Import exact copy of your Skyrim char in 3dsmax2010 ?

[Bisk]

Is there a way to import an exact copy of your character from Skyrim to 3dsmax10 ? so far I've been able to add the skeleton, meshes, armor and animations, but textures are non-existent as I don't really know how to add them..I haven't played around with 3dsmax for that long, so any help on how to do this (video/guide) or if it's even possible, would be appreciated. 

 

Hopefully I posted in the right section. 

[Kaz Aanh]

You could use 3dx ripper. Just go to 3rd view , make a T-pose ,launch program. Open it later in the 3dsmax but it probably won't save any weightings or skeletons.

 

Dunno how to import your char in the other way with the face-gen morhps.

 

 

Ill bump it so maybe someone more experienced will be able answer to that question.

[Bisk]

Thanks for the help, I'll see what I can come up with. 

[gerra6]

Importing your character's face into a 3D modeling program is no easy task.

 

There are basically two big parts. The first is to import the head mesh and any required tri and/or egm files in a way that allows you to apply the facial morphs stored in the egm and tri files to the mesh stored in the nif. I don't know the exact procedure for this in 3DS Max, but I've done something similar for Blender in the past. It takes a bit of work, but it can be done.

 

Unfortunately, the second part is where things get very tough. Your character's exact face is stored as a series of facegen morph hex codes. To my knowledge, no modders have publicly decoded these codes into something that could be used to morph a face in a 3d modelling program.

 

Now, if someone has managed to decode how the facegen hex codes relate to the EGM morphs, then I would be more than happy to add full character facial support to my Blender Pose Converter package.

 

But to get to that point, someone, somewhere, would have to spend a big chunk of time experimenting with individual face sliders and figuring precisely how they impact the facegen hex codes and exactly how that corresponds to which facial morphs are loaded and their relative percentages. Not a simple task, unfortunately.

[pornphile]

How did this Aela get ported? Or is the geometry inexact when you export using Ctrl+F4?

[gerra6]

How did this Aela get ported? Or is the geometry inexact when you export using Ctrl+F4?

If you browse through the relevant folders in the Skyrim mesh folder, you may notice one folder filled with several thousand facegen egm files.

 

If I were to guess, I'd say that they created custom facegen morphs for many (all?) of the NPCs in the game. This means that all that you need to do to import a given NPC's face into a 3d program is to import the appropriate egm file and apply it to the head nif. Note: this can also be used to import facial expressions into your 3D program, similar to what I did for the Blender Pose Converter supplementary blend file (oblivion facial expressions, although I can update it to support Skyrim and Fallout facial expressions).

 

For the player character, however, the face is a hybrid of a large number of morphs stored in a single egm file per affected nif. When you adjust the face sliders, an algorithm converts that to a relative percentage influence of one or more of those morphs.

 

Note: this is also how facial expression animations work, except those are based on tri files instead of egm files.

[pornphile]

Since the player character can be made into an npc, do the differences between pc vs npc matter when it comes to exporting? I always thought the FaceGeom folder for standalone followers contained the exact face geometry.

[gerra6]

Dunno.

 

I haven't played around much with the Skyrim egm files other than taking a cursory glance at the file structure for fun (just playing around in Python). Most of my direct experience was working with the Oblivion EGM and Tri files when I was building out the Pose Converter support .blend file.

[Bisk]

Dunno.

 

I haven't played around much with the Skyrim egm files other than taking a cursory glance at the file structure for fun (just playing around in Python). Most of my direct experience was working with the Oblivion EGM and Tri files when I was building out the Pose Converter support .blend file.

 

So is there actually a chance that it might work ? my end goal is to import my character into 3dsmax so I can then later export it as .fbx for use in Unreal Engine 4 as I want to make a small game during my free time. I know that this can also be done in blender however, but the nif importer for blender is WAY out of date, and for what version it does work, it doesn't have the support to export your work as .fbx.

[gerra6]

Well, here's one thing that you can try.

 

Note: since I don't have access to 3DSMax, I can't give you any specific instructions there. So my instructions will be geared towards doing this in Blender but there is probably something equivalent in Max.

 

Let's focus for a moment on the head. There are plenty of tutorials around to help you import clothing, armor, bodies, poses, etc

 

What is fairly rare are tutorials that explain how nifs, tri, and egm files work together and how you can use them together.

 

1. Import the head mesh that your character uses. *Important* make sure that no vertices are pruned during the import process (the vertex count of the nif in Nifskope should match the vertex count of the nif in your 3D program). If this is happening, you'll want to run my vertex normal modifier tool on the nifs prior to import (Link available on request).

 

2. Import that EGM and Tri files associated with that head nif. In general, if the head nif is called head_f.nif, then the tri file will be head_f.tri and the egm will be head_f.egm

 

3. Depending on the importer you used, the EGM and Tri files will probably been imported as a mesh with modifiers (whatever the 3DSMax equivalent is).

 

4. Copy those modifiers over to the head nif.

 

At this point you can 'sculpt' the head nif into your character's face shape by setting the relative values of the modifiers. It's basically identical to the process of creating the face using the sliders in game, except that you are interacting directly with the underlying morphs.

 

Once that process is completed, make the modifiers 'real'. This locks the morph into the mesh itself. Now, you can export the nif and it will retain your charater's face shape.

 

What about the eyes, hair, mouth, teeth, etc. Do the same process. In fact, it is probably best to do it all at the same time. Import the head, eyes, hair, etc. nifs, egms, and tri files. Once you've associated all of the morphs with the correct meshes, merge all of the meshes into a single a object.

 

This will allow you to export the whole thing as a single unit.

 

P.S. If you are looking to do this in Blender, I can send you a link to an EGM/Tri Import Export script (derived from Himika's work here: https://gist.github.com/himika)

[pornphile]

I decided to do some comparisons: straight import of FaceGeom nif vs in game character.

 

3d viewport set to orthographic full front/side views.

Skyrim FOV set to 5 else I can't navigate. Can't set view angles.

Images have been scaled/rotated to fit but aspect ratios were maintained.

 

Front 50% opacity and side by side:

 

Profile 50% opacity and side by side:

 

Everyones verdict?

[Bisk]

 

 

 

Well, here's one thing that you can try.

Note: since I don't have access to 3DSMax, I can't give you any specific instructions there. So my instructions will be geared towards doing this in Blender but there is probably something equivalent in Max.

Let's focus for a moment on the head. There are plenty of tutorials around to help you import clothing, armor, bodies, poses, etc

What is fairly rare are tutorials that explain how nifs, tri, and egm files work together and how you can use them together.

1. Import the head mesh that your character uses. *Important* make sure that no vertices are pruned during the import process (the vertex count of the nif in Nifskope should match the vertex count of the nif in your 3D program). If this is happening, you'll want to run my vertex normal modifier tool on the nifs prior to import (Link available on request).

2. Import that EGM and Tri files associated with that head nif. In general, if the head nif is called head_f.nif, then the tri file will be head_f.tri and the egm will be head_f.egm

3. Depending on the importer you used, the EGM and Tri files will probably been imported as a mesh with modifiers (whatever the 3DSMax equivalent is).

4. Copy those modifiers over to the head nif.

At this point you can 'sculpt' the head nif into your character's face shape by setting the relative values of the modifiers. It's basically identical to the process of creating the face using the sliders in game, except that you are interacting directly with the underlying morphs.

Once that process is completed, make the modifiers 'real'. This locks the morph into the mesh itself. Now, you can export the nif and it will retain your charater's face shape.

What about the eyes, hair, mouth, teeth, etc. Do the same process. In fact, it is probably best to do it all at the same time. Import the head, eyes, hair, etc. nifs, egms, and tri files. Once you've associated all of the morphs with the correct meshes, merge all of the meshes into a single a object.

This will allow you to export the whole thing as a single unit.

P.S. If you are looking to do this in Blender, I can send you a link to an EGM/Tri Import Export script (derived from Himika's work here: https://gist.github.com/himika)

 

 

 

 

Sadly there doesn't seem to be a way to import egm/tri in 3dsmax2010...

 

I decided to do some comparisons: straight import of FaceGeom nif vs in game character.

 

3d viewport set to orthographic full front/side views.

Skyrim FOV set to 5 else I can't navigate. Can't set view angles.

Images have been scaled/rotated to fit but aspect ratios were maintained.

 

Front 50% opacity and side by side:

Compare1.JPGCompare2.JPG

 

Profile 50% opacity and side by side:

compare3.JPGcompare4.JPG

 

Everyones verdict?

 

How did you manage to do this exactly ? it looks amazing, was it also done in Blender then ? 

 

I also found this while looking around last night, however there is absolutely no info on where to find the file where the headmesh gets exported to, as I did export my char's mesh with it since I normally use ECE, and, couldn't find where the hell it exported the file to..

 

 

It should also be noted that there is a mod for Skyrim called RaceMenu, which amongst other things allows you to export the headmesh of whatever character you're playing as, as opposed to just the default head mesh you'd get by using Nifscope (useful if there was a specific character in Skyrim you'd like to port).

 

[pornphile]

All I did was take screenshots of Skyrim, take SS of viewport in 3ds Max and superimposed them in Photoshop. The nif is found in FaceGeom folder for standalone characters. How to make standalone followers from player character? I don't quite know the process but many have done it.

[Bisk]

All I did was take screenshots of Skyrim, take SS of viewport in 3ds Max and superimposed them in Photoshop. The nif is found in FaceGeom folder for standalone characters. How to make standalone followers from player character? I don't quite know the process but many have done it.

 

So it is possible to import an exact copy of your face...presumably, as I still kind of have to add the textures to see if everything fits, as I'm having major issues actually adding the textures to the face and whatnot. From my search I found a dds plugin for 3dsmax but apparently the one that works with 2010, has vanished..and all that's left is the one for 3dsmax 4,5,6 and other antique bs like that..so yeah.