Need Help: Wearable Alduin's Wings

[guffeh]

Hey guys,

 

I'll start off by saying my experience with 3DS Max and NifSkope is limited, but I've learned a lot in the last four days of trying to do this.

 

My goal is to remove Alduin's wings from his body & to make them a wearable armor on the character's back. I feel like I've almost got a jury rigged nif together that works, except that it's basically a poly-explosion in game.

 

What I want to know is how can I (if it's possible) take the wings model, and say... overwrite another simple back piece armor such as FavoredSouls' Angels in Skyrim

 

I know I'm missing some crucial steps, but I haven't found a tutorial that goes over this kind of thing.

 

To anyone that knows what they're doing, this probably sounds 100% naive.

My process so far:

 

1.) Import Alduin.nif and Skeleton.nif selected with NifTools into 3DS Max with suggested settings.

2.) Enable Polygon Modeling on Alduin.

3.) Select & delete unwanted elements, leaving just the wings.

(I feel there's a step here I need to do, something possibly with setting up the skeleton and joining all remaining vertices together?)

4.) Export nif with recommended settings.

5.) Open NifSkope with original Alduin.nif & ModifiedAlduin.nif. Copy BSLightingShaderProperty from Original to Modified & link to NiTriShape, deleting the old BSLightingShaderProperty.

6.) Export ModifiedAlduin.nif to ModifiedAlduin.obj. Load AngelWing.nif in Nifskope and import ModifiedAlduin.obj over AngelWing's NiTriShape.

 

With that, the wings actually appear in game, but they are an explosion of polygons. At this point, I'm just happy it's not an instant CTD, but I still need help/knowledge.

 

Please advise on what to do.

[ghosu]

You have to attach the whole thing to a skeleton, this tutorial might help:

 

 

 

This data gets lost when you export it as obj or whatever so you have to edit/export the whole nif in 3DsMax.

 

... and to make it a standalone item that uses an own body slot (so you can equip it without blocking slots for armor):

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/576983-tutorial-assign-meshes-to-new-body-parts/

Edited April 21, 2012 by ghosu

[guffeh]

Thank you Ghosu, I'll check that tutorial out. I really appreciate the help.

[guffeh]

Okay, I've spent several more hours doing what those tutorials mention and trying everything I can to get the wings to work. No luck.

 

The problem I seem to run into (Besides now CTD when Skyrim tries to load my .NIF and same for the Creation Kit) is the step within 3DS Max where all the vertices are linked to a single bone. In the Angel Wings example, they are all linked to Spine2. I've tried to duplicate this and to the best of my knowledge, duplicated everything exactly like how it is in the Angel Wing.NIF, including following the tutorials for NifSkope clean-up, but yet my .NIF causes a CTD in Skyrim/Creation Kit when trying to view it.

 

I know it's hard to help when you can't see exactly what I'm doing, but I can guarantee it's all exactly based on the tutorials and knowledge gained from here. :(

 

I really can't figure out what I'm missing or doing wrong. :confused:

 

 

Edit: Okay... so it looks like my problem is the AlphaProperty in NifSkope. Purely copying it from the original nif doesn't work. If I remove the Alpha Property all together, I can open the file in Creation Kit (But it's invisible due to missing alpha)

 

Edit 2: Wow! Super stoked right now! I found the elusive problem that caused the crash. Copying the original AlphaProperty worked good, but in NiTriShape, under properties... I had the Shader and Alpha in the wrong order! Shader property loads first, then alpha = fixed the issue = Awesome Alduin Wings in-game. I'll post some screenshots when I get the positioning fixed.

 

Alduin's Wings Front

Alduin's Wings Back

Alduin's Wings Sneak

 

This one is solved. :D Thank you to Ghosu for pointing me in the right direction. With enough time and effort I was able to figure out how to do this from scratch with no previous experience.

Edited April 22, 2012 by guffeh

[skyone]

 

Edit 2: Wow! Super stoked right now! I found the elusive problem that caused the crash. Copying the original AlphaProperty worked good, but in NiTriShape, under properties... I had the Shader and Alpha in the wrong order! Shader property loads first, then alpha = fixed the issue = Awesome Alduin Wings in-game. I'll post some screenshots when I get the positioning fixed.

 

 

super wow!

 

that was my problem too, thanks to your post i fixed :)