Importing a new model as a replacement

[ProfMajkowski]

Hi! So I've recently started getting back into modding Bethesda games and I've been trying to learn myself all kinds of things by trial and error. Right now I'm working on replacing a mesh of an item. Specifically I want to replace the "Metal cooking pan" (meshes/clutter/junk/cookingpan.nif). I managed to create a decent new model in blender and I also created textures for that bad boy, but now I'm stuck because I can't seem to figure out how to properly import it into the game. First I tried just slapping the model into Nifskope, saving it as .nif and then I replaced the original mesh with it, which of course ended up as a glorious big red triangle when I loaded up the game. So I'm guessing there's more to it than just converting the model to a proper format and dropping it into the proper file path. So my question is, how do I go about importing a model created in blender to New Vegas?

Also, I later realized that I didn't even create a collision mesh, which I don't even know how to do, so that might be the main problem. Here's blender file just in case anyone would be willing to look at it and let me know what I should do to get it working.

[madmongo]

1. Make sure that you are using Blender 2.49b.

 

You can get Blender 2.49b along with the nif tools that you will need here:

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/12248

 

If you created the mesh in a newer version of Blender, since there is no rigging it's probably easiest to export it as obj and then import the obj into Blender 2.49b. Exporting as a legacy blend generally doesn't work (at least every time I've tried it).

 

2. Make sure you export the model from Blender as a nif. Do not use NifSkope to convert it to a nif.

 

For your export options, start with the default for Fallout 3, click on Clutter under Collision Options, then click on Metal under that since it's a metal cooking pan.

 

3. If your mesh is relatively simple, an easy way to make a collision mesh is to just duplicate your mesh and change your duplicate into a collision mesh. With your new duplicate mesh selected, click on the Object viewpane selector (the 3 arrows in the X, Y, and Z directions, on the lower left if you are using Blender's default layout), then click on Bounds under Draw Type, and Wire under Draw Extra. Now click to select the Light panel, which I always call PacMan because the icon for it looks like a PacMan to me. At the bottom it will say Bounds. Click on that and it will add a drop down menu defaulted to Box and Compound. Change the drop down from Box to Triangle Mesh. Then click no Add Property below that. Change Float to String, then in the blank box next to Name:prop type in HAV_MAT_METAL (again, since it's a metal frying pan).

 

4. Make sure you select all before exporting. Blender will only export the selected objects and you want to make sure that you export both the cooking pan mesh and the collision mesh.

 

Edited to add:

 

Also, make sure that your texture is in dds format, and that the texture is UV mapped to your mesh. The default for Blender is Orco, not UV, so you need to change that.

Edited July 24, 2020 by madmongo

[ProfMajkowski]

Thank you so much! I'll try to follow these steps and see how it goes.

[ProfMajkowski]

Update: Ok, the model is now showing up in game with the proper texture. But now it seems that I'm unable to pick it up or interact with it in any way. It's just a static object now. Do you have an idea what I could've done wrong or what could be the problem?

 

 

Edit: I just noticed that after exporting the mesh, Blender says "niftools.blender.export:WARNING:Mopps for non-static objects may not function correctly in-game. You may wish to use simple primitives for collision." So I created a new collision mesh using just simple primitives, but that didn't accomplish anything, the problem persists.

[madmongo]

You are using Blender 2.49b and not a newer version of Blender, right?

 

Did you follow Step 3 above to turn the mesh into a collision mesh?

 

Make sure Use BSFadeNodeRoot is selected when exporting your nif.

 

Did you select Clutter at the top when exporting?

[ProfMajkowski]

Yeah, found it. BSFadeNodeRoot probably wasn't selected when I exported the mesh. I made sure it's selected this time and everything is damn near perfect now. Thank you for your help! I really appreciate it.