[WIP] Playable Dinosaur Race Mod (Help Needed)

[DoryH]

"Forbidden legends whisper of a time when Nirn was young, long before the age of men and mer, beast races, and even the gods themselves.
A time when the now frozen land of Skyrim was a tropical paradise of lush rainforests, teeming with life.
The land was inhabited by a wide variety of reptilian races. For eons they lived in harmony until decimated by an unknown calamity.
Ever since, these races were presumed extinct...
But now, they have resurfaced."
-Unknown

 

A mod idea that I've been entertaining for a while, and recently started the actual work on. My idea is simple: to add a few fully-functional beast races to Skyrim that would be based on dinosaurs. True, we have the Argonians, they have a few dinosaurian qualities (even feathers) but they're still based on lizards for the most part. And let's face it- who wants to play as a glorified iguana when you can be a T-Rex instead?

To that end, I've already started to work on a T-Rex-based race. Once that is done, I'd like to create additional races based on Triceratops, Parasaurolophus, maybe even a feathered Dromaeosaur-based race, add a bit of
lore surrounding them, maybe even a few custom items and quests. That's the plan. Right now, though, my first priority is to get the T-Rex done, and that is where I need your help.

I fully understand that this is going to be a big project of lengthy production and I'm ready to tackle it, I have some experience in Skyrim modding, I can handle 3D modeling, texturing, and most Creation Kit work, but I still need some help in the technical aspect.


This is the T-Rex head mesh I've created in Blender. It's meant to fit neatly on the Argonian body so that I don't have to model the new race's entire body from scratch.
Following just about every tutorial I could find, I somehow managed to convert it into NIF format, got it into the Creation Kit etc. but whenever I test it in-game all I get is triangle chaos.
I thought I've isolated the cause of this mess as a lack of TRI file for the face, though even after creating a basic one (by converting the unchanged mesh from OBJ format) the mess was more or less the same.
If any more experienced modder out there would like to assist me in getting the head to work properly please say so, and I'll send you the mesh and skin. I should note that I don't really care about face morphs at this point, I want to get the head to work first- even if it's static. Morphs can be dealt with later.

Alternatively (since no one wants to, understandably, do someone else's work for them) I'd appreciate it if anyone could at least direct me towards an in-depth race creation/modifying tutorial that isn't horribly outdated.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

-Dory H.

Edited September 10, 2014 by DoryH