How can I swap bodies in an armor conversion in NIFskope?

[~magic~]

Hi,

 

I am converting a mesh I like from the original Dream Girl mesh to a modified one.

 

It consists of two parts - the body, which is the default Dream Girl body, and the clothing, which is a mesh of its own.

I was easily able to convert the mesh itself and fit it to the Dream Girl body by exporting a .obj, fitting it in blender 2.72. exporting a .3ds, and importing that back into NIFskope.

However, I need to change the original body to the modified one, and this is proving to be a complete nightmare.

 

It appears to be a problem with the BSDismemberSkinInstance. I use Spells -> Make All Skin Partitions once the mesh is in there, and set the partitions to the appropriate parts, but there are only two partitions, when there should be three. I don't know why only two are showing up, and I have no idea how Skin Instances work.

 

Using the mesh in game with the generated skin instances just results in an invisible body.

I also tried copying the clothing mesh onto the DG body, which worked in the editor but caused an instant CTD in game.

 

I have spent far more time trying to get this to work than actually editing the mesh. 

 

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to change the bodies?

 

Edit: It appears that on the modified mesh, there are only two skin partitions, but on the original DG body, there are three. Is there any way I can fix or workaround that?

[myuhinny]

To swap out bodies make a back up of your armor nifs just in case you have to go back to them. Make a copy of your player body and place it with the armor nif. load up the body nif into nifskope right click the body and go to block - copy branch then without closing nifskope go to load and double click the armor then right click the body and go to block - remove branch this will delete the old body out then go to Scene Root and right click it and go to block paste branch. This will paste the body into the armor unless you hit a ninode error.

 

You may have to rename the body after pasting the branch as the name will change to something else. To change the name load up the body nif that you pasted into the armor then click the body then right click the highlight line to the left and go to transform - edit and copy the name name of the body and then close nifskope. Then just load the armor nif up and do the same thing for the body then highlight the name and then paste to paste the new name in then save as to overwrite the nif. What you do to the _0 nif you must do to the _1 nif as well or it will not change in game or will look messed up.

 

If you only want to do it once just make a copy of your new armor with the new body and make a copy of it then copy the name of the _1 nif then delete it and rename the copy to the _1 name.

 

If you hit a ninode error you will have to find out how to add ninodes to the nif and name them to the correct body part that is attached to the ninode. Say one body has ninodes NPC L breast and NPC R breast but the other body doesn't. You will not be able to paste the body with the breast ninodes into a armor that doesn't have those ninodes so you will have to add them to the correct area and name them. 

[~magic~]

To swap out bodies make a back up of your armor nifs just in case you have to go back to them. Make a copy of your player body and place it with the armor nif. load up the body nif into nifskope right click the body and go to block - copy branch then without closing nifskope go to load and double click the armor then right click the body and go to block - remove branch this will delete the old body out then go to Scene Root and right click it and go to block paste branch. This will paste the body into the armor unless you hit a ninode error.

 

You may have to rename the body after pasting the branch as the name will change to something else. To change the name load up the body nif that you pasted into the armor then click the body then right click the highlight line to the left and go to transform - edit and copy the name name of the body and then close nifskope. Then just load the armor nif up and do the same thing for the body then highlight the name and then paste to paste the new name in then save as to overwrite the nif. What you do to the _0 nif you must do to the _1 nif as well or it will not change in game or will look messed up.

 

If you only want to do it once just make a copy of your new armor with the new body and make a copy of it then copy the name of the _1 nif then delete it and rename the copy to the _1 name.

 

If you hit a ninode error you will have to find out how to add ninodes to the nif and name them to the correct body part that is attached to the ninode. Say one body has ninodes NPC L breast and NPC R breast but the other body doesn't. You will not be able to paste the body with the breast ninodes into a armor that doesn't have those ninodes so you will have to add them to the correct area and name them. 

 

Thanks, but I tried this already, and the body appears invisible in game, and I don't know why.

[myuhinny]

Do the bodies/armor have the same scene roots or did you have to change the name of one to scene root or to whatever the armors name is for the scene root to match to match the other one? I have noticed if you try to change the name of something so that you can paste it into a nif the item/body will be invisible in game. 

 

Like say the armor has a different name then scene root and the body has scene root for it name like it should if you change the bodies scene root name to match the armors scene root name the thing you changed in the body to be able to paste it into the armor it will be invisible in game. So in game the body will be invisible.

[~magic~]

Do the bodies/armor have the same scene roots or did you have to change the name of one to scene root or to whatever the armors name is for the scene root to match to match the other one? I have noticed if you try to change the name of something so that you can paste it into a nif the item/body will be invisible in game. 

 

Like say the armor has a different name then scene root and the body has scene root for it name like it should if you change the bodies scene root name to match the armors scene root name the thing you changed in the body to be able to paste it into the armor it will be invisible in game. So in game the body will be invisible.

 

They have the same scene root name, so I don't think that's the issue. I was able to paste them in without a problem.