Blender help

[Evan555alpha]

Hi all. I've recently decided to try out blender, and try and combine two different body mesh halves together. There's a problem that I've run into, however. The way I initially cut the meshes in half lead to a very wonky cut line, and, because of each mesh differing slightly, misaligning back/waist/belly button. What I'm asking is, is there anyone who could tell/show me how to get rid of the misalignments, straighten out the cut area, and then finally join the two? I've tried looking up how to do some of these things, with little success.

If needed, I can upload the .blend file.

(Will edit in a picture when I'm able)

 

Thanks.

[Imperfection]

Tedious and requires some patients but doable.

 

I have done this successfully once before combining Berry bottom half with Cali upper half, workflow was something like this:

1. Found common “seam” along mid-section of both models to use as split point
2. Imported Berry mesh and remove faces above that line
3. Imported Cali mesh and removed faces below that line
4. Imported both half’s into blender
5. Merged vertices along split line using Mesh > Vertices > Merge at Center
6. Some face splitting has to be done as not all verts match up perfectly but I did the ones that did first to keep alignment proper.
7. Made some small vert tweaks to make sure nothing looked off
8. Exported model and tested in game, worked fine.

Keep in mind these models were both made by Dimon99 and had verts that are very close to same on both models so made it easier, they also share UV sets so did not have to deal with texture issues after the fact. If you are combining to models that are not the same UV set then you will have to make custom textures for it.

 

Gerra's seam mender might also work to combine the two meshes back together.

[Evan555alpha]

Ah, I see. Well, I've managed to fix the jagged cuts by importing them both into blender, saving as a .blend, then opening that new file in a later version of Blender. I still, however have misalignments across one of the horizontal axes. The hips at the cutting point on one of them is wider than the other. Currently the two meshes I'm joining are Thaumx's "Giant" body from BNB, and Digimonkey's "Type3BG".

Quick question, though. When merging the vertices at the centre, Did you have any parts of the mesh selected? If so, was it just the verts closest to the seam, or were there more?

[Imperfection]

It might be hard to see but yes in the first image I have only 2 verts selected when merging ar center, they are small yellow dots in the 2 red circles called out as aligned verts. I did these "matching" vert pairs one at a time hence the tedious part. The remaining "unaligned" verts is where I had to "split" the face above it to add another vert to connect to.

[Evan555alpha]

Okay. After some time I got all of these verts joined together. Now, since I did all of this in blender 2.75, is there an export/save option I should use to prevent loss of data when opening in Blender 2.49 so I can then export as a .nif file?

 

Nevermind about that, I figured it out, but there is still one more question I do have; When exporting as a .nif file, something seems to make the mesh forcibly use the body texture that has been set for it. Example; I've got an African character, but if they were to put this armour on, their body would have the Caucasian body texture. I've fixed this by copying some branch from a working version in NifSkope, but would I be able to do the same, even if this a different mesh?

[Imperfection]

Okay. After some time I got all of these verts joined together. Now, since I did all of this in blender 2.75, is there an export/save option I should use to prevent loss of data when opening in Blender 2.49 so I can then export as a .nif file?

 

Nevermind about that, I figured it out, but there is still one more question I do have; When exporting as a .nif file, something seems to make the mesh forcibly use the body texture that has been set for it. Example; I've got an African character, but if they were to put this armour on, their body would have the Caucasian body texture. I've fixed this by copying some branch from a working version in NifSkope, but would I be able to do the same, even if this a different mesh?

 

 

Unless I missed something (entirely possible) you cannot export from 2.75 properly, everyone uses 2.49b and you will see that version referenced a lot in any tutorial. I know you can do stuff in 2.75 but I remember (fuzzy) someone saying you still had to run it thru 2.49b nif exporter because nifscripts in 2.75 was incomplete so I have no idea what will happen to the mesh exporting from 2.75 to 2.49.

 

Reference:

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2488574-blender-273-to-fallout-new-vegas/

 

 

When exporting from any 3D program down to a previous version there will always be data loss or loss of some intelligent objects, there is no way around it.

 

For human characters the textures used are set by the race setting in the mods esp/esm that defines that race. The ones defined by the bsshader block of the mesh are then not used, but for completeness they should have paths that point to the default textures for the skin/body parts like any vanilla armor would, don’t point them at your custom textures as like I said your race will dictate what textures are actually used.

 

Broken branches you describe caused by exporter from 2.75 and putting incorrect shader on bssshaderlightingproperty of body mesh part or someother incorrect export setting.

 

Shader type should be "Skin" not "Default", with shader flags "SF_Specular, SF_Skinned, SF_FaceGen, SF_Remappable_Textures, SF_ZBuffer_Test". You also need to open the mesh in nifskope and use spell update tangent space and then resave, this is required after every export from blender. You can also fix the shader issue in nifskope.

 

Other causes of mismatch skins as you describe is "archiveinvalidation" not toggled off then back on, or your race is in esp and needs to be esm.

 

I only use 2.49b with Fallout series meshes as I know it works.

 

If you still have trouble upload sample mesh that has issue so I can see.

 

Edited: Usual typos and added reference link

[Evan555alpha]

Alright, thanks. I've done the work in 2.75, checked the legacy thing, to make it work, and I've exported as a .nif in 2.49b. I seems to have missed something important, because NifSkope can render the entire thing fine, but I still have two "half" meshes. I've got a feeling that this is causing the entire .nif to not work at all neither in the GECK or the game itself. I'll upload both the .nif and .blend files so you can have a look if you want to.

 

Curve.nifBlenderFile.zip

 

Thanks again for all the help. I really appreciate it.

[Imperfection]

The nif has no skeleton nodes, it has multiiple scene roots, some nodes are child’s of other nodes and should not be, most likely will CTD when launching game.

 

Your Blend file has multiple skeletons in it and multiple decap sets, oops. You need to delete one set of the decaps and delete both skeletons, then ctrl-a (select all) >  nif import > select the skeleton (http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/45229/?). Use the settings from image below (import skeleton).

 

The breasts have no weight paint so no bounce, you can add with Gerra's BB weight script (blender 2.49)

 

Once fixed and weighted (if needed) then export from 2.49b using settings from image below (export settings), the reason they are still split when exported is they had different textures defined for each part when imported so blender exports them as parts again even after being joined, fixed in blender by deleting one of the material indexes after joining. After exporting load in nifskope and update tangent space then resave.

 

The fixed files are attached and you will see the nif is quite differant from yours. I woudl encourage you to try the steps I mentioned so you have better undrstanding of what I did. Let me know if you have any questions or need help with the breast weight painting if you want to add that.

Fixed Mesh and Blend.7z

[Evan555alpha]

Thankyou. I wasn't anyone to go out of their way and go so far as to do what you have. I'll be sure to write all of this down, should I want to repeat this process in the future. Again, thankyou.

[Imperfection]

Your most welcome, I did not know any of this till someone showed me and I am still learning so I welcome some of these challenges. I got stuck on the 2 pieces export issue until I remembered the texture/material issue, which can actually help you in some situations.

 

Good luck and have fun

[Evan555alpha]

One last thing. Say that I wanted to keep the microbikini. How would I go about that? Copy/pasting a fitted version from a non-working .nif doesn't seem to work, and I've tried copy/pasting the BSDismemberskininstance from a working part of the working .nif, but it just gets copied to the bottom of the scene root. Would I have to import into blender and go from there?

[Imperfection]

The bikini would have to come from a working mesh or else it will have to be rigged in blender. Don't ever copy bsdismemberskininstance nodes, I have never had to do that and don't see how that will help but I don't know everything.

 

You wont be able to copy from the meshes you showed me because they are not rigged to the skeleton properly so you will get error when you paste about not being able to bind to bone blah blah. You will also get error if target mesh has top node "scene root" and source mesh has top node "scene root.001", you have to rename the 001 node to match target mesh. There is a lot of gotchas when copying and pasting mesh nodes that can bite you later on.

 

The proper technique for nifskope is block > copy branch from source mesh then select scene root in target mesh and choose block > paste branch, this will maintain the structure, used for instance when copying armor mesh piece. The only time I use just copy/paste is for instance to copy material node you would select block > copy, then on target mesh select material node you want to change and select block > paste over, if you choose just paste it will do what you describe and create "loose" property that applies to nothing. You see this a lot when guys use block remove instead of block remove branch.

 

I will up the body with the bikini later today if want, but the work flow would be import bikini mesh then delete everything except the bikini, then import the body and delete the skeleton, select everything then import the skeleton using the setting I showed before, once you have everything you will want to weight it to the body, make sure all the verts of the bikini are selected, make sure all the verts of the body are selected, then in object mode select the bikini, then shift select the body, then use object > scripts > bone weight copy. I use Gerras Mesh Bone weight copy script rather than the one in blender as its 10000 time faster and has game specific options.

 

A lot of this I learned from SydneyB (Ashara) tutorial from way back that's now on the teswiki and of course from breaking a lot of meshes.

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_an_armour_for_Fallout._Part_1

 

 

[Evan555alpha]

Okay, I got the microbikini version working in the GECK. For whatever reason, however, it is still showing up as invisible in game. It seems to be a texture issue. The paths of the texture files are relative, I've changed the flags in nifskope to make them work in the GEK in the first place. I'm lost as to why it isn't working now.

[Imperfection]

If your adding the bikini as an armor piece what body slot are you using for it? Upperbody slot must contain the bikini and the body mesh, otherwise if you use bodyaddon1 then it should be bikini only. Could also be shader is wrong on bikini? Should be shader_default with same setting as skin but minus sf_facegen. Blender exports with only one shader so if you choose cloth you will have to fix the body shader. Could also be you did not have everything selected when you exported?

 

I also just noticed an interesting defect (big box) that I was able to "fix" but this mesh as some UV issues that existed in original mesh as well as some issues caused by using knife cut, it makes harsh edits in my opinion. The feet are beyond my skill to repair, better to use source meshes without these defects at start. I attached the files with bikini so you can loo at and compare the settings.

fixedmeshblendwithbikini.7z

[Evan555alpha]

Yes, I did a quick comparison, and there were some wrong flags, and the wrong shader type. Thanks.

[Imperfection]

Awesome! Have fun

[Evan555alpha]

Well, I just managed to successfully convert another mesh of mine to this body type. After I had exported from Blender, I opened up a working mesh (Yours) and manually changed the flags on any NiTrishape that appeared. My workflow was as follows;

 

Imported the mesh I was going to change

Deleted everything that wasn't what I was going to convert

Saved as a .nif file

saved as a .blend

 

Imported the working body mesh that you graciously made

Deleted everything that wasn't the body

Imported the previously saved .nif file

Saved as a .blend

 

Changed the Bra part of the mesh and added a shrinkwrap modifier with an offset of 0.03(0.003?)

Saved as a .blend

imported the skeleton.nif with the skeleton import settings

selected the Bra or Panty mesh, not both at the same time

Shift selected the body

Did a Bone Weight Copy, whilst updating selected

 

Selected everything visible, then inverse selected, then deleted. This made sure there was nothing that would cause trouble

Saved as a .blend

Exported as a .nif, and then opened in Nifskope

 

Opened your working bikini and body mesh and then manually changed the flags of the newly exported .nif file to those of Your working one

 

Changed the names so that the mods would pick them up.

 

This surprised me when it worked on the first try. It may not be perfect, but it seems to have worked.

[Imperfection]

Hey congrats seems like you have the steps down now, I used the shrink wrap along time ago and did not like the results as the mesh was more complex. I use the proportional edit tools when re-sizing meshes for my custom body as it gives me more control.

 

For exporting, if the majority of what your working on is clothing then use the beige cloth button (export settings image from post #8)  in the upper right hand corner under shader settings section to set the proper flags, then you only have to fix the body shader in nifskope after export.

 

Some things to watch out for in nifskope, make sure when you copy nodes that you name them back to what they should be, they will typically end up with random name from target mesh array including bone names. This also applies to material names, they should not be bone names or the worse is material with name scene root. Will import fine but export will be broken, the names confuse blender as to the actual proper hierarchy of the mesh.

 

Have fun!

[Evan555alpha]

Okay, it's been a litle while, but I've managed to run into a weird problem. Basically, using another mesh I had created, I was trying to convert BnB's saucy Vault Labsuit to this body type. The other mesh I had was designed for the UndiesUnderneath mod, and for realism, I wanted to have that show through the lab suit. So far I have managed to create  a nif with all of the required mesh parts, but the vault lab suit fails to render, as if it was never on the mesh to begin with. It'll work fine in nifskope, but only the "underwear" part of the mesh will show up in both the GECK and in-game.

 

NifSkope:

 

GECK window:

 

I've checked texture paths, but they haven't changed, so I'm not too sure what's going on. I'll attach the .nif if you want to take a look at it. Thanks.

 

 

VLS with underwear.nif

[Imperfection]

The dress, stockings, and sleeves are not rigged to the skeleton...there is no bsdismemberskininstance node for those parts.

[Evan555alpha]

The dress, stockings, and sleeves are not rigged to the skeleton...there is no bsdismemberskininstance node for those parts.

 I don't know how I could have missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Imperfection]

No problem, it happens to everyone sooner or later

[Evan555alpha]

Well, I don't know if I've gotten past this entire rigging thing or not, but an entirely new problem has risen. Basically, Blender is telling me that certain faces of the "dress" object have not got an assigned body part. It then proceeds to select them in edit mode. I've gone down to the Links and Materials dropdown and selected the pelvic bone, bip01 Pelvis, as a vertex group, as that is what appears to be the closest bone. I've then pressed the assign button under that, hoping that that would work. So far, it hasn't.

 

I'll probably end up fixing it when I remember how to rig the mesh to the skeleton. That's a thing for later, though.

[Imperfection]

You will get that message sometime if you delete all the weights off a piece of the mesh, to "fix" you need to assign the verts in the vertex groups box not the links and materials. I usually assign to BP_TORSO if they are all over the place or you can assign to closest part as you describe.

 

The rigging part comes when you select all your nodes such as body, decaps, armor parts and then import the skeleton using the settings I showed you in post #8 of this thread. That makes the skeleton the parent of all those nodes, then do your bone weight copy if needed after that so the parts move correctly with the skeleton.

[Evan555alpha]

Okay, I have no idea on what's going on here. I did what you said, and they're still not getting a BSDismemberSkinInstance at all. I imported the freshly exported nif, and nothing was assigned to a vert group. I assigned /everything/ to the new group, "BP_TORSO", but no such luck with them getting rigged to an armature. I've made sure to import and export correctly, so I do not know where the problem lies currently.

 

On a positive note, I have managed to give this piece of apparel a unique world model using an edited version of an unused BnB texture and a butchered lunchbox.

 

My UndiesUnderneath world model:

 

My Microbikini world model:

 

Since I got another mod, Signature Armor, I decided to add in a unique microbikini for the PC, sadly it needs to be renamed through the geck to match the PC's name;