[LE] Problem when combining static (weapon) and armor (gloves) mesh

[Blackpat]

Hello!

 

I am trying to get a flintlock pistol into Skyrim VR to complete my witch hunter outfit. However, I've ran into a few problems trying to achieve that.

 

There is a flintlock pistol mod that I am using as a base. It is for Oldrim but was easy enough to convert for SSE (which SkyrimVR is based on) after reading a guide on how to do so. Unfortunately, the problem with that solution is that the pistol is basically a staff that shoots a custom projectile which gives the illusion of a working gun. The problem with staves in SkyrimVR is that the way you hold them the crosshair and direction of the projectile is at a weird angle, designed to be held slight over head and pointing downwards (like the staff animation in the non-VR versions, basically) this is a very uncomfortable angle to hold the flintlock at and the projectile does not line up with the barrel. I have not found a way to change the angle for the staff crosshair (is there one that I am missing?)

 

At any rate - as a solution for this problem I decided to make the custom projectile that was a staff enchantment in the old mod into a spell, because spells do shoot out straight from the hand in the VR version like an actual bullet would and the different angles of the crosshair are easy to tweak via .ini - that worked flawlessly after looking at another tutorial on how to make spells. The only problem I am having now is that there is obviously no flintlock model held in the hand that shoots the projectile. While pistol fingers are cool and all, trying to find a solution for that problem has been way harder than I expected.

 

What I was trying to do to fix this is find the gloves mesh of the gloves I am using and combine it with the mesh of the flintlock pistol, so that it looks like the projectile from the spell is being shot from the pistol. I have exported both meshes and copied the mesh from the flintlock into the .nif file for the gloves and saved it. I imported that file into blender and repositioned it into the left hand like I want it to look. When I export it looks fine in both NifSkope and the Creation Kit, but in the actual game only the gloves are showing and the attached pistol is missing. Reading up on why it isn't working gives a lot of possible solutions and links a lot of import/export tutorials which I have no idea if they are outdated or not. I think I have followed the advice I read in these but still can't get it working (basically just going on what I the tutorials say since I have zero experience with blender). I'd really appreciate if someone who is using blender and does mesh combining with it these days could share their worklow or direct me to a recent-ish tutorial on how to do so.

 

Alternatively, maybe someone can spot the problem in my own workflow - I feel like I am close to getting it right but lack the knowledge of the finer details to spot where I am going wrong:

 

NifSkope

1. Open both .nifs in NifSkope 2.0 Dev 7

2. Rename topmost "BSFadeNode" value to "Scene Root" in flintlock .nif

3. Rename topmost "NiNode" value to "Scene Root" in gloves .nif

4. Copy both "NiTriShape" blocks from the flintlock .nif to the top "NiNode" of the gloves .nif

5. Expand the top "NiNode" in the gloves .nif and rename the freshly copied "NiTriShapes" to "Barrel" and "Stock" to avoid any conflicts by parts sharing the same name

6. Save the .nif file

 

Blender

1. Import the .nif into Blender 2.79 with the Nif Plugin version 2.6.0 (using standard import settings)

2. Rotate and reposition the two meshes for the flintlock to the position I want (in Object mode)

3. Apply rotation, location and scale to both meshes

4. Set the parent for each mesh to the Armature of the gloves "With empty groups"

5. Go to object data for the flintlock meshes and pick one of the newly assigned vertex groups (I chose the wrist one, but don't actually know which one I should pick so the meshes would move with the entire hand like a held object)

6. Assign a weigth of 1.000 to that vertex group for each mesh

7. Export as .nif (standard settings, except game being swapped to Skyrim from default setting of Oblivion)

 

As I said - the result shows up fine in both Nifskope and the CK, but in the game only the gloves display.

 

I'd be really grateful for any advice on where/how I went wrong.