A question about editing & merging meshes in NifSkope

[Skyrimfloo]

Hey there. I asked this in another thread, but I guess it wasn't the proper place, so let's try with its own thread.

 

So, I want to create a new mesh for the True Bound Daedric Armors, one that looks more similar to the vanilla Daedric armor, since the one featured in that mod seems like a mashup of Daedric, Ebony and some other armor I can't identify. Eventually I would like to create my own mod, a simpler version of that one that would add only the two spells for the armor and shield, and maybe add them to NPC shopts and drops.

 

I extracted the female Daedric armor meshes for the helmet, gloves, boots and cuirass, with the intention to merge them. The mod is supposed so summon a full armor that equips in a single slot, which I think it's a great idea since It's supposed to appear overlapped to your "real" armor, not substitute it.

 

So the first step I tried was to merge the .nif files. I went to each one, "copy block" and "paste block" in the cuirass file, and in the viewer it shows as intended. I also renamed most of the NiNodes to show the proper skeleton nodes, and I changed all the biped slots to the same one used by the original mod. Here's the result:

 

 

 daedrictorsof.nif

 

 

After doing this, I'd have to pull off the proper effectto make it look like a bound weapon, and also run it through Outfit Studio to make it BodySlide-compatible with the proper weight paints, including belly node.

 

The outfit shows fine in Outfit Studio, however, when I rename it to the same name as the mod's armor, and try to see if it looks well, it only shows the cuirass. I'm not sure if this happens because the original mod is not supposed to read a different file, or if there's indeed a problem with my file that causes the meshes to not so show.

 

Maybe somebody can point me to the right direction? What am I doing wrong?

 

[Vioxsis]

You can't have multiple NiNodes in 1 nif, only the first will be loaded the others will be ignored.

What you need to do is copy the helmet, gauntlets and boots NiTriShape in to the armours NiNode.

[Skyrimfloo]

How exactly?

[Vioxsis]

First you need to rename the NiNode of one of the nifs so that it matches the other.

 

 

 

Then you will need to copy any bones that are not in the nif you are copying to.

 

 

Make sure you rename in exactly how it was in the other nif.

 

And lastly you copy the NiTriShape (ctrl + C) and click the NiNode that you want to paste it in to and (ctrl + V)

 

 

Rename it to well anything really.

 

Repeat for the gauntlets and boots and save the nif.

You may or may not have to change the dismember partitions to match the armour.

[Skyrimfloo]

So, for example, those NiNodes that have the same names, I don't need to copy them? The female cuirass has already the NPC Head and NPC Spine2 nodes, for example.

 

There are also multiple nodes that have the "InvMarker" tag. Am I supposed to copy those as well?

[Vioxsis]

There is no need to copy them over if they are already there.

 

The "InvMarker".. I'm not sure what they are for, never needed them for anything, they don't look as though they do anything.

I would just ignore them.

 

The "BSInvMarker" is to tell the game engine how to display the model in the inventory, you can ignore that as well.

 

 

[Skyrimfloo]

Awesome, it seems to be working. I've noticed that the "invMarkers have different parameters even though they have the same name, so just in case I'm also copying them. I've managed to merge the helmet and the boots, next are the gloves.

 

Thank you very much for the help!

 

Now, the next step would be the ghostly effect. When I use the spell with the new mesh, it has already the purple flame effect that bound weapons have, I assume that's because it's something added in the .esp, but the armor still looks solid, so I suppose that the transparent-purple effect is given in the .nif file. Where exactly is this done? I was thinking about looking at some mod that got the effect pretty well done for a custom bound shield, but I don't want to mess anything.

[Vioxsis]

To add transparency you would need to add a NiAlphaProperty to the NiTriShape.

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_an_armour_for_Skyrim._Part_2#Add_transparency

[Skyrimfloo]

Yes, I found that tutorial as well. I got the armor to look like the one from the mod I used as a base, but I'm also trying to get it to the proper shape (vanilla to CBBE).

 

After doing this, I have to learn how to create the spell to use the armors, but that I'll ask later. Thanks for the help!