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I'm getting into that fidgety sort of mood where I want to change random stuff because I feel like it, and because it's there, and it needs to be tinkered with. Trouble is, at this stage, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Okay, I usually have no idea what I'm doing, but at this point it's frustrating me! So far I've found a BA2 unpacker and the v2 beta of NifSkope, which means I can at least peer at the NIFs (maybe I should include links to these if it would be helpful to others: and if I can remember where I got them). But that's about as far as it goes at the moment. It would appear that there are really very substantial changes to the NIF format, to the point where, at a casual glance, there seems to be a wider gulf between FO4 and Skyrim than there is between Skyrim and Morrowind. An awful lot seems to have changed and is done differently: I dare say this is a Good Thing(tm), but for modders who've got a bit lazy and set in their ways, it presents a bit of a challenge. And a headache, remembering the learning curve I went through to edit meshes back in the Oblivion days when I started out. As far as I can tell, even the usual black arts of fiddling about with NIF version numbers and copying across selected blocks from a donor NIF as I did with Ego Draconis seems to be a bit of a non-starter this time round, and of course at this point I would assume that import & export from Blender is likely to be a long way off. Some people have mentioned using 3DS Max or whatever it's called, but it seems that has the problem that it's not only not a freebie, it's Very Expensive Indeed, which puts it out of the reach of casual modders. I'm guessing that some people have figured out something because I've seen mods starting to appear that include meshes people originally designed for Skyrim, but I haven't a clue how they went about it. I've done some searching with Google but have been unable to find their repository of secrets. So does anybody know where to start?

So since InsanitySorrow made a tutorial on exporting custom meshes with collision, I decided I'd try and finish a project from a while ago which I had to abandon due to there being no tools to create collision with. I have run into two major problems. The first is that the CK crashes when attempting to render my custom .nif, and the second is that the collision is not working correctly. Everything appears correct and orderly in Nifskope. However, when I try to assign the mesh to an object in the Creation Kit, the following notification appears: And then the CK freezes and crashes. To test for the source of the problem, I used the new mesh as a replacer for an existing vanilla object. It renders beautifully in-game. So it would seem that only the CK has a problem with my .nif file. This is a big problem as it will require tedious work-arounds for me to create any non-replacer object. The second problem is that the object appears to have the collision of a bowl. It tends to roll upright and the upper half clips through everything: It's probably worth noting the "template" which ChunkMerge used to create the collision was the glazedbowl01 mesh. Any help or advice on these two problems would be greatly appreciated. I feel guilty for all the screenshots I put up of projects that are never finished to good enough standards to release.

This is just a quick message to request assistance for the impending release of Black Marsh beta. If you wish to find out more, please go check out our Facebook page here. We also have a TesNexus and Bethesda forums page and our trailer on youtube As some may already know, we have been trying to get a release over this year but sadly the small numbers of people in the team keeps pushing back the release date. We currently have over half a worldspace almost totally complete with around 98% interiors, 96% towns, 90% dungeons and a truly vast collection of new items that are completely unique to the mod, including creatures etc. Most of what remains of the physical modding I can handle myself but we are short or overworked in some crucial areas. As yet, we are most in need of quest modders, scripters and modellers to finalise plans besides needing someone to help out a little with establishing the in-game map. All scripts and models requiring completion are listed on our own forums and I am in the process of finishing the writing of the quest ideas already developed. If you can help or know of anyone who can assist, please send me a PM or get in touch via Facebook (preferred method) but please: no timewasters! We've had enough of them but even if your contribution is small, it WILL be credited and greatly appreciated.

When attempting to add custom meshes to objects in the CK, I've found that .nif files which have had their mesh data (NitriShapes) copied and pasted from other .nifs cause the CK to crash. Following Insanity Sorrow's excellent importing tutorial to the letter yeilds success; but seperately creating and importing .obj files for every piece of every mesh is time consuming compared to doing them all in one go and copy-pasting. Also, (afaik) .obj files don't contain vertex weight data, and can't be used for armour, clothing, creatures, etc. So my questions are: What is the difference between importing an .obj file over a nitrishape in nifskope, and simply copying and pasting a NiTriShape branch? What steps after copying and pasting a branch into the root node are required to make it work? Cheers in advance. (That doesn't sound as humble as I would like... if you don't know the answer, then just have an awesome day regardless. )