3D Craftworks: Importing Weapons into Skyrim

[InsanitySorrow]

Requirements:

 

• A basic working knowledge of Skryim - I won't be covering all the basics
• Latest version of Nifskope - Niftools Team have released RC5 which supports Skyrim
• NIF/3DS file - Need either of these two formats for your model
• A Skyrim NIF - We'll need a Skyrim NIF we can edit to make our own model work
• BSA Tool - Something to extract those Skyrim NIFs, for this I'll be using FO3Archive.

Step 1: Getting Started

You'd think getting models into Skyrim would be impossible at the moment, well that's not quite true. Thanks to the hard work of the Niftools team and modders helping we have a version of Nifksope that will allow us to get our models into the game by editing a vanilla model.

It's not as tricky as it sounds.

For this tutorial I'm going tobe using the Ayleid Longsword from The Arsenal, but you can use any weapon you like for this. Now before we start there are two things you need to do, first is to either export your model from your 3D application of choice as an 3DS file or open your NIF file, then go File>Export>Export .3DS.

Smarty Says: If you have a scabbard too, you'll need to select each node and export separately.

With that done the next thing to do is put all your textures for your chosen weapon into your Skyrim texture folder, you can do this later if you wish, but it's always a good idea to set things up first, just makes it easier. So with all that done we have our 3DS file, our textures in place and the latest version of Nifskope that supports Skyrim. There is one last thing we need which I'll cover in more detail in the next step.

Step 2: Extracting a vanilla model

What we need is a vanilla model, in this case a vanilla weapon model we can edit to make our own model work in-game. Start up your BSA Tool of choice and open the Skyrim - Meshes.bsa file. With that done navigate through the BSA and find then extract the Steel weapons. We'll use one of these NIFs as the base for our own.



Step 3: Nifskope Magic

That is all our preparation work done, now we can jump into Nifskope and get to work making our model.

Open up Nifskope (RC5 +) and load up the 1stpersonsteelsword.nif, this will be the NIF we'll use. Now if you're using a different weapon, say a Mace for example, be sure to open the same vanilla NIF, don't worry all the steps here will still apply.

Once the NIF is open you should see something like this:



Don't worry if it's not exactly the same, some things might be a little different depending on the NIF you decided to use.

Here comes the fun bit, click the little arrow icon next to the root node (1stPersonSteelSword), this will expand the tree so we can see what's there. Next click on the 1stPersonSteelSword:0 node, this is the weapon model.



Right-Click the node and select Block>Copy Branch.



Next click the root node again and select Block>Paste Branch.



You'll notice we now have two 1stPersonSteelSword:0 nodes, now the reason for this is simple, we can use the original model as a reference for scale and position so we can get ours set up right. We'll then remove the original afterwards.



Make sure our duplicated node is selected, now go File>Import>Import .OBJ, locate and select the weapon 3DS file you exported earlier. You should end up with something like this now:



Now you're problably thinking "Oh crap it's not setup right", well don't worry, if the model doesn't magically appear in the right position then we can use Nifskope's Transform tools to do so, jusrt right-click the node, then Transform>Edit. Make your changes and then make sure to APPLY the transform.

Once you have transformed your model into position you should end up with something like this:



We have our model correctly positioned and scaled, but that damn vanilla mode is in the way, so let's remove it shall we?, Right-Click the vanilla model's 1stPersonSteelSword:0 node, select Branch>Remove Branch and BOOM! it's gone

Last thing we need to do is link our textures, well before we do that there are a few things that need to be removed from the NIF:

• NiMaterialProperty
• NiTexturingProperty
• NiSourceTexture

These three nodes aren't needed by Skryim NIFs, instead Skyrim NIFs use the BSLightingShaderProperty and BSShaderTextureSet properties for them. If you've ever modded for Fallout 3/New Vegas then you may notice those NIF's have a similar setup.



Right Click each and remove them.

Next up click our 1stPersonSteelSword:0 node, open the Block Details pane (F3) if you don't have it open already and scroll to the bottom and find the Properties block.

What we need to do here is link up our BSLightingShaderProperty to our node so we can apply textures, so take a look at that node, see the number to the left?, Well we're going to make use of that. Look at the properties block again and use the little arrow to the left to expand it, you'll notice there are two nodes under it, noth read NONE. Let's change that.

In the first node, click where it says NONE and put in the number to our lighting node like so:



Just above the top node you edited you'll see two green arrows, right-click them and select Array>Update.

You'll notice our BSLightingShaderProperty moves into our main node, it's properly parented now. Last step is to edit the textures, expand the BSLightingShaderProperty and find the BSShaderTextureSet, click on it and you'll see the textures display in the Block Details. Just relink the texture paths to your own textures.

Once all that is done you can go ahead and save a copy of that NIF somewhere safe.

Now I hear you shout "But what about the vanilla scabbard?", Well that's easily fixed too, we just repeat the above steps and import our scabbard (We use the Scb node). If you don't have one to import then you can remove the scabbard branch from the NIF. Just make sure you edit the Node name (Block Details) back to Scb for it to work correctly in-game.

After all that we have a NIF and it'll work too, wasn't so hard was it?



Step 4: All done, now test

After all our hard work we'll want to test things, well the easiest way to go about it is to save your NIF with the vanilla name, then put the model in your meshes folder like so:

Meshes/Weapons/Steel/1stPersonSteelSword.NIF

This will replace the vanilla weapon, which for the time being is the easiest and quickest way to get testing our creation.

And here it is, the Ayleid Longsword in Skryim:

[ResolveThatChord]

Very Proffessional! Pictures help a lot. Thanks, this will be of great help. Could I request that you add an overview, or summary? It's a lot of information to sift through if you're trying to find out where you made a mistake.

[InsanitySorrow]

I'll add a little re-cap at the end

[Dollparts]

Very handy! Only my NIFSkope seems broke. The block list is already expanded and I don't have any arrows to click to expand fields like so, here.. Weirdness, no?

Anyways thanks IS! This has been super helpful

[InsanitySorrow]

That's easy to fix:

Click View>Block List>Show Blocks in Tree

[Tamira]

Thank you for this useful tutorial IS!

I managed to import a weapon (Tyrfing) from the German Oblivion mod "Orden des Drachen" to Skyrim:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/inUdoTMD4Tkd9fAp1ugVfycwT2Mrji2-vJDHwRsJKvY?feat=directlink

One question: what are the *_e.dds and *_m.dds files? These are unknown to me, until now I only worked with Oblivion files.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zsZ5e8mnHS9fI8tYszAzLCcwT2Mrji2-vJDHwRsJKvY?feat=directlink

[InsanitySorrow]

One question: what are the *_e.dds and *_m.dds files? These are unknown to me, until now I only worked with Oblivion files.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zsZ5e8mnHS9fI8tYszAzLCcwT2Mrji2-vJDHwRsJKvY?feat=directlink

Those are environment maps/masks, they control how the environmental lighting affects the model. I'll be covering those in the texturing classes.

[Rowan]

Very good tutorial! Thanks IS

[InsanitySorrow]

Glad to hear people are finding this useful

[Johnn123]

I am having major trouble with this. I'm trying to import a 2 handed weapon, and so far I have the 2 BSLightingShaderProperty nodes outside my main node? I follwed the steps exactly as described up to where we paste the .obj in and remove the original node, and this is what happened?

[InsanitySorrow]

It sounds like the model you're importing is split into two parts, even when you export as an OBJ file the multiple parts stay separate. I've found this to be the most common cause of having multiple nodes.

[Johnn123]

Its odd, mine is a single node. It is however in nitristrips instead of a nitrishape. Would that make a difference?

[InsanitySorrow]

Shouldn't make a difference as far as I can tell. What weapon are you trying to import?

[Johnn123]

My spear lol. I want a spear for Skyrim

I changed it and it made no difference. For some reason its pushing all the lighting nodes out of the main node.

[InsanitySorrow]

I'll take a look at your NIF when I get up in the morning and see if I can figure out why it's not playing nice.

[Johnn123]

Ok thanks IS

[InsanitySorrow]

Yep I was right, I looked at your spartan spear and it's in two pieces, the tip and the body. So when you export the OBJ from Nifskope it keeps those two separate and then when you import it, it creates multiple nodes.

Easiest thing to do is select each node separately and then export, you'll have to import each and line them up, but at least it won't be as confusing.

[Johnn123]

Ok thx IS, Ill try that

How about the nordic spear? Its in a single node and is still giving me issues?

[charlescrowe]

IS, any chance you'll cover the blood shader? i'll be making weapons with some radically different shapes than can be found in vanilla.

[InsanitySorrow]

Resolve was asking about the same thing earlier today , Still have to work that bit out, once I do I'll write it up and post it.

[charlescrowe]

Resolve was asking about the same thing earlier today , Still have to work that bit out, once I do I'll write it up and post it.

i'll monkey around with it too, and i'll PM you if i figure anything out. if it's solved how i think it is, it could be very simple.

[JDFan]

IS --

Have you figured out how to make a new weapon and import it into game instead of using it as a replacement for an existing weapon ? Figured it would be easy once the CK was released but so far I haven't got it working so was wondering if you'd had any luck !

[InsanitySorrow]

Yep, it's similar to Oblivion except there are two models you need to set up.

First setup the 3rd person model in the Art tab here:

Then create the first person weapon in the Static List:

Finally select your First Person model in the Art tab:

[JDFan]

Yep, it's similar to Oblivion except there are two models you need to set up.

Thanks -- hadn't found the static models yet -- so that should help !!

[Johnn123]

What model would you use for the 3rd person in that set-up?