X-Edit: Reassigning Equipment Slots in Skyrim LE/SE (Feat: NifSkope)

[Pork Type]

Inspired by KoolHndLuke, I'm making a visually assisted tutorial on how to swap equipment slots for apparel in Skyrim LE/SE.

 

Because pictures speak thousands of words, as the old saying goes. XEdit and NifSkope are actually simple tools.

 

For this tutorial, I'll be reassigning a one piece micro from the "Mini Bikini" mod here on LoversLab...

...from the body armor/clothing slot (32) to something else of my choosing.

 

(Hey! That's my own girl in the thumbnail. But I digress.)

 

OK. Open up whichever version of XEdit for your version of Skyrim. By default, it pre-selects everything. That's OK (necessary) for stuff such as what Luke made his tutorial about. This tutorial is about specific edits to specific mods, so do a CTRL-A and mass deselect. Undo your CTRL-A, scroll down the list and specifically select the .esp you wish to modify.

 

OK. If you're me, you've check boxed "MiniBikini.esp."

 

Now, open that up. You'll see a selection of sub-entries. The one you want right now is called, "Armor Addon."

 

Inside of that, select the outfit you wish to modify. In this tutorial's case, it's aaaMB5AA, which sounds a bit cryptic, but it's Mini Bikini style 5.

 

Screenie #1.

 

You see what I have highlighted -- First Person Flags (Sorted). Currently it's set to Slot 32 (Body), 34 (Forerarms), and 38 (Calves). Now, I'm not sure why a bikini mod involves forearms and calves, but we'll get to the why and how of this very shortly.

 

For the purposes of this tutorial -- and my own gameplay -- we're going to take this article of apparel, and assign it to a slot other than 32 (the standard slot for any article of bodily clothing, or a cuirass, in the case of armor.)

 

I'm going to reassign it to 52. Not that arbitrary, really! 52 is (un?)officially the "Pelvis Secondary" slot. In other words, Underwear. And, Here we go.

 

Screenie #2.

 

32, 34 and 38 are now gone. I edited that field (by right clicking and choosing, "edit") and inserted my own stuff: Slots 50, 52 and 54.

 

Now, 52 is the actual slot I wish to be occupied by the garment I'm modifying. So, what gives with 50 and 54? 50 and 54 are the slots that I populate with my genital and nipple jewelry, respectively. By populating this field with those extra slot numbers, I'm ensuring that they'll be occluded/rendered invisible while the garment is worn. That's how multiple entries within this field work.

 

Moving on. We need to edit one more field in XEdit, in the "Armor" section. We need to set one more thing from 32, to 52.

 

Screenie #3.

 

That's it for XEdit. Exit the app; it'll prompt you to save your changes/make a backup. Do so. Now, we need to make some modifications to the associated meshes, using NifSkope.

 

...

 

Open up NifSkope. You need to locate the associated meshes. They'll be within your Skyrim(SE)\Data\Meshes folders if you're not running MO. They'll be within \Users\$Username\AppData\... if you are; reference the file path contained within my remaining screenshots if you're an MO user and not sure where to go.

 

...

 

OK, I assume that you've found the corresponding meshes. There are 2 of them;  _0.nif and  _1.nif. These correspond to 0 weight, and 100 weight, respectively. You'll need to edit both.

 

First thing you need to do, since this is formerly a body slot garment, is delete the body portion of the mesh. You do this by right clicking on the body portion, causing a menu to appear. You want to navigate to Block -> Remove Branch.

 

Screenie #4.

 

Get rid of the body mesh, leaving only the garment. There may be multiple components of the garment, but for tutorial purposes, I've chosen a garment that has only one component.

 

Click on that component. Now, focus your attention upon the upper left pane within NifSkope and locate the highlighted "BSTriShape." Double click on it to reveal a number of other entries, including "BSDismemberSkinInstance." Click on that, and focus your attention upon the lower left pane. Find "Partitions." Double click some more. What you're looking for, is a "Body Part" entry.

 

Screenie #5.

 

Double click on that. It should open up a drop down menu. Scroll to the desired value (in our case, 52) and select it.

 

Screenie #6.

 

Now, do the same for the other mesh, as mentioned above.

 

...

 

Well, I hope this helps! As a casual modder, this stumped me for a while until I managed to break through the technical terms and figure out what needed to be done.

 

[Varithina]

Very nice and useful, and good to see a good text and picture guide rather than the 99.99% of other people who do a video guide, which are a pain when looking at something like this, having to keep rewinding and watching things to get it right, do not get me wrong there are times for video guides and there are times when it is the last way the guide should be made.

[Grey Cloud]

Really good.  I agree with @Varithina.

Thanks

 

P.S. It would be good if this got stickied somewhere.

P.P.S Maybe give a link to KHL's guide?

[KoolHndLuke]

This is great info for several reasons Pork Type. One, because the vanilla slots used in Beth games usually use more slots than they need to. The script extender did wonders for Skyrim in this regard by adding many more slots. Beth learned and added more for FO4 (underarmor/armor)- EasyGirl by HN66 is a great example of manipulating the slots. Also, it is better to learn how to do this with Nifskope than say with BodySlide since BS isn't available for many games (working on that).

 

There are so many ways to mix and match outfits by changing their respective slots, but keep in mind that some slots will cancel out others showing in game. You will still have the piece equipped and gain from it's added armor/and or enchantment, but it will not show. It's really something that people need to experiment with in each game to see what works and what doesn't. I'm still experimenting with everything and have come up with some satisfying results.

 

I'll also add that through manipulating the slots- like in Skyrim, you can have helmet or hat hair! Of course, you will still need to adjust the hair and helmet in something like BS-Outfit Studio to look decent.

Spoiler

 

What I'm having lots of trouble figuring out is how to get a new hair mesh into these games. It's not as simple as one might think! 

[KoolHndLuke]

See....you mention Skyrim to many times and they relegate the whole thread here. This shit is applicable for MANY Beth games- not just Skyrim! Apologies if my post had anything to do with it.

[gregathit]

I'm open to where to post it, perhaps in the general tutorial section?

There are so may new threads that pop up in the regular general section where you posted it that it will be on the 2nd page pretty quickly.

 

Porky or KoolhndLuke, PM me and I'll move the threads to wherever.  

As KoolhndLuke said, this one mentioned Skyrim so much I moved and pinned it here where it will probably see the most traffic.

 

Cheers,

Greg

[KoolHndLuke]

1 hour ago, gregathit said:

I'm open to where to post it, perhaps in the general tutorial section?

There are so may new threads that pop up in the regular general section where you posted it that it will be on the 2nd page pretty quickly.

 

Porky or KoolhndLuke, PM me and I'll move the threads to wherever.  

As KoolhndLuke said, this one mentioned Skyrim so much I moved and pinned it here where it will probably see the most traffic.

 

Cheers,

Greg

I was kinda hoping for a general thread on using x-edit in all Beth games. Some procedures are different for each game, but the general process is the same I think for most. It's not an easy subject to cover for all games it seems. But the applications for this are quite extensive! I'll leave it to you all where it should go. Maybe a LL  game Wiki? So much stuff is done here that is not done anywhere else I think- since other gamers are boring fuckin prudes or kids fresh outta diapers. 

[Pork Type]

A Sticky? Wow. I didn't expect this.

 

Yes, this guide is Skyrim specific, because (in this regard) it's the most complicated of the 2 Bethesda games I play, the other being Fallout 4, which has a singular mesh, and (in my experience) no equipment slot data embedded within the meshes. Making "Part 2" of my guide irrelevant in regard to that game.

 

But, that's just my experience so far. I'm no expert.

 

...

 

I've never modded any Bethesda game before Skyrim to this extent, so I can't really comment on them.

[Pork Type]

17 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

P.P.S Maybe give a link to KHL's guide?

Done.

[Grey Cloud]

11 minutes ago, Pork Type said:

Done.

Thanks.

[Kimono]

Are there extra steps for when I want to change the armor to slot 32? I'm trying to change some Luxury Collection Pasties to use slot 32. I change the slot number in sseedit and nifsope but once I re-build in bodyslide, the pasties go back to slot 46 in nifskope and my body disappears in game when I try to wear those pasties.

 

What should I do here?

[greenmango12]

On 10/7/2019 at 8:57 AM, Kimono said:

Are there extra steps for when I want to change the armor to slot 32? I'm trying to change some Luxury Collection Pasties to use slot 32. I change the slot number in sseedit and nifsope but once I re-build in bodyslide, the pasties go back to slot 46 in nifskope and my body disappears in game when I try to wear those pasties.

 

What should I do here?

The nif files,  which edit in nif-scope is mesh which actually used in game. But if you generate out-fit with BS it return slot number. because those partition data is recorded in "project file" of outfit stuido, for each outfit. so untill you modify them,, it return when you generate.

 

 what you need is,, after change armor and armor add on slots in Xedit (or CK),, open your outfit  project (which you will generate) in out fit stuido.

then change  slot number, in out-fit studio Partitions tab for each mesh part, and save ,or  overwrite  the project.

 

about this case,,  you may need not  edit partition in  nif scope, but need to generate cloth and overwrite  with BS with use new out-fit project data.

(then you may see, partition already changed in nif-scope, after you generate outfit nifs)

 

[nilead]

Not sure if topic is still alive, but: Ive used this method to change slots for Dint's hair pack for SSE. While it worked as intended, resulting "circlets" lost collision with body. Physics work fine, but they dont collide with body. Untouched wigs dont have such a problem, and they use the same collision mesh. Is there an extended pipeline for changing smp-enabled mesh slots?

[xXDeliteXx]

Is this the reason why some items don't equip with others/don't show up at all even though equipped?

[太宰 治]

I do the same but using Bodyslide Outfit Studio instead of Nifskope because I prefer those partitions changes on each project when I decide to switch from different body presets

 

 

? It is a fantastic idea for those of us who prefer that the characters wear some type of lingerie during the animations, only removing what "hinders" the penetration. In this case, only this part will be removed while the other parts of the set will remain with the COS body physics ?