[LE] Converting animated creature mesh into static

[Omegacron]

I'd like to make a taxidermy statue for a custom creature and I'm trying to remove all the animation from it. When I start deleting bones from the NIF, the mesh goes all wonky with strange angles shooting everywhere.

 

What is the proper way to convert an animated mesh with bone assignments to a static mesh?

[TheWormpie]

1. Delete the skeleton.

2. Delete the armature modifier.

3. Press Alt+P to clear its parent.

4. Then delete all its bones.

[Hanaisse]

You can very easily and quickly do this in NifSkope.
(wormple's instructions, while correct, are for Blender)

1. Open the nif in NifSkope
2. Expand all the NiTriShape blocks
3. Find either the BSDismemberSkinInstance branch, or the NiSkinInstance branch under each NiTriShape
4. Right click on that branch, Block > Remove Branch (don't just click Remove or you'll have leftover garbage)
5. Once all the branches are removed from each NiTriShape, go to Spells > Optimize > Remove Bogus Nodes to clean it up. You should see all the bone nodes disappear at once.

You now have a static mesh in the animals standard pose. Don't forget you'll need collision for it.

[TheWormpie]

Oh, hey, Hana, haven't seen you since the Bethesda forums closed down. Great you're still around :)

 

Forgot to specify that my instructions were for Blender, and yep, the Nifskope method is of course much simpler. Thanks, oh mighty teacher :sweat: