Making a clothing edit for the first time. Requesting help.

[Aethyri]

So for one reason or another, I decided I wanted to try my hand at creating something. Or editing rather.

 

I managed to figure out where the texture was, how to get it out, and how to edit it. But I've run into a bit of trouble with implementing. I attempted to attach it to another mod, but that did not turn out so well, so here I am, seeking guidance of those smarter than me in such matters. 

 

The edit in question was to Roughspun Tunic. I wanted to try and remove the leg portion for females while leaving the top (Tunic) in tact. I've also come to the conclusion that there are in fact multiple clothing sources which provide essentially the same appearance that I would want to edit and am not yet familiar with how to do so. I believe it's the roughspun tunic and the prisoner clothes items.

 

Attached is the edit I made to the texture. Any help would be greatly appreciated when I get back on tonight. The one I have uploaded is png, the version I was working with is DDS.

[Spyder Arachnid]

Hmm... it might be easier to work off something like this instead of the vanilla outfit.

 

UNP Minidresses Collection has the Roughspun Tunic in it. Not sure what body type you use, but if it's UNP, DreamGirl, UNPSkinny, or SeveNBase, you can use the mini dresses to help you out. Just make the mini shorter by removing the skirt portion, so it appears like a shirt, since the lower body is visible under the mini part of the Tunic.

 

Just an idea is all.

[myuhinny]

That is because you need the mesh nifs for it as well because what you do to the .dds does nothing without the mesh nifs as you have to add a NiAlphaProperty to both of the nifs outfit. Find the mesh nifs there will be 2 of them and load them into nifskope right click the outfit and go down to node then attach property then select NiAlphaProperty then save as to overwrite the nif file so what you just did gets saved. 

[Aethyri]

Hmm... it might be easier to work off something like this instead of the vanilla outfit.

 

UNP Minidresses Collection has the Roughspun Tunic in it. Not sure what body type you use, but if it's UNP, DreamGirl, UNPSkinny, or SeveNBase, you can use the mini dresses to help you out. Just make the mini shorter by removing the skirt portion, so it appears like a shirt, since the lower body is visible under the mini part of the Tunic.

 

Just an idea is all.

 

That was a pretty good idea, however, the mini dresses mode alters the meshes with replacements of custom design. They look nice, but not the feature I am going for.

 

That is because you need the mesh nifs for it as well because what you do to the .dds does nothing without the mesh nifs as you have to add a NiAlphaProperty to both of the nifs outfit. Find the mesh nifs there will be 2 of them and load them into nifskope right click the outfit and go down to node then attach property then select NiAlphaProperty then save as to overwrite the nif file so what you just did gets saved. 

 

I don't know for sure about all this. I managed to find part of my problem which was one mod was still overriding the textures so it was not appearing correctly. After removing that, and creating a manual texture path. Data>Textures>Clothes>Prisoner>F>[clothes.dds], the mod actually began to work.

 

Despite that, I came back to this post a few times, attempting to discern meaning, and I'm still not clear on what is implied in requiring the meshes needing NIAlphaProperty as you stated.

 

____________________________________________

 

Having said that, I have managed to make the clothing appearance correct, though I am now experiencing a different problem. Part of the body is rendered in Alpha with the clothing attached(See Screenshot). If I can get this fixed, I will have a working mod (Simple as it may be.) So, my question now is -

 

What do I need to do to stop parts of the body from rendering in alpha?

[myuhinny]

I forgot to mention that to be able to add a NiAlphaProperty to a outfit the first thing you need to do before doing anything is to delete the outfit in nifskope first right click the outfit/armor and go to block then select remove branch this will delete it from the nif (do not worry it will not mess up the nif as long as you do not save and just reload the nif it will not hurt it) what you are looking for after deleting it is to see if there is a body underneath the outfit/armor if there is no body underneath it then you can't modify the outfit without first using something like 3d max to add a body underneath it otherwise when you add a NiAlphaProperty to the outfit the area where you cut the outfit out of the body will look like how your legs look because there was no body underneath the outfit.

[myuhinny]

Here is a outfit with no NiAlphaProperty added to it.  Here is a picture of the modified texture part of it cut out and transparency added to it.  This is the same outfit now with the NiAlphaProperty added to the outfits mesh branch. 

[Aethyri]

If I'm getting what you're saying, I have the ability to check to see what body is available underneath, and if there is no body, I would need to add/create a new body mesh under the outfit.

 

Instead of having to create a new body, why wouldn't I be able to apply an already existing body template underneath, such as CBBE, UNP, etc... Would I still need 3dmax to accomplish that?

[myuhinny]

The if there is no body underneath you would have to add a body underneath with something like blender/3d max and then the outfit would have to be converted to work with that body that you put into it. You can't just stick a body into the outfit and expect it to fit it doesn't work that way unfortunately. Outfits that have parts of the body missing or the whole body missing were made usually to be smaller then the bodies used with outfits that have bodies underneath the outfit/armor and if you were to put a body underneath it the body would be sticking through the outfit everywhere as it would cause major clipping.

[Aethyri]

Alright, well I played around in Blender for a bit. (From experience today, I believe I do despise Blender.) I've just finished downloading 3dsmax and will play around in there a bit and see if I can get it accomplished.

 

Edit: Any ideas on NIF for 3ds max 2014? Working in blender again at present.

[myuhinny]

Here is a picture of a outfit that I purposely deleted the body out of. Here is what happens if I try to place something into it that's not the correct size or wasn't made with any body size being used. 

 

You might be able to do some minor tweaking of vertices in nifskope when you place a body underneath something but too much tweaking can make the outfit look like the stay puff marshmallow man's clothes.  In nifskope right click the outfit once the body is under it and go to transform then click scale vertices you will get this screen.  There you will see X 1.0000 Y 1.0000 Z 1.0000 the only 2 you need to worry about are X and Y don't mess with Z when changing/adding numbers never ever change the 1 to a higher number or you will think you were watching Eddie Murphy in the nutty professor the outfits going to go *boing* and become huge.

 

On the numbers the 1 being the one that does the hugest increase each 0 after the . are decreased increments I usually start with the 2nd 0 after the . and put a 2 in it then hit scale and see how much changed always start small because if you go too big then you will have to reload the nif again and try it again as you can't remove it once it's added. Each time you right click the piece and go to scale vertices the numbers will be back at 1.0000 so you might want to write down what you added so that you will have a copy of since you will need them for the 2nd nif as well and both nifs will need to be the same or it will not appear in game.

 

The Y changes the vertices on the sides of the outfit so when changed it will make the outfit move away from the sides the Y changes the front and back of a outfit. The hardest part is finding a body that will fit without a lot of tweaking as the chest usually sticks out so far on the bodies and it is usually can be a bit tricky to get them to fit and still have the outfit looking nice instead of nice and big.

 

Same body from the above picture after tweaking the vertices.

[Aethyri]

 

Here is a picture of a outfit that I purposely deleted the body out of.deleted body.jpg Here is what happens if I try to place something into it that's not the correct size or wasn't made with any body size being used. body added.jpg

 

You might be able to do some minor tweaking of vertices in nifskope when you place a body underneath something but too much tweaking can make the outfit look like the stay puff marshmallow man's clothes.  In nifskope right click the outfit once the body is under it and go to transform then click scale vertices you will get this screen. 1.jpg There you will see X 1.0000 Y 1.0000 Z 1.0000 the only 2 you need to worry about are X and Y don't mess with Z when changing/adding numbers never ever change the 1 to a higher number or you will think you were watching Eddie Murphy in the nutty professor the outfits going to go *boing* and become huge.

 

On the numbers the 1 being the one that does the hugest increase each 0 after the . are decreased increments I usually start with the 2nd 0 after the . and put a 2 in it then hit scale and see how much changed always start small because if you go too big then you will have to reload the nif again and try it again as you can't remove it once it's added. Each time you right click the piece and go to scale vertices the numbers will be back at 1.0000 so you might want to write down what you added so that you will have a copy of since you will need them for the 2nd nif as well and both nifs will need to be the same or it will not appear in game.

 

The Y changes the vertices on the sides of the outfit so when changed it will make the outfit move away from the sides the Y changes the front and back of a outfit. The hardest part is finding a body that will fit without a lot of tweaking as the chest usually sticks out so far on the bodies and it is usually can be a bit tricky to get them to fit and still have the outfit looking nice instead of nice and big.

 

Same body from the above picture after tweaking the vertices.same body.jpg

 

 

I was able to immediately grasp that concept and apply it rather quickly. Sadly however, the marshmallow effect you mentioned did come up. I'm going to play around with this for a bit and see if I can get the individual pieces to align right, great new technique.

 

In good news though, I've managed to get Blender to work for my purposes, yet I've come across a problem. Whenever I export out back to nif file. The nif makes it seem like the entire file (Clothes and Body) are one piece, so when I play in game, I get the big red box with ! in the middle indicating a missing mesh.

 

Edit: That is not entirely the case. NIfskope is still recognizing that there is a clothing layer, and a body layer, but is not recognizing texture differences (That's the best way I can put it.).

 

The attached screenshots might help. I. Merged - II. Normal Unedited

[myuhinny]

I'm not sure on anything with blender as I haven't really used it much. There is this I think it works for skyrim I have been playing around with it with oblivion armors.

 

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/27557-new-clothing-body-type-converter-beta40-3-12-2014/

 

Another thing I use at times when changing vertices is the right click go to transform then go edit this will give you this screen.   This is used to adjust a nif piece. Rotation Y P and R and translation X *do not* touch or you will mess up the mesh rigging where it will either appear in the wrong spot or not at all. Only touch Y and Z

the numbers will usually be 0.0000 unless the author did some tweaking for placement.

 

The zeros are the same as the scale vertices the 0 before the . being the biggest increase and you can add a 1 and it should change in nifskope right away no need to hit enter or close it and adjust the zeros after the. for more tweaking or you can start at the lesser ones to see how they look and unlike the other screen this screen when it is up you can rotate your outfit to see how it's looking if you place a -1 or a -0.1000 instead of a 1 or a 0.1000 and so forth the outfit will move in the other direction Y moves a piece forward and back the Z moves it up and down.

 

**Are the texture paths in the mesh for the outfit matching the texture path of your texture folder that holds the modified texture? Click the outfit below the line that is highlighted in the left side there should be a  BSLightingShaderProperty and a BSShaderTextureSet click the little arrow to the left of the BSShaderTextureSet and it will drop down a list there should be a purple flower looking thing that is your texture paths click the arrow for another drop down and look at the texture path/paths to make sure they match your folder path if not change them to match your folder path.

[Aethyri]

**Are the texture paths in the mesh for the outfit matching the texture path of your texture folder that holds the modified texture? Click the outfit below the line that is highlighted in the left side there should be a  BSLightingShaderProperty and a BSShaderTextureSet click the little arrow to the left of the BSShaderTextureSet and it will drop down a list there should be a purple flower looking thing that is your texture paths click the arrow for another drop down and look at the texture path/paths to make sure they match your folder path if not change them to match your folder path.

 

Actually, that's exactly my problem. I don't have those files anymore. They are completely gone, and when I try to copy branch from an original file, I get a message about them not being compatible. (20.2.0.7 On clipboard, working with 20.2.0.5 for the mod.) I'm trying to find a solution to this now, but nothing is working so far.