Trying to Create an Armor Mod... Tips and Tricks, Anyone?

[huntressaela]

I've recently gotten into retexturing and I've been doing that for my own personal enjoyment and it's been working out super nicely. However, I've recently had a brainchild for a few armor mashups I'd like to create for myself, and that's when it all went downhill. I've tried, multiple times, to figure out how to take in-game nifs and edit them to remove parts of the mesh. I know it's possible because other modders do it... the question is how?!?

 

I've been toiling over this for days, watched countless videos, downloaded nifskope and blender and the nif scripts and the old nifskope and the old blender and python and pyffi and nifutilssuite... and so on and so on. It's become a bloody nightmare and I always end up rage quitting because the nifs refuse to import/export/display correctly/etc.

 

Just wondering if anyone can explain to me the process they [or someone they know] use/s to edit skyrim meshes for armor mashups and the like. I don't know why I can't get this

[prakhan]

well heres what i know fairly limited what can be done in nifskope  but its a tool you will need to use a lot

if the mesh is a single part then you can simple remove the branch like a belt from pants if the belt is a separate listed item

and repath textures and it possible to copy and paste parts from one outfit to another ( as long as all the bone node are present in both nifs) btw you can copy paste node as well

as fix textures in nifskope like realign and resize also export a template  

Hope that made sense

Bodyslide/outfit studio is also another tool that great for mashing stuff together reshaping fast weigh painting  again as long as it's one mesh you can zap/delete it in BS great for mashing up different items from different outfits   i use this alot

For editing parts of the mesh like the belt and pants are one mesh this needs a 3d program like blender and all the addons to get it working right i use old 3ds2012

my work flow is import to 3ds /work on it export nif  load it up in nifskope fix the textures(bslighting is always fuxd  coming out of 3ds for me)also make sure all the skin partitions are right like the slot i wana use

sorry i don't know blender i have it  but i cant do shit in it and no patience to learn another 3d program atm

maybe you can post your problem nif here and someone can look at it post the org and the modified one

good luck

Just saw this post  think it might have some good link for yah

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/75639-first-time-poster-long-time-lurker/