Oblivion - Blender Modeling, Armor Converting and Animating

[Myst42]

Here go some thoughts on how do I do this...

The first thing I ever tried in modding Oblivion was converting armors.

I really really hate DMRA... It's my own personal opinion, so I'm not criticizing anyone, but I, hate it

So I saw so many pretty armors out there that I wanted to use...

But most of my characters are C cup or D...

And so this enterprise began...

 

My my.. where to start.... Lets start the same way I did... converting armors

 

Converting Armors for Different Body Types in Oblivion:

 

By today's standars, we have the Clothing Converter Tool  And though it helps (A lot) It doesnt always get the full job done or it makes small errors. My policy these days is uding it and then STILL making adjustments manually so that way the Clothing converter is a facilitator that does most of the work before you can achieve a perfect result

 

First, you need proper Tools and Materials:

-Oblivion

-Nifskope

-Blender v2.49b

-Nif scripts for Blender

 

Second thing needed is to get everything in order, that means you need the raw materials you're gonna use, meaning the meshes

.nif files, are the models Oblivion reads, but in order to edit them you need to open them in Blender, that's what nif scripts are for, but you only get to Blender once you have your nif files properly made

 

There are many ways to arrange how youre gonna do it, but this is what I do about the nif files:

-Armor you desire to convert

-Target Body type mesh

-Empty Nif file with a skeleton on it

 

So what to do with this?

-The armor you desire comes from the source, the mod you downloaded contains it.

If you installed Nifskope properly, you should double-click nif files from your download and one of them should contain the models for the armor, usually it makes sense and it's name's something like "cuirass.nif"

-The target body type is the body type you like, it comes from the body mod you like for Oblivion whether if it's HGEC, Robert, DMRA, Manga Body among others... By now you should have already researched what are your preferences.

I like HGEC in normal sizes, plus BBB function but you're free to like whatever you want.

-The Empty file, I will provide in this post, but its a matter of getting a file with most bones and deleting meshes in nifskope.

EMPTY.nif.rar

 

So why the Empty file?

 

 

Every armor in Oblivion moves according to what a skeleton dictates.

No skeleton, no motion

If you don't already have Universal Skeleton, I suggest you get it now. (Shame on you...)

Universal skeleton is a compilation of various different animating functions modders have made over time, the most popular ones are things like BBB, which makes breasts bounce, and High Heels, which raises the body up, in order to make some armors look like they work like real high heels.

So all these extra animations do nothing strange if Universal Skeleton is not installed. The Vanilla Skeleton has only the basic bones needed for Vanilla animations, nothing more.

So this Empty file, contains all normal bones most armors use under what its called an "Armature"

 

 

 

Part I: Nifskope

 

In Nifskope, you will see a list

0 NiNode ------ Scene Root

Which means the armature is called "Scene Root"

The button to the left of Ni Node 0, expands the Scene Root like a tree, under it, there are the parts of the armor (meshes) and the armature's bones

It's easy to distinguish, cause meshes have properties and a button beside them to expand said properties

 

To business:

Explore the armor you desire and select the meshes you wish to edit for the conversion.

You can select them in the 3D view, and they will be selected and highlighted on the list

The long way to do this is to right-click the highlighted item, pop up window, go to "Block" and select "Copy Branch"

The short way is to select the highlighted item on the list and press Ctrl+C

 

Now go to the Empty mesh, select Scene Root and paste the mesh.

You do this by right-click, Block, Paste Branch

Or you can press Ctrl+V

 

IMPORTANT:

Parenting: parenting means a mesh is parented to an armature or skeleton.

If it's NOT parented, it will NOT work

A mesh HAS TO BE part of an armature. You see this if the mesh is under the armature as part of the expanding tree

If it's not, then you can always copy and paste within the same file, but this time paste it TO the armature

 

Congratulations, you successfully pasted a mesh from a nif file into another

Why was this so important?

This is how how can prepare any nif file whether if it's for editing, or playing. This is how you move meshes.

And this is how you should construct the file you're gonna work with.

 

Move all the interesting meshes from the armor to the empty file, move the body type you want to the empty mesh.

The "interesting meshes" are your call. These could be the ones you're editing, but sometimes I don't always edit all of them, sometimes I use some for reference on how it's gonna look.

 

Save the Empty file as something different, you're gonna import this one into Blender and play with 3D design.

 

Part II: Blender

 

Importing your file:

First if you opened a new file, press A a couple of times until everything is selected, and then delete (the cube the circle and the pyramid thing)

If you installed nif scripts properly, go to File, Import, Netimmerse/Gamebyro (.nif.kf.egm)

Browse folders to the location you made the nif file with everything in it. Import Nif

Some buttons appear.

Importants are:

-Import Animation: must be deselected, this is for working with animations not meshes

-Import Skeleton Only + Parent Selected (Button1): deselected, this is for when you have no skeleton and need one, also used for woking with animations

-Import Geometry Only + Parent to Selected Armature (Button2): deselected, this is for when you do have a skeleton and want to import armor pieces parented to it

 

Note: This is another way some people get everything in order, they import a skeleton (Button1 is selected) and then start to import meshes parenting them to it (Button2 is selected), or they do the opposite, they import all the pieces first, (None selected) and then delete all skeleton pieces that came with the meshes and ON TOP of that, they import a final skeleton and parent it to all (Button1 is selected)

 

To save me the trouble of doing that, I always get everything into a single file first, and then I only do 1 Import.

 

Time to mess with Blender:

 

Blender 101 (Keys)

Middle click mouse pressed: rotate view

Shift + middle mouse button pressed: translate view

Mousewheel: Zoom In/Out

NumPad1: posterior view

NumPad3: lateral view

NumPad7: superior view

Right Click: select something

Shift + Right Click: deselect something OR add something else to selection(depends on where you click)

Z: Wireframe view (only sees edges of a mesh making it translucid)

Tab: Change Modes

A: Select/Deselect all

Ctrl + J: Joins all selected pieces to the last one you selected

*Something I do sometimes is join all meshes into one, that way I don't have to make changes on them by separately, besides, if they have different textures, Blender will remember and export them separately when it's done.

H: hides the selected thing, Alt + H makes everything visible again. Useful for when too many meshes are involved and you need to focus on less

/: Changes view to one where ONLY the selected mesh is visible

Ctrl + L: (On EDIT Mode) Selects all verices connected to the ones you have preciously selected, very useful when you have to select certain areas/parts of a mesh with the intention to separate them into a different mesh.

P: (On EDIT Mode) Separates selected vertices into a different mesh.

 

There's no easy way of doing this. 3D Modeling is an art, you have to use the resources you have, and it's exactly like modeling in real life, an artist sculpts what he/she wants into the shape he/she wants. So it's a matter of experimenting, trying, imagining, visualizing and applying. Knowledge on how to do this best only comes from talent and experience.

 

But you need to know what are your tools, so I'm gonna describe 3 tools I use.

 

Method 1: Raw Editing:

 

 

 

Notice there's a panel below in Blender with some buttons and options, one of them says Object Mode

Press Tab or select from the panel, to change to Edit Mode

 

In edit Mode the view changes and now you can see where the edges, faces and vertices are, selecting vertices allows you to edit them

More Keys:

G: Grab (it grabs a vertex and moves it with the mouse, left-click to drop it in the desired location, right-click to un-grab

B: mouse changes to a tool that can drag a rectangle and select everything in it. If you press Alt while making the selection, you can deselect within the area. If you press B again, the tool becomes a brush that selects or deselects everything in its way. The brush grows or decreases with Mousewheel

S: Scale, can only be used when at least 2 vertices are selected

R: Rotate selected thing

X,Y,Z: can be used after G, S or R to grab, scale or rotate only in the selected axis

Ctrl + L: selects everything connected to what you have previously selected

P: Separates selected vertices into a different mesh.

 

Things you should now about raw editing:

 

In the same panel the Mode was selected, there are three buttons, one with some dots, one with a line and one with a triangle on it

They affect what are you selecting, whether if it's vertices, edges or faces. everything you do with the keys will behave differently in each of these three modes

 

Still in the same panel there's a button with a circle on it that says "Proportional Editing" Can be changed to "Connected ", "On" or "Off"

-Off is by default, you only edit what you have selected

-On edits the surrounding areas of your selection making a smoother edition

-Connected edits the surroundings too, but only the ones which are connected

-Mousewheel can make the lateral editing area larger or smaller

-When On or Connected are selected, a button appears right next to it "Proportional Edit Falloff"

The curve shows an approximation of what's gonna happen with the mesh when you move something (in the surrounding area to your selection)

Smooth is the smoothest, but Sphere and Sharp Falloff have their moments to use

 

Tips:

*Try to use Proportional Editing to keep the model shape

*For breast editing, Sphere Falloff is often very useful

*Change views, play with options, rotate, scale and move things into your dream shape

*NumPad3 gives you lateral view and shows what armor areas are identical in left/right sides, so you can select things transversely and move together, there can be movement on y and z axis, but to move them on x axis its best to scale, bigger, moves both sides outwards, smaller, inwards.

 

 

 

Method 2: The Lattice

 

 

 

The lattice is a modifier that lets you edit a very rudimentary cube in a way that will affect anything that's under its influence

 

In Object Mode, from the top menu, select "Add" and then Lattice

If it didnt create it at the center of the world, Press Shift + C to center mouse cursor in the center of everything and create a lattice there

A pink border cube with no faces appeared

In the panel below, there's a place where it says OB: Lattice. Change it to anything you like, that's the name of the lattice and will be used to target the modifiers. I always name it "l" cause it's easier to write. but anything will do

 

Still In Object Mode edit the lattice to cover the area of your conversion, you can grab it around x,y,z axis and scale it as a whole or scale it only in z,x, or y

You can also rotate it, but it's not useful except for special occasions

 

Select the mesh you want the lattice to affect and in the panel below go to "Add Modifier", and then lattice. Write the name of the lattice in the Ob space

Repeat the process for every mesh you want affected by the lattice. DO NOT use the lattice modifier on the desired body mesh, you want the armor to adjust to the body, you do not want to change the body itself.

 

Now In Object Mode, the lattice is defined. In the panels below there's U,V and W letters in a space, all followed by number 2.

This means the number of lines a lattice has in all three dimensions. Increase that number to add more lines and divide the lattice to add more editable points

You can always go back to Object Mode and edit the divisions again

 

Once you're happy with you preliminary lattice and it's affecting all your desired meshes, select it and go to Edit Mode

Here you can play with the lattice, move vertices, scale them or rotate them and it will have effects in the meshes

This is the simplest way to adjust a mesh to a different shape. Play until you're happy and the meshes fit the target body

 

Once you're done with the lattice modifying, you have to apply it to the armor meshes

In the panel below, see the lattice modifier you created earlier for each mesh and press "Apply" This makes changes permanent

 

Tips:

*The way I do my modeling, I always COMBINE everything I know, so I use mostly Raw Editing for Details, but the first step I take is always large scale editing with lattices.

 

 

 

Method 3: Sculpt Mode

 

 

 

Some pages will tell you this is the way, but as I said, I mostly use Lattice and then fix details by Editing

 

To Sculpt select a mesh, go to Sculpt Mode and somewhere in the panel below its a "Sculpt" layer that contains the options for Sculpting

This is mostly self-explanatory but I mostly use Symmetry in X, to make changes in both sides.

The button Draw is a brush mode and when you click and pass through a surface changes will happen

The button Grab allows to "drag and drop" areas of the mesh. Useful when editing areas wich have non-connected vertices because it moves everything within it's reach

The buttons Inflate, Flatten or Smooth are useful for giving shape to an area but they dont behave well when there are "gaps" in the mesh (vertices which are not connected)

 

Tips:

*I really don't recommend Sculpt Mode when many meshes are involved or you'll have to edit each one by separate and sometimes continuity between surfaces of meshes is lost. You can join meshes and edit them as one but still it wont be the same most of the times.

 

 

 

So the idea is to combine this three methods into achieving your goal, make the best of each and be smart when using features. This is the most random part of modeling, cause there isn't really any rules and everything will depend ultimately on your skills

 

Bone Weights:

Now it's possible some armors don't exactly work the same in other body meshes because of animations (Say... transforming one of them X breast cups which are more boob than woman into something rational like a D Cup). The solution for this is messing a bit with bone weights. This is very complex to mess with, but the easy part is the bonewheight copy script 

In Edit Mode, select all the vertices from your new armor and then back to object mode. (Or you can select only the vertices you want to be affected by the script)

Select your armor mesh first, which now has your chosen vertices selected, and select the body mesh last

In the panel below, Object, Scripts, Bone Weight Copy. Pops up window. Set quality to 3, and press  "Update Selected", then OK

This takes a while, but once it's done, the chosen vertices will behave according to the motion mechanics of the body mesh

 

Body Mesh Editing:

If the armor shows some skin, you should see if the full body mesh correlates with the armor, but if some parts are meant to be covered in armor it's best to delete body mesh's vertices that are not supposed to be seen. Do this in Edit Mode, editing the body mesh and deleting what you do not want.

It's good to do this in order to minimize  clipping. (God I hate clipping... And it hides like a freaking ninja...  )

 

Once you're done, its time to export

 

Object Mode, select all

File, Export, Netimmerse/Gamebyro (.nif.kf.egm)

Buttons appear:

Important ones:

Export Geometry + Animation (.nif): Exports everything

Export Geometry Only (.nif) This is the one you want, exports only the meshes and the required bones, no animations

Export Animation Only (.kf) Only for animations, no meshes are exported.

 

Back In Nifskope:

 

Check your file, If everything is correct, you have all the meshes you edited as you made them under Scene Root node

Expanding meshes lets you see their properties, the ones you're looking for, are NiTexturingProperty and NiSkinInstance which are bone weights

 

Now it's time to rebuild the armor into its final form. So now you know how to move meshes in Nifskope from file to file. Put all the necessary parts in the final form and voila... Conversion Done 

 

 

 

 

[Myst42]

Animating in Blender

 

Ok on this part we're gonna assume you've somehow become familiar with a few concepts of the first tutorial. And we'lll try to keep a similar structure.

 

We're assuming you know a few things about Blender, you familiarized with the keyboard keys, and how to select stuff, navigate in Blender space and change modes.

 

Despite the popularity of my Oblivion Mod (Oh boy I'm so proud!!  ), my experience with animations is limited. I cannot for example create a fully original pose mod or entirely new animations. I did most of my work by tweaking vanilla animations and observing how other animations worked, reverse engineering you may call it. But at this point, it's enough to get you though the basics and hopefully you as an avid modding student, shall find other tutorials to fill the gaps on this one if you really need them.

 

You'll be needing the same Tools as for the previous enterprise.

 

Gathering your Materials, this time it means:

-A Skeleton

 And optionals:

-A rigged mesh to test the animation in Blender

 

By this point you should know where to get a a skeleton and a model.

You'll be importing the skeleton and then you'll be importing meshes and parenting them to said skeleton

 

Part I: Blender

 

Importing to Blender:

This time settings are:

-Import Skeleton Only + Parent Selected: This is how you import only a posable skeleton

-Import Animation: depends of if you are

• Tweaking an existing animation (Button must be on, and there must be a .kf file on the "keyframe file" space - this will link the .kf animation file to the skeleton you are importing)
• Creating a new one (Button is off in this case, but beware, for there will be no bone priorities and you'll have to set them manually)

 

Now you should see a skeleton (that thing made of pink sticks) which can be either posed, (If you imported an animation) or set to Oblivion's default T shape (If you didn't port an animation)

 

Part II: Setting and Knowing the Work Interface

Select the skeleton by right clicking on it

Now you need to change the mode on the panel below from Object Mode to Pose Mode

 

Notice the pink sticks are now gray and possibly green (most rare cases are blue) and have x, y and z axes drawn

-Gray bones are immaculate, no pose, no priority, just the bone and it's starting position

-Green bones have bone priorities (We'll get there)

-Bue bones if any, are already posed

 

Gee, what a mess (And I bet it's much worse on your end since I'm using a special modding skeleton which has less bones in it). All those wing and hair and dress bones... Lets order things a little

- I'll press Ctrl + I to "select inverse" This will select all bones which are not being used by the animation, then Im gonna press H to hide them. Note you shoudlnt do this if you're working on a pristine skeleton, I only do this because in this tutorial, I'll be tweaking an already made animation (one of mine).

 

Another 2 curious buttons are X-Ray and Axes

-X Ray is for seeing bones through meshes

-Axes is to toggle on/off the individual bone axes which crowded the skeleton.

 

Yet another interesting trick is to create new windows, we're gonna make at least 2 new ones cause we're gonna need them:

Right click on certain borders of Blender window and you can get a pop up message to split windows.

-Action editor is where you can see the bone list and the frames which are locked for said bones, also where exactly those positions are along the full length of the animation

-Timeline allows to play the animation and easy frame select

-Outliner is to see how things are grouped within the nif structure, and I just like having it here cause it looks pretty and can be helpful in selecting stuff.

 

And now you should have everything ready to work

Action Editor

-You Navigate it with middle mouse to pan and wheel to zoom, left click selects frame, right one selects stuff. B lets you drag and select (Just like in the 3D view) and Del deletes stuff

-Yellow dots represent locked positions in their respective frames

-A bone's locked position changes frame to frame to move closer to the next locked position, that's how a bone "moves" (Getting the idea now? - this is probably the most important concept you'll need to know in this tutorial)

-There are two small buttons which are to copy-paste groups of locked positions which will be now referred to as "keyframes" The idea is while having a selected bone, you grab a group of frames and you can paste it if you have another skeleton. Not useful now but it will be later.

3D/Timeline

 

-Timeline is pretty self-explanatory (select frame, play, stop etc...). But on the 3D Window you should notice 3 small buttons with arrows on them. One copies the pose from a bone, the other pastes is, the third one pastes the position on the equivalent bone of the contrary side.

• First 2 are useful for doing a cycling animation. When it ends, it returns to the starting position
• The third one is useful when you want a symmetric pose, that way, lets say you move the left arm, then you just mirror-paste it and right arm has now an identical position.
• 

 

Part III: Posing

I'm assuming you know how to navigate the 3D window, so all you need to know is how to set the bones' positions.

If you also remember how the keyboard keys worked on edit mode for a mesh, they work the same for posing, you can scale grab and rotate bones, with s, g and r respectively, but you'll wanna use r the most so that way bones move like they're attached to joints. Grabbing them (moving with g), most of the times, is like dislocating that joint.

So, move  the bone instead with r (rotate) until you're happy with it's position and then "save" that position (Insert key).

 

Keys:

G: Grab

S: Scale

R: Rotate

X,Y,Z: All of the previous but only on the selected axis

I: Pops up window (Insert Key): Select LocRot to set a position for the selected bone (notice new yellow dot on action editor if it wasn't one before)

Alt + I: Pops up window (Delete Key) when you wanna erase a position from the selected bone

Shift: When combined with right clicking it lets you select more than one bone at a time

 

I leave you to play at this point, making an animation is not easy and it's not all about the technique. This point requires knowing a bit about how the body is supposed to move, try experimenting. From one position to the next, the animation is about how all bones give their individual motion to the whole, they "interact" with other bones creating complex motions, like when an arm is reaching for something it moves bones from the hand, elbow and shoulder as well as trunk to achieve it's goal. Play until it looks natural. The best way to start I'd say is beginning with a starting pose, don't animate, just pose the skeleton, then copy and paste the same pose (remember those arrow buttons?) to an ending frame and from that, to can do small variations on the frames in between which will create movement.

 

About Bone Priorities:

Oblivion has a way of overlapping animations to combine them, for example you can cast a target spell while running, and bone priorities, determine which position is more "important" in that situation. 

There is a "Null" constraint on the bottom menu which was the priority value written on it for each bone. This is why I advice tweaking animations instead of making them, because you'll need to set "Null" constraints with priority values for each bone you move, you also need to be absolutely sure about what values are you gonna give to what bone and that can get messy.

Extra tip from D Man with thanks:

Small tip there are 2 places where you can set bone priorities. one is the script window under animations there should be something called bone priority you just name the number there and it will add bone priorities to each bone in your armature. And the second one is before exporting the animation you can still setup bone priority there. Even if you don't name the bone priority blender will still make the bone priority to 30 for you when exporting when no value are sspecified.

 

Now the tricky part:

 

Part IV: Inverse Kinematics

 

You know that moment when you realize kinematic chains behave differently when you're standing on the ground than waving your arm? in physics, it's called a closed kinetic chain (Google it nerds!). Problem is Blender doesn't know about it. So you need to teach it. Otherwise your animations are gonna be quite messy with "floating feet"

Inverse Kinematics in Blender are done though something called a constraint

On this example we're going to use 2 IK contraints (Set like I usually do), one for each foot in order to have both feet on the animation "attached to the ground" like there was actually a floor on the animation.

The whole process can be separated in 4 parts which are:

1. Creating target bones
2. Setting the IK Constraint
3. "Baking" the Constraint
4. Copying the resulting keyframes to your final animation

1.-Target Bones

With the skeleton selected, press Tab to change to Edit Mode

We're going to create 3 new bones

• The first is to use as target for the IK constraint
• The second is to stabilize the foot bone
• The third is to act as a "fulcrum" of reference for a knee

To create the first 2 new bones, you can select the foot bone and press Shift+D to duplicate it, you can also extrude the calf bone down to make the IK target bone (E) Then you can from a lateral view duplicate the last created bone, only this time you'll be moving it to the height of the knee. You can make it vertical if you want too (Edit works with same keys as editing meshes)

Now you'll need to rename/edit the bones so you can make em work.

New foot bone I called "Foot" Target IK bone I renamed "Leg" Knee bone I renamed "Knee" Added a letter after to tell if they were right or left leg

Now you need to change the Parent bones and "Connected" buttons on the three bones, look for "Child of" window and "Co" button on the lower pannel on Edit Mode

• Leg (Target IK bone) needs Co button off, Child of set to nothing
• Foot (Foot stabilizer) needs Co button off, Child of needs to be set to Leg (yeah the same bone we just created)
• Knee (knee fulcrum) needs Co button off, Child of can be set to Leg too

You can know you did it right when in Pose Mode you can grab Leg and move all 3 bones together without disturbing anything else

 

2.-Constraints

We'll be needing 2 constraints, one to stabilize foot bone (Actually 2) and the other to set the IK behavior

• Stabilizers: Remember that time we duplicated the original Foot bone? Well this is why we duplicated it. We're gonna add 2 constaints to it, one is Copy Rotation and the other is Copy Location; It needs only 2 fields to fill "Targe OB" is where you put the "Object's" name, in this case it's the skeleton, which should be called "Scene Root". "BO" means bone, it refers to the target bone within the skeleton. Bip01 Foot.R (The original Foot bone) should be copying out dummy Foot bone's location and rotation though these 2 constraints.
• 
• Inverse Kinematics: (At Last) Select the Calf bone (from the original skeleton) Add Constraint > IK Solver. Same principle as before, only this time the target bone is Leg. Chain Len Sould be set to 2 (Yellow dot like should point to Bip01 Non Accum). Pole Target fields should point to our Knee bone but you'll need to change the value on Pole Offset below to 90 (probably) so the knee faces forward.
• 

Repeat the process for both legs, when you're done you'll be able to move pelvis bone and see how the feet stand their ground position and legs bend along following whatever body movement you try

 

Now you can move the skeleton on a new way when designing the animation.

• Moving Bip01 Pelvis or Bip01 Non Accum will have an effect on legs but feet will stand their ground, legs will adjust accordingly
• Moving and Rotating Leg bone will allow to move and/or rotate the animation's foot like it happens when you walk and one foot is on the ground, the other is lifted and the heel angle may vary
• Rotating Foot bone is another way to rotate animation's foot
• Moving Knee bone can change the rotation degree of the leg, which includes all joints up to the hip.

So for example when making a walking animation, I'd set a phase where Leg bone is fixed on the ground, another phase where it lifts, treat like like any normal bone, when making the animation, only this time it is these extra bones which control movement on the others

 

3.-Baking

Baking is the process of actually applying the constraints to the animation. Without it, nothing really happens, you click the x on the constraint below and all your work goes away.

So you have to go Objet Mode, select skeleton, then you need to open a Blender Scripts Window, then go Scripts > Animation > Bake Constraints

You'll end up with a new skeleton which has every single frame locked for every single bone. You can check on Action Editor, also you can tell the difference cause the new skeleton doesnt have any green in it (no bone priorities)

 

4.-Copy

Remember those Copy-Paste buttons on Action Editor? Time to use em. Select bones which you think were affected by the constraints (I isually go all bones from Thigh to Toe on both legs). On Action Editor you can copy all frames for those bones. If dots are yellow, they are selected, if they are not, press B and drag to select them.

 

Now Object Mode, Select your working skeleton, go to first frame and paste on Action Editor. all lower extremities' bones should be locked now too regardless of constraints. You can delete all constraints now. You can also delete extra bones, from the Action Editor and from the 3D view, on skeleton's Edit Mode

 

Root Bones

 

Another problem (which I should've warned you sooner) Is the position of the "root bones"

Root bones are the central origin of all the rest of the skeleton. In Oblivion's case: 

-Bip01

-Bip01 NonAccum

-Pelvis

Moving those moves the whole skeleton but the way Oblivion handles orientation with those remains a mystery to me. I got my animations working on a trial and error basis. I can, however, tell you this:

-Bip01 needs to be located at ground level

-Bip01 NonAccum needs to be on hip level, beware of this on non-modified skeletons for it will be close to Bip01 and that will cause the animation to be useless

-Pelvis, despite being the third bone can still control global orientation of the character, be careful when moving it on side plains or "tilting" it can cause inclined heads and weird stuff. I moved this one very little and mostly in the z axis only

 

Exporting

 

Assuming you managed to survive to this point, maintain your sanity and make a working animation, you should export it.

-Delete everything that's not a skeleton you were working on (Object Mode, Select skeleton, Ctrl+I, Del)

-Export Animation Only (.kf)

 

Nifskope

 

Then on Nifskope a few more tweaks:

-Set the proper animation group name (If it's a replacer)

-Determine if it's a Loop, or a Clamp animation

• Loop goes on forever, like an idle animation which is only interrupted when another animation takes charge
• Clamp are only once, like casting a spell
• Group names depend of the game function. Idle is for idles, FastLeft/Right etc is for running. TurnLeft/Right is the rotating animations when idle and so on. Don't ask me how it works for pose mods or lovers though...
• 

 

I'ts been a lot trickier to put this on written. Hopefully I didn't miss anything.

It has it's limitations, but this is as far as my knowledge reaches, hopefully other modders will find it useful.

 

One more thing.

I made an example skeleton file which is set to behave on Inverse Kinematics to see in Blender

IKAnim8.7z

[kingkong]

i was waiting for some pictures to go with for better visualisation (like flowers, cats, and kitchens).

 

it is a good idee of making an empty file.nif  i have a few of them in my computer (each time i make a new as i do not recall where is it saved.)

 

the sculpt mod is fine for me it is a little tool for little task (it is not realy to do any real sculpting.

 

from what i read it is a good and a usefull tutorial should help a lot of people not only to get started but to understand better.

[kosukosu1]

Yeah this is a great getting started guide!! Almost makes me forgive your hatred of DMRA

 

For me, I pretty much only do Raw Editing - proportional edit is my best friend

[Myst42]

Ok, I tried to do this with words... but it's too tiresome to try to explain everything when speaking of buttons locations... I'll try to add some images later this weekend

Also started thinking on the next things I wanted to share

 

Regarding animations and new mesh creation.

Its quite a lot...

It has to include other window views like Outliner, UV image and Action Editor

I'd also have to try to explain Mirror Modifier, UV mapping, Bone Weight editing and the darned Inverse Kinematic constraints used for animating...

Im not really sure I want to do this... its a lot... But I hope its worth it...

[gregathit]

It is up to you, but the blender bundle you listed is most definitely not the most current.  The most current version of blender 2.49b is this one: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/42755//?

 

The neat thing about this version is it is portable, meaning that you don't have to install anything.  Just extract it to where ever you want and start using it.

[Dalkill]

I'm starting with this, friend. If I have questions, I hope you can help me.

 

By the way, this is kind of offtopic, but ElAlquimista, do you speak spanish? I'm asking this because of your user name. I do speak spanish, and I'm just curious.

 

Well, thanks for your tutorials!

 

Edit:

 

Well, I installed:

 

1.- "NifSkope 1.1.3" (DONE)

 

2.- "Blender 2.49b" (the non portable version). (DONE)

 

3.- When I Installed Blender, I was directed to download Python, but instead of downloading it, I used the version "Python 2.6.5" that was inside the "Blender 2.49b.rar" I used.

 

4.- I had to install "PyFFI-2.1.5.win32" (also inside the Blender 2.49b.rar file) in order to be able to install "Blender_nif_scripts-2.5.5-windows". These scripts were also inside the "Blender 2.49b.rar" file, and I used them because the link you provided, directed me to download again "NifSkope 1.1.3" (DONE)

 

I think I did it well, but I'll wait for you to answer, since I'm not so sure I'm ready to continue with your tutorial.

 

Aw, just installing the programs I'll be using was confusing... I'll have a nice summer!

 

Thanks in advance.

[movomo]

(sorry for hijacking the thread)

 

Hey Dalkill, glad to see you again and glad to see that you're willing to learn those things.

 

btw, seems most of apps you have installed are outdated.

Blender 2.49b -> this is ok but I recommend to install true normal patch as well

PyFFI ->  use 2.1.11

NIFscript -> 2.5.8 or 2.5.9 I don't remember correctly but I'm using gerra's modified script somewhere in LL

Python -> 2.6.7 iirc

Nifskope -> mine is 1.1.3 rev36ebfdd but I'm pretty sure this is not the latest

 

*edit*

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/10067-control-vertex-normals-in-blender/

you can grab the truenormal patch and the modified nifscript here

[Myst42]

@Dalkill:

Seems Movomo put it better than I could. When I was gathering tools I just went along with the flow and every new thing I installed, either worked perfectly or the install wizard asked for some other stuff, I just installed all the other stuff it required as directed by the provided links. Since then I packed all the necessary software and kept it somewhere safe so I dont know if Im outdated, but at least what I have works just fine

 

The important part is checking if you have nifskope and blender functioning properly and if nifscripts are correctly installed. If they are, then Blender has the option for import/export nif on the menu as indicated in the tutorial.

 

Answering the off-topic question, yes I do speak Spanish as my user name is translated as "TheAlchemist" but I use it in Spanish cause usually all the english versions are taken in most forums

[RitualClarity]

 

Sorry... Tutorial Under Construction... I may have to edit or change things to shorten this or make it easier... this is Beta test

 

 

 

Wow... looks great so far. This will be a wonderful contribution to LL and help many people with the patience and time to try. Who knows I might even try a bit, just a bit... maybe I might even be able to understand the "Madness" I definitely think I can start to enjoy it if I can start to understand it...

[Dalkill]

Hi Movomo!

 

I was on vacation just until a few days ago. I went to the beach with my girlfriend, so I didn't have time to get online; besides, I didn't have even Internet.

 

I've seen the apps are outdated, but I'm trying to follow the first steps of the tutorials just to see if I'm capable to fight against this Blender tool. If I success, I'll update them, so thank you. Let see how I screw it up!! Hahahaha!

 

ElAlquimista

 

Don't worry! You're trying very hard by helping me with your tutorials. I'm checking if Blender works ok when following your instructions, then, I'll write down here my adventures with Blender.

 

My offtopic question was just a curiosity, since I'm from Spain and sometimes I have a hard time writting in english. As you'd imagine, I don't know the specific uses of several words; after all, I'm just a student who's getting his intermediate english test in a week. Well, thanks for answering!

 

Now, it's time to work with Blender!

 

Hugs!

 

EDIT: 3rd august. I'll get the screens and upload them, so I can help you making your tutorial and help also another people interested in learning how to edit meshes. I think it's the fair thing. I can't allow you to do all the work, is it?

 

ElAlquimista, you're free to use this screens, to edit them, or to do whatever you want with them. I think you'll be able to watch my progress with ease.

 

EDIT N.º 2: 5th august. Added new screenshots.

[Dalkill]

Sorry for the repost, but this is not related to the images I'm uploading. This is about a doubt I have. 

 

As you'll see in this picture, I'm not getting the "edit mode" that should appear according with the "raw edit" section.

Did I make a mistake or something? 

 

Edit: Meh, forget it. I'm a bit dense!

[Myst42]

Ok first of all, thanks I really appreciate your efforts, and that's why I put your images in there

I've been a bit drifting between many things lately... You see I decided my graphic and environmental mods sucked, so I had to upgrade that, I was also trying to take a perfect screenshot of a virtual goddess I'm very proud to have too, with results that do not satisfy me enough and causing me a great sorrow when realizing the two things (textures and head mesh) that would make the final upgrade from my version to the divine version of Ophelia as posted by her original maker at Nexus are next to impossible to get... along with dealing with that very frustrating feeling, I'm also working on a replacer version of all vanilla clothing which IMHO looks better than anything previously created, and that's because its a mixture of things, the very best of the best mixed with my own creations, so it's the talent of many absorbed into one thing. It doesn't end there, cause I've been meaning to post the next version of my animation replacer project which could or could be not, the final version.

These last two days I focused on something different anyway, specifically a rip I have from Alien vs Predator 2010, yes, a predator armor, I made versions for both genders and I wanted to do some shooting on a predator from the predator race but then I had to tweak the head... I still have lots of unfinished projects such as some outfits based on the artwork of Luis Royo (never seen before)

 

Fewww... so you see my mind kinda starts to drift when doing this modding stuff

 

What I say on my signature about madness... I MEAN IT... I'm not crazy as medication crazy... but I'm pretty sure it's mad scientist crazy, several lower degrees of Asperger Syndrome, OCD and a bit of Bipolarity

So you see one of my obsessions is TO DO EVERYTHING BY MYSELF... I know, really bad investment in terms of time but it usually doesn't look right to me if I didn't get my hands on it

That's why I wanted to upload images myself but I haven't really had the time, I plan on finishing everything though...

So from a human perspective I really appreciate your effort in uploading images, though I wanted to do that myself... sorry the obsession but I have no choice on being...

 

Anyway madness apart I placed some of your stuff in the tutorial, you're doing fine till now, AND:

-To access edit mode you need to select one mesh, you cant select them all the edit mode applies to only one thing at a time, in your pic everything is pink and that's the problem

[RitualClarity]

 

What I say on my signature about madness... I MEAN IT... I'm not crazy as medication crazy... but I'm pretty sure it's mad scientist crazy, several lower degrees of Asperger Syndrome, OCD and a bit of Bipolarity

So you see one of my obsessions is TO DO EVERYTHING BY MYSELF... I know, really bad investment in terms of time but it usually doesn't look right to me if I didn't get my hands on it

I know what you mean. I could be so much farther in my understanding of modding and such if I would just accept help and start using others assistance. .. I cannot. I don't feel I understand it or have been able to accomplish something if I can't figure it out and do it myself...

 

The plus side is individuals like ourselves can gain a much deeper understanding of the subject matter than many others doing the same tasks.

[Dalkill]

Don't worry, Elalquimista. You don't have to use my screens if you don't feel like it. I just uploaded them so you could use them as you prefer. If you like to do things by yourself, then do! That's nothing wrong. All geniouses are mad, and that's what makes them great! Besides, that kind of madness you describe is like a strong personality. I wish I was so hardworking... my passion is writing (in spanish, of course), but i'm sooooooo lazy...

 

I'm having a hard time in learning how to use properly the options... It's hard. Very hard. Until now, I've just messed up all meshes I've edited... I need to keep my work up, until I can edit a single armor and it looks well.

 

So, I guess this means... take your time. Do all things you like. I'll be asking you when I can't advance, if you agree to help me. If you can't, then don't worry. I'll understand.

Well, friend, keep working and thanks!

 

Soon, I guess when I've finished my english test, I'll upload some screens of my progress.

 

Hugs!

[kingkong]

just pointing on the bone weighting     the cliping can be as the mesh is too closed to the body mesh or and often of not enogh vertex faces in the cliping region (and subdivised is necessary) and some weight painting that must be adjust (colored) manualy like often in the pelvis area where left and right thight has some distortion (less color tending to blue for less importance or more to the red for more importance) 

This is more often when you creat a new armor/cloth and less for armor conversion.

 

your tutorial becomes more and more complete nice very nice  Thank you.

 

[Myst42]

Thankfully, I can feel the frenzy slowing down a bit  . As I'm pretty sure I'm probably never gonna get Ophelia's real head meshes and textures  (Just look at that masterpiece of a creation... Link I'm proud to say my Alice walks the same path IMHO, but her facial texture is miles away from that one...  and that's not even mentioning the shadows...) I'l just have to be happy with the best version I could make according to available resources...

But it's time to stop whining... this crazy whirlwind took me to many weird places and I'm finally starting to make peace with my definitive environmental and graphic mods. I learnt many new things I didn't know before

 

As the peace comes in, I'll have time to finish this properly. And one of the reasons why I haven posted any pictures yet, is because right now I'm not working in any conversions!!!

I want to move on to the animation tutorial too... Lots of things to say about proper kinematics....

 

So here goes an idea... one time only offer

I take ONE request, no more, no less

Any request for a conversion and I'll do it for free! 

Just give me the link to the outfit and give me the name of the target body

Only one restriction... NO DMRA target or any kind of sick stuff. I'll convert from anything to any type of regular body from AA to E cup in female. Yes I do DMRA TO HGEC conversion

Oh and another restriction... only simple stuff, you know... a single armor, no Breaking Undies, nor large clothing collection mods with lots of outfits, only ONE.

This will be taken as photos and uploaded for the rest of the tutorial

Any volunteers?

 

And Dalkill, (anyone really) Feel free to ask, I love to provide help and be of assistance... me and many others in the community, are here to help as I've received help too from the community I trust this, there's always someone willing to help if there is an answer for a problem

[movomo]

http://www.fileplanet.com/220882/220000/fileinfo/Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion---Evie-Clothing-Set-Mod

 

Temptation dress to Like a Babe 2 body plz??

[Myst42]

Ok then, coming up this weekend

I didn't know a lot of bodies, but I identified this request as something labeled "HGEC LAB 2" right?

I downloaded Setbody reloaded just for the resources, and that's the name of it, I guess

It's baking time then

[movomo]

Ok then, coming up this weekend

I didn't know a lot of bodies, but I identified this request as something labeled "HGEC LAB 2" right?

I downloaded Setbody reloaded just for the resources, and that's the name of it, I guess

It's baking time then

Yup. that's right and I'm sure you'll like the body than DM.

[Dalkill]

Ouch! Excuse me for my long absence! I didn't forget about you all this time, but needed a rest; some time to think. I'm not going to torture you writing all of my life, but I had several problems and I just didn't feel like getting online nor playing Oblivion or other video games.

 

My apologies for all of you people that have been helping me, but specifically for Elalquimista.

Your little apprentice returned home!

 

Again, thanks and excuse me, please.

 

 

 

 

[Myst42]

Oh I'm sorry I haven't done anything new to this either

I said I was gonna do something and it's not done yet

I have been directing energy towards other goals

But this is still on the check list once I'm a little less busy

[Sunwaker]

Hi I am new to blender.
I found out making the clothe fit exactly on the body you want is sometimes frustrating.
the clothes may be wrinkled. 
Is there a way that I can make the clothes not go through the body mesh?
So It will be easier to convert clothes to different body type?

How do I make a surface flat/ smooth?  or make the edge straight?

Thanks in advance

[gerra6]

Are you talking about converting clothing between body types, or creating entirely new clothing items?

 

For clothing conversions, I'd recommend grabbing the latest lattice generator from here:http://www.loverslab.com/topic/24393-blender-scripts-package-101-12272013/to automatically create your clothing conversion lattices.  That should handle most, but not all, of the headache involved in conversions.

[Sunwaker]

Are you talking about converting clothing between body types, or creating entirely new clothing items?

 

For clothing conversions, I'd recommend grabbing the latest lattice generator from here:http://www.loverslab.com/topic/24393-blender-scripts-package-101-12272013/to automatically create your clothing conversion lattices.  That should handle most, but not all, of the headache involved in conversions.

Just convert clothing between body types

 

Your tools looks sweet, but I have no clue how to use them lol.

Looking forward for your tutorials, before that hail google~

 

btw Im using version 2.49b