Modding advice (No, not an other one of *those* threads... Trust me ;)

[Cronyx]

Ah HA, I got you to click. :3

Okay, I did promise, so I'm not going to ask for hand holding. Just a bit more generic starting points.

What I'm wanting to do is get Tailor Maid, and expand it for other armors myself. The mod, for those that don't know, is the one that edited the models of many armors in the game, breaking them up into individual components so that they could be mixed and matched. So instead of just Bandid Painkeeper Armor (which was everything; boots, pants, torso, etc), you had Bandit Painkeeper Boots, Pants, Bandoleers, etc, and if you wore them all together, you'd have the original armor set, but that's just it, it was a set, not just one solitary object.

I want to finish the job, maybe just work on one piece to learn, and my ultimate end goal (if this even ever gets that far) is to do it to all the new armors added by FOW.

I've downloaded the GECK. That's about as far as I've gotten so far. From a purely practical stand point, what am I looking at here to get this done?

I need to edit the models, delete triangles on the models till I trim it down to just the part I want (I'm making the assumption that this will be a mostly subtractive building process rather than additive), save it as a new unique item, and seed it in the world some how. So, breaking that down:

• Extract model
  
• Edit model
  
• Save the 20 pieces that model broke down into
  
• Assign stats for each of the pieces
  
• Seed them in the world
  

I have no idea where to start here.

On modeling:

Does GECK have a model editor built in, or do I need to download like Rhinoceros 3d or something? What's the best one to use for this? And does Fallout use any kind of weird format that I'll need to convert to and from during the editing?

On Texturing

I'm anticipating that as I break them apart, I might end up making visible portions of the model that weren't meant to be visible, meaning that those triangles might not be covered with a texture, or that I may need to close models that were left open after cutting, so that you can't see inside them, see the backside of triangles, and not get a texture at all. Just weird glitches like that. Can I use the stock textures? Are they still going to fit? Will I need to make one texture for each item, or can they all reference the original texture, but only use parts of it? The less redundancy in memory, the better, I'm thinking.

On Balancing

I was planning on just taking the base value, say it's 20, and give the chest piece 12, gloves 1, helmet 5, boots 2, that sort of thing. So that if you wear the whole ensemble, you'd wind up with the same stats as if it were still one whole piece.

On Seeding

I hear these things called Leveled Lists are what's responsible for auto-seeding throughout the world, if you don't place things manually at specific XYZ positions. Am I going to be able to replace every instance of an NPC wearing the single, original version of the outfit, to wearing the segmented, individualized version in a way that doesn't approach pain-in-the-ass amounts of hassle?

Thanks a lot guys, I'll credit you all when I get this done, if, indeed, this goes anywhere. I don't have the first clue where to begin though, so that's entirely on what help I can get.

[prensa]

Cronyx - Hello!

That's a lot of questions, I'll try & answer some. :smile:

"Extract model"

That's easy, models/meshes are in the form of .nif's & are packaged in .bsa's which are basically archives.

The main Fallout 3's meshes are all in the Fallout - Meshes.bsa, each DLC has it's own .bsa.

I use the BSA Unpacker built into Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM) but if you don't use that you can unpack the model you want from the .bsa's with something like FO3 Archive Utility:

http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/34

The models/.nif's can be viewed & edited with Nifskope (for more information on that see below).

"I need to edit the models, delete triangles on the models till I trim it down to just the part I want"

Although Nifskope is a great tool for editing & adjusting models/.nif's:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/niftools/files/nifskope/1.1.3/

& it is amazing what you can get done with it, however for the more complex job of breaking up armors & clothes, you're going to need to use something like Blender.

Blender is a free 3D model suite & one of the most common tools used for this kind of work.

Unfortunately it's quite a tough beast to learn to use, though there are many tutorials out there including videos on Youtube.

You can download the version compatible with the additional tools needed here:

http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/30

There's even a tutorial .pdf to download there.

Also some other useful links:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

Creating armor mashups in fallout3 with blender

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/227460-creating-armor-mashups-in-fallout3-with-blender/

"Does GECK have a model editor built in, or do I need to download like Rhinoceros 3d or something?"

No, GECK is used once the models are complete in outside programs as mentioned above.

GECK can be used to set textures to a degree.

"And does Fallout use any kind of weird format that I'll need to convert to and from during the editing?"

Fallout 3 uses models (meshes) in the form of .nif's, these can be exported from Blender using a plugin that can be found on the above linked Nexus Blender page.

For a lot of work & general viewing, Nifskope can do quite a lot.

You can resize, move around, assign new textures, adjust UV map positioning all with Nifskope.

Detailed info on .nif's can be found here:

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php/NifSkope_Comprehensive_Guide

"Can I use the stock textures? Are they still going to fit?"

For the most part, considering the work you are talking about, you will just use the vanilla textures. For instance, the mod you mention, Tailor Maid comes with very few custom textures & uses almost exclusively the originals.

New textures would only be needed if you were making a radically new item.

You can use the above mentioned .bsa unpacker to open open up the texture .bsa's to take a look at Fallout 3's textures.

Textures can be edited in photoshop, Gimp (free):

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Or Paint.net (free), which I use:

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

Paint.net is very user friendly & quick to pick up. It's uncluttered & has many user made plugins that can expand it's capabilities. It may not be the most sophisticated but it makes up for that in it's ease of use.

"On Balancing I was planning on just taking the base value, say it's 20, and give the chest piece 12, gloves 1, helmet 5, boots 2, that sort of thing. So that if you wear the whole ensemble, you'd wind up with the same stats as if it were still one whole piece."

That's doable, once you have the armor broken up into pieces you can create new items in GECK & point them to your new models.

In GECK you can adjust their stats & selecting which body slot you wish them to occupy. There are various body slots available for armors like Head, Upper Body etc..

Manipulating them in GECK will be the easy part as GECK is very intuitive & easy to learn & master.

A very detailed guide to GECK, with tutorials & a wealth of information, can be found here:

http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Main_Page

Blender will be the toughest learning curve. :smile:

"I hear these things called Leveled Lists are what's responsible for auto-seeding throughout the world"

Yes, they are used for placing items randomly on NPC's, in chests as loot etc..

http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/LeveledItem

"if you don't place things manually at specific XYZ positions."

You can't use the lists to place items in the world spaces, that sort of placing is done by hand.

"Am I going to be able to replace every instance of an NPC wearing the single, original version of the outfit, to wearing the segmented, individualized version in a way that doesn't approach pain-in-the-ass amounts of hassle?"

You could do it, though there are a lot of NPC's out there. :smile:

Many have hand set specific inventories while others get there gear based on lists.

Many weapons mods alter the lists so that their new weapons are distributed to various factions & armors could be adjusted in the same way.

Hope this helps!

Prensa

Edited March 11, 2013 by prensa