Skyrim Blender Armor conversion Tutorial {{{UPDATE}}}

[Kestrel77]

another q:D in tutorial step 23-30 i must add texture to the mesh body only femalebody_1 .dds or all msn..:sk.

  

and what about labia texture this body use too 

[Zquad1]

You only need the FemaleBody.dds nothing Else No need for the _n or _msn & for the Labia it uses the same texture as long as the Body Texture your using Has the Labia Texture added to it then your fine But if your using a Texture that dos NOT have the labia added to it then later on when  in game you will notice the Labia's texture is way off But & if you need that texture Please let me know & I can make a texture for any body texture, adding the labia's texture is not very hard to do.

[Kestrel77]

You only need the FemaleBody.dds nothing Else No need for the _n or _msn & for the Labia it uses the same texture as long as the Body Texture your using Has the Labia Texture added to it then your fine But if your using a Texture that dos NOT have the labia added to it then later on when  in game you will notice the Labia's texture is way off But & if you need that texture Please let me know & I can make a texture for any body texture, adding the labia's texture is not very hard to do.

ok:D

[sir caine]

Hey hey I want to make standalone clothes for seveNBases bomshell body, I found this tutorial right now in the evening and I will try to reinstall blender and install everything necessary in the right order tomorrow ( I must have done something wrong, I get errors when I try to import a nif), but I still have a question: I exported the femalebody_0.nif to a .dae, imported to 3ds max and did a quick bikini mesh, made a quick UV unwarp etc so the mesh itself is ready now. If I import the 3ds file into nifskope now, do I get a static mesh? Do I lose important data while exporting? AND is there a stable way around the nif plugins? I try to get the nif plugins for blender to work, but I have 3ds max 2013 and somehow the max plugin isnt working (maybe because of 2013). So can I play this dae/3ds import export game or nah? 

 

Do you guys know good tutorials to give clothing physics for the skyrim physics extension/weight mapping? cause Im a total noob when it comes to animations... ugh.

 

The mesh Im talking about:

[Zquad1]

if you want a quick version of Blender you can install X-Blender the download to it is on my front page it's got all you need to install wrapped into one.

I have never exported a .dae file before only a .obj But I wouldn't use 3DSMAX 2013 there is no Nifskope plug-in support for that version that I am aware of, personally If I were you Go get 2012 it's got the supports needed for skyrim.

 

as for Physics tutorials personally I don't know of any, my guess would be to go chat with the guys who make armor with physics, perhaps they could give in-site on how to incorporate Physics into armor & Bodies.

 

Now I will say ALL my conversions have TBBP Physics to them, but that's because the Body I import into Blender contains the Extension, so in-turn you must have the .XML extension in your Body mod & have HDT Physics Extension installed.

 

But for free flowing physics... Like I said above contact those mod makers as I am extremely unfamiliar in that realm.

 

 

 

BTW I Really love your Mesh nice work!!!

[sir caine]

if you want a quick version of Blender you can install X-Blender the download to it is on my front page it's got all you need to install wrapped into one.

I have never exported a .dae file before only a .obj But I wouldn't use 3DSMAX 2013 there is no Nifskope plug-in support for that version that I am aware of, personally If I were you Go get 2012 it's got the supports needed for skyrim.

 

as for Physics tutorials personally I don't know of any, my guess would be to go chat with the guys who make armor with physics, perhaps they could give in-site on how to incorporate Physics into armor & Bodies.

 

Now I will say ALL my conversions have TBBP Physics to them, but that's because the Body I import into Blender contains the Extension, so in-turn you must have the .XML extension in your Body mod & have HDT Physics Extension installed.

 

But for free flowing physics... Like I said above contact those mod makers as I am extremely unfamiliar in that realm.

 

 

 

BTW I Really love your Mesh nice work!!!

 

Yea thank you man I downgraded my autodesk to 2012 and the plugins are working now. YEAA. I think I'll go over to the 3ds thread here Thank you for the quick answer, your work and explanantions are quite cool keep it going but Im used to work with 3ds max so im happy that it works now with 3ds (I feel so uncomfortable with blender ahaaa ofc becasue I never worked with blender before lol)

[Zquad1]

Hey No problem I to love 3DSMax But I was first taught on Blender & I am slowly learning 3DSMax but I keep finding myself using Blender I guess it's because I am familiar to it's UI, & I can Zip through an armor conversion rather quickly depending on the outfit,

 

alot of people won't use Blender Because Blender causes sooo many errors & the weight painting process is Extremely harder to learn then 3DSMax's weight painting, But Blender has a cheat for that & That's the Bone weight copy, which basically put copies the weights from the original Mesh, But that can also cause.. like I said alot or errors or undesired effects like stretching especially when working with dresses.

[sir caine]

3sd max has a similar option with the skin wrap modifier ahaa I used this option  because Im a total noob when it comes to animations/skinning. I wanted to test the 0_ nif in game (I replaced the daedric armor with my test nif) but all I get in game is the nude body?? I have replaced the vanilla daedric armor with my new nif, set the body weight slider to zero, checked the nif containers in case I messed up something with the shader... in nifskope the bikini is visible

 

 

(I made no proper textures, just a flat crappy pink as I said for testing purposes) and I have no alpha container, so Im wondering what I did exactly wrong... ehem. I bet I did a noobish mistake. However, I hope you know hat I did wrong I already posted my problem in the 3ds max thread but nobody respond to it (surely because its a obvious noobish issue ahaaa)

 

I also have another question: if I set up a nif with lets say about 4 groups/objects Im able to give every object in the nif its own shader (thats right?) For example I want to bring a sword thingy I made in game and i want one part to have a metallic/reflective shader, another part with a different shader etc. is that possible?

 

Is there something like a shader list out so I can see the properties for a metallic shader, a glossy shader, a gold shader etc. so i get a general overview how to tweak the shader options in nifskope? Sorry for my many questions, as I said im very new to skyrim modding.

 

And is there a polycount limit for skyrim/nikskope? I already reduced this sword thing to 25K and it lost all its details, but is 25K still too high?

 

Thank you for all your replies Im a bit lost in nifskope  :0

[Zquad1]

I will tell ya I know very little about shading in nifskope But I do know if you bump up the Glossiness to say from 80.0000 to 180.0000 then it will give you a very nice shine, & play with your specular strength & Specular color & that will give you some reflective light shine & also add a Qube Map Texture & that will give you reflection, but as far as Shaders go... I'm sorry I have No idea..

 

Now if your getting no Body in game then go into nifskope highlight BSDismemberSkinInstance & locate Partitions under Block details & change the outfit from useing Slot 32 to say Slot 49

& do the same in the Creation Kit, also click on NiTriShapeData & under Block Details Locate "Has Vertex Groups" & under Value it should say either No or Yes if it says NO double click on it to & make sure it says YES!!!, then click on your BSLightingShaderProperty & again Under Block Details Locate Shader Flags 2 & under Value click on that line &  open the drop down & make sure  "SLSF2_Vertex_Colors" Is check marked. then save the data & check it in game. 

 

I am Not sure how many Polygons your allowed to have, I would think 25.000 is alot, I could be wrong although I have used Mods that over exceed that count 10 fold & yeah it will eat your memory & Lag your system & drop your FPS, but to me it's worth it.

 

But I also know Blender will NOT Export extremely high Poly count meshes, as I have tried numerous times. so becareful & try to optimize your meshes the Best you can without loosing Quality.

 

but as far as a Poly count limit.... that's a very interesting question, I would say yes But I have no clue what that count would be...

[gerra6]

is there a polycount limit for skyrim/nikskope? I already reduced this sword thing to 25K and it lost all its details, but is 25K still too high?

Yes and no. This is actually a fairly complicated question to answer.

 

1. There is, effectively, a hard upper limit on the number of *vertices* that a given Geometry Block (niTriShape, niTriStrip, etc) can contain.

2. A single nif can contain a *very* large number of discrete geometry blocks. With careful weightpainting and close attention to seams, you can split a single mesh into multiple sub-meshes to achieve an arbitrary poly count.

 

Now for the longer answer

 

 

 

 

The precise answer depends a bit on what you mean by polycount. Does this refer to the number of vertices or the number of faces (triangles)?

 

If it refers to the number of faces, 25k faces in a single geometry block shouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure why that would be erroring out. On the other hand, 25k vertices is *potentially* too high for a single geometry block.

 

Why the difference? Well, it depends on the precise structure of the mesh, but most meshes have far more faces than vertices, just because of the way that any given vertex can be a member of multiple faces. This can often work out to a fairly decent multiplier.

 

OK, so let's say you have a 25k vertex mesh with 70Kk triangles. Unfortunately, one of the dependent fields has a max addressing length of 16 bits (65,536). It's been awhile since I ran into it, so I don't remember offhand exactly which field it was, but I think it was related to the maintenance of the tri strip list.

 

Anyways, this leads to a soft cap in the number of vertices a given mesh can include, with the precise cap varying depending on the exact structure of the mesh.

 

Does any of this make any sense at all? Don't worry if it doesn't make sense.

 

 

 

 

The good news is that all that you probably don't need to reduce your poly count to avoid this bug, all that you need to do is split your meshes into multiple meshes.

 

Just watch out for vertex normal ugliness. They will get recalculated when you split the meshes and make everything fugly. To fix this, grab my Blender Seam Mender tool and one of the patched versions of Blender (that won't auto-recalculate vertex normals on the fly)

 

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/10179-blender-script-seam-mender-version-14-updated-10122012/

 

Note: a good alternative to high poly nifs is often to use your high poly meshes to bake a high quality normal map that you can apply to a low poly version of the same nif for a good balance between performance and quality. Now, your linked sword looks like it has a great deal of edge detail, so a baked normal map might not cut it. So, splitting the mesh into multiple discrete geometry blocks (meshes) is probably going to be your best bet.

[sir caine]

Wow, thank y'all for the fast replies and detailed information it's very useful to know Im not a native speaker (im from Germany) so I had to read everything 4 times to finally understand everything ahaa. I tried to change to values in nifskope like Zquad1 told me, but I couldnt find the vertex groups line hmm. So I went in game with the updated nif files and now ... the whole mesh is ... invisible yayy. Im such a noob

 

 

So I guess its maybe better if I upload the nif files (I chose the 1_ mesh for both nif files this time) they are attached as zip. If someone could open them and tell me what exactly I messed up, I'd be every happy with that The bikini has about 30K I know a bit to high for in game meshes but I'll probably split the bikini in two parts and decimate the mesh (thank you for all the information gerra6 man cool) after I found out what I exactly messed up. I havent uploaded the 'texure', I simply made a pink dds file so I can see the mesh (If I could lol) to see clipping issues etc. I'll make proper textures and an intense normal map later. Maybe I can add a cube map later and play around with the shader settings once the rest of the nif file is set up correctly.

 

Btw I changed the body of SBs body mesh slightly so that the breasts looks more like breasts look in bikinis thats why I had to add a new skin and dismember skin instance to the modified body in 3ds max. I hope I havent messed something up during this process...

 

Thank y'all for the help

 

 

EDIT: I deleted the nif files, FIXED

[sir caine]

SORRY FOR DOUBLE POSTING: I was so dumb I havent converted the dismember skin instance argelllll I changed that in all the nifs I made and now the stuff is in game. 

 

The bikini without textures (only a flat pink color)

 

 

And another silly armor mesh (whatever lol) with textures:

 

 

Finally Im very happy for this tutorial thread (even tho I use 3ds max but the steps in nifskope were extremly helpful) and for all the active users in this thread. Now I can bring my meshes in game yeaa cool thanks again to you guys

[Guest]

Hey I followed the tutorial up to the exporting part where  I got stuck, any idea what I might be doing wrong?
This is the error I get:

Blender NIF Scripts 2.5.9 (running on Blender 249, PyFFI 2.1.11)
niftools.blender.export:WARNING:[Object "Cube"] has no vertices, skipped.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\gabi\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\script
s\bpymodules\nif_common.py", line 1235, in gui_button_event
self.gui_exit()
File "C:\Users\gabi\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\script
s\bpymodules\nif_common.py", line 1598, in gui_exit
self.callback(**self.config)
File "C:\Users\gabi\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\script
s\export\export_nif.py", line 4575, in config_callback
exporter = NifExport(**config)
File "C:\Users\gabi\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\script
s\export\export_nif.py", line 407, in __init__
root_block, root_object.getName())
File "C:\Users\gabi\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\script
s\export\export_nif.py", line 1186, in export_node
self.export_children(ob, node)
File "C:\Users\gabi\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\script
s\export\export_nif.py", line 3149, in export_children
parent_block, ob_child.getName())
File "C:\Users\gabi\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\script
s\export\export_nif.py", line 1112, in export_node
self.export_tri_shapes(ob, space, parent_block, node_name)
File "C:\Users\gabi\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\script
s\export\export_nif.py", line 2471, in export_tri_shapes
stitchstrips=self.EXPORT_STITCHSTRIPS)
File "D:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\formats\nif\__init__.py", line 6991,
in set_triangles
triangles, stitchstrips=stitchstrips))
File "D:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\formats\nif\__init__.py", line 7002,
in set_strips
self.strip_lengths = len(strip)
File "D:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\object_models\xml\array.py", line 70
, in __setitem__
return self._set_item_hook(self, index, value)
File "D:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\object_models\xml\array.py", line 10
5, in set_basic_item
return list.__getitem__(self, index).set_value(value)
File "D:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\object_models\common.py", line 180,
in set_value
raise ValueError('value out of range (%i)' % val)
ValueError: value out of range (101640)

Thanks for anyone reading this. :3

[Zquad1]

Not Sure man I have no idea what the error might be, did you receive any errors in Blenders render windows at all? not the errors on Blenders DOS window..

 

from the top warning it looks like you might not have deleted the Cube but I could be wrong.

 

Did you add a material? did you delete all existing vertex groups before you did a bone weight copy?

 

when you exported did you make sure everything was correct in the export screen?

 

do you happen to have 1 to many skeletons??  if so delete all skeletons & re-Import a new one & try exporting again.

 

perhaps you could take a screen shot of the error that pops up, if your still having issues load up your .Blend file here & I'll have a look see..

[Guest]

Not Sure man I have no idea what the error might be, did you receive any errors in Blenders render windows at all? not the errors on Blenders DOS window..

 

from the top warning it looks like you might not have deleted the Cube but I could be wrong.

 

Did you add a material? did you delete all existing vertex groups before you did a bone weight copy?

 

when you exported did you make sure everything was correct in the export screen?

 

do you happen to have 1 to many skeletons??  if so delete all skeletons & re-Import a new one & try exporting again.

 

perhaps you could take a screen shot of the error that pops up, if your still having issues load up your .Blend file here & I'll have a look see..

Thanks for the ideas I'll check them out as soon as I get the time. From memory though

if it was the cube it's strange since i clicked delete all on it. Only 1 skeleton for sure

added material, deletet all vertexes on the armor not the body. On export I set it to fallout and 

automatically everything was in it's right place.

So yeah I'll give this another god.

[Ishmmael]

So I've gotten to the point where I'm supposed to export the "finished" model from Blender and "reset" the other values in Nif.

 

The problem I've run into is that I believe the armor I'm attempting to convert originally uses vanilla textures, thus I didn't have a texture file to assign to the armor. Consequently, when I attempt to export the file, it won't export because there's no texture assigned to the armor piece.

My question is: Do I need to get the actual texture files from the vanilla game and assign them, same as I would with custom armors with custom textures, in order to export the re-fitted armor?

[Zquad1]

short answer-- No you you don't need the exact texture you can pretty much use what ever texture you like it just needs a BSLightingShaderProperty reference.

[Ishmmael]

I really should've been more clear, sorry.

 

I meant that I can't export the model from Blender because it seems to want a texture assigned to all the models, and since the texture is from vanilla, I don't have the texture to assign to the armor pieces specifically.

 

My question is: Will I have to extract/track down copies of the vanilla textures to assign to the armor before I try to export it out of Blender like I would with a custom texture, or is there a workaround?

Based on what I've understood of how the process works, I would guess a texture file is required at this stage or the model won't have a texture linked to it at all, but I figured I should ask.

 

If any of the meshes doesn't have a texture assigned to it, it seems like Blender won't even allow me to export the file at all.

 

While on the topic, are the skin textures that I'm assigning to the body in the armor model embedded into the file? I'm having a difficult time making sense of how that works, since the texture files for armors are just 1 file and don't include the skin texture that's been assigned. How does that body mesh actually get it's textures while in game? Does it automatically take the texture file of the body mod that's installed? If so, why does it need to have a texture file that won't be used assigned to it while working in Blender?

 

The skin texture that I assign to the body mesh in the armor model doesn't actually seem to end up anywhere, so I just end up with a saved texture file on my computer that doesn't actually get moved or used beyond being imported and assigned in Blender.

[Zquad1]

Yeah I am not sure how exactly skyrim's engine assigns the textures in-game, But like I said above you need a texture for the armor or body or weapon in order for it to export, now if you want to use the texture that's required for that model then yes you will have to track down & extract that texture, & place it anywhere you like, say on your desktop where it would be easy to find. 

 

Now you don't really need that particular Texture you can use any texture you like just when you finally get it exported you'll be getting rid of the texture you had applied in Blender when you go to add the proper textures in nifskope. but I my self like to use the textures that are going to the proper model just so I don't confuse myself, I have a pretty good system down when it comes to .nif & texture location.

 

If you are wanting to see your textures on your Blender screen then I would be happy to explain how to do that.

 

side note:

I really need to update my tutorial there are some things I have learned that makes conversions alot faster & better. But I apologize to every one  I have just been busy converting outfits that I have neglected this thread.

[Vortec]

 Hi i'm trying to export from Blender and i keep getting the same error

Line 137, in export _bs_shader_property bsshader, lighting_lighting effect _1=b_mat.niftools.lighting effect1

 

Attribute error "Material' object has no attribute 'lightingeffect1"

 

Everything looks ok, settings ok i think, what i'm doing wrong?.

[Zquad1]

go back & make sure you hadn't missed adding a Material to one of the Meshes,like so--->

 

 

& make sure under "Map Input' you click the UV tab--->

 

[Reenana]

Zquad1.. me got a question....

 

 

Lets say i finished making _0, weighted it , exported it. and test it ingame and it works.

 

now me going for the _1 after that, using the ones that still in blender.

 

Assuming that i did weight painting it , can the weights in _0 be used in _1 ? ( so after i convert the _0 to the _1, i dont have to reweight the _1 again?)

 

or i can't? 

[Vortec]

 Zquad1 have you tried the new Blender versions for making armors?. 2.73? I'd thought it would be easier to use than 2.49.

[Zquad1]

@ Reenana 

You know I am not sure if the weights will work like that or not all I could say is try it out & see if it does work, I personally never tried it, I have always deleted the weight from the _0 & re-weighted for the _1, now my guess would be no simply because they are totally separate body meshes & if you use the same weighting then it could cause undesirable effects like the mesh exploding when changing from one weight to the other, but that's only my theory because like I said I never tried it..

 

@ Vortec

Nope never tried it the reason is I am sticking with a program I know, & I have experienced that most Blender programs don't have the proper plugins that allow me to import .Nif files, now I do know there are many ways to export & import a model for skyrim into the newer blender versions but I have not experimented with those methods, heck I am still trying to learn 3DSMAX which I find to be the absolute superior 3d modeling program but it's hard for me to try to use those other programs  like 3dsmax & Daz Studios clothing converter & outfit studios, when I can zip through my version of Blender fairly quickly when converting an outfit.

 

But I'll take a look at 2.73 & check out it's layout & plugins & see if it's something I can adapt to.

[Vortec]

 I'm not any good with 3d modeling but trying to learn, but the difference between 2.49 and 2,73 is like comparing Dos 3.3 to Windows 7, was wondering what your thoughts were.