A Rubber Facility (old version)

[Farmthat]

View File

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THIS IS THE OLD VERSION!!!

 

PRIME66 is rebuilding and expanding on this mod here:

 

 

 

Overview: So, the premise is this: A "private facility" is seeking to rehabilitate a certain demographic of prisoner, and... provide... them with some highly-demanded skills for their post-prison lives. At least, that's how the warden phrases it. The PC happens upon an advert to work as a guard, and decides to at least take a look.

 

The prison entrance is located along the river just north of Riverwood. You can also teleport there via the "coc 0_rubber_room" command in console.

 

At the moment, development has been focused on building the cell. Introductory dialog is fleshed out a little, but no main quest is in place. Still, once inside you can run around and interact/look at the objects, mechanized inventions, etc. All the of the characters have at least a little bit of dialog. Main quest content getting closer to being a priority!

 

Requirements: A new save! If you've installed this file before, you will almost surely need a new save. Eventually, other mod dependencies will be added, but none exist at this time.

 

Hints: Extra reactions available among NPCs if the player needs "more time" with speaking with the warden or tabs out of the conversation early. (AKA stage 5.) Don't piss off the guard. She will hunt you like the terminator if you piss her off. Yes, she is invulnerable. If you're freaking out, you can console "disable" her.

 

Thanks: To Grayspammer for his excellent inspirational mod and technical help, Rubbermatt for his help and letting me use his vacbed mesh, and those who've been testing and giving feedback while I awkwardly learn new software.

 

Misc: Other modders are welcome to copy and use my meshes and textures for their purposes. After all, this project was started as a modder's resource file. Just ask--don't profit off it, etc etc. If I have used someone else's creations and they would like me not to or would like attribution, let me know.

 

Bugs: Well, in the current version this mod renames some doors, waterwheels, and... one other thing at least. Sloppy modding over here! I'll fix it soon.

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• Submitter
  Farmthat
• Submitted
  04/02/2016
• Category
  Quest
• Requires
  Skyrim, predilection toward shiny things.
• Special Edition Compatible
  No

 

[skyrimfet]

looks perfect <3

[wooaa]

Absolutely stunning. 

[Guest Satory]

There are never enough rubber   Well done

[greyspammer]

Ok, I got your mail and took a look at the NIFs. It seems to me like you're not really using textures at all. It's all set done via shader properties. The node you seem to be missing is a BSShaderTextureSet below BSLightingShaderProperty. The meaning of each texture in the set is explained here (of which I only understand half at best).

 

However, when I set your NIF up with what I thought was a proper texture set, the result does not look very good. The CK doesn't complain about missing maps anymore, but that's the only good thing.

 

On the left is my version (I made it all black to keep things simple), on the right is yours.

 

 

It doesn't appear to be very shiny. I tried tweaking the maps and the settings in the NIF, but I don't really know what I'm doing, so it didn't work out.

 

Also, if you look closely, the vertices of the mesh are not smoothed by the lighting. It looks more like a polished gemstone:

 

 

No idea what's wrong here. Like I said, I'm not really good at this. Maybe someone else can help?

[Farmthat]

In Nifscope, there was an option to smooth the mesh without actually adding vertices. Under "spells" I believe. It got rid of that faceted appearance.

 

At one point I had textures. I'm positive... It was the only thing which allowed bslightingshadingproperties to override the default light blue glowing material. Maybe it was lost when copying/pasting branches, but since the glossy black info remained I didn't worry too much.

 

It looks like the lighting is totally overdone, yeah. I can drop this values, and shininess can bump up some too. I need a better test cell.

[greyspammer]

In Nifscope, there was an option to smooth the mesh without actually adding vertices. Under "spells" I believe. It got rid of that faceted appearance.

 

Nothing I tried worked. The second I add the texture set, the facets appear. I think it's because we're lacking a normal map. No idea how to get one, though. Maybe from Blender? Or Z-Brush?

[El_Duderino]

Hi, a simple normal map can be created with the NVidida plugins for Photoshop or their counterpart for GIMP. You'll need a contrasty copy of your main texture that shows the bumps, shadows and highlights well and then run it through the filter in PS/GIMP.

 

Below is an empty normal map with subtle bumpiness. It should work fine as a basic stand-in until a detailed normal map can be made.

emptynormal_n.dds

 

EDIT: @farmthis: The NIF files from the Resources.zip file don't seem to have the "BSShaderTextureSet" assigned to the "BSLightingShaderProperty" blocks (which contain the texture path/filename references). Adding them in NifSkope is possible but a tedious. Can that be done via the nif exporter that you used?

[Farmthat]

Okay.  Thanks! I'll try to figure this out when I have more time, I think I must have skipped a step back in 3ds max.

[Rubbermatt]

 

In Nifscope, there was an option to smooth the mesh without actually adding vertices. Under "spells" I believe. It got rid of that faceted appearance.

 

Nothing I tried worked. The second I add the texture set, the facets appear. I think it's because we're lacking a normal map. No idea how to get one, though. Maybe from Blender? Or Z-Brush?

 

 

For a test try using the blank one I uploaded to the TiR thread a few weeks back.

 

I just tried using two instances of Nifskope, vacbed loaded up in one, catsuit with customised textures loaded up in the other.

From catsuit select LightingShadingProperty, right click & copy branch. On vacbed select LSP, right click & remove, then select NiTriShape & paste branch. Rinse & repeat for all three NTS on vacbed. Save As so as not to overwrite original.

Looks like it transferred over okay, going to test in game in a bit.

[Farmthat]

Cool.  Thanks for helping sort this out. I remember the seamless catsuit you uploaded, I have it on my computer somewhere. 

 

Once I understand how the final product is supposed to be formatted... I can actually start importing new models over at a much faster pace.  Until then I feel like I'm wasting my time a bit.

 

As long as I don't have to mess with UV maps and whatnot, and can just recycle some textures, that'll help.

[Farmthat]

So, here I am asking for help in my own help thread.

 

I CANNOT get textures to apply to this NIF. I import BSlightingshading (and the texture subcategory) from other NIFs but they break the file--In creation kit the model vanishes entirely.

 

I think I need to go back to 3ds max and reexport with textures properly.

 

Very discouraging. I thought this was working. I've spent hours trying to fix it but it seems fundamentally flawed.

[greyspammer]

I CANNOT get textures to apply to this NIF. I import BSlightingshading (and the texture subcategory) from other NIFs but they break the file--In creation kit the model vanishes entirely.

 

I had similar results when I tried to manually set the shader exactly like it was in the catsuits. It's probably just one setting but don't ask me which one.

 

But I think I've got it working now by manually attaching the textures in NIFSkope and only changing a few shader settings. Rubbermatt's tip with the normal map helped to fix the facet issue. The first one which still had the outline of the suit didn't work. But I simply took the blueish purple color it was using and flooded the whole damn thing with it. That seemed to have put the normals into their place.

 

After editing some other settings of the shader to get the shine right and renaming the nodes (so it's easier for me to see which is which), I think this is actually somewhat presentable.

 

Take a look, tell me what you think. Left is my version, right is yours. Might still need a bit more shine (shader settings), but I think we're making progress.

 

 

 

Here are the files:

 

vadbed_20160404.7z

[Farmthat]

You got it to work right!!  That's great news. I'm contrasting it next to my file... and I still don't get what's wrong. I even deleted the lower two texture properties on your meshes (which is closer to what I had) and it didn't have consequences.

 

I agree, the glossiness could bump up a bit. I set the glossiness to 60 and it looks pretty good. It's a little harder to see... since the blacks are pitch black, but the reflections are much more believable.

 

Anyway... I'm going to call it a win. Do you mind if I replace my version with your version moving forward? I'd like to use it as a template for the other objects I'm exporting.  For now, things like breathing tubes will be left black. I think it's best if I focus on just getting the models into nifs. 

[Farmthat]

Edit:

How about I show new assets that are actually in skyrim instead of a pile of things in another program waiting to be imported?

Today I added two new attachments for the vacbed static model: A long breathing tube and a rebreather. Until I find a better solution, they share the vacbed textures.

Time is tight, but I expect in a few days I'll add a bunch more tubes, and various connectors for them--enough to allow for a number of interesting configurations.

 

[greyspammer]

Do you mind if I replace my version with your version moving forward?

 

Not at all.

 

edit: I think there's still something not right. If you replace the black texture with something else (e.g. a bright pink), that won't show. My guess is that we're missing a UV mapping, so the engine doesn't actually paint the texture on the mesh. Because it doesn't know how without that mapping.

 

I also figured out why the mesh disappeared on us earlier: If you set the SLSF1_Skinned shader flag and don't have a skin instance in the mesh, then it won't render. But I don't think we need it right now, it seems to have something to do with weighting.

 

I suppose my dumb luck ran out.

[El_Duderino]

 

Do you mind if I replace my version with your version moving forward?

 

...

edit: I think there's still something not right. If you replace the black texture with something else (e.g. a bright pink), that won't show. My guess is that we're missing a UV mapping, so the engine doesn't actually paint the texture on the mesh. Because it doesn't know how without that mapping.

 

The mapping should be done in your original modeling program, it will be included in the exported .nif or .obj (whichever method you use). You will probably never have to bother with it again after the initial export of the mesh. Also, unless you plan on including hand-painted wrinkles, seams, highlights or whatever in great detail on the texture or the normal map, you don't have to be too careful when laying out the mapping. As long as it's unicolor even a number of distorted areas on the applied textures here and there won't get noticed.

[greyspammer]

The mapping should be done in your original modeling program, it will be included in the exported .nif or .obj (whichever method you use).

I remember that I read somewhere that you also need to assign a material to your mesh, if you're using Blender. Otherwise the UV map won't get exported. So perhaps someone with Blender and the original model wants to check that. I'm a bit out of my depth here...

[Farmthat]

I'll try doing UV mapping correctly on my next object and see if that's it. I would be relieved if it is.

[Rubbermatt]

Well the original model had an accompanying .mtl file.

If I import the original back into Poser I can slap any old texture I want on it, non UV mapped objects simply don't display textures.

I'm going to hazard a guess that reducing the poly count breaks the link to the old UV map and you have to generate a new one before exporting.

[Farmthat]

Probably so. I've been reading up on materials and UV Mapping and it seems like 3Ds max is the ideal program for it, and these properties are even preserved through export to NIF. I just have to take the time to do it. I've only been using it to launder my models from one file format to another.

 

A little more time in 3Ds Max and I think I can put this saga behind me.

[Rubbermatt]

Think of it less as a saga and more of a learning experience. 3D software tends to have quite a steep learning curve and when you're using more than one, transferring between formats ....

You should see the mess I made of things when I first started using Vue ten years ago, and that had a built-in Poser import plugin!

Hell I'm still learning, only this week that I realised Poser has an auto balance feature, I mean when did they add that one??? I know I skipped a version or two but how did I manage to miss that until now? All that time spent manually adjusting a pose so the model didn't look like she was about to fall flat on her face or arse, and all I had to do was enable auto balance, click on her hip and it automagically adjusted body parts to match her centre of gravity. Which is itself adjustable so a short dumpy girl has a lower centre than a tall leggy gymnast.

 

The point being, you never stop learning so chalk this one up to inexperience and keep on trucking.

[Farmthat]

Huh... That's a really helpful feature for poser. I had no idea it had that sort of intelligence. A lot of what I see coming from that program does look a little unnatural--balance is probably a big part of it.

 

I'm deninitely learning a LOT, but unfortunately most of what I've learned so far revolves around what NOT to do, through trial and error. An unequivocal victory would be nice. I have a feeling that's close at hand though.

[Rubbermatt]

Most of the Poser/Daz Studio pics out there are just plain crap - load figure, load bought clothing, load bought pose, load bought lighting set, copy render settings from vendors readme, hit render, upload... I'm an artist! (No you frugging aren't.)

The special snowflakes doing that then flood the galleries with their crud and give those of us using the same software as part of our workflow a bad reputation by association.

The vendors don't help with their ignorance of things like gravity and the fact that elbows and knees only rotate on a single axis.

 

Learning what not to do is just as important as learning how to do it right, for instance I doubt you'll ever forget to create a UV map before exporting from now on, it won't take long before it just becomes second nature as part of the modding process. We just have this tendency to learn better from our mistakes than we do from our successes.

You've been doing this, what, a week? Chill dude you're doing good.

At least you can export nifs, Blender is still being a bitch *mutter, grumble*

[greyspammer]

and the fact that elbows and knees only rotate on a single axis.

Every joint rotates on all three axes. You just have to apply sufficient force.

 

SCNR

 

At least you can export nifs, Blender is still being a bitch *mutter, grumble*

 

From my point of view, the whole workflow is too complicated. From what I read on the NIFtools page, you basically need two different versions of Blender (2.49 for import/export and 2.7x for the actual editing). Those, in turn, require different versions of Python and certain Python libs. It's a very complicated setup for someone like me who doesn't really want to go "all in" with 3D art and just wants to get something (seemingly minor) done for their mod.

 

And 3Ds Max or Maya are no solution either, because they cost money. I'm not going to buy software for hundreds of Euros for a hobby. Not until someone gets me someone like Elon Musk as a Patron. And even then it would probably be more efficient to just commission the stuff I really need.