Importing armour mesh from Blender 2.79 through OS. How does the process for NV differ from Fo4?

[MsRae]

So, I'm familiar with how to import clothing and armour meshes through OS for Fo4 and wanted to make one for NV, but when I do my normal process of import vanilla outfit, copy bone weights to new object (pulled in as obj), export, with the settings set to NV, it crashes. I figure it must have something to do with the dismemberment/partition system that NV has since my objs are coming in with only one partition (#32) and the vanilla meshes have multiples. Is this something I have to set up in an older version of Blender (I have 2.46 as well, supposedly with a nif plugin, but I get errors when trying to import nifs to get a skeleton to rig) or can it be done with OS? I can't seem to find any way of copying the existing partitions and when I make them up from scratch it still seems to crash.

 

I guess my main questions are:

- Is there an easy way to get a custom armour mesh from a newer version of Blender into NV?

- If partitions are the big problem, is it possible to have an outfit with no dismemberment?

[dubiousintent]

You need to use the Blender v2.49b package with FNV (linked in the "Image Tools" section of the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article).

 

Use the "OBJ" file format to export your mesh from later versions of Blender, import the OBJ file into v2.49b, and then export from v2.49b as a NIF format. You will probably have to do some cleanup using NifSkope (linked in that same section of that article). The "backwards compatibility" of Blender is not the best, but later versions have features in their file format not supported by the FNV engine. The "OBJ" format seems to work best.

 

I believe what you are calling "partition #32" is called a "Biped Object" in FNV. Here is some "boilerplate" from an update I am working on.

 

The GECKWiki page GetEquippedObject lists the 20 "Equipment Slot IDs" (which are the equivalent of the "Biped Objects" in NifSkope) that return the "base object" of the item equipped in the specified slot, for the calling reference. (The function returns "0" (nothing) if no object is equipped there.)

Note how there are far fewer than the 44 in the following list of Fallout 4 "Biped Slots" and the 32 (17 "named", and 15 "unnamed" unofficially, community designated) "Biped Object" slots of Skyrim from the "Creation Kit" site.


(According to the TES5EDIT fopdoc these "body slots" are stored as "Biped Flags" found in a hexmask (starting at a value of "1") in the "BMDT Subrecord" of FNVEdit, used in the ARMO and ARMA record types. There are 8 "General flags" which accompany that subrecord.)

 

FNV mods usually use the "upper body" slot for armor and clothing (collectively "garments"). This includes both arms down to but excluding the hands (which have their own slots). There is no "lower body", "arms", or "legs" slot, and there does not appear to be any community agreed "standard" assignment for the three "body addon" slots. Consequently these might be used by other mods in a conflicting manner (e.g. for implants, holsters, or other accessories).

The article Mixing and Matching Items from Diffrent Mods to get the Look You Want (sic) describes how these slots can be repurposed to create a "unique" look, but without regard for compatibility with other mods. This "merging" of various parts of other mods into a new "garment" is called by some "mashing meshes & textures" or simply "mashing" for short. What it doesn't mention is that if you don't "mash" the garment onto a body mesh and texture that is compatible with your "body replacer" mod (if any), it will have the shape and texture of the source body instead of your preferred "replacement". Any exposed skin is part of the "garment" and not from the "body replacer". If you attempt to remove the "exposed skin" mesh, you end up with "invisible" or "blank" parts of the limb.

-Dubious-