Help with editing an Armor mesh via Nifskope

[Apahguinsimo]

Oh hi there, I'm trying to edit one of the armors from Spice of Life.

 

Basically, this outfit has a leather jacket over it that I would like to remove. I don't know much about Nifskope, but I've used it over the years to edit some armors. Usually I can Right click->remove branch on parts of the armor I'd like to disappear, or even copy branches from other armors to combine them. This armor is giving me a lot of trouble though. Whenever I edit any part of it, even copying in a branch from another mesh, lots of weird stuff happens.

 

The character's limbs get all wonky and sometimes the body's skin mesh disappears. Also the Pipboy is misaligned in the hand if I remove the jacket. Here are some examples of the weird stuff that happens if I remove the jacket.

 

 

 

 

When viewed from certain angles it looks correct; this is how I actually want it to look.

 

The part of the mesh with the body/skin has nothing under the jacket, so I was trying to copy in the Cali body which fits. There is clipping on the feet but it's not noticable.

 

Sooo basically, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm calling upon the knowledge of the many people who know far more about meshes and Nifskope than I do.  Does anyone know why these things are happening and how I can solve them to remove the jacket without issues? I'll attach the unedited mesh in case someone wants to look at it. I'd love some input, thanks. I made a post on the Nifskope forum ages ago but never got an answer - that forum is pretty dead.

jeansf2c.nif

[myuhinny]

Tried to look but got this error from the site. Sorry! We're busy running around with our hair on fire because Imgur is over capacity! This can happen when the site is under a very heavy load, or while we're doing maintenance. Please try again in a few minutes

[myuhinny]

Invisible body means missing mesh or something was done wrong. When you paste a body into a armor you need to load up the body you want right click the body and go to block - copy branch then load and then click on the armor to load it then right click scene root in the top left side and go to block - paste branch then save as to overwrite the nif. I usually place a copy of the body I want in a nif with the armor so it makes it easier to modify.

[Apahguinsimo]

Imgur has random load issues from time to time, you must have caught it at just the right time.

 

I've been deleteing the body mesh already on the armor, since it is incomplete and there's nothing under the jacket, and pasting the Berry body via Paste Branch. I was Pasting the Body into the Root of the armor. This sounds like what you're saying to do, what else must be done to stop the body going invisible and the hand being misaligned to weapons and Pipboy?

 

I forgot to actually press upload attachment after selecting it, so the unaltered mesh in question is attached if there is someone who wants to look at it. 

[myuhinny]

Not sure if you wanted k2 berry or cali berry from beware the girl. I pasted k2 berry cups into both berry bodies as it spewed out a ninode error if I tried to paste the body into the armor so I pasted everything into the berry body nif instead. The bodies have BnB.

 

jeansf2cBERRY_FlatsCCup.nifjeansf2cBERRY_ReplacerCCup.nif

[Apahguinsimo]

Hey thanks for your replies, unfortunately those .nifs make my game crash upon equipping the armor even after I install BnB. And I still have the problem of the body disappearing when I remove the jacket. Does anyone know what I am missing?

[Imperfection]

Here is fixed version of Myuhinny's file, let me know if you need the other one or if this one does not work. Basically all of the clothing mesh nodes had same names as biped skeleton nodes which will cause crash as you found out, renamed nodes, fixed and zeroed out mesh translations, fixed some clipping on boots, updated tangent space. Some small clipping on boots and arms still though but no crash, tested in game.

jeansf2cBERRY_FlatsCCup_FIXED.nif

[Apahguinsimo]

Oh wow, that works mostly! Oh boy, you're on to something.

 

However, not to be picky, but I do have a couple issues with BnB. I never was a fan of BnB in Fallout - the shoulders are a bit broad and masculine and the bounce goes through the armor without the armor actually bouncing. So it doesn't fit this outfit very well.

 

Now that I look in my folders the body I was trying to use was Berry HD, it fits almost perfectly except for a tiny bit of negligible clipping on the boots and has more narrow shoulders that fit better. Also with the armor, the original reason I posted was because I am trying to remove the jacket, which caused issues. I can attach the body and the armor without the jacket to give a better picture of what I'm going for.

 

If you could combine this body and this armor without the jacket, or explain how I might do it, that would be just wonderful. Thanks for help so far yes yes!

jeansf2c No Jacket.nif

femaleupperbody BerryHD.nif

[Imperfection]

Sorry I had no idea you wanted no bounce, I was just fixing the crash issue. The clothing was rigged for non-bounce while body was bounce version, so clipping is expected. Try this one, no bounce, clipping on boots fixed.

femaleupperbody BerryHD_FIXED.nif

[Apahguinsimo]

Oh my, you did it! Just perfect! I've spent forever trying to do this and you get it in a matter of minutes. Might I ask what you did to make it work? A metric ton of thanks goes from me to you.

[Imperfection]

I think you were pretty close, I just selected the clothing bits from the jeans mesh and copy branch past branch to body mesh. You have to rename nodes after they are pasted to something other than biped nodes like shirt, boots, etc., nifskope likes to randomly name them when you paste. Also when you paste make sure you have scene root selected on target mesh.

 

I honestly don't know where you were stuck as your original mesh in OP looks fine, you could have copied those bits to the body you supplied. From your original posting it sounds like you have the skill but maybe afraid to break it Believe me I have broken plenty of meshes learning this stuff.

 

The boots I fixed in blender although they could have been fixed in nifskope but blender was easier.

 

The other file had node name issues and body was weighted for bounce but armor was not, this would need to be fixed in blender with bone weight copy.

 

Glad you like the final mesh,

[Apahguinsimo]

Okay that makes a bit of sense, I always wondered why Nifskope randomly renames nodes on pasting but didn't realize it had an effect on the final product. It doesn't seem to want to let me directly rename them though, just choose a string which assigns a name.

 

I'm not sure what was going wrong either - every time in the past a simple copy and paste into scene root has worked pretty much fine. But this time I got all that wacky wild stuff with the disappearing body and hands misaligned to the Pipboy. I'm using a mod for a handheld Pipboy rather than a wrist one, which may have been contributing to that problem.

 

Your detail with fixing up the boots was very well done, I probably wouldn't have noticed the clipping but it looks so much better without clipping.

 

Well thanks again, I think I'll try to tinker a bit with the finished mesh. There are some accessories from other outfits I'd kind of like to try to paste onto it, hopefully that works!

[ChubbyKitty]

Cute! I love giving my character cute dresses. Will you be uploading it when you finish?

[Imperfection]

It is "random" but it actually random from existing array list in target mesh. In most cases you do not want your armor mesh pieces to have same name as parts of skeleton or meatcaps (any of the 4), if you have 2 parts named same as your left toe then animation engine will try and make you move like you have 2 left toes, makes for some wacky gumby like effects if you don't just crash outright. If you are going to import anything into blender then I would also make sure material names are not also called biped names, meatcap names or scene root. Scene root material name causes bad export, fixable but still sucks if you don't catch it.

 

I also use pipboy readius but not had any hand issues that I noticed but I play 3rd person a lot, make sure when you copy nodes its block copy branch and not just block copy.

 

For the mesh renaming, should be right click edit string index option in block details, you can select from list or type your own. Some mesh names do have meaning in different camera modes (1st vs 3rd) and for pipboy, such as pipboyon or pipboyoff, upperbody, arms.