Static Mashups in Nifskope

Static Mashups in Nifskope

This tutorial will explain how to combine two or more static objects in Nifskope to create your own custom meshes.

Requirements:
- Nifskope 1.1.0 RC6 or RC7

Preparation:
Once you decide what you'd like to combine, extract the meshes from the Skyrim - Meshes.bsa into your Data folder. (You won't necessarily need the textures but may want to extract them if it's easier to see what you're doing.)

Decide which mesh is going to be the "anchor", or the one that will stay in place that will be added to. This will ensure your finished mesh is in a proper position.

For this tutorial I'm going to place a rolled up rug into the back of a hand cart (my anchor).

Process:
1. Start with opening two windows of Nifskope, one with each of the objects you plan to work with.



2. In the rug window, highlight the NiTriShape of the object to move, right click and select Block > Copy Branch. (its important to copy the branch and not just copy)



3. In the cart window, right click on the BSFadeNode and select Block > Paste Branch.



Voila. We have a cart and a rug. But, as you can see, it's not positioned properly. Let's fix that.

4. With the rug NiTriShape highlighted, right click and select Transform > Edit. This is where you do all the adjusting. You'll be able to see it while it's moving. You can also Rotate and Scale if you need to from here.
(An alternate way is to use the Translation line in the Block details of the NiTriShape)



  Smarty says: Remember your 3D co-ordinates - Z is up/down, Y is left/right, X is forward/back. You can use positive or negative numbers to move it the correct way.

5. Let's start with moving it up into the cart. Place the cursor in the Z value of the Translation line and enter 5. You'll see the rug move up slightly. Obviously not enough, so continue changing the z value until it's in a spot you like. Use the arrows to fine tune. In this example the best value was 22. Play with it until you like the look.



6. Now, as you can see, the rug is sticking out of the front of the cart so we need to reposition that as well. Change the Y value until the rug is moved into the cart. In this case it was a negative value to move the rug to the right.



  Smarty says: Make sure to change the view in your render window to see it from all sides.

7. One last thing we need to do before we finish. You'll notice the name of the NiTriShape of the rug you copied into the cart mesh has changed. It's taken on a name it knows already exists in the cart NiTriShapes.



8. It's usually best to change the name to something easily recognizable so you can quickly identify it when looking in the Block List. Change the Name in the Transform > Edit popup. When you've finished adjusting this NiTriShape, click Accept.




9. If you'd like to add more objects to your new mesh, continue with redoing the steps outlined above for each piece you want to add, or if it's the same object, use right-click > Block > Copy Branch / Paste Branch.



10. We now have a new custom mesh to use! Save it with a new name and create it as a new Static in the CK.

The possibilites are endless!