Blender Problems

[jkruse05]

Okay, I've got a couple problems here that I'm hoping someone can help with. I've been trying to UV map and texture a couple of weapon models for some time now, and something isn't working right. I'm using Blender 2.48a. After making and saving the UV and exporting it as a .tga image, I export the model and check it in Nifskope. There is no texture data, at all, anywhere. I can't assign a texture. When I made things for Oblivion, in previous versions of Blender (2.46) that was all I had to do, the UV .tga image would automatically link as the default texture. So, if someone would be kind enough to explain the new process, or link me to a tutorial for 2.48a, that would be awesome.

 

Second, the GECK seems to hate custom models. I tried a very simple model, I used Blender to turn a baseball cap backwards, exported it as a .nif and used Nifskope to swap out the old cap mesh with the new one. I made some slight changes to the texture, swapped that out, and saved the whole thing as a new .nif file. I went into the GECK and created a new item with the exact same values as the cap I edited, with a new form ID of course. When I got to the model selection, I browsed and found my model and selected it. Immediately upon selecting the custom model the GECK popped up an error message and crashed. I've tried about four similar edits, very simple things that don't even remove or add triangles. Only one worked, and that was a replacement, not a new item. Again, if anyone has any idea what I might be doing wrong, please, let me know, I'd really like to get SOMETHING into the game.

[Baelkin]

Hmm, make sure that you apply an actual texture to your mesh in Blender before exporting the Nif. I'm not using Blender personally, but in 3dsMax, if you do not apply the texture as a material and export with it applied, the model won't have any "BSShaderPPLightingProperty" node attached per defailt. So if you apply your UV map .tga to your model and then export it, it should be applied correctly.

 

The GECK is sometimes a fickle lady, but an easy way to check if there's something wrong with your .nif, is to open the NIF directly with the GECK from by picking it in the "open with..." dialogue. Typically the crashes of the sort you describe happens if you have exported the mesh with an older version of the Nif plugins, which makes Nif meshes that the GECK can't read. so make sure you use the latest plugins and the latest version of Nifskope before importing it to the GECK.

 

Hope this hels, though I reckon someone who actually uses Blender can give you better advice.

[neunen]

i haven't put any armor in yet, but i was having it crash on me as well and eventually was able to get my axe into the geck by following this tuorial:

http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Creating_A_Custom_Weapon by Prosper

some parts will not apply if you're not making a gun, but take a look at the last few notes there:

the "stripify", "tspace flag" and "update all tangent spaces" were what i was missing and after that i was able to get my axe into the geck. ( i have no idea what the tspace flag 16 means though)

 

as far as blender goes, i'm no wiz but i think what Baelkin said is correct, you need to set the image as a texture material before exporting it.

 

and this isn't directly related to your problem at hand, but you'll want to make sure you set up nifskope to search your fallout texture folders (i still had mine set to the oblivion folders at first). and convert the .tga to a .dds before you throw the object into the geck.

 

hopefully some of that will help

[jkruse05]

i haven't put any armor in yet, but i was having it crash on me as well and eventually was able to get my axe into the geck by following this tuorial:

http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Creating_A_Custom_Weapon by Prosper

some parts will not apply if you're not making a gun, but take a look at the last few notes there:

the "stripify", "tspace flag" and "update all tangent spaces" were what i was missing and after that i was able to get my axe into the geck. ( i have no idea what the tspace flag 16 means though)

 

as far as blender goes, i'm no wiz but i think what Baelkin said is correct, you need to set the image as a texture material before exporting it.

 

and this isn't directly related to your problem at hand, but you'll want to make sure you set up nifskope to search your fallout texture folders (i still had mine set to the oblivion folders at first). and convert the .tga to a .dds before you throw the object into the geck.

 

hopefully some of that will help

 

Awesome, that tutorial pretty much explains everything I needed to know. I used to make weapons for Oblivion, but I haven't done anything for about a year or so. Some of the processes used in Blender, well, actually more just the interface, have changed in that time. And the thing with the texture, I realize that something like that has to be done, but Blender used to do that automatically when you made the .tga, I can't figure out how to do it manually. In any case, I think this tutorial goes over texturing, so it's probably in there. Thanks for the responses, the tutorial was a huge help.

[neunen]

glad it helped! i was in the exact same situation.. but i had pretty much forgotten anything i had learned with oblivion. and that tutorial really helped me out

 

if it doesnt mention it in there i think it goes like this

(im not at my pc with blender at the moment)

once youve added the image over top of your UVs go to edit mode and click on the shader buttons

(the shaded sphere) then on the "map input" tab select UV, and on the "map to" tab select COL

 

cheers