How to add Blood to a weapon

[Skinjack]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before but I don't see any updated tutorials for this. Can anyone point me in the direction of a tutorial on how to add blood to SE weapons? Not LE because switching between the two is causing an issue where I CTD. I'm afraid I'm not terribly good in Nifskope and haven't used it in about 9 months, so if there are basic instructions out there (you know, idiot-proof) or if anyone can walk me through the process I would greatly appreciate it.

I'm not sure if I need to optimize the meshes using nifoptimizer, etc, but where all the mods used to use a NiTriShape and there is now a BSTriShape in its place, which I have been told is just the sleeker SE node. Doesn't help me, because all my models are in LE format, although some have been updated for SE. I've just never had the time or understanding to add blood but now that I am learning Substance Painter I have the opportunity to do things right, so I am hoping someone can help me.

I have a separate nif created for the blade and blood spatter applied (I hope), and Nifskope is where I am sure my issues lie. I just don't know how to fix it for SE.

[Algabar]

Okay, to fully answer this I would need to write some sort of tutorial - which I can't unfortunately at the moment... So, just some basic things:

 

1. I'd strongly recommend working on an "Oldrim" basis and then converting the FINISHED mod to SE using Nif Optimizer. This saves you a lot of import/export problems. BTW, for importing/exporting meshes you might need an older Version of Nifskope, e.g. 1.13 (at least that's what I'm using).

 

2. Blood isn't really painted on the weapon or something like that. Basically it works this way: Weapons use a "blood mesh", on which the blood textures you have installed (vanilla or modded textures) are applied after you hit an opponent with the weapon. So, there are no specific blood textures for single weapons, there's just blood textures used for everything.

 

3. "Blood meshes" are basically your original weapon meshes, only that you remove everything you do not want to be covered with blood. For example, if you're creating a sword, you normally only use the actual blade as a blood mesh and remove the hilt and adjacent parts. It might also be a good idea to make your blood meshes a tiny, tiny bit larger than the main weapon mesh.

At around 16:00 on this video, you can get a good impression of the basic concept.

 

4. The way blood appears on the weapon can be controlled via the UV-map of the "blood mesh". Rotate it, play with its size, things like that. It's a bit of "trial and error" until you get what you want...

 

I hope this clarifies things a bit...

[Skinjack]

Thanks for the pointers. I had already been advised to use LE models because there were less issues by mathy79. I have the model's blood "sock" already made in 3dsMax and I thought it would work this last time around when I imported it and added the nodes in nifskope, but no such luck. I even tried using a duplicate of the vanilla weapon I used to size it, replacing all the shape data, names, textures, etc with mine. It shows up in-game, just doesn't work properly with blood. Nifskope is the bane of my existence. :smile:

[Algabar]

Well, blood meshes are a bit tricky. TBH, I still haven't discovered all their secrets yet.

 

I must admit I'm not an expert on Nifskope an nif file sctructures in general. One thing that worked for me: Take a vanilla weapon that's similar to yours as a base. Don't create a new nif setup from scratch unless you really have to. If you want to make a sword, take a vanilla sword of a similar shape as a "blueprint" and replace the vanilla meshes with yours.

 

When replacing blood meshes, be very careful with naming conventions. You must not change the name of the blood mesh by any means. If the blood mesh is called "EdgeBlood015" (or whatever name Bethesda decided to use), keep that name. Renaming blood mesh nodes in Nifskope will often break their functionality.

 

Also important: Blood meshes should be "plain meshes". They are in fact invisible in game. The blood mesh itself is never shown, only the blood textures applied to it. This means: Don't try to attach custom textures to a blood mesh. Leave the file structure exactly "as is". Only change the mesh (and if necessary its adjustment/position). Nothing else.

 

Hope this helps...

[Skinjack]

Thank you for the help. Between you and johnskyrim I think I have the blood decal mostly figured out. I guess I need to credit SoMuchMonster's tutorial, as well. Now I just need to get it written down accurately before I forget what I did.

https://imgur.com/C2IIeKG

And I need to figure out how to export in Substance Painter correctly. My in-game version looks nowhere near what the original in SP is.

https://imgur.com/HLIXdN0

[Algabar]

Glad you figured it out! And cool weapon! I like that design - really unusual. :cool:

 

Unfortunately I can't help you with substance painter - I don't have it (yet)...

[Skinjack]

I have that weapon textured with Photoshop (as well as about 100 more). I've just never released them because I was never happy with the textures. Too many spots where you can see the seams and textures mirroring. I've been using it the last year or so.

https://imgur.com/m0x4rsJ

 

I'm afraid I'm old school and never really learned good techniques. Hazard of adopting bad practices back in the Morrowind days. I still do textures by mirroring the uvw's, but I am re-doing my models so that they are better mapped by completely unwrapping the mesh instead of mirroring it. Doing the Substance Painter trial was my way to get used to the interface, or trying, before it ran out to see if it was something I could do. I don't have a problem getting semi-decent results for a newbie, I just can't get those results from Substance Painter to Skyrim without some weirdness going on.

 

If you wanted to see the extent of my unusual weapons, I could send you a zip with all the renders.