Made A Mesh Item But...

[Ankahet]

Ive gotten as far as creating the mesh in blender and exporting it to an NIF file. Textures and UV maps I am no stranger to, but, I have no idea how to position said item on the character when it is to be "worn". I do know that it partially operates off of slots, as set up in CK, but, what tells it what angle to sit at and such? I knew how to rig things for Second Life, but creating items for Skyrim is very new to me. If someone could please explain, or point me in the right direction it would be oh so very much appreciated.

[Vyxenne]

19 hours ago, Ankahet said:

Ive gotten as far as creating the mesh in blender and exporting it to an NIF file. Textures and UV maps I am no stranger to, but, I have no idea how to position said item on the character when it is to be "worn". I do know that it partially operates off of slots, as set up in CK, but, what tells it what angle to sit at and such? I knew how to rig things for Second Life, but creating items for Skyrim is very new to me. If someone could please explain, or point me in the right direction it would be oh so very much appreciated.

You can load the nif and a Reference Body (UUNP-HDT, CBBE-Physics, etc.) into a new Outfit Studio Project, and use the Move, Rotate and Scale functions to move and align the mesh to the body, then adjust the body to approximately "fill out" the item, make a Conversion Reference, fine-tune the item's fit to the body via the brushes, Conform All Sliders, re-load the reference body to get your sliders back, Conform All Sliders, then finally copy and paint bone weights onto the item and save the Project.

 

You can then batch-build the item into the game via BodySlide, which will create high- and low-weight meshes and include the reference body too if you left that option checked in the Save Project As dialog box.

[Ankahet]

11 minutes ago, Vyxenne said:

You can load the nif and a Reference Body (UUNP-HDT, CBBE-Physics, etc.) into a new Outfit Studio Project, and use the Move, Rotate and Scale functions to move and align the mesh to the body, then adjust the body to approximately "fill out" the item, make a Conversion Reference, fine-tune the item's fit to the body via the brushes, Conform All Sliders, re-load the reference body to get your sliders back, Conform All Sliders, then finally copy and paint bone weights onto the item and save the Project.

 

You can then batch-build the item into the game via BodySlide, which will create high- and low-weight meshes and include the reference body too if you left that option checked in the Save Project As dialog box.

I will probably have to look up tutorials for all of that xD

 

I havent messed with outfit studio at all so admittedly I have very very little knowledge of how it works, or how to do anything within it. I know how to import and export, thats about it =/ I am very new to making meshes and such like that for skyrim. Ive done it for other games, but they didnt use NIF files. Most were either DAE or OBJ =/

[Vyxenne]

Here's some boilerplate I wrote while supporting other mods. If you don't use UUNP, you would need to mentally substitute whatever default body you use.

 

How to convert any armor to UUNP with physics after you install the armor/clothing mod into the game- if your body choice is CBBE, simply substitute that for "UUNP" below:

1. Open Bodyslide, then open Outfit Studio (lower-right button)
2. If you already have a SliderSet for the outfit and Body Type, open it and skip to #17. Otherwise, click New Project (top-left button)
3. Select UUNP-HDT if you want physics, or just UUNP if not, and click Next
4. Name the project for what it will be, e.g. "Scarlet Dawn Armor UUNP-HDT" (this is just the internal Bodyslide name but it should be at least similar to the outfit name)
5. Hit Browse, then navigate to the high-weight variant of the torso item- example "torso_1.nif" and select it
6. Delete the included body if any (the one that does not say UUNP in bold green font)
7. Fit the reference body as close as you can to the outfit using the outfit's current, pre-conversion body-shape ("UNPB" etc.) high-weight slider first, then fine-tune with various body-part ("Breasts" etc.) sliders if required
8. Click File > Make Conversion Reference and name the conversion reference something descriptive like "Scarlet Dawn Armor ConvRef"
9. Highlight one or more outfit shape(s) and fit the outfit perfectly to the body using the brushes along the toolbar at the top of the left pane
10. Once the fit is perfect, click Slider > Conform All
11. Edit the slider (click the eye-shape at the left end of the slider) and fix any slight remaining clipping. If there's more than a tiny bit left to fix at this point, cancel editing of the slider and go back to Step 9- you should fix virtually all clipping before hitting "Slider > Conform all."
12. Disable slider edit and drag the slider to 100%
13. Click Slider > Set Base Shape
14. Click File > Load Reference and select the same reference body you loaded in Step 3
15. Click Slider > Conform All (yes, again)
16. Toggle editing on applicable sliders one at a time, e.g. UNPB High/Low, UNP High/Low, whatever body shape(s) you actually plan to build into your game
17. Copy bone weights if required- select shape(s) on the Meshes tab, then go to the Bones tab and multi-select bone(s) to copy, then back on the Meshes tab, right-click one of the selected shapes and hit Copy Selected Bone Weights. With skirts and dresses that tightly span the distance between the thighs and/or butt cheeks, and also with low-neckline bodices that tightly span the distance between the breasts, you should hand-paint a little of the left weight across the center onto the right, and vice-versa- the objective is that the cloth between the thighs/butt-cheeks/breasts should not look like it was chopped in half on the centerline but rather like a real piece of material that moves with both sides as they bounce around.
18. Click File > Save Project As and make sure "Copy reference shape into output" is checked only for torso items
19. Click OK
20. Close Outfit Studio
21. In Bodyslide, click the tiny down-arrow in the Outfits filter box at the top right corner and select "Refresh Outfits" so your new SliderSet will become available for use in Bodyslide
22. Select the Body Type (e.g. "Unified UNP-HDT") in the top-left dropdown and the preset shape (e.g. UNPB, UNP-Pushup, UNPCM, My Custom UUNP Preset, etc.) in the dropdown under that
23. Enter all or part of your new slider/outfit name in the Outfit Filter (e.g. "Scarlet" for Scarlet Dawn Armor)
24. Click the Batch-Build button in the lower left corner- if multiple slidersets show up, tick or untick as appropriate
25. Click OK to build the new outfit to your selected body type and shape. Bodyslide will tell you "success" when it's done

[timstertimster]

Very useful guide and thanks for writing it. 
 

I’m using an ESP mod (Harem 18, nexus ID 12816) that has a number of custom bodied followers. It’s a UNP body and my femalebody_ are CBBE bodies. When I look at the dorms in CK, it appears they simply reference vanilla femalebody_ but then how are they so custom shaped? They definitely do not look like my own base body. 
 

is UNP a different vertex topography? Or is it just a special shape and vertexes are the same on all bodies?

 

how do I create a “plugin” ESP so I can make  these followers have custom bodies? I’m in Creation Kit and attempting to change the model reference path to my own NIF but things are breaking.

 

I loaded the harem ESP and set my own ESP as active file- do I have to set the harem ESP as ESM in TES5Edit for it to work?

 

Right now I just changed the voice of one follower as a test and it created a duplicate form, which in-game looks like my base body, but has a black face. So I’m apparently not correctly setting overwrites to the harem ESP’s follower form. 
 

 

[Ankahet]

4 hours ago, Vyxenne said:

Here's some boilerplate I wrote while supporting other mods.

Thank you so much!

 

Ill fiddle around with it some more when I am done drawing porn for the day X.x

 

Its such a pain to have to try and hunt down tutorials and such, this is definitely a boon, thank you! ❤️

[Vyxenne]

2 hours ago, timstertimster said:

When I look at the dorms in CK, it appears they simply reference vanilla femalebody_

Although the body filenames would be the same ("femalebody_0.nif" and "femalebody_1.nif"), the path would be different- the usual path change for custom-body NPCs is Data\Meshes\Armor\<Mod Or NPC Name>\femalebody_0.nif and femalebody_1.nif instead of the default Data\Meshes\Actors\character\character assets\femalebody_0.nif and femalebody_1.nif.

 

Alternatively, some mod authors prefer a more conventional approach, placing their body files in custom folders like Data\Meshes\Actors\character\<NPC Name>\femalebody_1.nif. Here is what that looks like in one of my slooty mod plugins in SSEEdit:

 

If you will look at the Mod's NPC records with SSEEdit you will probably notice that their body is (for example) "SarahNudeBody" and when you go up to Armor Addons you will find the "armor" named SarahNudeBody and a list of the 3 meshes it uses (body, hands, feet) complete with path structures. As you say, it can't possibly be the default folder structure since the bodies are visibly different.

 

The CK is a great tool but it is gross overkill for most of what we are doing with mods, not to mention frustratingly slow to load- you will be a lot happier using SSEEdit whenever possible.

[timstertimster]

4 hours ago, Vyxenne said:

The CK is a great tool but it is gross overkill for most of what we are doing with mods, not to mention frustratingly slow to load- you will be a lot happier using SSEEdit whenever possible.

I am discovering this now slowly as well... I just don't understand SSEdit yet, have just gotten barely comfortable with CK. Thanks for replying, its nice to see active experts still so many years later.

 

I am also struggling with Outfit Studio. I built a custom body mesh in blender, exported that, imported it and copied weights, but I'm now stuck at missing textures.

 

How do I ensure that in Outfit Studio? Or do I have to mess with NifSkope (another intimidating tool I am not used to yet)?

 

 

[Vyxenne]

There are supposed to be pointers to the textures within the nif files, in the BSLightingShaderProperties > BSShadersTextureSet block.

 

[Ankahet]

I also have this issue, when I import my item to Nifskope, the grid shows up, but not my item =/

[timstertimster]

On 12/12/2019 at 8:50 PM, Vyxenne said:

There are supposed to be pointers to the textures within the nif files, in the BSLightingShaderProperties > BSShadersTextureSet block.

OK, I tried in OS, which didn't work, but in NifSkope it did (below my UV layout template).

 

How come the mesh has hard edges? Is there an export setting in blender I need to be aware of?

 

 

 

 

First slot is diffuse, right? What about the remaining 8 slots?

I imagine there can be specular, alpha, bump, normal maps also? I wouldn't want a glossy material like I seem to have now.

And what's the right way to use DDS? DXT5 compression, with alpha or without? MipMaps are not necessary, right?

 

[Vyxenne]

7 hours ago, timstertimster said:

First slot is diffuse, right? What about the remaining 8 slots?

[timstertimster]

Thank you @Vyxenne for this reference.

On 12/14/2019 at 6:52 AM, Vyxenne said:

 

How does it work with DDS compression? I guess I have to use DXT5A and use the alpha channel to define transparency, right?

Does MipMap have any particular use? This post is detailed but doesn't mention mipmap.

 

 

for my own and other people's record: a nice tut on DDS here. But it's section on `NiAlphaProperty` is not accurate I think. THe NIfskope UI gives me a dedicated AlphaProperty node already, I just needed to add my created alpha node ID and it worked.
 

[timstertimster]

Oh boy.. the more I learn, the more questions I have LOL

 

So I am doing a custom body for a modded NPC and got as far as working out all the way to having things look nice in nifskope. But now when I load the game, the bodies are invisible - I checked texture paths and found out it's a race-based texture path in the esp - how do I set custom texture paths? Because setting them inside NifSkope doesn't do anything, I have to place the diffuse DDS in the folder that the source mod's esp has set.

 

I suppose I have to create a custom esp in SSEdit, as @Vyxenne suggested, and change paths there?

[Vyxenne]

On 12/15/2019 at 4:06 PM, timstertimster said:

How does it work with DDS compression? I guess I have to use DXT5A and use the alpha channel to define transparency, right?

Does MipMap have any particular use? This post is detailed but doesn't mention mipmap.

SSE supports DXT7 if you can find a plugin for GIMP or Photoshop that can do it. Paint-dot-net can handle DXT7 but if you're on Windows 7 like I am you have to get a platform update from Microsoft first, but there are two files on offer and no guidance as to which one you need. This has stopped me from installing Paint-dot-net.

 

MipMaps are crucial because they lighten the graphics rendering load on progressively more-distant objects, especially in Skyrim where so much of the graphics processing is done on the CPU instead of the GPU. You should always regenerate them (as part of the File > Export > DDS process) after you have created or modified a texture.

[timstertimster]

2 hours ago, Vyxenne said:

MipMaps are crucial because they lighten the graphics rendering load...

Makes sense. 

 

After creating a path override in SSEEdit, and saving it to a new ESP, even though I have the correct files in the right folder, the NPC is now blue again.

[Vyxenne]

That is indicative of a missing texture, i.e. a bad path or a bad texture.

 

Bad Path:  The game assumes "..\Data\Textures\" as the default root path for textures, so if your myOwnTextures folder is not directly in that assumed path, it will not be found.

 

Bad dds: To test whether or not your custom texture dds is usable, remove your override esp or rename it to testingMyChanges.esp.zap), back up Kalilies\NPC\femalebody_1.dds (e.g. rename it to femalebody_1.dds.bak) and then copy>paste your custom dds directly into the Kalilies\NPC\ folder and test in-game.

 

 

[timstertimster]

Thanks @Vyxenne I appreciated the help w ton. I finally worked it out. Soon I will have my noc looking like I want yay