Gmax modeling

[DaemonGrin]

There are several factors that could cause such issues:

 

1 - Specular color (the one I mentioned earlier). Sometimes, upon exporting, it is set to black and should eventually be set to light gray or white (unless you want some other color).

 

2 - Glossiness. It's really about what it's titled after, but it affects how much the surface shall brighten when lit.

 

3 - Shader Flags (another one I mentioned earlier). It has to be set to SF_Specular | SF_Environment_Mapping | SF_Remappable_Textures | SF_ZBuffer_Test. That's in the latest version of Nifskope - settings vary in earlier versions, for some reason. If other settings are enabled (depending on which), the mesh may appear solid black, may not be rendered at all or could even cause a CTD when the nif is loaded ingame. Note that SF_Environment_Mapping is optional and has to be used with a cubemap. Generally, with it enabled, surfaces look brighter. It's mostly for shinier surfaces that need to look as if they're refracting something (like metal, glass, scope lenses, etc...).

 

4 - Your specular map. In this engine, the specular map has to "attached" as an alpha channel to the normal map. Basically the darker the spec map, the darker (an matted) will the material look when lit. So, your spec map may need to be brightened a bit.

 

Maybe some other settings, like ShaderType or Unknown Int "x" should be modified as well. Blender and max export them as they should be, for most of them, but I don't know if GMax exports them the same way. Best way to tell is to compare with a vanilla nif file.

 

I was copying and pasting over the BsShaderPPLightingProperty and texture doing this I could actually see some of the texturing of the hair but not the color of the texture itself. The only way I got the texture to match the actual dds was turning emissive to white. Changing the Specular to white barely changed it. I noticed that the gmax export nif I make in nifskope changes the NiStringExtraData to BSXFlags, the NiTriShape to NiTriStrips and turns NiTriShapeData to NiTriStripsData and I cannot convert them to the same as the original nor can I paste over since it's a different block ><. Those videos are awesome by the way thanks for the link been watching them thats why I started doing the copy & paste over.

[Heffy]

changes the NiStringExtraData to BSXFlags

 

It doesn't change it, it just doesn't export NiStringExtraData. You generally have to create or copy that one yourself. I don't think it's a crucial part - with or without it, I haven't noticed any difference (but I include it nontheless, just in case...). Also, every time I've seen a NiStringExtraData in a file, there's generally a BSXFlags as well, so normally both should be present.

 

NiTriStrips is fine. All my models are NiTriStrips and I don't have this kind of issue. Not sure what the difference is, exactly. If I remember right, NiTriStrips is some sort of optimized NiTriShape. Depending on the mesh, stripifying can make the file size a bit smaller. As for NiTriShapeData and NiTriStripsData, both contain only geometry and uv data. If you copy-paste over these from another file, that'll replace the mesh (and, consequently the UV Mapping), so you shouldn't do that, anyway.

 

And something that just occurred to me : have you tried flipping the mesh normals?

 

It's done by right-clicking on the NiTriStrips/Shape or on the NiTriStrips/ShapeData, selecting Mesh and Flip Normals.

 

PS: Also, preview your meshes in the GECK, preferably. Nifskope displays just the diffuse map, you can't preview specular or normal maps, for example. It's just there to let you see if there aren't any geometry or uv issues with the exported mesh.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Heffy

[DaemonGrin]

changes the NiStringExtraData to BSXFlags

 

It doesn't change it, it just doesn't export NiStringExtraData. You generally have to create or copy that one yourself. I don't think it's a crucial part - with or without it, I haven't noticed any difference (but I include it nontheless, just in case...). Also, every time I've seen a NiStringExtraData in a file, there's generally a BSXFlags as well, so normally both should be present.

 

NiTriStrips is fine. All my models are NiTriStrips and I don't have this kind of issue. Not sure what the difference is, exactly. If I remember right, NiTriStrips is some sort of optimized NiTriShape. Depending on the mesh, stripifying can make the file size a bit smaller. As for NiTriShapeData and NiTriStripsData, both contain only geometry and uv data. If you copy-paste over these from another file, that'll replace the mesh (and, consequently the UV Mapping), so you shouldn't do that, anyway.

 

And something that just occurred to me : have you tried flipping the mesh normals?

 

It's done by right-clicking on the NiTriStrips/Shape or on the NiTriStrips/ShapeData, selecting Mesh and Flip Normals.

 

PS: Also, preview your meshes in the GECK, preferably. Nifskope displays just the diffuse map, you can't preview specular or normal maps, for example. It's just there to let you see if there aren't any geometry or uv issues with the exported mesh.

 

Ok well thats good to know lol. I did something different when I exported a new copy of the hair mesh I'm trying to edit and it actually exported correctly and didn't crash geck when I loaded it in an npc head preview however the mesh went all stretch armstrong lol. For the life of me I can't remember what I did to fix that.