[Editing Models] Model Does not appear BUT Older version does

[Lucidius134]

I'm learning how to edit models for Oblivion to mod the game for a friend. Currently I am taking the arms and shoulders off of the steel armor and putting them on the Skingrad guard curirass. I have read through several tutorials on how to do so but and I've managed to get several varied results.

 

Know that I have checked through the FAQ list and looked through over 15 pages of this forum section, as well as google searched. All of treads I have found with even remotely similar issues are all about using pre-made mods and not about mod creation. Also know that the issues lie with this model and not conflicting mods or any such sillyness.

 

I'll just give you an in-depth list of what I have done and the outcomes so far:

 

After stumbling through a tutorial on the TES Contruction Set site on changing armor pieces around ( Found Here ), I managed to get a working (by this I mean, functional in the CS and ingame) version of what I wanted. I didn't have to change any of the numbers in NiShape data or whatever and it worked 100% fine. The problem stemmed from the Skingrad male cuirass arms were all rigged to one group and on the functional model there is invisible space on the guard's collar bone.

 

 

Okay so to summerize this first bit: I Unpacked the mesh, followed through the tutorial and got it working with a mesh error. Here's where s*** gets wonky.

 

I download all the required stuff for Blender and stumble around with cutting away that one portion of the body that I needed to patc up the invisible spot. I exported as NIF (Later found that you need to do it as 20.0.04 NIF but same results) imported it into my WORKING edited model and atfirst I got an error about my NIF version being different but what i'm about to describe still happens when I changed the type. The model shows up in NIFscope but it will freeeze and crash the CS and ingame only the arms and shoulder pads show up but the guard's cuirass and elbow joints are invisible. Parts of the model that I did edit are there but the ret is not.

 

I've encountered several threads about this similar issues which turned out to be texture issues but here's the thing, even after I fixed the NIF versions, the same steps I did that lead to a working edited Cuirass lead to this erranious model that doesn't load ingame and crashes the CS.

 

Here's the weird part. I looked through the same tutorial (How to edit armor with NIFScope) and followed through with all the fixes for dysfunctional models and the results are still the same. I've re-organized, optimized and re-did everything but it still doesn't work.

 

I figured I could look at the raw unpacked default curiass to see if any of the texture sections for the upper and lower body parts were missing and the ordering on the newly unpacked mesh is all broken to f*** and I can't find any texture lines for those pieces. The weird part is the edited, functional cuirass doesn't have those textures line that are missing but they loaded in game just fine! I'll post some screenshots and Highlight what i'm talking about below.

 

http://i.imgur.com/te9oW.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/Y2t0K.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/4tg0l.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/axI7e.png

 

(Frehsly Unpacked as in this a non-edited model just extracted from the BSU or w/e)

http://i.imgur.com/zxYFa.png

 

I kinda ramble so sorry if it's a bit much to read but I wanted to be thorough.

 

Note: I've tried adding the shoulders to the functional version with and without auto-sanitize without any changes. Auto-sanitized f*#@s up the re-arrangements on NiBlocks that I do as the tutorial recommends to avoid crashing.

 

Here it is ingame with some other small changes:

 

http://i.imgur.com/5o4Dt.jpg

Edited June 29, 2012 by Lucidius134

[Nephenee13]

Gah.

 

You are doing this way, way too hard.

 

Ok, make sure you have Blender 2.49b, and the latest NifScripts (Found here)

 

Fire up Blender.

 

Import the Steel armor mesh, delete the skeleton.

 

Delete everything but the arms and shoulders

 

Import the Guard Cuirass, delete the arms and shoulders, along with the skeleton

 

Select everything (A) import a skeleton (choosing "Import skeleton only and parent selected geometry)

 

Export the entire thing to whatever file you are replacing.

 

Open up NIFSkope, do Spells -> Update Tangent Spaces

 

And that should be it. For good measure you can run Pyffi on the file.

[Lucidius134]

Thanks for the reply. I'll go ahead and give this all a shot right now. Just woke up and am enjoying some vanilla caramel coffee atm

 

Edit: I'm not sure what you mean by Import a skeleton because in my search i've seen reference to pre-rigged skeletons for modding. Do you mean one of those or do you just mean import the skeleton from a fresh armor mesh? I'm going to try just importing the skeleton from the armor mesh and i'll see how that fairs first. I'll edit with results

 

Edit2: I did as I said and it shows up in the CS. Testing it ingame now. If this works, thanks a lot for the help. I wouldn't have needed this thread if Oblivion Tuts wern't so out of date :/

Edited June 30, 2012 by Lucidius134

[Nephenee13]

Thanks for the reply. I'll go ahead and give this all a shot right now. Just woke up and am enjoying some vanilla caramel coffee atm

 

Edit: I'm not sure what you mean by Import a skeleton because in my search i've seen reference to pre-rigged skeletons for modding. Do you mean one of those or do you just mean import the skeleton from a fresh armor mesh? I'm going to try just importing the skeleton from the armor mesh and i'll see how that fairs first. I'll edit with results

 

Edit2: I did as I said and it shows up in the CS. Testing it ingame now. If this works, thanks a lot for the help. I wouldn't have needed this thread if Oblivion Tuts wern't so out of date :/

 

Import the actual Skeleton.nif that is used for humanoids.

 

Or, even better, use this, That will ensure compatibility with everything.