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DanielCoffey

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DanielCoffey last won the day on March 25 2013

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About DanielCoffey

  • Birthday 08/12/1967

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    Male
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    Edinburgh, UK

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  1. I was wrong about the use of Count in the levelled list... it is not a weighting but instead a count of how many of that item to return if it is picked... From the CK Wiki... http://www.creationkit.com/Leveled_Item
  2. I can answer the first part of the question for you about the two methods you have seen other mods use. Both work well but may have different results depending on how they are set up. When you look at a Levelled list notice the Count parameter. This is a weighting for that item being chosen. It doesn't matter whether there are several loose weapons listed individually or a sub-list. The sub-list will help keep the main Levelled list tidy and easier to understand if you are adding sets of things but you may have to study the relative weighting to get the result you want. I can't answer the Bashed Patch rules as I have not got that far myself yet.
  3. Having just swapped from OSX back to WIndows I have had to alter the tools I am using to create my normal maps and I need help getting the best out of the nDo2 tool from Quixel. I am using nDo2 to create my normal and specular maps for new Book Covers Skyrim artwork. I am not using nDo2 to help with the modelling, nor am I using it to help with baking normals from high-poly models. I am simply using it to create the _n.dds files from height map versions of my textures. I am having a spot of bother understanding one or two specific parts of the tool that are not covered in much detail in the tutorials I have seen online. There are plenty of resources showing you how to prepare high-poly models for baking. There are tutorials showing how to create amazing depth and cavity maps. There are plenty of tutorials showing how to edit the normal map directly to generate new details on models. What I am finding hard to get help with is how a height map can effectively be translated into a good normal and good specular to use in my mod. My previous Mac tools were Photoshop CS6 to create the height map, CrazyBump to create the normal and specular, CS6 again to merge the normal and specular and finally GIMP to turn them into DDS files. Now I am on Windows and have the NVidia DDS utility, it is a lot simpler but I don't think I am using nDo2 correctly. I create my height map in CS6, start nDo2 and choose the Small Details preset which seems to give the fine detail I want on the majority of the covers. I can't find an overall Strength slider like I used to have on CrazyBump so I have to make my height map quite high contrast in order to get a good depth to the normal. When I then choose Convert - Normal - Specular I get a very bright specular with a lot of strong highlights and a 50% grey base background. If I tone down the Cavity, Volume or Volume Contrast I end up with a very flat mid-toned specular with little detail but still tending to 50% grey which is far too reflective for the materials I am using in my books. I have to use CS6 to adjust the specular Base Color layer to give me a darker base and since there is no slider in nDo2 for that specific purpose it makes me think I am not using it correctly. If I tone down the height map so that the specular is reasonable, the normal map ends up looking flat and mushy. Since I have spent a lot of time struggling with this, I figured it was time to ask. I have a fair few book covers piling up ready to pass through nDo2 and I want to get them correct first time.
  4. Hanaisse has got me past this issue. When I copied a NiTriShape from one nif to another, it always messed up the name so I just renamed the new block to something more sensible and deleted the old ones. I guess there was a link between the Page Text section and the old String name that got broken when I deleted the old block.
  5. I have been receiving help from Hanaisse to deal with the necessary workflow for modifying Skyrim Book and Journal meshes but I have hit an infuriating brick wall with the mesh for the Skyrim Note that is preventing me from progressing with the Book Covers Skyrim mod. Below is part of the most recent conversation I have fired off to Hanaisse but since I am aware she will have her own work to deal with, I thought I would post here in the Study Hall and see if there is something obvious I am doing wrong. I am using Blender 2.49b and the relevant NIFTools. === So far I have taken a vanilla Note nif, changed the two header entries, stripped it and got it into Blender (it sprang open because of the odd skeleton on it). I assigned materials and so on, tidied a few vertices and redid all the UV mapping. Once exported back as a nif, I noticed that the Page Text object had altered its appearance (a floating grey plane above the Note itself but I had made no changes to it at all. It is probably how I have assigned the Materials to it. Then all I did was transfer the two NiTriShapes (NoteFront and NoteBack) back into the original source nif and reassign the BSLightingShaderProperty blocks. I did not move over the Page Text object at all. When the note is opened in the inventory, the garish Template texture I created is displayed perfectly and the skeleton works but the note is completely blank. There is text ready to be displayed because if I revert to the vanilla mesh, there it is. I am wondering if the words are being drawn just behind the texture? Do you think I could test this by making the texture transparent? The PageText object in the nif is completely unchanged. If you have time to take a look in case I have done anything stupidly obvious, here are the files that I have been working with. I am aware that the Front and Back NiTriShapes share the same texture but I will fix it once I have got the text displaying so that the Inventory Note can be double-sided. ZIP - 200Kb - http://www.dcoffey.co.uk/images/misc/Better Notes Mesh.zip BNM_NoteInventory_ORIGINAL.nif - the original Skyrim Note nif BNM_NoteInventory_STRIPPED.nif - All skyrim blocks stripped ready for import BNM_NoteInventory_IMPORT.blend - the stripped nif imported into Blender with no changes yet BNM_NoteInventory_EXPORT.blend - the re-worked note ready for export BNM_NoteInventory_EXPORT.nif - the exported nif with no changes straight from Blender BNM_NoteInventory_FINAL.nif - the original nif but with the Note Front and Note Back NiTriShapes injected into it to replace the originals Textures \ NoteTemplate.dds - sample texture to test UV Mapping Thanks in advance for helping with this... it is the last bit I need to do with the Book Covers Skyrim mod. Daniel.
  6. Nuts! Well spotted, thanks. I am considering having another go at making my UV changes in Blender again but this time I will just make a few minor changes before trying to learn how the skin and weighting goes. I had seen the tutorial and quickly realised that the books were subtly different.
  7. Here is the Python error... Attempting to Import this NIF... http://www.dcoffey.co.uk/images/requiem/REQ_TheCraftsmansManualCA_TEST.nif gives me this error... Blender NIF Scripts 2.5.9 (running on Blender 249, PyFFI 2.1.11) Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts\bpymodules\nif_common.py", line 1235, in gui_button_event self.gui_exit() File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts\bpymodules\nif_common.py", line 1598, in gui_exit self.callback(**self.config) File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts\import\import_nif.py", line 3771, in config_callback importer = NifImport(**config) File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts\import\import_nif.py", line 170, in __init__data.inspect(niffile) File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\formats\nif\__init__.py", line 1286, in inspect self.header.read(stream, data=self) File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\object_models\xml\struct_.py", line 354, in read attr_value.read(stream, data) File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\object_models\xml\array.py", line 300, in read elem.read(stream, data) File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\pyffi\object_models\common.py", line 691, in read % (length, stream.tell())) ValueError: string too long (0x74070000 at 0x0000003A)
  8. Ah, I was looking at the Book Covers Skyrim mods and the author divides the meshes into those for the world view (*.nif) and the inventory view (*CA.nif) and those had the extra letters in the filename. Their path was meshes/clutter/books/book02/character assets/LustyArgonianMaid01CA.nif. I may still have a look at doing the worldview book in Blender as a learning exercise once I have finished my current objectives but I still get an error from Blender when importing the inventory view mesh. If I have time I will try it again and post the error and my import settings here. The inventory mesh only had around 1200 triangles instead of the world view's 700-odd so it isn't an insane amount.
  9. Well the UV remapping is completed for the standard double-sided book, both the world view and the higher poly inventory model. I achieved a tolerable result using NIFskope although it would have been better and more accurate if Blender had played ball. My fingers are still itching to optimise the model and it is irritating me that I can't do it. I reckon a good 15% triangle saving on the world view model without even touching the shape just by culling hidden or minuscule triangles. The inventory view had a much higher poly count and seemed to be the parent model that the world view was derived from as it had the same issues of waste. It did have a much more complex skeleton inside it and also failed to load into Blender. I stripped it down the the key NiTriShapes and Blender threw a fit with overflow errors so I gave up and just did the NIFskope uv map blind. I have issued the new .nif files to the author of Book Covers Skyrim and am redoing my artwork for the books in the Requiem overhaul. Once I have done that I will redo the uv map for the Tall Book mesh which is the one that appears as those larger books. They are currently single-sided but I will do them as a full wraparound cover. I intend to upload the new meshes as a Modders Resource on the Nexus so that other mod authors who want custom book covers in their own mods can just pick up the meshes and let rip with new covers for their works. On the subject of the mad scissored triangle issues I observed - is that what happens when the weighting data doesn't match the order of the list of triangles? Could I resolve that by importing the Skeleton Only in Blender, redoing the weighting and create new skin partitions or am I just asking for more pain when exporting? Also, would anyone mind having a look at the error thrown by Blender when importing a standard inventory view of a book for me? Have a look at one of the BooknamehereCA.nif files for the double-sided books, strip everything out except for the four NiTriShapes that are to do with the cover and paper and it should throw a wobbler.
  10. Almost there... Since the model of this book was being such a diva with the Import/Export process, I created a new UV in blender without editing a single vertex and saved it as an image. I photoshopped it onto my test texture and wrapped it round the book. I am now in NIFskope on a copy of the original .nif manually moving every misplaced vertex to match the lines on my template... but I have another problem. My image is 1024x512 but NIFskope insists on displaying it in a square in the UV editor. The UV editor does not scale to match the aspect ratio of my texture. Is this expected? When I move the vertices (and most of the work is done by Scaling by x:0.5 y:1.0) they do indeed move the texture into the correct place on the model but it is hard on the eyes even zoomed in. Can we make the UV editor work with the correct aspect ratio of the texture or am I forced to work on it scaled?
  11. Thank you for the additional replies. The model is a lot more sensitive to disturbance than I appreciated. When first imported to Blender, not many of the faces are attached to their neighbours so this makes moving them tricky and makes the UV map a mess. If I weld some vertices together to simplify the fragmented UV I end up with another shattered mess in Skyrim after inserting the NiTrishapes. If I simply draw seams, redo the UV and move a few verts I get another mess. I even tried just assigning the new materials and textures and redoing the UV without moving or welding a single vert and still got floaters when the book opened. Frankly I am stumped as it should be more robust than this. I am reluctantly thinking I may really just have to do the UV movement in NIFskope and not use Blender for the task at all. I am considering doing a temporary but accurate UV layout in Blender and telling it to capture the UV layout as an image and use that as my working texture to align the UV data in NIFskope as, by default, there are some horrible stretched faces that need to be aligned carefully. Thanks for the cookie... it was much needed.
  12. I can certainly start from a clean .nif again and chalk the past couple of weeks up as learning experience. I do have some specific questions. If I am inserting my NiTriShapes back into an existing .nif, can I... 1. Move vertices slightly to alleviate unwanted creases in the model? 2. Remove, merge or create new vertices to optimise the model? 3. Keep all the cover in one NiTriShape instead of the current two (and remove the unwanted one in the .nif)? I don't want to mess up the skin weighting information but there are some truly horrible parts in the model that can be improved. As I mentioned, I reduced the count of verts down from 550-ish to 495 by culling hidden or minuscule parts of the mesh. With question 3, currently the rear cover is meshed and mapped separately from the cover/spine NiTriShape and references its own texture (the paper does the same too - the blocks and the loose bits are held in different NiTriShapes). Is there an overhead to declaring a texture twice for UV mapping or doesn't it matter? Could the Skin Data sections be merged too?
  13. Here are pics of the mangled book for comedy effect... I am aware the texture isn't scaled correctly as this was my original 512x512 texture instead of the new 1024x512 wraparound texture.
  14. Huge thanks for the comprehensive reply! I have identified enough optimisations in the original book mesh that will make it well worth while to edit the mesh itself - about 10% fewer verts by culling stuff you just can't see - will I still be able to export the NiTriShapes and insert them into the recipient nif or will it mess up anything important like collision? EDIT : I just tried inserting my two NiTriShapes into the donor .nif and managed to get the book to appear in the world view but it was a vaguely book-shaped disjointed mess of triangles that had been put through the shredder. This was my edited mesh with edited UV. I assume the list of vertices is messed up? In addition, the bones in the book appeared to be pushing on random vertices and there were a few oddly coloured ones that did not reflect the colours in the texture itself. Still, it appeared in the game if it looked like it had been stuffed down Sheogorath's underpants for the past hundred years!!
  15. Hello folks, I am attempting to create new models and UV maps for the Skyrim books to rectify the truly dreadful UV mapping on the default book and since I am not experienced at using Blender I have hit a problem. As you will know, the Skyrim book is a cover and a thick wad of pages. It is split into three moving pieces - the spine, the front cover and its half of the pages plus the back cover and its wad of pages. When I create a single object in Blender and assign two materials and textures to the model, I get a single NiTriShape when I export to NIFskope. This means I can only assign a single texture to the entire model. If I break my Blender model into two Objects (Cover and Pages), I do get two NiTriShape sections so can assign two textures in NIFskope but I have found that all my Normal, Tangent, Bitangent and importantly, UV data is not being brought into the .nif. I have spent a couple of weeks on this project feeling my way through the Blender and export process and have got my model looking great in Blender but I keep getting stumped by the export. I went back to basics and looked at the original Skyrim book .nif that I used as my original import and it consists of a single Object in Blender with three Vertex Groups corresponding to the three parts of the book. The original .nif also had multiple NiTriShapes (front cover and spine, back cover, pages, loose paper pieces) and I have no idea how they managed to do this. I am chasing my tail here and I really need help knowing how to organise my model in Blender. I need to know how many Objects to split my book into, how to make sure the correct portion of the two UV maps are assigned to the correct parts of the model, and how to make sure I export all the correct UV data to NIFskope. I have asked for help in the blenderartist.org forum and got no response over the past week. Here is both the original plus my current .blend file and working textures. If anyone would mind having a look at the .blend and telling me how far off the ideal approach I am I would be extremely grateful. Original Skyrim .nif stripped and imported to Blender : http://www.dcoffey.co.uk/images/requiem/SkyrimBookOriginal.blend Current working .blend with two Objects... http://www.dcoffey.co.uk/images/requiem/SkyrimBookExport3.blend Textures : http://www.dcoffey.co.uk/images/requiem/book01paper.dds http://www.dcoffey.co.uk/images/requiem/SkyrimBookExport3.blend
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