Strange model problems.

[Skree000]

(( if you are using Max, the best bet to make things work is to Reset X-Form, convert to Editable Poly.

Then select your entire mesh, reset transform and scale.

Also make sure your pivot point is where it should be (usually at the origin (0,0,0))

 

3 easy steps that fix alot of problems :)

[spacerogue]

I'm sorry I can't help you there ... I'm a Lightwave user too and I'v only run in against effing epic walls while trying to make anything at all for Oblivion, go flying polygons armor go !

 

erm, well I'm gone keep an eye on this topic, just like you I aint giving up that easy hurhurhurhur :)

[Jereko]

I've been trying to hack my way though adding a mesh as well. After spended afew days reading posts and tutorials and such I decided to alter a mesh (raiderarmor01) female. And I've slowly gone from a frumbled mesh to crashing fallout all together. So just to be clear, I :wallbash: did not :wallbash: get this to work. Anyways here’s what I did, maybe someone can point out my error.

 

1. I started with FO3Archive to pullout the nif and its textures.

2. I opened the nif with nifscope 1.0.16 (revision 4237)

3. I selected the UpperBody (Which is most of the leather and metal part of the armor) and exported it as an OBJ

 

Now, I've never used Blender before a few days ago, but I am very familiar with Maya 8.0, so I loaded it up there and scaled and moved some of the vertex's around so...

 

4. Import into Maya as an obj

5. Modified some vertex locations(I didn't add or delete any vertices, just moved and scaled)

6. Saved the obj and went over to blender

 

I downloaded a tutorial called Malos Custom Clothes Tutorial http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=963

I then followed it by (summery to follow, for details see his tutorial)

 

7. Loading his custom FemaleBody.nif.

8. Instead of modeling clothes for his tutorial I imported the modified section from Maya.

9. Its UV mapping was still intact so I used the blender script to copy bone weights.

10. I played with the armature and it did indeed bend the imported OBJ correctly.

11. I exported whole thing using the fallout nif exporter, using all the default settings specified by the tutorial.

 

For the following nifscope operations I made some minor adjustments since I was putting the UpperBody mesh back where it was.

 

12. I opened a copy of nifscope for the nif from blender, and two for the original raiderarmor01 (One is for reference)

13. I copied (from the blender nif) the branch for NiTriShapesData and NiSkinData and pasted them into the raiderarmor01 nif.

14. I then changed the Data property of the NiTriShape(which was the old UpperBody) to point to the new NiTriShapeData.

15. I repeated for the BSDismembermentSkinInstance inside, and changed its Data to the NiSkinData that I had copied over.

16. I then deleted the old nodes(which were sorted down to the bottom of the tree)

 

I noticed at this point that the mesh on my screen wasn't quite right. It was 10x too big and lying on its back. So I had to transform it upright and scale to 0.1, which put it exactly in the right place. However, it didn't have a texture map on it. It was just bright white. Hoping this would sort itself out I continued.

 

17. I had to change the number of bones listed under BSDismemberSkinInstance to match what I had in my blender exported nif. It read 17 and I put it to 18.

18. I reordered all the bones to match what was in the blender nif.

19. I then RClicked on the NiTriShape node, and went Mesh -> Make Skin Partition. It gave me some options, I went with the defaults.(It did give me something about 2536 vertices .... reduced to 4 bones or something like that)

 

I tried to do a Mesh -> Update tangentspace, but it gave me a popup box saying "need vertices, normals, texture coordinates and faces to calculate tangents and binormals" I have no idea what that means since I had UpperBody selected anyways. Next I strayed from the tutorial more and did as someone posted(sorry don't know who)

 

Highlight the NiTriShapeData.

-- Rightclick in BLOCK DETAILS window the line CENTER and click UPDATE CENTER/ RADIUS.

-- Rightclick in BLOCK DETAILS window the line NORMALS > MESH > FACE NORMALS

-- Rightclick in BLOCK DETAILS window the line NORMALS > ARRAY > UPDATE.

 

Anyways after all that I go into FO3 and try the armor on and it crashes.

Sorry if it’s a little long for describing a method that doesn't work but I wanted to be clear on my steps. I would attach the nifs in question but they don't compress down enough. Any feedback would be appreciated.

[katix117]

which program do you guys use to create 3d models?

which exporter do you use and what are their settings?

what are you trying to do?

what custom model and what vanilla one?

if you have trouble with skinning explain that...

 

try exporting as nifs not objs if possible... you can swap between shape and strip in nifskope if you need to... nifs offer more options than obj...

 

always update normal, tangent and binormal arrays

 

update tangent spaces

 

nifskope crashes dont matter... you just can go on editing but they often work ingame just fine and can also be imported into max - to prevent that just dont close the niskope file until youre done...

 

im using blender, and im talking about importing a obj into nifskope witht he importer it has, the current model i have loads when i click on it in my pipboy but crashes the game as i leave... any tips?

[LordNapalm]

Well, I've tried some simple tests with lightwave as well.

 

Export obj from nifcope (in this case "chinese sword") brought into lightwave, no problem.

Moved the point at the end of the sword.. save, re-import to nifskope, looks fine in nifscope.

 

As soon as I load it in fallout it either crashes .. or if Im really luck, I get a polygon explosion.

 

I'm going to look around and see if I can find a nif export plugin.. or maybe even a different obj version exporter.

[jaysus]

@jereko

might be a problem that u used scale and rotated some nodes... (at least animations crash if you change their rotation or scale keys)

try finalizing your model before exporting by importing a reference for example and scaling your model accordingly

 

remove the step of "make skin partition" by just copy-pasting the niskinpartitionproperty over aswell

 

always use "paste over" instead of "paste" as it removes the step of deleting and sorting nodes after the paste

 

the copy error you received was indeed to you not having updated the green double arrow arrays for binormals, tangents and normals

 

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@Lord Napalm

the polygon explosion shows your model works but is not yet skinned properly thus the vertices dunno where to go and just swarm out... some skinning problems might also persist regarding the pipboy but thats another topic...

 

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i cant say much about obj files as i always use nif files but even there depending on the exporter i use i get an ingame crash or not... i dunno bout blender but for max that would be niftools 3.0 for export and 3.1 for import... this leads me to assume the crashes you all get are due to wrong exporter settings or due to a wrong exporter at all... but im sorry i cant give you tips on a good one for blender...

all i can say is that:

if a nif works in oblivion the datas of its shapes and strips will also work in fallout

 

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