[LE] Textured Test Cube Becomes White Cube in NifScope/KC

[SwampyB]

So, I'm trying to import some assets I've been creating for one of my mods, but I can't seem to get a test cube to import into the Creation Kit quite right. I've been given a few suggestions as to what the issue could potentially be, but I can't find any kind of guide to solve those problems because I'm a complete novice who's never done this before. So, I'm going to give a brief overview of what I've done so far, and what I've done to try to fix the issue; hopefully it'll be enough to find where things went wrong.

 

To make the file, I opened up blender, imported a random texture I had laying around, unwrapped the object and let the uv mapping do the rest. I do the same with a sample normal map that is just a bit of noise generated in GIMP, translated into a normal map. I set the options and settings found in the Arcane University guide for exporting in Blender 2.7+ and 2.8+, as I'm using Blender 2.9, and I have to kind of pick and choose what's applicable from either guide.

 

Next, I open the file in NifScope, and using a different mod's custom mesh that I know imports properly, textures and all, I add the data that the nif plugin for Blender didn't add. In my case, the BSXFlag was missing, so I added that with a value of 130, and a few of the shader options in the BSLightingShader property weren't set, so I set those. It also fails to set the Has_Tangents flag in the NiTriShapeData node, so I add that flag as well. Not sure if it makes a difference, but even when I set the root node in Blender to be a BSFadeNode, it still makes the root an NiNode, so I translate that as well. Next, I use ChunkMerge on a second cube mesh (exported with the same name as my test cube with an _c afterward) to add collision to the mesh. After that, I open it again in NifScope to verify that the material was added.

 

At this point is where I think that I have everything "correct" but it just doesn't seem to want to render the texture on my object. So, I tried a few things to fix this based on some advice I got. Someone said that the normals were messed up, so I went to the NiTriShapeData's Normals property in NifScope, and did mesh > face normals, but it didn't seem to do anything, even after I went to Spells > Batch > Add Tangent Spaces and Update, as well as Spells > Batch > Update All Tangent Spaces. I did both just in case, but it didn't seem to fix the issue. I heard it suggested in multiple places that you might have to edit the normals "manually" but I can't find a guide for it anywhere to understand what this means, or how to actually change the normals. There doesn't seem to be a way to do it in NifScope, and I don't even know if you can find this option in Blender, so I'm lost on how to proceed on this tip.

 

Another person suggested that I could have lost my UV mapping somewhere along the way, but the texture at least showed up in NifScope when I did it before without changing any of the flags or adding data. So that would mean that chunkmerge or some of the other things I used wiped the uv mapping at some point, but I'm leaning more towards the normals issue if I had to guess which it is. The problems then were that I was getting strange Construction Kit errors and distorted textures. Now, I get no errors, but also no textures.

 

I made sure to attach the test cube I've been working on, with the textures I was using; hopefully someone will be able to see the issue because I'm far too much of a novice to know what to look for in the first place. I feel like I'm about.... 1 step away from everything coming together, but I can't quite see what I'm missing. :/

EDIT: Looks like it didn't take when I attached them earlier, so here's a link to the folder that I tried to post:

 

https://www21.zippyshare.com/v/p8MyR3Mr/file.html

Edited February 19, 2021 by SwampyB

[Hanaisse]

You haven't actually linked to any download folder, you just posted the main website.

[SwampyB]

You haven't actually linked to any download folder, you just posted the main website.

whoops. I fixed the link. I'm making all kinds of mistakes with this file upload, haha.

[Hanaisse]

Yes, there are a few things wrong with it simply because there is no direct flow-thru process from newer Blender versions to Skyrim. The guide at Arcane University is perfect for 2.7+, it - will not work - with 2.9 as Blender drastically changed the internal interface and the people updating the Blender addon are having a hard time keeping up. If you want to use 2.9 I suggest exporting everything as .obj files and importing into NifSkope to finish.

To fix the mesh;

- remove the 2nd NiTriShape (right click > Block > Remove Branch)
- for some reason your BSFadeNode isn't the 0 branch, the BSXflags is (use Spells > Sanitize > Reorder Blocks)
- in BSLightingShaderProperty, UV Scale should be X = 1, Y = 1 always
- in BSLightingShaderProperty, Texture Clamp Mode should be Wrap_S_Wrap_T always
- in NiTriShapeData, remove the Material CRC, Skyrim doesn't use that (set to 0)
- in NiTriShapeData, probably want to set Has Vertex Colors to No and remove Shader Flag 2 Vertex_Colors in the BSLightingShaderProperty - having all white vertex colors serves no purpose

As for the textures, both the diffuse and the normal have white Alpha channels they don't need and are an incorrect format;
- resave as DXT1 - no alpha
- make sure to generate MipMaps

The overall look of the cube still comes off a little bright, simply remove the Specular flag in Shader Flags 1 in the BSLightingShaderProperty if you want.

This will at least get you a working nif.

[SwampyB]

As for the textures, both the diffuse and the normal have white Alpha channels they don't need and are an incorrect format;

- resave as DXT1 - no alpha

- make sure to generate MipMaps

 

The overall look of the cube still comes off a little bright, simply remove the Specular flag in Shader Flags 1 in the BSLightingShaderProperty if you want.

 

This will at least get you a working nif.

Thanks. You've been a real help. But the part with the textures kind of confuses me a little. Is DXT1 a file extension? My editor doesn't seem to recognize it or just DXT (I probably need a plugin for it). I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a naming convention that Skyrim was expecting.

 

Though, I'm not 100% sure on how to generate MipMaps. I did a little research on what they were, but haven't heard them mentioned up to this point. Saying "generate" to me implies that there's a tool for this kind of thing, but I'm not sure if I have any capable of that. But, then again, I didn't know that NifScope could reorder the blocks in the correct order, so I'm sure there's many things I don't understand about the tools I'm using.

 

My visual editor that I'm using for textures is GIMP, and as said above, my 3D editor is Blender; not sure if that makes a difference past the Blender 2.9 completely changing the entire workflow. :/

 

EDIT: I just messed around and removing the alpha channel was all that I needed to get it working, but a MipMap is probably advisable because I've heard that things can get nasty without them.

Edited February 21, 2021 by SwampyB