parts of the armor to the different bones so that they deform properly when the armor's wearer moves around. You can put Blender in pose mode and move the various bones around to see how well you have things rigged.

 

Blender Noob to Pro has a good section on rigging called "Using Bones".

[EPDGaffney]

I have a good feeling that Mongo is better at rigging than I am, which is why I think what I'm about to say may come in handy for you, from one terrible rigger to another:

 

I would definitely start off importing the vanilla power armour as Mongo suggests. Then, instead of deleting it, I would note how its vertex groups are done and try to mimic that on my own power armour.

 

Armour pieces (in this engine at least) kind of need to be either solid like real armour, but with the risk of moving through one another, or somewhat stretchy like regular clothes. To get the most realistic effect, you may find you need to rig each piece fully to one bone and then if the pieces intersect resize and/or reposition the offending pieces slightly.

 

How do you mean that you want the cloth and chain to move? Not like realistic cloth and chain physics I hope, because anyone can correct me if I've missed it somehow, but I'm almost certain that that is worlds beyond what this engine is capable of. Even if you could use constraints that way and just ragdoll the rest, I have a feeling it would always bounce around like a mad thing even when you're standing still. The vanilla game has cloth and chains that I think they would have done this with if they could have, but maybe that was hardware restrictions that we're passed now and maybe it is possible. If that's what you're after, good luck.

 

My personal favourite tutorial on this:

http://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Rigging_skinning_and_dismemberment

[lyhtem]

Thank You for all the advice :) unfortunately when i hear blender chill goes down my spine, hate using it, so far been using only Zbrush and metasequoia, and i think most important Question how does one export Mesh with skeleton as ive never done it before

[madmongo]

As far as I am aware, the nif tools you'll need are only available for Blender 2.49b and 3DS Max (not sure what version but it's not the free one).

[EPDGaffney]

I have used a lot of 3D software and Blender is far and away my favourite. Unfortunately, the older the version, the less user-friendly, but once you get used to it, you can work faster and it's usually the most advanced tool out of all that was available at the time the relevant version is from. Blender 2.49b is the one you need to use for New Vegas.

 

The most popular and complete Blender for this game:

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/12248

 

The easiest to install and the one I use (made the icon for it as well):

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/42755?

 

Just a search result that has a lot of useful tutorials. Skyrim and Fallout 4 stuff can be useful but things changed significantly as well, so maybe avoid those for now.

https://www.nexusmods.com/search/?BH=0

 

 

 

and i think most important Question how does one export Mesh with skeleton as ive never done it before

In Blender? In the correct version, once it's all done according to the tutorial I linked in my last post, when you're ready to export, select everything you want to export (I generally just press A until everything is selected, as I don't keep anything I don't want in the file), go to File-->Export-->Net Immerse Format (NIF), select the destination and name of the file, and then on the next screen click Fallout 3, then Creature, then Skin or Metal (whatever you want it to behave like when it's shot), and then on the right-hand side I find it generally has the right stuff selected but I always make sure Shadow Map is selected. But important: Use BSFadeNodeRoot can't be selected or your model will be invisible. If you export stuff that isn't rigged, that's when you would use that.

[lyhtem]

I have used a lot of 3D software and Blender is far and away my favourite. Unfortunately, the older the version, the less user-friendly, but once you get used to it, you can work faster and it's usually the most advanced tool out of all that was available at the time the relevant version is from. Blender 2.49b is the one you need to use for New Vegas.

 

The most popular and complete Blender for this game:

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/12248

 

The easiest to install and the one I use (made the icon for it as well):

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/42755?

 

Just a search result that has a lot of useful tutorials. Skyrim and Fallout 4 stuff can be useful but things changed significantly as well, so maybe avoid those for now.

https://www.nexusmods.com/search/?BH=0

 

 

 

and i think most important Question how does one export Mesh with skeleton as ive never done it before

In Blender? In the correct version, once it's all done according to the tutorial I linked in my last post, when you're ready to export, select everything you want to export (I generally just press A until everything is selected, as I don't keep anything I don't want in the file), go to File-->Export-->Net Immerse Format (NIF), select the destination and name of the file, and then on the next screen click Fallout 3, then Creature, then Skin or Metal (whatever you want it to behave like when it's shot), and then on the right-hand side I find it generally has the right stuff selected but I always make sure Shadow Map is selected. But important: Use BSFadeNodeRoot can't be selected or your model will be invisible. If you export stuff that isn't rigged, that's when you would use that.

looks like another long night ahead of me :D and there`s still some serious work to be done with texturing as well,

 

thank You for All the support :) as for the Cape and chain, i might be lucky enough and get a confirmation from peeps from obsidian if its possible or not

[EPDGaffney]

If you're confused on the Blender interface, at least as far as texturing is concerned, here's a good video on that:

 

If Obsidian don't get back to you or don't know (I think almost everyone from this game's development team is gone now), Bethesda may be able to help you.

 

Also, I should tell you that model looks fantastic. I'm curious as well about how you're planning on getting something that high-poly functional in this engine. Baked normals I imagine? Have you done that bit yet? I've actually never been able to get that to work for me. Haven't tried in years, though. I was probably setting up my cage wrong and maybe I'd do it properly now.

[lyhtem]

If you're confused on the Blender interface, at least as far as texturing is concerned, here's a good video on that:

 

If Obsidian don't get back to you or don't know (I think almost everyone from this game's development team is gone now), Bethesda may be able to help you.

 

Also, I should tell you that model looks fantastic. I'm curious as well about how you're planning on getting something that high-poly functional in this engine. Baked normals I imagine? Have you done that bit yet? I've actually never been able to get that to work for me. Haven't tried in years, though. I was probably setting up my cage wrong and maybe I'd do it properly now.

No worries thats a high poly Version that I`m using for 3D printing, as for texturing im doing it through Substance Painter which is much easier to use:)

 

as for the cape i did some research and it should be fairly similar to Coat Mod, same for the chain, so theres still hope for that, if not i`ll just rig the chain with the shoulder, so far i managet to rig it with issues, torso wass clipping to the hands for some reason even though everything was rigged as separate part and no anchors were overlapping, but hey :) just learning here :)

 

and thank You Tried my best to make it as accurate as possible preety much started to learn 3D modeling just for that alone

[EPDGaffney]

Well, how are you rigging it and are you doing it with Blender? This version of Blender is a little confusing until you're used to it. If you don't want the pieces of armour to bend, each piece must be rigged only to one bone. If it is actually rigged in that way, then you need to move or resize some of your model. Using the other power armour as a guide, from the vanilla game, could be really helpful if you have to do this.

 

The way rigging in Blender works for this engine, you just use vertex groups named for the bones in the skeleton, and always assign a weight of 1. In your case, it's one bone per piece, but when you click Assign for different vertex groups on the same vertices, it doesn't overwrite the old one, and what you get is vertices that are now influenced equally by each bone that influences them. So make sure that isn't happening (unless you want that).

 

I'm not familiar with Coat Mod. Is that for New Vegas? Didn't see anything like that on the Nexus.

 

Are you saying this is your first model? You should see my first model. It's...not as nice, haha.

Edited February 9, 2018 by EPDGaffney