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

[JohnHead444]

Hi Reenana. First off thanks for making this tutorial  Zquad1 this should show people that blenders not dead yet. Any ways when you weight one mesh in blender using bone weight copy on nif_1 lets say. Then don't change the weight at all for nif_0. If both the 0 and 1 don't have the exact weights as each other then they will explode.  So if your doing both just do like you did and bone weight copy _0 and then change the mesh to fit _1 body and export them both with out changing weights after weighting _0. Also when you set them up in nif scope make sure when you open nif scope change (0 NINode txt armor_1) For the _1 armor. Then Change (0 NINode txt armor_0) for the _0 armor. If you don't do that then it will either explode or not change shape. Well hope this helps and I wasn't trying to step on your toes Zquad1 if I did. So sorry if I did.

[Zquad1]

Not at all man your not stepping on my toes at all in fact I encourage other perspectives as long as they are not bashing me or the way I do things then hey I welcome it in fact I could learn alot from others who take my info & learn better ways to do things I am still trying to figure out how on earth I can convert full arm gloves that cover the fingeres all the way up to the upper forearms. & how to convert open toe high heels.

[JohnHead444]

You would need to import the hands and feet. Then Join the hands and feet to the body making it all one mesh. Also when you go to weight you can delete the extra vertices off that aren't being used or covered by the arm sleeves or thigh high open toe boots. This just keeps blender from getting confused and putting toe weight were arm weight should be or vice versa. Well that all I's got's for the moment Happy modding.

[Reenana]

 

 

Hi Reenana. First off thanks for making this tutorial  Zquad1 this should show people that blenders not dead yet. Any ways when you weight one mesh in blender using bone weight copy on nif_1 lets say. Then don't change the weight at all for nif_0. If both the 0 and 1 don't have the exact weights as each other then they will explode.  So if your doing both just do like you did and bone weight copy _0 and then change the mesh to fit _1 body and export them both with out changing weights after weighting _0. Also when you set them up in nif scope make sure when you open nif scope change (0 NINode txt armor_1) For the _1 armor. Then Change (0 NINode txt armor_0) for the _0 armor. If you don't do that then it will either explode or not change shape. Well hope this helps and I wasn't trying to step on your toes Zquad1 if I did. So sorry if I did.

 

 

You would need to import the hands and feet. Then Join the hands and feet to the body making it all one mesh. Also when you go to weight you can delete the extra vertices off that aren't being used or covered by the arm sleeves or thigh high open toe boots. This just keeps blender from getting confused and putting toe weight were arm weight should be or vice versa. Well that all I's got's for the moment Happy modding.

 

 

 

mmkay, Thankies C:

 

me going to test it asap

[Zquad1]

You would need to import the hands and feet. Then Join the hands and feet to the body making it all one mesh. Also when you go to weight you can delete the extra vertices off that aren't being used or covered by the arm sleeves or thigh high open toe boots. This just keeps blender from getting confused and putting toe weight were arm weight should be or vice versa. Well that all I's got's for the moment Happy modding.

Have you actually done this by combining the hands & feet to the body & be able to successfully convert gloves & shoes this way??

 

the reason I ask is when you join the feet & hand meshes to the body you come across a few errors, the first one is  you'll notice that you will have to change the name of the new body mesh, second you will need to re-weight the new body mesh but doing so totally eliminates the hand & feet nodes, third when you go to add the skeleton it won't add the hand nor feet skeletons so if you add them as well you will get multiple skeleton nodes causing export errors....

 

 

so my question is if you know how to do this PLEASE,...... PLEASE can you or would you be willing to make up a tutorial (with Pictures)so that we all can learn how to do this..

[JohnHead444]

Ok I'm not good with picture tuts but I think I can go through it here. Have your body mesh open and delete out the bones. Then import the hands and then feet and delete out the bones. Then highlight the hands and hold shift then right click on the body mesh. Then hold ctrl and J to ask to join the two mesh. then the same for the feet. You new that but I went through it any ways. Ok then the reason the feet and hand weights don't show is because you need a bone structures that has all the finger bones on it. I'll attach one to this post since they are really hard to find. Then just import the skely and select import (skeleton only + parent selected) and shut off all the other buttons on the left. Then you have all your bones and weights to match. You can check the vertices group in links and materials to make sure all the weights are there. but they wont even show up until the bones are there. This should get every thing in working order. I don't no how to take a screen shot of a blender scene other wise I could make a quick pic tutorial. Any hoo hope that helps and there is a quick reference blend in the file to with a game skeleton and import skeleton.

 

Stuff.zip

[Zquad1]

soo this body will ONLY be used for weighting purposes?   the reason I ask is that once you combine the hands to the body mesh then the UV map gets all messed up & gets combined with the body mesh & it can't be exported that way otherwise the body would look really bad unless you don't plan to use the body.

 

 

 

& another problem, when I go to join the meshes together I have to preposition the hands & feet to fit snugly to the body, is that what you do as well before you join the meshes together?

 

Image tutorial:

 

1. Ok to add pictures to your tutorial  get Gimp2, Paint.net or Photoshop... & open it up

 

 

 

2. then Open up your "Snipping tool" it can be found on your computer if you don't know where to look, just click the windows Icon & click on the search bar & type  Snipping Tool & then click on the "Snipping tool"

 

 

 

3.Now the Snipping tool can be used quickly when getting a quick shot of what ever your working on BUT!! it won't capture details like when you want to open a file & capture your file path meaning  when you open a file & click on FILE & you want to capture the File Bar but when your cursor goes away from it, it closes the file bar , so in cases like that you need to use your Printscreen button on your keyboard.

 

4. ok I pressed the Printscreen button!! now what do I do??  ok open Gimp, Paint.net or Photoshop &  go to in (Gimp per say) "Edit" & click "Paste"

 

 

 

5. This is an example of what it will look like once you click Paste.

 

 

 

6. Now crop your Image to get rid of the other crap you don't need in the picture. Like so--->

 

 

 

7. Notice I no longer have parts from my desktop, & My Browser heading is now gone all that remains is the image I wanted to intend to capture.

 

8. Now if your using Gimp you will need to "Export" (NOT Save or Save As) the Image as either a .PNG or .Jpeg I use .PNG mainly because I get a better quality out of a .PNG

 

9.Now you can Upload you tutorial Images to either an online image hosting site or do a Tutorial write up in MS Word or what ever.. 

 

I sure hope this helps you & other that have been wanting to know how to do this.

 

Have Fun all!!!  

 

 

 

 

[JohnHead444]

Yeah the body mesh is pretty much just for weighting the clothing meshes. If you mean the Cbbe body its offset when you bring it into blender because the bones are off. I have no idea how it works in game like this but it does. When you import the body mesh right away delete the bones then import  and parent the skeleton in the file from the above post or any beth skeleton for that matter. This should straiten it out. Then just delete the bones again and pop your hands and feet on there then every thing should line up. If you join the hands and feet before the body straiten then it will stay screwed up I think. When you put materials on the body put materials on the feet and hands so they all have separate materials. Then when you export it the hands feet and body will be separate again and the uv's should be in tacked.  But as far as doing texture editing with the hand uv's plopped over top of the body uv's its just not going to work to well. Also sweetness........

 

 

I've look online trying to find a tut or some thing on gettting images but it didn't go to well so thank you sir.

 

[Zquad1]

 I'll give it a try when I get home Thank you soo much man I totally appreciate you helping me with this I tried a few times to get hannase from TES Alliance who wrote one of the best Blender tutorials out there  to help me figure out how to do gloves & boots & she basically blew me off so I have been trying to do most this on my own so it's a good feeling to get help from those willing to teach..  So I do sincerely appreciate the help.....  So Thank you my friend!!!

[JohnHead444]

No problem and thank you for showing me how to get screen shots. I get what you mean trying to learn just basic texture work every one acted like it was some super special secret to keep to them self's. Any ways Thank you to and have fun.

[Ishmmael]

I've managed to convert a cbbe armor to cbbe slim, with a working weight slider that functions in game.

 

However, neither the racemenu sliders nor the HDT physics work while wearing the clothes, and I can't figure out how to add that functionality to them.

The HDT extension and the Racemenu sliders work otherwise, it's just on the converted clothes that they don't.

 

I don't suppose anyone here would know how to make them work?

 

Do I need to do something particular in Caliente's tools? Maybe the skeleton that is to be imported into Blender at step 49/50 of the tutorial needs to be the x32 skeleton rather than the skeleton from the original .nif file if that file isn't originally made for HDT?

But isn't the x32 skeleton automatically added into skyrim once it's installed properly, so the mesh should have the proper skeleton nodes for the HDT physics and Racemenu sliders to work anyway?

I is confused. @_@

[Zquad1]

Well for one what's happening when You Equip clothing? does it not even show up or does it blow up? if it's not showing up on the body that could be a simple mistake done with in the CK, if it's blowing up make sure you didn't delete odd number of vetricies or perhaps it was a bad Body mesh that you did a bone weight copy too.. if so just delete the body again & re-import a new body mesh & re-weight the outfit to the body, & also make sure you copy the nitrishapesdata from the _0 & paste Over the Nitrishapedata of the _1 then save as _0

 

or make sure you changed the User versions from 11, 34, to 12, 83.

 

if your not getting HDT physics like bouncing Boobs or Butts  that's something you will have to add in if the body is not already equip with it.

 

Like so:

 

 

 

Don't ask me how to add this in but I do know you don't have to add anything to the actual mesh via blender or anything... this is all done via nifskope

 

once you have that all added in then you have to have a compatible skeleton, xp32's newest skeletons will do just fine..

 

but once you have the stuff added into your body via nifskope like in the picture above use this new body for doing your conversions.

[Ishmmael]

-Removed-

 

Just stupid rambling and me being a slow idiot.

[Zquad1]

OK Open Both your newly converted Outfit weights, you know the Armor_0.nif & the Armor_1.nif & "Copy" the NitrishapeData branch within the NiNode branch of the Armor_0 & "Paste Over" the NitriShapeData within the Armor_1.nif & do that for every Mesh in that .nif, the "save as" & save it over your newly created Armor_0.nif....

 

 

Now do that to Every newly created or converted .nif & the pieces will or should be the same file size if not then go check within the Nitrishapedata under Block details & make sure where it says "Has Vertex Colors" it says either Yes or no but make sure Both Armor _0 & Armor_1.nifs say either yes or no.

 

if that doesn't work then you will have to re weight the armor again to the Body mesh.

 

BTW you could also try removing the Body from Both your newly created Armor_0 & Armor_1.nifs & re-assign Partitions under BSdismemberskininstance.

[Ishmmael]

Sweet Jesus Christ, I'm retarded. That fixed it.

 

I am so sorry for being so dense, thanks a ton for the help!

[Zquad1]

Oh GOOD I am glad to hear ya fixed it & I am glad I was able to help ya. your not retarded your learning, & this is a great thing, trust me I had tons of fumbles & misunderstandings when I was learning this, & I still F.U.B.A.R once in awhile.

[Ishmmael]

Which part of the blender process is it that affects/generates the BSDimemberSkinInstance?

 

After I'm finished with my current conversion in Blender, the body's NiTriShape doesn't contain the expected BSDismemberSkinInstance and I'm unsure where something could have gone wrong. The armor parts have theirs, it's just the body that doesn't.

Knowing which steps in the tutorial handle that part would help me track down which part I must've messed up at.

 

A reply would be appreciated, but I understand if I'm getting annoying with all these questions. I've been mysteriously drunk on life for the past couple of days, so I've been putting an unusual amount of time and work into things.

 

Case in point, I remembered those complicated names off the top of my head just now, I didn't even need to check the spelling.

 

...Maybe I shouldn't be staying awake for 40+ hours...

 

Additional Edit:

I went back into the saved Blender file (Always keep saves and copies, children!) and reassigned the textures to be other random texture files to see if it made any difference.

Now, none of the NiTriShapes have any BSDismemberSkinInstances.

 

Maybe I need to save the UV maps again?

At this point, I'm thinking I'll just need to redo the whole process (Which should take that much time since this armor only has 3 very simple parts to it.), but I'd still like to know for future reference what I seem to have screwed up.

[Zquad1]

Hey No problem your not getting annoying at all, the Part that adds the BSDismemberSkinInstance is just after you do the bone weight copy where you add the Skeleton. then once you have added the Skeleton then press AA on the keyboard to select everything then Press Ctrl+A & Select "Scale and Rotation to ObData" then Export.

[gijbaan]

Hello

 

I looking for a little bit help and b4 someone, something say, i knew my english is not the best.

 

I plan to help a "new lands mod" out with some more modells and intoriors. That means i have to modell many static modells in blender 2.74.

 

I have no problems to build the meshes, but something went wrong truth the way of mesh building and finaly using the meshes in the ck.

 

In the ck, i can use the final produced .nif file, but when i use the new mesh on a map, the mesh is just a biiig (warn)red sign.

 

-----

 

So i will descripe now what im make b4 i try to use a new mesh in the ck:

 

-building the mesh in the ck.

-searching for textures and bring them on a useable resolution and make a .dds out them and a normal map "_n.dds". * I have still not understood how to make a "_m.dds/mipmap" with gimp/and or blender.

 

-So then, i use the .dds on the meshes in blender. Looking that the UV Map is activated under "mapping" and activate the texture in every avaible (edit and texture) menu because ... i dont really know what im doing in this part ... :|

 

-Then i export everything as .obj.

-Open nifscope and load in it a collision.nif i found on the internet. (*from here: http://www.creationkit.com/Exporting_meshes_to_Creation_Kit )

-Import the .obj into nifscope and then i do pretty much the same, like in the pictured tutorial that i have linked (of the textured part).

-Then i save it as .nif and then i open the ck and catch my next red warnsing :|

 

So ... did someone know what i make wrong? Plz tell me :/ It drives me crazy. I already search for a solution 2 weeks or more

 

... And plz tell me the solution not like, as you would speak with teh uberleet modell-desgigner. Tell me the solution as would you speak with a frustadet new beginner, because thats, what i am :|

[gadinel]

Thanks a lot for sharing this tutorial.

[Zquad1]

Your very welcome...  Perhaps some day soon I'll actually get to re-do my tutorial & provide better info that would make it easier to convert outfits.

[Ishmmael]

So I recently went back to playing around with this, and I ran into an issue that I remember having had before and I never managed to solve.

 

I've gone through the entire process in the tutorial, using the CBBE draugr armor and trying to convert it into my custom CBBE body variation.

Weight 0 and Weight 100 look perfect, but everything in between basically explodes. (No crashing.)

I thought this was caused by deleting vertices so that weight 0 and weight 100 no longer have the same amount of vertices, but I haven't actually deleted any vertices.

 

The elements of the meshes that I didn't want, I have simply selected their vertices and shrunken the mesh/moved them into the body where they can't be ordinarily seen in game. I don't think that should cause such an issue.

 

If weight 0 and weight 100 had a different amount of vertex groups, would that cause this issue as well?

That is my current theory, that I've somehow accidentally deleted a vertex group from the body while working on one of the weight files, but I can't really test to find out. Would that cause such an issue?

 

I intend to start over on the mesh I'm working on, but I'd like to be aware of what caused this so I can keep in mind to avoid it.

I'd hate to just be reproducing the same faulty mesh over and over again, it already made me lose interest in doing this once before.

[Zquad1]

I think you sorta answered your own question, if your Body Meshes are Not the EXACT same file size then you WILL have issues, you'll either experience game crashes & or Vertex Blow ups in game My advice is to start out by getting a new copy of the Body your using that has the EXACT same file size & try it again.

 

But if your Armor is causing the Blow up in-game then do the same method for the armor, yes it sucks having to re-convert but I too have had that happen to me, somewhere in the fitting process I had deleted a vertacie that I didn't catch & I spent days re-converting the same mesh till I finally gave up on it, then I eventually picked it back up & noticed a slight hole it the mesh when I was working with it so I re-downloaded the same outfit & re-converted it all over & found out that was my problem.

 

but if your still having issues let me know, & perhaps you can send me the files your working on & I'll see where the error might be coming from.

[Ishmmael]

Now I'm simply confused.

 

I deleted the files I was working on and started over, making new copies from the base nif files that have never ever been touched or even opened.

 

I went through the process again from start to finish.

I deleted a number of vertices during the fitting stage, but I made certain to do nothing but move and scale vertices when fitting the mesh to the weight_100 mesh.

Now with both weight_0 and weight_100 in game, weight_0 and weight_100 look perfectly fine but once again it goes crazy on any weight between them, but now it also crashes when fiddling with the weight too much. The "goes crazy" is different from before, earlier the mesh simply seemed to be exploding but now it freaks out and goes crazy in various directions and shapes.

 

Both weight files have the exact same size, both have the exact same amount of vertices, and the specific vertices that have been removed are the exact same on both weights. The only differences between the weight_0 mesh and the weight_100 mesh are specific vertex positions and mesh scales.

 

I have no bloody idea what's gone wrong. I know that the source files I began with are fine, and I know that the vertex counts and file sizes are identical.

The total vertex count is even too.

 

Does each individual mesh need to have an even vertex count as well?

The armor has 1047 vertices, but the panties have 449 thus the total number becomes even. (Total count is 4784)

[Zquad1]

 ok perhaps are you exporting with a Dirty Skeleton meaning:

 

This is a Dirty Skeleton --->

 

 

 

This is a Clean Skeleton -->

  

 

 

the best way for me to import a clean skeleton is to select the body, then hit AA on the keyboard so that everything gets selected then hit ctrl+A on the Keyboard & click "Scale & Rotation to obData" then save your progress BEFORE you Import a Skeleton then close your Blender then wait a minute then re-open your saved Blender file, then select the body, then hit AA on the keyboard so that everything gets selected then click on "Scale & Rotation to obData"  then import the skeleton & if you see the second picture above then your good to finally export the outfit. if not then repeat the steps above till you get a clean skeleton, that will more then likely fix alot of mesh explosions.

 

Try that & see if that helps..