Outfit Studio Mesh Warping

[bchisnall33]

I've recently tried making a Pipboy Glove for the Fallout 4 pipboy like they had in Fallout 3. And in the process I am using outfit Studio to import the .obj mesh and export as a .NIF file.

However for what ever reason when I export the mesh and then reopen the .nif in either Nifskope or Outfit Studio the mesh is heavily warped all over the model. The pictures show how the smooth model in Outfit studio is then heavily warped after exporting to NIF.

Please if anyone knows how to fix this I would be so very grateful. I spent the entire day working on this and would love to release this Mod for people to use.

 

 

[ChuckYufarley]

Mesh distortions like this occur during Nif export when the pivot point of the mesh is not located properly. For most objects, you simply center the pivot point to the mesh and that generally solves any distortion problems. Clothing and armor are a bit different, because the pivot point has to be in a specific location, generally zeroed on all three axes.

 

When you created the mesh, did you place it in the same location as a similar vanilla object worn by the player, or is it sitting at the zero point(s) of the grid? If the object is a glove, the mesh should be aligned to a vanilla glove you imported into your scene. Once you've situated your mesh to where you think it should be, then align it's pivot point to the pivot point of the vanilla gloves you imported. Like I said before, the pivot point most likely will be zeroed on all 3 axes. Delete the vanilla gloves and export your mesh as an OBJ.

 

When you open Outfit studio, use the same vanilla gloves you imported during mesh creation as the reference object. Import your created OBJ and do whatever scaling/moving needed to align it to the reference object then copy the bone weights, etc., etc. When you export your Nif now, the distortions should be a lot less severe or gone altogether.

 

I am by no means an expert at clothing/armor creation. I've modeled a handful of helmets, hats and gas mask type objects, and this is the method that worked for me in reducing mesh distortion. I assume it will work for a glove like it did for the objects I created.

[bchisnall33]

Thanks for the help!

 

Unfortunately the warping doesn't occur only when I copy the weight of another mesh. It seems that whenever I export the mesh into a .NIF even on its own it still comes out distorted. I've tried moving the pivot point but nothing seems to be working. The best hope I had was removing a section of the model and exporting that separately and that seemed to remove the warping on that small section of the mesh. My next plan of action may be to divide in into sections and recombine them in Nifskope.

[bchisnall33]

If it's any help, I have rebuilt a majority of the mesh several times (Mostly in the effected areas) to no avail. Furthermore I believe the warping is only effected in the Z axis (In that none of the polygons are spiking out/warping in the x and y, only up and down).

[thousande]

A shot in the dark, but could it be something with the normal?

On the "before" image there are some triangles on foremost ring. Is that expected?

[bchisnall33]

Thanks for your help

 

Unfortunately the model doesn't have any textures at the moment so it couldn't be affected by the normals.

 

I've tried rebuilding it over and over and everytime the mesh comes out warped in the z axis.

[thousande]

I was thinking about the 'front faces', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_(geometry)

 

If you work with quads (usually the default) and use the auto triangulate in the exporter, the results may not be desired. It depends on the mesh, I guess.

 

Here is mine (quads exported from the default Blender obj exporter)

See the shade on some of the triangles.

 

'Set from faces' was all that was needed this time,

 

After:

 

You should try triangulate manually before export so you can inspect and fix any faces etc. (most 3d applications has tools to visual the normal, fixing etc.) Typically the faces should point straight out from the face, but each model has it's requirement so there are no answer for this, I guess.

 

 

Use a triangulate modifier if you can or make a copy so you can continue iterating if needed.

 

Blender's normal toolbox, https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/normals.html

 

Again, this may not fix your main issue.

[bchisnall33]

I think I got it working now, I was able to export a smooth version without really knowing what I did. I think the mesh was too complex so I rebuilt the model with less polygons in a smaller area.

 

Many thanks for the help, however I think I got it working. I think it was something to do with the placement of the pivot point.

[straw]

I am stuck on the same issue. Did you figure out how you got it working?

[South8028]

I am stuck on the same issue. Did you figure out how you got it working?

What do you import from? obj itself is the most traumatic mesh format. It does not understand anti-aliasing, and any low poly objects exported from obj will be wrinkled. os also works with fbx. Import everything into fbx, and export from fbx. But if there is a 3d max with the nif export plugin, then it's generally great.