Trouble in Mirroring the Object

[lovender]

 

 

 

With Blender 2.49a, after I made changes in y axis in NifSkope, I can bring back the translation in y axis from 0.5000 to 0.000 using "Use The Force Luke" option in Blender.

But now in Blender 2.49b, "Use The Force Luke" had no effect...after I export the mesh from Blender, the y axis in Nifskope still 0.5000 & I can't use the mesh properly in-game.

 

I read in NifSkope tutorials & use Transformation > Apply to make the translation back to 0.000 without changing the position of mesh.

But the result is: the mesh did not appear in-game.

 

Please help....

 

Thanks

[movomo]

ok why do you have to translate the mesh in NifSkope? Just do it in blender.

Ctrl N to edit numerically and translate the object by -0.05 along the y axis. or just hit g, y, -.05 to move the object back.

If you want to adjust the orientation, select the object and press Ctrl A and choose an apply option.

[lovender]

hi, movomo...

 

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I succsefully apply the object in blender & now the object appears properly in-game.

 

But there's one more problem:

 

 

 

 

 

The object in left hand should looks like above.

But it appears like below:

 

 

 

 

 

What should I do in Blender 2.49b to fix the problem?

 

Thanks for your attention.

 

 

-lovender-

[movomo]

Probably a normal problem. How did you mirror the object? You can either use the 'mirror' modifier, or model one side of the object and manually mirror it.

 

In this case, I think you have mirrored it manually and joined them. If so, before you join those two objects (original and mirrored one), you need to 'flip' the normal of the mirrorred object. When you click the flip normal button the object will turn black unless double sided option is enabled, but it's ok and normal. No pun intended.

[lovender]

I did mirror the object using Shift+D.

& then I scale X axis from 1.000 to -1.000.

 

This is the information that I got from other forums:

 

"To create a mirror image of an object duplicate it (Shift-D) hit escape so you don't move it. Now scale the copy -1 in the X axis (its best just to press N key to access the Numeric Transform Number menu and scale from there). You may need to scale in a different axis if you want to flip the object a different way. Note that mirroring can invert the normals (object goes black). Solve this by switching off [DoubleSided] in the edit buttons, hitting [FlipNormals] and selecting the vertices of the mesh and hitting Ctrl-N or Shift-Ctrl-N."

 

Is this what you mean 'flip' normal?

 

 

 

 

 

I haven't join the original and mirrored one, because I want the right & the left object to be separated in-game.

 

 

EDIT:

I export the object from Blender. But the result is like this in NifSkope:

 

 

 

 

 

I think because double sided option is disabled. & so the proper textures only applied for the inside of the object.

& so, in-game I can't see the textures of the gauntlet.

 

I selected the vertices of the mesh and hitting Ctrl-N or Shift-Ctrl-N until the object appear properly with textures in Blender.

& finally the object appear properly in-game.

I'll release the mod once everything's ready & give you credit.

 

Thanks.

 

P.S:  This comunity is COOL!

[movomo]

Kick ass

 

Anyway, strange. because such kind of normal issues are usually not likely to happen in blender, especially in the current version of nifscript. Ive seen such things in some old mods that were made by very old max exporter..

 

When you need to mirror an object, the most convenient way is using the mirror modifier. It automatically mirrors its vertex groups as well. and there already is mirroring functionality in blender. Not scaling -1 along the x axis, just hit Ctrl M and axis button - in most cases, y.

Align normals (Ctrl N or Shift Ctrl N) is useful but sometimes doesn't work well ( and it means that mesh is seriously fucked up) in that case you may want to adjust them by hand.

[kingkong]

i think you mirror globel x by transform after that you need to flip normals

 

you select the mirror hand in 'edit mod'    click on 'mesh'   choose  'normals'  --+ than 'Flip normals' 

 

the hand will inverse inside out.

[lovender]

Ok...right now I'm trying to resize the pants object to fit the greaves.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm planning to fit only the left side then mirror the object for the right side.

My question: how to position the right-side object to match the left-side?

 

I know I have to press shift+S selection>cursor & cursor>selection to connect both sides then press Ctrl+J.

But the difficulty is to get the exact position of the left & the right side.

 

Thanks.

[movomo]

There are two choices again. As I've mentioned, you can use the mirror modifier. Then no need of joining & merging center verts.
Second way (your way). You mirrorred the object and flipped normals? then select all the verts near y axis (which are to be merged), scale them along x axis to the y axis(in scaling mode just move the cursor to the y axis). Then Ctrl W - remove doubles. Note, this method is quite imperfect, you may need to check again if some vertices remain unmerged.
You don't need snapping here.

 

edit

uh oh. no Ctrl w. Just w.. It's been a while I don't tinker with blender..

[lovender]

Woowww...add modifier > mirror works best!

It's like doing magic. Cool!

It's too bad i didn't get this information from previous forums.

Thanks again, movomo...

My mods is almost done. 

 

Another helps if you don't mind:

 

1. Ctrl+A in Blender only transform Scale x/y/z & Rot x/y/z; but not Loc x/y/z.

I remember in Blender 2.49a I can transform Loc x/y/z from any numbers to 0 without changing the position of the object I set in NifSkope

with "Use the Force Luke" in Blender.

Any idea for this matter instead of using Ctrl+A in Blender?

 

2. Maybe this is out of topic. But do you have experiences with texturing?

For the mod i'm working now, I modified 2 helmets in Blender & NifSkope

so there will be: open-visor helmet & closed-visor helmet.

 

 

 

 

 

But because of the original mod had no closed-visor helmet, so the original textures also did not design for open-visor.

Here's the original textures:

 

 

 

 

 

What I'm trying to do is to clean the black shadows that cover the visor. 

I did re-texturing in photoshop. But still don't get the good result.

Any idea?

 

Thanks.

 

-lovender-

[movomo]

Open visor? That one would be tricky as you don't have the original material texture.. dark part is too dark I doubt if you can get any useful output with adjusting levels/curves. If I were you, I'd try re-painting (more or less from scratch) and pasting any metalic texture that looks similar to the original one as an overlay layer or something. Or try healing brush & patch (as long as your photoshop is not terribly outdated)

 

As for the first question, I'm not certain what you're getting at. Ctrl+A in blnder 2.49b is used to 'apply' translation/rotaion to the object. It helps you keeping things neat and clean. For a simple example: you move an object z+10 from the original position [0,0,0] then the relative position would be [0,0,10]. Applying object declares that position [0,0,10] as the original position, now [0,0,10] becomes the new local orientation[0,0,0]. Any scaled factors will be set to 1 from now on, because you've just set the current state of the object as the 'original' state. So, you'll lose any transformed history for the object.

When you make any position change in nifskope, you have to apply transformation as well. If you haven't, maybe that's why the position of the object is different in nifskope and blender.

[lovender]

I'm working on the textures with healing brush.

It's not easy. But hopefully I can make it.

 

I still have problem with ctrl+A in Blender 2.49b.

Here's the problem: 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, only Rot X that applied to 0. But loc Y still -1.

I tried to press ctrl+A & choose "Visual transform to objetcs loc/scale/rot" but nothing happen in Blender.

& so, I decided to re-install Blender 2.49a & use the force Luke to apply the translation to (0,0,0).

 

But I still have the problem with the pauldrons mesh I'm working now.

 

 

 

 

 

With translation (-1,1,3) the mesh appear in-game like picture no.1

But with translation (0,0,0) the mesh appear in-game like picture no.2

Actually there are no position changes in Blender or in NifSkope even with translation (-1,1,3) or (0,0,0).

So that's a weird problem I can't handle...any idea?

 

Thanks.

 

 

[movomo]

Hmm, why don't you post the blend file? Let's see what's going on.

[kingkong]

i think you need to clear location than in edit mod rotate, scale, and place it in the right position.

[lovender]

@movomo:

Aha! Good idea...

Here's the file (attached below).

 

@kingkong:

Haven't try your way.

I'll give it a try then.

While I wait movomo to check my work, I'll try to finish retexturing project for the helmet-visor.

 

Pauldrons.nif

[movomo]

Try this.

 

As you see, their orientation is not positioned at the center.

To move the 3D cursor to the center, hit Shift + C.

Then click 'Center Cursor'. Keeping their object orientation at the center is recommended almost always. Not always, but almost always.

[lovender]

@ movomo & kingkong:

both ways you guys suggested still not working. (sorry) 

 

I think I realize one thing:

The pauldrons only have Bip01 L UpperArmTwist & Bip01 R UpperArmTwist.

While in other pauldrons mesh I found that they also have Bip01 L Clavicle & Bip01 R Clavicle.

 

So how can I add Bip01 L Clavicle & Bip01 R Clavicle to the pauldrons mesh I am working?

If I boneweightcopy from another pauldrons mesh, sometimes ther will be changes on the pauldrons shape.

 

My another concern is:

In Nifskope, the pauldrons is placed in horizontal position.

But in-game, the pauldrons should be in vertical position. 

 

So if I move the pauldrons z +3 when in vertical position like this:

 

 

 

 

 

In the horizontal position the pauldrons will look flying from the shoulders like this: 

 

 

 

 

 

So how to manage this?

Is it because there are no Bip01 L & R Clavicle thingy?

[movomo]

No problem in boneweight. Upperarmtwist L/R is ok and very good.

I checked it again and found that those pauldrons are in wrong position from the beginning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you see, you shifted up the pauldrons for some reason. By accident or whatever..

To move an object to the cursor's location, use snap menu. Shift+S to toggle the snap menu and choose the second (2). In this case, you want move the origin to the center so you should place the cursor at the center (Shift+C).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use the force luke setting has nothing to do with this case.

[kingkong]

this is not going to be simple     after  applying   'bone copy weight'   you will need to click on 'weight paint'   ( i suggest you to move the pauldron to an other layer )      than   you unify the painting   for each bone  left & right  all of them      ( and you need to take an exemple on some vanilla pauldron )         (with 'wire' clicked on   it can be usefull to undrestand  the way it is painted the borders )    and of cours do not forget any vertex faces or it will be a mess   (the color vary from blue 0.000  to  red 1.000 ) .        it means you will have to test your nif in game and adjust in blender a few time before you will find it correct.

 

 

[lovender]

Mmm...1st thing 1st then: how to use the spoiler to hide the picture like you did above?

I have no idea.  (sorry) So in the future I can save up some space when posting image.

 

 

[movomo]

Called spoiler. Either use the advanced editor or type "spoiler" and "/spoiler" inside of brackets ([ ])

You can see it if you quote my post.

 

Did it work btw?

[lovender]

I'm affraid there's a misunderstanding (maybe bcos of my bad english).

So I think I'll talk with the pictures better than words,

& I'm planning to release the mod for beta test, so you can test my work & see my problem in-game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok...back to the topic:

Your suggestion in the post before will make the pauldrons look in nifskope/blender like picture no. 5,

but it will make the pauldrons look like picture no. 3 in-game. Absolutely not the position I want when in-game.

 

So I change the coordinates from (0,0,0) to

(-1,1,3) for the right-pauldron & (1,1,3) for the left-pauldron (picture no. 4),

& they will look like picture no. 1. Perfect position when in-game & the position I desired!

 

Now the only problem of mine is only when I apply transformation.

When I apply transformation to make the coordinates (0,0,0), 

the pauldrons in-game will look like picture no. 2...

 

So the conclusion is:

I need help to apply the coordinates to (0,0,0) with the position of the pauldrons like in the picture no.1 in-game.

 

Pauldrons.nif

[movomo]

Friend, looks like you need some learning about the bone weights.

 

So why you keep moving them along z axis? (-1,1,0) or (1,1,0) is enough but no z axis! Maybe you think they should be shifted up because they are too low in the idel pose in game, but it's wrong. The 'T' stance you see in Nifskope or Blender is the standard to adjust position. All you need to do is moving each pauldron slightly to the center x axis, not z axis.

The reason why (1,1,3) *appeared* to be working right is because they're not applied yet. So once you apply the transform in Nifskope, they will be shown as picture 2. You see? If everything is fine, your mesh should behave in game exactly as you see in Nifskope.

 

*edit*

The pauldrons are rigged to UpperArmTwist bones. That means the pauldron will be deformed as the UpperArmTwist bone moves, and UpperArmTwist alone, not anything else.

[lovender]

Gratitude, my friend.

 

I was mistaken then. I didn't realize my mistake. Sorry...

But yes, I never learn about bone weights. Don't know where to learn actually...

I remember I learned about blender from Nexus years ago.

I'm learning how to do UV mapping right now from blender wiki.

Still so much to learn I think (Ooo...so scary)

 

Anyway, the pauldrons are now looks perfectly in-game. Thanks...

*continue to do retexturing in photoshop. 

 

Oh...btw, do u know how to rip data from PS3 bluray?

Cos I'm 100% sure that the mod I'm working now (Wolfkrone armor) & Sophitia outfit is ripped from SC IV game that only available on PS3.

I bought bluray-ROM last Sunday to do some ripping.  But after I insert PS3 bluray, my bluray ROM didn't respond.

But if I insert PC game (WoW) & my bluray ROM responded.

So please let me know if you have some info.

 

After I knew how to rip the data, from there I think I have to learn how to do rigging in Blender.

La la la la la...

 

 

[movomo]

Nope, ripping things and ripped contents are generally none of my concern. Can't help you there.

 

Good to know you got it to work, anyway.