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[Help] Custom Armor Piece Darkens/Flickers Character when Equipped


editpolygon
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Hello good people of TES Alliance! I've created an armor mesh from scratch, imported into Skyrim, and have come across a particular problem that I've yet to find a solution for.

 

Q: Why is the entire character mesh darkening and flickering whenever I equip my custom built armor?

24azlf6.jpg

The following is a list of information that might help you provide an answer:

  • The armor occupies three parts of the character: the body (SBP_32_BODY), the forearms (SBP_34_FOREARMS) and the calves (SBP_38_CALVES).
  • The entire armor mesh is comprised of three chunks named body, body-armor and limbs.
  • The body and body-armor chunks are hand made and share the same BSLightingShaderProperty values as the orcish armor (cuirassm_1.nif).
  • Custom textures were created for the body and body-armor chunks in the .DDS format (diffuse/opacity & normal/specular).
  • The limbs chunk has been taken from the male body mesh (malebody_1.nif ) and uses the approriate BSLightingShaderProperty and textures.
  • In NifSkope the NiTriShapeData has normals and the BS Num UV Sets are set to 4097 (save for the limbs which have no normals and are set to 1).
  • Updating the Tanget Space for each chunk in NifSkope did not resolve the issue.
  • Each piece of the mesh shared the same smoothing group when exported from 3ds Max.
  • When uploaded to another engine and using the same maps the armor displays correctly.
One note of particular interest is that darkening and flickering of the character mesh vanished after I removed the body and body-chunks from the .nif (essentially equipping just the limbs chunk).

Any help towards resolving this issue will be much appreciated!

Edited by editpolygon
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Thank you for responding, Hanaisse. The following are the BSLightingShaderProperty nodes for all three trishapes.

body

2la91yt.jpg

Shader Flags 1 : SLSF1_Specular | SLSF1_Skinned | SLSF1_Receive_Shadows | SLSF1_Own_Emit | SLSF1_Remappable_Textures | SLSF1_ZBuffer_Test

Shader Flags 2 : SLSF2_ZBuffer_Write | SLSF2_DoubleSided | SLSF2_EnvMap_Light_Fade

body-armor

zjzby0.jpg

Shader Flags 1 : SLSF1_Specular | SLSF1_Skinned | SLSF1_Receive_Shadows | SLSF1_Own_Emit | SLSF1_Remappable_Textures | SLSF1_ZBuffer_Test

Shader Flags 2 : SLSF2_ZBuffer_Write | SLSF2_DoubleSided | SLSF2_EnvMap_Light_Fade

limbs

29ntd0i.jpg

Shader Flags 1 : SLSF1_Skinned | SLSF1_Receive_Shadows | SLSF1_CastShadows | SLSF1_Model_Space_Normals | SLSF1_FaceGen_RGB_Tint | SLSF1_Own_Emit | SLSF1_Remappable_Textures | SLSF1_ZBuffer_Test

Shader Flags 2 : SLSF2_ZBuffer_Write | SLSF2_EnvMap_Light_Fade | SLSF2_Soft_Lighting

Please let me know if there is any other information that I can provide you.

Edit: I've extracted the mesh and texture .BSA's to their own directory seperate from the Data folder which is where my armor's textures lay. This is why the limbs have a texture on it and the body and body-armor do not. Added Shader Flags under each image.

Edited by editpolygon
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The first thing I noticed is on the "limbs" NiTriShape. In the NiTriShapeData; change the BS Num UV sets to 1, and the Has Normals to No. That'll fix the skin.

 

As for the armor pieces, the normals are definitely wonky, as can be seen in this pic. You can see through in some spots. There's also dark spots on the body object.

I've heard this can be an issue with one of the 3DS exporters. Try re-facing them or smoothing them again in 3DS, as NifSkope's face normals option doesn't help.

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Hanaisse, I have meticulously exported the armor out of 3ds Max then imported and changed Node settings in NifSkope.

I have auto-smoothed the normals in 3ds Max and corrected the Num UV Sets and Has Normals.

The dark cloud that flickers over the armor stubbornly persists!

It's possible that there is an issue with the normals that can only be resolved in the modeling program (3ds Max) which I will have to look into. If it is the exporter then I will have to acquire Blender to export the .nif's… :confused:

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