Creating Skyrim Armor in Blender Tutorial Series

[koechophe]

Hey, I'm having a problem that (I think) is occuring during the stage in which you prepare the file after blender. I followed the steps (though I didn't have to delete the first two files, because they weren't there. I'm not sure if that means anything) and my file works, but it's not textured/lit at all. Even though I followed the texture steps and the lighting steps, it wont texture. Here's the file: http://www.mediafire.com/download/157vfoblyuyulj2/redguardoutfittest_0.nif I'll be happy to upload the .blend file, if you want to look at that too. Aside from not having the files to delete and from the files being listed in the wrong order (in comparison to the original. I have no idea how to fix that) there's nothing wrong with it. I'm not sure why it's not working, and any/all help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[GoblinVomit]

Yeah I tried reweighting a few times, with the original armour, with the body. To no avail. I've made a couple changes in nifskope, to some minor improvement. Now only the vertices associated with that additional body partition are stretching. 

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/578997538672058192/CA293B5AAC930EA2932BD55C07EF5955B374B075/

[Hanaisse]

@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.

You are definitely having weighting issues. Did you make sure to delete all the existing vertex groups first before trying to bone weight copy? There's a LOT of information in Part 4, I suggest you go through it again. You may have possibly missed a step or two.
As I have no idea what you've done before this point, it's difficult to advise. What changes did you make to the original armor?
 

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).

By applying a material and the original texture to the mesh.
 

On another side note, why do you set the mass for 1000 in the collision settings? Just curious.

Export settings for collision don't matter for armor, it's not applicable.

@koechophe
 

...my file works, but it's not textured/lit at all.

You've somehow managed to mess up the existing UV map for the pants and the body. I suggest you start over from Part 4. Something you did in Blender has gone wrong. As for the nodes out of order, make sure your export settings are the exact same as mine. I believe "flatten skin" causes that, so you don't want that selected.

 

[GoblinVomit]

I definitely deleted all the vertex groups. I'll try again anyway. AS for the texture, I'm using the original but it doesn't show the full-quality texture in blender like yours does. I guess it doesn't matter.

[Hanaisse]

Then I'm not sure what you mean. If you want to post a pic I might be able to help.

[GoblinVomit]

I redid everything starting from step 3. It gave me different faces than last time for the bonus torso partition. It's still stretching. It seems like the only thing that helps is setting both body partitions with the "PF_START_NET_BONESET" flag. That makes the main body partition normal, but the forearms, calves and the extra body partition still stretch. 

[koechophe]

Huh. Not sure how I managed to screw up the UV maps... I'll look into that. But the texture shows just fine in blender, and it matches the UV maps just fine. I guess I should specify that it's not that there's no texture, it's that there's a completely black texture, and even when I select another texture in creation kit, it doesn't pop up. Out of curiosity, how are you adding the textures to your models? Do you just go into uv map and then select the file, or what? 

Edited August 14, 2013 by koechophe

[GoblinVomit]

I just noticed my edited .nif has a few less NiNodes than the vanilla one. Is that a problem? It looks like neck, both pauldrons, both feet, head, fingers and hands are all missing. 

[Hanaisse]

@Goblin, I'll need to see your mesh to see what's been done to it. You can PM me and attach your nif files and blend files (you'll have to zip them up).

 

@koechope; You haven't applied a material or texture to your mesh in Blender, therefore the UV map is not coming out. My tutorial does mention to make sure you do that (in Part 4) but it does not go into detail because this is an advanced tutorial with the assumption basic Blender skills are known. If you don't know how to do that I can PM you with details.

[koechophe]

*Facepalm.

 

I think I know how to do that. I'm not used to working with textures in blender, and I just kind of assumed that the native UV texture maps would remain (if that makes any sense whatsoever). I think I can troubleshoot this now, thanks. 

[Hanaisse]

  Have a and relax. We all do it.

 

I think I'll make up a separate tutorial for that either way.

[koechophe]

Well, after about 5 minutes of troubleshooting, I got it working in game. I'm not sure why I assumed the material would carry over. But it probably wouldn't even take a separate guide. Maybe just another paragraph. Ty for the guide. Now I just have to do it all again, except with the _01 this time. 

 

On a side note, it's MUCH easier to simply copy branch the BSLightingShader and the BSShaderTextureset from the original amour, and then paste them in the new one, rather than adding new ones and editing. 

 

As a side note, sometimes when I hit alt P, it pops my blender window into blender game engine, and then blender freezes. I'm not sure why, and fortunately, I save my work often. Just thought I'd post that error, so that if other people have it, they see. It's easy enough to go to obect/parent, and do it from there. 

Edited August 14, 2013 by koechophe

[Hanaisse]

It is, but I like to teach people the long way to do things rather than shortcuts. They can come later. But since you've already discovered this, yes you can just copybranch/pastebranch existing BSLightingShader blocks.

 

[Hanaisse]

Ok, GoblinVomit, I've reviewed your file. The nif itself looks good, you cleaned it up right. The bad news is you'll have to do it over.

 

Here's the problem here;

 

You'll need to re-rig it. Delete that skeleton in the blend file, then make sure to remove the armature from the clothing, like mentioned at the beginning of the tutorial. Save the file and close blender. Wait a few minutes, open Blender, File > Open Recent your file, re-save, close Blender. Do this again maybe 2 more times. I don't know why but it seems to help 'scrub' the mesh clean of any previous rigging. Now try to import a new clean skeleton.

 

Both those names in the box in the pic above should be simply femalebody_0.nif and nothing else.

 

Now, hopefully, that will solve your issues but I can't guarantee it. If not, it's back to re-weightpainting again.

 

By the way, I like your retex

[GoblinVomit]

Ah, I didn't notice it down there, I was just looking at the one in the viewport. I'll try again. 

[GoblinVomit]

Still doing it.

 

 

 

I'm gonna try giving it a bit to maybe clear the data, maybe it's still doing something weird. 

[Hanaisse]

No, that's clean right there. You see the difference from the pic I posted? It used to have a FemaleBody_0.nif.001 as the AR. Your pic is now correct, they all match up.

[GoblinVomit]

I mean it's still stretching in game. I just did it again, saw no sign of the dirty skeleton at all but still got stretching. Should I try using the skeleton from the armour instead?

 

edit: I tried using the armour skeleton, and tried not deleting any nodes with the "remove bogus nodes" spell, but to no avail. 

Edited August 15, 2013 by GoblinVomit

[Hanaisse]

Sorry to hear that, and even more sorry to say, it's the weighting. Most times a simple one time Bone Weight Copy without changing any options works. You could always try changing what you're copying from. What are you using? The original armor or a body mesh? Or you could try upping the quality in the bone copy script to 1 or 2.

[GoblinVomit]

Right now I'm using the femalebody_0 or whatever for weighting. I already tried copying the weight at 2. The trouble areas definitely seem to be the calves, forearms and the extra bit made by blender. I guess I'll have to figure out how to weight paint.

[koechophe]

I'm having a strange issue that I'm not sure how to fix. In creation kit and in game, the _0 and _1 of my files both work. But they only work if someone is at 100 weight or 0 weight. Anywhere inbetween, their model stretches out like crazy and usually freezes. I got these errors when I tried to display the model in creation kit:

 

This prefix comes before all of the errors: MODLES: BSBodyMorpInterpSkinned GeometryUnpacked

 

Model vertex counts between morph models don’t match MaleUnderwearBody:)0 (5472) “Redguard Fat Outfit (850)

 

Skin partition counts between morph models don’t match MaleUnderwearBody (3) Redguard Fat Outfit (1)

 

Model Vertex counts between models don’t match “Redguard Fat Outfit (850) Male underwear Body (5535)

 

Skin partition counts between morph models don’t match ‘Redguard Fat Outfit (1) Maleunderwearbody (3)

 

I mean, I kind of get what it's saying, but it doesn't make sense to me that the vertex counts on both the armor and the skin should be the same....

[Hanaisse]

Everything between the _0 model and the _1 model must be the same. Vertex count, partitions, bones. The only thing that will be different, of course, is the vertex positions. That's how the weight sliders in the game work. The "In-between" weights from 0-100 rely on the calculating the position of every single vertex between the two.

 

The _1 model is really just a scaled version of the _0 model, with modifications to adjust to fit the _1 body. The only thing you should be doing for the _1 is adjusting vertexes. Do not add or remove any vertexes. Part 6 of the tutorial, Step 2 has some very set rules when creating the _1 mesh.

[koechophe]

I thought everything was the same, must have missed something. is there any convenient way to find out what IS different between them?

[Hanaisse]

Load both in Blender, switch to wire frame mode, you'll see differences.

[GoblinVomit]

Thank you so much for that post Koechophe! That reminded me that I didn't change the _1 model! I skipped the very last step before testing... My model now works in game! Now to continue the tutorial.