Modding Armor for CHSBHC BBP tutorial for 3ds max

[teals03]

I also deleted a couple of pieces from the armor that I modded and it was just fine, so I think your ok there.

 

I think you both might be having the same problem. If you arent getting the same number of vertices when you export that probably means that you didnt "SMOOTH" all of the pieces from the armor.

 

I missed a small cross shaped piece on the back of the armor the first time I exported it thinking that it was all apart of the same piece. You have to smooth every single peice that you are exporting out, not just the ones that you modded, and that also means thats you have to change every shader and alpha that shows up for every single separate piece in nifskope as well. Then you should be able to open it in Skyrim.

 

I found out quite quickly how incredibly picky these things can be, mess just one part up and none of it works. I tried to kinda hurry through a little bit towards the end after I had the armor looking like what I wanted cause I was excited to see it in game and ended up getting ctds as well. The best advice I can give is to take time to double and triple check that you got all your ducks in a row.

[Puff3r]

First, let me say thank you for the awesome tutorial. Very in dpeth and precise. I have a question about modding someone else's work though. I am trying to take the meshes from 2pacs skimpy armor replacer WIP and mod it to work with this body. As his are much more complex than the stock meshes, I am getting lost fast. My first attempt ended up like the attached file...

 

 

 

It seems there is still some of his body parts left on and I may be in over my head. Any help would be appreciated.

[teals03]

Try to read the two posts that I made directly above yours. I think what your seeing there is the vertices going out of wack, which I think probably means you forgot the smooth step somewhere.

 

Some really good questions to ask yourself:

 

1. Is the armor only one piece or does it have multiple small pieces?

 

Even if you dont make any changes to some of the pieces, if you plan to export them out of 3DSMax then you have to prepare them in the same way you would for the piece/pieces you modified.

 

2. Does the piece have an alpha/shader block in nifskope?

 

I think you did this one right since, when I tried to open my game up and I had not copied over any of the alphas from the original armor my game kept CTDing, but reguardless 3DSMax doesnt seem to export these correctly, so you have to make sure to replace them with the originals for each and every instance they show up.

 

3. Why is my character naked?

 

For this one you have to change a single value in the trishapedata that for whatever reason gets changed to no. Just change the value to yes and your armor will show up. I described this in much more detail above in another post. Don't change the value unless the armor isn't showing up though.

 

Granted I am completely brand new to this as well, so I could just be talking out of my ass.

[Vitriks]

Cherry, is there any way to fix it?

 

 

I quick check the bones difference between the panties and skirt and I found that skirt has one extra bone "spine 2" or something like that. Is there any way to make it behave like panties? Anyway, it happens only with big hips movement, def animation work fine.

 

And I also looking for some tutorial, how to make serious changes in 3ds Max and then export it to game. Because my game keep on crashing after I delete or cut some prim in 3DS =(

 

I import CPcuirass_1.nif in 3ds Max, edit the mesh like in part 3 but instead of moving I just delete Vertex.

[spoiler=I get this]

 

Then I export it. Open in NifScope and replese the BsLightingShaderProperety with original one.

[spoiler=I get this]

 

Enter the game, wear armor and game crash.

[teals03]

@Vitriks

 

I did the same thing, you have to also replace the alpha property for each piece that has it as well and your CTDs should go away. Its in the guide in the faqs section and the fix has been posted multiple times in the thread as well. Good Luck.

[Blackbryre]

I'm encountering an error where peripheral pieces of clothing or armour, located near the hips, are becoming attached to the character's hands. This seems to only be present for certain protrusive items, such as the satchel on the mage clothing. Certain animations that move the character's hands away from the hips, such as jumping, cause the clothing to stretch between the hips and hands, creating a "flying squirrel" effect.

 

I'm hoping I've simply missed a step, or maybe mucked one up.

[teals03]

I just ran into this exact proplem. It was a problem with the way the bones were weighted. I had this tiny little piece that was flying all over the place. The first thing I tried to was deleted the bone that was causing the problem since there wasnt anything else in that area that needed to move. 3ds max got mad at me and told me that I was missing weights for some vertices and wouldnt let me export.

 

I then tried to figure out how to paint weights using 3ds max, but I couldnt find a tutorial online. Well I found one but they wanted me to pay for a subcription, but since I couldnt find a tutorial, I couldnt figure it out. Someone did mention a tool called Zbrush so I will probably check that out when I have time.

 

What I ended up doing to fix my problem was deleting the vertices that were flying all over the place and then using the "edit poly" function to weld the vertices together creating a cap over the hole i created. You can select "edit poly" from the modifier list where you selected "smooth" or "relax."

 

The piece that I deleted was the tip of a brown rope that was on the left side of the hip. It was sticking out somewhat close to the left forarm. The part I deleted didn't really effect the look of the armor, so if your ok with removing the area thats flying around then that should be a pretty easy fix.

 

If that isnt an option then I would try to look up Zbrush or figure out how to paint weights using 3ds max. I think the basic gist for painting weights is a color scheme from blue to red, where blue means no movement and red means lots of movement.

[Vitriks]

@Vitriks

 

I did the same thing' date=' you have to also replace the alpha property for each piece that has it as well and your CTDs should go away. Its in the guide in the faqs section and the fix has been posted multiple times in the thread as well. Good Luck.

[/quote']

 

I try it already several times. I copy NiAlphaProperty to the object. sign it in properties, and them copy this object to the original model. And the game crashes. And this help only when you making small changes, after deleting vertex of the mesh this isn't enough.

[Blackbryre]

The piece that I deleted was the tip of a brown rope that was on the left side of the hip. It was sticking out somewhat close to the left forarm. The part I deleted didn't really effect the look of the armor' date=' so if your ok with removing the area thats flying around then that should be a pretty easy fix.

 

If that isnt an option then I would try to look up Zbrush or figure out how to paint weights using 3ds max. I think the basic gist for painting weights is a color scheme from blue to red, where blue means no movement and red means lots of movement.

[/quote']

 

Thanks for the input. Localising the problem then using the "Delete Mesh" function is the only fix I've used... but for some God forsaken reason deleting the whole mage satchel causes 3ds Max to crash on export :\ I've been pretty careful overall, but it seems like I'll have to learn a thing or two about weight painting if I'm to ever make armours worth sharing.

 

Also, nice job on that Forsworn Armour. I like SSH, and yours is pretty good!

[Vitriks]

I import t101leather armor in 3ds and after I press Editable Mesh and make some changes, the won't save.

 

 

[teals03]

I actually did a test on one of the armors I converted and deleted all the vertices and left only the panties covering the girl. The armor exported without any problem and showed up pretty well in game. I just deleted vertices from the armor, I am not sure what your talking about when you say you used the "delete mesh" function Sapience. I am literally just selecting vertices with soft selection turned off to delete certain pieces.

 

@Vitriks: Did you make sure to smooth out each peice from the armor before you exported, and I mean every piece. I swear to god I did this about 15 times before I got it right, but some armors have really small pieces that are separate from the main and are not only easy to miss, but can be a serious pain to even click on once you know its there. Although I think you can get around this by using the select function to export and only selecting lets say the main armor and the body you used to convert. You also have to "smooth" the body as well. I am sure your already doing this, but if your replacing the alpha and the shader property with the originals then I am not sure what your problem is. You could maybe post a zip file including the oringinal armor, the body used, and your max file. I might be able to figure it out from there, cause I just starting out like you so I dont know much yet.

 

Also thanks Sapience, I thought the armor came out pretty well. I probably had to make about 10 different small changes, and once I even forgot to use a body compatible for BBP which made the slider explode. I am however really starting to get fast with ctrl+del, ctrl+c, ctrl+v when replacing those properties in nifskope though, so I at least have that.

[Blackbryre]

"DeleteMesh" is an object space modifier - I'm quite the noob with this program, so I simply get things done through trial and error. Thanks for testing my error though - I'll just tinker around with it and hope for some luck

 

I know what you mean about the flurry of copy/paste/delete. It gets a bit dizzying when I'm not careful...

[teals03]

I swear I everytime I try to edit a new armor I run into something different and I have to learn like 3-4 new things that I can do in 3ds max.

 

I am doing the dragonscale armor right now and the smaller breast version came out great no problems, but the SSH version is really being a pain. Its basically the same thing as I had last time, but the entire left and right sides of the hip move and distort with the arms, instead of on tiny little piece. Its not noticable until I jump, but when I jump its pretty bad. I trying to figure out how to create vertices at the moment and failing terribly haha.

[Blackbryre]

I swear I everytime I try to edit a new armor I run into something different and I have to learn like 3-4 new things that I can do in 3ds max.

 

I am doing the dragonscale armor right now and the smaller breast version came out great no problems' date=' but the SSH version is really being a pain. Its basically the same thing as I had last time, but the entire left and right sides of the hip move and distort with the arms, instead of on tiny little piece. Its not noticable until I jump, but when I jump its pretty bad. I trying to figure out how to create vertices at the moment and failing terribly haha.

[/quote']

 

I noticed you posted your work on the Dragonscale armour. Did you find a workaround other than deleting the side materials? Nice job on the shaping for the SSH btw, I get so frustrated trying to match the massive cups that I'm more inclined to just tear the top off D:

[Silvist]

Nice work guys, that "has vertex colors" helped me out quite a bit. Now I ran into something even odder. Its probably due to the fact the armor has blades that come off of it, and after adding the weight to it from the body it kinda caused them to deform. Going to try and remove the weight, and see what happens @_@.

 

Either case, before even this my armor wouldn't even show up in the game. The usual "invisible body", which from my experience in the past is related to either an incompatible body type or esp issue. Due to the fact we don't still have a construction set, I've realized there's even more variables inside of esp files.

 

So honestly if you're taking an existing armor that someone made an esp file for, be very careful. You may even be better off testing it first as a replacer, and later create your "own" esp for it.

 

This is a long shot of something I was just messing around with. Just a simple retex of sinbloods ravenous armor:

 

SFW

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still have to fix a couple parts of it, including the normal mapping. I'm trying to figure out what to do for the lower half, because originally it was a skirt. I ripped off the skirt, and still have to decide what to make in place of it. I believe the boots are extremely high boots with heels. Either case, this was a pain to convert from the random author who imported this to skyrim with the original HGEC body (go figure why they kept the body).

 

Original was posted here by Neferty:

 

http://www.loverslab.com/showthread.php?tid=4158&page=73

 

 

HGEC Sinblood Ravenous Elegance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?ngen1ktbj5hjyt6

 

 

Standalone version.

 

Made on a HGEC body so you won't see any other body textures through it.

 

Original mod import from oblivion.

 

dress code (xx stands for the mod order in NMM)

 

Ravenous Elegance Boots: XX8888f1

Ravenous Elegance Bracers: XX8888f9

Ravenous Elegance Amulet: XX8888fd

Ravenous Elegance Dress: XX8888f5

Ravenous Elegance Earrings: XX8888e1

 

 

 

[CherryHotaling]

YYYYYYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

 

I figured it out. Apparently there is yet another step some of us MAYBE might need to preform in order to get sweet' date=' sweet justice. According to me, not having my armor show up at all was a complete injustice to all that is good and righteous.

 

How I fixed my armor not showing up in game:

 

1. Open your armor in NifSkope.

2. Click on the '# NiTriShape' for the piece that isnt showing up in game.

3. Click on NiTriShapeData.

4. In that window you should find a block called 'Has Vertex Colors'. You want to modify that value from 'no' to 'yes'.

5. Repeat for any other piece that isnt showing up for the armor and you should be able to now see your armor in game.

Picture for Reference

 

My Armor in Game with BBP and everything.

 

I also found out that there are numerous small fixes that I need to do that didn't show up in 3DSMax. There is a small seam in the right side of the chest. The nipples show up just a little bit, and although I didnt make any changes to the boots and they aren't even apart of the mesh that I changed, they now also have seem issues in the back.

 

I think I am finally starting to gain some incite in to just how much work gets put into perfecting these things and I was just modifying an already existing mesh. It would have to be a freaking nightmare to create something from scratch.

 

Awesome work!! you rock! Keep it up!

 

[CherryHotaling]

Hi' date='

 

at first thx for that tutorial.

I have a little expirience with moddeling. I made some mods for oher games X3 Fallout Oblivion aso.

Your tut give me some new tipps for moddeling in skyrim.

 

I made the nocturnal dress working for the newest CBBE Body but got one problem when I export the dress.

The vertex count from the body mesh will be different in NifScope form that was shown in Max (Max=3471 NifScope=3543)

I checked all settings they are the same as yours in the tut.

 

Do you have any idea what happend ?

 

I use Max 2010 and NifTools 3.7.2.41462df

[/quote']

 

Yes you need to add a smooth modifier to all the seperate pieces in your scene with the smooth modifier of 2 selected.

[CherryHotaling]

thank you' date=' the vertex count was different, as you said. now it works

 

but now i have another problem with the next armor (forsworn armor)

it has a NiAlphaProperty. as described in your faq i replaced the nialphaproperty with the one from the original armor, but i get a CTD everytime

could there be problems because i deleted the feathers?

[/quote']

 

You need to copy the NiAlpha from the original. (See the FAQ section in the first post for the info.

[CherryHotaling]

Cherry' date=' is there any way to fix it?

 

[img']http://i28.fastpic.ru/big/2012/0129/99/2ce44722fc14026864ebc856e1fca099.jpg[/img]

 

I quick check the bones difference between the panties and skirt and I found that skirt has one extra bone "spine 2" or something like that. Is there any way to make it behave like panties? Anyway, it happens only with big hips movement, def animation work fine.

 

And I also looking for some tutorial, how to make serious changes in 3ds Max and then export it to game. Because my game keep on crashing after I delete or cut some prim in 3DS =(

 

I import CPcuirass_1.nif in 3ds Max, edit the mesh like in part 3 but instead of moving I just delete Vertex.

[spoiler=I get this]

 

Then I export it. Open in NifScope and replese the BsLightingShaderProperety with original one.

[spoiler=I get this]

 

Enter the game, wear armor and game crash.

 

You said "prim" do you play Second Life too? hehe.

 

The panty thing you have to weight paint to a different bone. (There are probably some good weight painting tutorials on youtube for 3ds max)

 

If your crashing in game then that means you missed a BSLightingShaderproperty.

You have to make sure you copy all of the shaders from the originals for every piece of NiTriShape's there are.

[CherryHotaling]

It seems a lot of people need help with weight painting maybe I will make a weight painting tutorial.

[Vitriks]

It seems a lot of people need help with weight painting maybe I will make a weight painting tutorial.

 

I need to remove the bone. How to properly do it?

And if I copy the skin data from panties of one clothes with 5 bones to the skirt that has 6 bones, will it work?

 

Also what about adding BSDismember skin modifier to the cloth part? Because some of clothes don't have them.

 

Also I don't think you mention checking BSDismemberSkinInstance "Body part". For armor it must be 32 and for boots I guess 37 otherwise the armor wont show in game.

 

[Souldemon]

thank you' date=' the vertex count was different, as you said. now it works

 

but now i have another problem with the next armor (forsworn armor)

it has a NiAlphaProperty. as described in your faq i replaced the nialphaproperty with the one from the original armor, but i get a CTD everytime

could there be problems because i deleted the feathers?

[/quote']

 

You need to copy the NiAlpha from the original. (See the FAQ section in the first post for the info.

 

As i said, the Vertex count is the same on every NiTriShape, every piece is smooth and copied the original NiAlphaProp and the LightningShader. still getting CTD again and again. Im about to give up

 

[teals03]

I mostly want to know if you can just remove the painted weights entirely from a bone without removing the bone. I have a pair of shoulders in my dragonscale armor that are moving. I dont want them to move at all, but when I use the paint tool to remove painted weights, it just paints them somewhere else. If the painted vertex isnt connected to another one, then I cant reduce the weight at all. I think this has something to do with normalization, where the weight has to equal 1.0 between all the connected vertices. I've have tried looking up on how to do this through google, but all the responses are very short and to the point. Exclude this, remove vertices, etc...

 

Frustrated and loving it all the same.

 

7:52 *Update* Just figured out how to select vertices in the skin modifier, going to give this a whirl. I didn't realize that I had to have envelope selected to let click on the vertices button, sometimes I feel so freaking dumb trying to operate this.

 

8:05 *Update2* Tried to exclude the verts, which got some very interesting results early, but going through all the bones fixed that. I do however get a bad skin data when trying to export so thats out the window.

 

8:20 *Update3* Haha this is getting really fun even though I am failing so terribly, but I tried including the vertices I excluded into the spine bone, turning of normalization, then taking the abs effect down to 0 for all the vertices and it exported fine, but the shoulders no longer show up. I know this is probably exactly what your not supposed to do, but I do kinda feel getto fabulous right now.

 

8:30 *Update4* This post is getting really long... I will probably stop with this one. I just had a light bulb moment where I think I might just be able to make the shoulders a separate piece entirely, but then I have to figure out how to get that into the game without causing it to crash, which actually might be much harder than just figuring out the weights.

[barbariank]

I have question, i have a lot of problems with the body passing throug the armor when running and such, is it possible to hide body parts that are under the armor ?

 

I tryed removing them by deleting them in 3dsmax but it crash when i try to export the mesh, it could save me a lot of time if i know how to do this

 

And thank you for your previous answer, i won't tesselate anymore : p

[Vitriks]

I keep crushing, crushing and crushing again. I read all possible tutorials and bugged you guys a lot but it still doesn't work, so I make a quick video of the whole process.

 

[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-8r1vcL0FU&feature=youtu.be