Creating Skyrim Armor in Blender Tutorial Series

[DMGT]

Heh, while waiting on your response I was tinkering around some more...

 

I was trying to create new UV maps and that led to a texturing nightmare. I had the modified .dds files and everything else, but I didn't realize that blender already had the texture map or whatever it's called unwrapped. Science!

 

Thanks for the help and that link is actually a huge boon for me.

[MaddBomber83]

Hello!

 

I just wanted to drop in and say thank you very much for this guide.  I am the mod author of an installer package that lets you pick between different models of various artists.  I often need to modify some basic things in a mesh to get it to play nice with the other models.  I found myself in need of merging several shapes/strips together so that alternate textures would work properly (without an esp) and your guide did very well in helping me do that.

 

Thank you!

[Hanaisse]

You're welcome.

[Scyllaserrata]

Excellent guide, thank you.

 

I've put off doing any mesh work until now as I knew there were so many things that could go wrong, but I finally had a go (changing the sleeves and waist of the monk robe) and am fairly happy with the results.

 

The only thing that's not quite right is the legs. The bottom skirt part of the robe doesn't 'stretch' normally when I walk, it sort of 'shears' into two half cylinders connected by a sheet of rubber. I think when I applied the skeleton it just chose a line of vertices to be the middle, and bound each side to the relevant leg, leaving each face on that line to get stretched by however far the legs are from one another.

 

The original robe nif has torso and arms skin partitions, but no legs, so I copied that; I guess it had something else set that gets stripped off when I send it to blender.

 

I've checked google successfully for every other problem I've had, but I don't even know what search terms to put in here. "Stretching?" "Morphing?" "two-half-cylinders-connected-by-a-sheet-of-rubber?"

[Hanaisse]

Thank you.

 

What you're describing is the "weight painting". It sounds off. Did you copy the weight painting from the original? You may have to go back to that point in Blender and re-do it. Sometimes it doesn't come out quite right.

[vometia]

Thank you.

 

What you're describing is the "weight painting". It sounds off. Did you copy the weight painting from the original? You may have to go back to that point in Blender and re-do it. Sometimes it doesn't come out quite right.

 

Oh God, yeah, I remember that from my first modelling attempts in Oblivion: I didn't know that there was a script to copy the weights from another mesh and tried to do all my weight-painting by hand.  Of course my painting would subtly stray into territory where it wasn't welcome and the effects were far less subtle in game.  Discovering the "bone weight copy" script has made life immensely more straightforward.

[Hunter070]

Thank you soo much for thiw wonderfull tutorial!

 

After all the time searching on the internet i finally found a way to do this.

 

But theres only one little problem i occure when exporting the armor to niff.

Everytime when i export the model, the UV-map is gone. I re-import the nif file back to blender and the UV-map is gone.

I think it loses the UV while exporting the model.

i first thought it was because of my own model. Then I imported one of the "Skyrim Ready" Models and exported them back in niffs. 

And even those models had no UV-map. I tried everything you did and i just cant figure out what the problem is.

 

If anyone can help I'd be veryy happy.

[Hanaisse]

Make sure you're applying a proper material and texture to the mesh in Blender.

[Cupcake]

M'kay so I have all the programs that you said is needed downloaded on my computer,and everything I fine and I follow all over your instructions to get the .nif file ready for blender,but when I go to open it in blender it doesn't open,it doesn't open any .nif files. and when I look at the console thing I get this

[Hanaisse]

It's saying it doesn't like something in the nif file, so double check you've followed all steps, especially changing the User Version and User Version 2 values.

 

The tutorial also mentions saving the prepared nif file under a NEW file name while we work on it. It looks like you didn't do that. Any changes you make to that armor will reflect in game (and not in a good way) so I don't recommend saving it under the same file name until the very end of the tutorial.

[Hunter070]

Make sure you're applying a proper material and texture to the mesh in Blender.

Well I did what you said and Yes!!! Finnaly i can continue my armor.

Thanks a Lot. I reallly appreciate this tutorial.

[Cupcake]

Oh,the name part is what confused me I guess,I'll make sure to change it right next time. Thanks.

[Hunter070]

Well I finally managed to get the armor into Skyrim following the instructions.

But when I go and test the model, there are no animations. Yes i can walk but the armor mesh is just like statue. I can move around but without animations.

I did the bone weight copy etc. and I did the tutorial all over again and still the same results.

Anyone got any idea why this is happening??

I'll give a cookie if anyone can help

[Hanaisse]

It sounds like it isn't properly rigged to the skeleton. Re-do Part 4 - Step 5. Pay attention to the "make sure the skeleton is clean" steps.

[Hunter070]

It sounds like it isn't properly rigged to the skeleton. Re-do Part 4 - Step 5. Pay attention to the "make sure the skeleton is clean" steps.

Hmmm...

I'll try. It's true that i didnt pay a lot of attention to make the skeleton clean. i didnt knew it could end up like this. i guess thats why its so important.

But anyway, thanks alot for all the help:D

[Hunter070]

It sounds like it isn't properly rigged to the skeleton. Re-do Part 4 - Step 5. Pay attention to the "make sure the skeleton is clean" steps.

Hello again.

 

I've tried doing it again for the cuirass with the clean skeleton and it still didn't work. I have done the same with the boots and after a few times the boots were fine.

And I've also tried exporting it without materials and as a result it did work, but then again it didn't  have a UV Map. I'm using multiple armorpieces for the body (for example: I have the pauldrons and body meshes not joined together so each one has his own SkinPartition).

 

I tried for hours but I can't find a solution. Yeah I'm a noob too

[Hanaisse]

Not much I can do based on a description, I'd have to see the mesh. PM me the .blend file and the exported .nif file you made.

[henshu]

Hi! Fantastic tutorial, but I'm running into some troubles -_-

For my project I took the cape from the fur armor and put it over a standard piece of farmer's clothing. I'm running on the assumption that multiple clothing meshes in one nif are okay, because many of them work that way already by including body parts and underwear. I slightly adjusted the position of the cape and modified the neckline to accommodate the collar of the farmer's clothes. They show up in the creation kit but with none of the textures visible. I'm using the original textures, and I have exported them from the bsa. The CK does not give me in error.  When I load the clothing in Skyrim, it's invisible. As suggested in the tutorial, I am currently using the _0 mesh in place of a yet to be created _1 mesh (I mention in case a poorly fitted outfit would cause this issue)  

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

-Henshu

 

 

[Hanaisse]

I'd suggest reviewing Part 5 again and double checking all of the steps to make sure all your options are correct. The likely problems are in the NiTriShapeData. Verify the line Num UV sets = 4097 for armor pieces, 1 for skin pieces. Verify the line Has Normals = yes for armor pieces, no for skin pieces.

 

Also verify if each piece Has Vertex Colors. If yes, then it should have the option in the BSLightingShaderProperty Shader Flags 2 field. If no, then that option should not be in the Shader Flags 2 field.

[sam3330]

hi, i have a problem when i open a custom made helmet(which I created with your excellent tutorial) it doesn't show up in skyrim(hair disappears but there is no helmet). In creation kit he is visible but when i select it, it gives me an error that the mesh hasn't a normal map. Is there a solution for this problem?

[Hanaisse]

 when i select it, it gives me an error that the mesh hasn't a normal map. Is there a solution for this problem?

Yes, make a normal map. It sounds like there might be other things wrong with the mesh, post a pic of the BSLightingShaderProperties and the NiTriShapeData for me.

[sam3330]

Thanks I believe I know what the problem is every time I import the skeleton it's dirty is there a way to fix this?

[Hanaisse]

That is typically the most difficult part to get right. The only way I know is to make sure you have a clean saved .blend file of your armor, close Blender, wait a few minutes, open it and your .blend file again, hit A twice (to deselect and select all), save again, close Blender again, do it all again, on the third time opening Blender the skeleton should come in clean. It's a strange process but it will work.

 

Are you importing the skeleton from another piece of armor or are you importing from malebody_0.nif (or femalebody_0.nif) ? I find the body meshes work best.

[GoblinVomit]

Having trouble exporting. It's giving me an error "NifExportError: Cannot export mesh with unweighted vertices. The unweighted vertices have been selected in the mesh so they can be easily identified." and it selects all the vertices. I can't seem to locate the problem. My skellington is clean, the vertex groups seem to have been popped in properly. I think I followed all the directions properly. On a side note, how do you get the texture to show so clean in the viewport? Mine just pops an colour onto each face (an average of colours within the face I think). On another side note, why do you set the mass for 1000 in the collision settings? Just curious. And thanks for the tutorial, I was using a different one and it wasn't quite so easy to follow. 

 

EDIT: Ok I managed to export. Someone suggested exporting a clean, non-weighted version of my edited mesh and then importing it and working from that, and that seems to have helped (or I might have just missed a step). So I went through the next part of the tutorial and loaded my mesh in game and now I look like a sea urchin. 

 

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/578997538670369142/856FB23B28E65E3F2951735B1C860CC11FC7D797/

Edited August 14, 2013 by GoblinVomit

[vometia]

It seems your weighting's gone awry at some point.  Your best bet is to completely delete the weights from the errant mesh, temporarily import a similar mesh, run the "bone weight copy" script between them, delete the temporary mesh and then re-export your work.  I hope my explanation isn't up to my usual standards of complete lack of clarity.

 

Vertex weighting is a bit of a headache.  I've tried to do it manually using weight-painting, but in nearly all cases it's much more trouble than it's worth compared to the bone-weight-copy script.