Phant0m32

If you want to texture each leg differently, you might look into researching UV-mapping sometime. But, UV-mapping is very much related to 3D modeling... which isn't the same thing as re-texturing obviously. I have much to learn about texturing and 3D modeling, but I do know that having knowledge of both can be useful... especially for texturing. If you were to re-do the UV map for your creature/mummy in a 3D modeling program.. you could arrange the UV-map so that each leg is textured uniquely. Basically, UV-mapping gives you an extra level of control when texturing something. You can setup and apply the texture exactly as you want. Also, if I may be so bold as to offer some criticism.... I noticed in your last picture(angled side view)that some of the burned/charred flesh areas on the side of the torso end abruptly along a vertical line. On one side of this line, you see the charred flesh texture... and on the other side you see the bandage texture. This is a rather harsh transition in my opinion... most likely resulting from a seam that was placed there during UV-mapping. You might try altering your texture so that this seam does not stand out as much. But really... nice work! I don't think I could make it look as good as you have already. Just thought I would offer some input.

I've experimented with editing the specular map before. As PacificMorrowind said, it's the alpha channel of your normal map. Just edit the alpha channel of the texture you're using for the normal map. I'm not sure if you can change anything in Nifskope... but it seems just as easy to edit your normal map.

Thanks so much for the help Vince and PacificMorrowind! You guys are the best. My test mesh/texture is working nicely now thanks to your help. I haven't tried importing my mesh into Blender yet to see what the settings are supposed to be. The Nifskope method was simpler than I imagined.

I'm trying to figure out how to use textures with transparency on custom meshes... but I can't get my texture to show up properly. I use GIMP for texturing... and Blender for modelling. Here's what I've done as a test: -Created a simple texture with an alpha channel in GIMP. The alpha channel has been edited so some areas are completely transparent(black)... and other areas are partially transparent(various shades of grey). No part of my texture is supposed to be opaque(white in alpha channel). In other words... there are no white areas in the alpha channel. -Saved texture as dds file... DXT3 format... mipmaps generated. -Created a normal map to go with the diffuse texture -Created a simple plane mesh in Blender to apply my texture to. I created the UV map.. and assigned a material and texture using the image I created in GIMP. Here's where I start getting confused... I'm not entirely sure what settings should be set up in Blender before I export the mesh in order to use the alpha channel of my image texture. Under the "Map Image" panel in the texture buttons(F6) the "UseAlpha" button is checked. In the Material Buttons(F5), in the "Map Input" panel I selected "UV". And in the "Map To" panel... I only have "Col" selected. There are some settings that seem related to Alpha in this panel... I'm not sure what to do with these. Any other ideas on what settings to use in Blender for the material/texture? -I exported the file to NIF format. But I'm not sure if anything needs to be set up in Nifskope to use alpha channels either. I thought I read something about needing an NiAlpha Property block... but I'm not sure how to set one up if it's actually needed. After following the procedures above, I quickly tested my mesh/texture in the Construction Set... and the mesh is completely opaque despite my texture having an alpha channel. Clearly... I didn't set things up properly. What went wrong?

In reference to your first question: I would recommend reading THIS wiki article on collision meshes. I also thought PacificMorrowind's Blender collision TUTORIAL was useful too. As for your question about cutting a circular hole in something, I have done this using the boolean modifier in Blender. HERE is a link to the Blender Manual section for it.

You were right about this SickleYield. PacificMorrowind also came to the same conclusion after looking at my files. I finally got the helmet working now. I still have much to learn, but it's great to finally understand the basic armor creation procedures/process. I can't wait to make something nice as my modeling skills improve. I thank both of you for taking the time to offer some help.

I tried importing a default helmet(skeleton only... parent to my selected helmet). I don't get any error messages when setting the helmet up in the CS now. Instead, the CS just crashes to my desktop now as soon as I either click the preview window for the NPC equipped with my helmet... or if I try to drop an NPC with my helmet in the render window. What is going on here? Perhaps I should just upload the file for you PacificMorrowind.... As for the texture path... I'm nowhere near the point where I can release my meshes for the public yet lol... so I'm not worried about that. But I will remember your point if I ever become good at this.

I've run into some more trouble it seems. I tried my best to follow the procedures PacificMorrowind mentioned, but my results were not good. As far as I could tell, I was able to create the helmet mesh, weight paint it, UV map and texture it, and finally export it. But, as soon as I tried setting my helmet up in the Construction Set... it was obvious something went wrong. After I defined my helmet as a piece of armor in CS, I tried adding it to an NPC, but the following error message appeared: "Could not find parent node extra data for BASE myhelmet.nif" After the error message appeared, I checked the preview/render window in the CS for the NPC equipped with my helmet... and the helmet shows up but it isn't even on top of the NPC's head. It's off to the side! I really have no idea what went wrong... but here are some random details and thoughts that I hope provide some clues: Just to clarify, I am trying to make a helmet for the imperial male model/race. Perhaps I'm not setting things up right and importing the proper models. I tried importing the headhuman.nif, and the skeleton.nif into Blender when making my helmet. I assume that the headhuman.nif is imported only to serve as a guide when making the helmet... to help you make it fit the desired head properly. But I'm not sure what purpose the skeleton is supposed to serve... perhaps to help with weight painting? Also... do I need to parent my helmet mesh to anything... such as a skeleton or the imported head mesh? When I tried to weight paint the vertices of my helmet mesh, I couldn't find any reference to the bip01 head bone. PacificMorrowind mentioned that for a helmet, there was no need to import a skeleton... that the skeleton from an another helmet will work. So I also tried importing some of the Bethesda made helmets... and I don't see any skeleton after importing them... just the helmet mesh/object. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place... or perhaps my import settings were wrong...? So to weight paint my helmet... I created a new vertex group named bip01 head and weight painted my entire helmet mesh from this new vertex group. If it helps... I posted a picture of my helmet in Nifskope HERE. I know... it's not impressive. But I'm not too concerned about the appearance of my helmet(headband) right now... I just want to learn how to sucessfully get one in the game. Also(referencing the picture)... what is that vertical white line shown in the render window? I've never seen this before... and the Bethesda helmets don't seem to have it either... And SickleYield - I hope you don't take offense to anything I have said about your tutorial. This topic is not intended to bash your tutorial. I'm sure the problems I'm having are my own doing... and I thank you for taking the time to share some of your knowledge on the wiki.

Thanks for the reply PacificMorrowind. I appreciate your taking the time to explain all of this in careful detail. I have not worked through your suggested procedures yet... but I will certainly try it as soon as I have time. The only thing I might have trouble with is weight painting... I've never done this before. I will probably have to do a little research in Blender wiki or something. Hopefully, the rest should go smoothly. As a side note... I have read your tutorial on creating collisions within Blender. It was a good read and has proven useful. Thanks for writing it.

I have limited experience creating static meshes in Blender based on tutorials I've followed and some research I've done, but I am still very new to 3D modelling and Blender. I'm interested in creating my own armor, so I decided to read the Tutorial on the CS wiki that details creating a cuirass in Blender. I figured it would be simpler to model a helmet than a cuirass, so I tried to follow along with the tutorial and apply the same procedures to create a helmet. But it didn't take long though before I was very confused. I have one basic question to begin with: What separates a static mesh... for instance a mesh for an interior wall... from a mesh used for a helmet or a cuirass? By that I mean, how does the game know what part of the body to put the mesh on? Aside from this question, my others deal with how to go about creating a helmet in general. Basically, I want to know what the general steps are to create one. This is just a guess based on my reading of the tutorial and limited experience with Blender, but here are the steps that I've come up with: -Import the mesh for the body part? Such as headhuman.nif if creating a helmet for a human character? -Delete the armature for imported body part? -Import a skeleton? -Parent the imported body part(s) to the skeleton? -Model the helmet -create a new UV map for helmet? -Export UV map -Create a texture based on exported UV map -Export helmet mesh as .NIF file from Blender -Tweak mesh in Nifskope as necessary and set up in CS/Oblivion As I understand it, the tutorial suggests using duplicated vertices from the imported body mesh(in my case headhuman.nif) to create the helmet or cuirass. It also mentions that you shouldn't add new vertices using extrusion because the extruded vertices won't be part of the associated weight painting or the default UV map for the imported body mesh. This part only confuses me more... why would you care about the UV map for the imported body mesh? Don't you need to create a new UV map specific to the helmet you're creating? Also, I want to use extrusion to model my helmet. The tutorial mentions using knife cuts and subdivision to create additional vertices... but this doesn't seem as easy as using extrusion. Is it true that you shouldn't use extrusion when creating a helmet or cuirass? I mean... couldn't you just assign the new extruded vertices to the appropriate vertex/weight painting group if needed? I would greatly appreciate some input on this. This is the first time I have tried creating anything other than a static object for Oblivion... and I'm very confused at the moment.