Mesh texture problems

[Deep Red]

I've been working to adapt some armors and clothes for the UNPB body lately, but have run into an annoying problem after exporting the model from 3ds max. Assuming there are no exploding vertices or weighing issues, I've noticed that the textures come out looking a little odd in-game. Here are two pics how they appear in-game:

Note: The one on the left is the original mesh as provided by theRoadstroker in his Royal Elven Set armor at the Nexus. The picture on the right is one I'm working on.

[spoiler=Pics]

 

 

 

Disregarding the obvious skinning problems I've yet to resolve, you can see that light behaves differently around the belly area of the clothing. On the mesh that I exported, the fabric looks odd and featureless when under light, whereas the original version had light properly reflecting from it. I'm going to take a guess and say that it's a problem involving the normal map of the mesh. I've reviewed Nightasy's fantastic tutorial video series (if creating/adapting armor & clothes for Skyrim interests you, these vids are for you!) more than a few times and performed the nifskope "clean-up" and editing of the models before using them in Skyrim. The problem still persists however, and I'm at my wit's end. Would a 3ds max wizard please shine some light to as what I'm doing wrong?

 

Also, it might help to add that I'm using the 2012 edition of 3ds max.

[Vioxsis]

Bad vertex normals.

Are your niftools up to date? http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3845

 

 

[Deep Red]

My version of niftools was outdated, yeah. I've updated to the latest one now though. Another question: since I already exported those meshes, is there a way to fix vertex normals on them or do I need to start the conversion from scratch again?

[Vioxsis]

You could try 'face normals' in nifskope, but that was always hit an miss for me.

 

 

 

 

But just exporting it from max with the updated exporter will not cause the problem to begin with.

 

The old version only broke them on export not import.

[Deep Red]

Sigh, nothing ever seems to be easy around me. The updated version of niftools was working fine for a few trial runs, but then it inexplicably stopped working. Now it refuses to import .nif files onto 3ds max, in fact, it doesn't even register nif models as viable importable material. I followed the installation instructions as provided on the thread you linked and tried to reinstall the tools. Unless I read the directions wrong, it said to pretty much drag n' drop the new files onto the appropriate folders in the 3ds max 2012 folder. I use the 64-bit version of the software, and installed the respective version of Niftools. Before learning of the update, I used the 3.7.3 version uploaded at the Nexus, however, the updated version says it's v 3.7.2? Is this correct? On that same entry, I found a manual work around for enabling vertex normals on one of the post dicussions that has worked, but it can be tedious to use for every exported block.

 

If you currently have the latest version working, could you clarify the install instructions a little more for the less savvy? I get this odd feeling I did something wrong.

[Vioxsis]

I just dropped the NifPlugins.dlu into C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2012\plugins

 

3.7.3 is a fork and so is the one i linked to it should have $WCREV$ at the end of 3.7.2

 

 

 

 

[Deep Red]

I played around with the plugin a little more on my spare time but wasn't able to get it to work correctly. Upon exporting a model from 3ds max, it would lose all of its BSLightingShader properties. For now, I'll be using the nifskope edit work around until I can figure out how to make it work right. Thanks for the help though, at least I know what was wrong now.