Mesh Conversion From TES3 to TES4

[Braggi]

Hi folks.

I recently was granted permission to use the non-Bethesda meshes and textures from the TES3 mod Privateer's Hold by the modeler who made them, Jmanowar. I know that you can indeed update and move a mesh and its texture(s) from Morrowind format to Oblivion format and that there is no ethical reason not to, so long as the resources are not created by Bethesda. There have been several previous successful projects to port fan-made content from Morrowind, including the Barabus Crypt set, a sextant model (both ported by Razorwing from Silgrad Tower and freely available at TESNexus), along with some clothing mods I have heard about.

So, in a nutshell, what I need is a tutorial source for updating the mod's Nif files from the old TES3 format to the newer Oblivion version, preferably using either Blender or another free program. Anything along this line would help. and let me stress again - these are all fan-made assets, so no copyright issues exist, since they were not part of the retail versions of Morrowind or it's expansions.

Looking forward to any ideas you may have and thanks in advance.

[InsanitySorrow]

I'm unsure if there are any tutorials for that, I know of one for the opposite process. Using Blender, you should be able to import the TES3 Mesh, re-scale if needed, apply collision, if it's a weapon you'll need to make sure it's in the correct hand position (import TES4 weapon) and then re-export using OB settings.

It shouldn't be too difficult with basic meshes, Ie Static stuff, though I have no clue how you would deal with other stuff like armor.

[Braggi]

Thank you very much for the reply IS.

All of the items to be converted are rooms, corridors or static (non-havoc) set pieces - hanging lamps/lights and dungeon dressing of various types. Weapons and armor aren't part of it, so that simplifies things quite a bit.

I did dig up one possibility on squidoo that I will be testing tomorrow located here: http://www.squidoo.com/nifexport

Being still very new to Blender, I imagine this will be quite a learning curve - hence my hope for a tutorial. Feel free to add anything you think might be useful - I am open to all suggestions.

[ZuTheSkunk]

hanging lamps/lights

If they are intended to be only a statics and the true light will be coming from "light bulb", then it doesn't make any problem. But if they are intended to create light from themselves... then it may be quite challenging to convert them into OB type of glowing object. At least I don't know how to do this, and from what I've learned from vanilla OB meshes, it requires some settings/things in those meshes (otherwise they will just refuse to glow, as my "torches" did until I've did a bit of replacing things with other, working mesh of "torch").

If you'll ever need to convert weapon or armor, then I can be of assistance.

[InsanitySorrow]

Mind linking me to the set you want to convert?, Statics should be easy to convert, I've done it before, so I should be able to help there.

[Braggi]

@Zu: Thank you very much for your offer.

I do know that some of the objects are static lamps, but I can easily fake the light they give off using the native light sources already in in the CS. Regarding weapons and armor, I will definitely keep your offer in mind - who knows, I may run into something in my asset collecting.

@InsanitySorrow: I definitely welcome your help here.

I ask that you give me a little time to sort out the textures before I link anything for you. Jmanowar created the set for Morrowind and all of his textures had underscores in the texture names as a word separator. Unfortunately, Oblivion doesn't like that naming convention, since it uses underscores for glow maps ( _g ) and normal map ( _n ), so I'm fixing that up.

Secondly, none of the original textures had normal maps, so I am manually generating them one at a time using Photoshop 6 and the NVIDIA plugin for it.

Finally, I also need to check the textures for the static book sets on the bookcases in case there are any original Bethesda Morrowind textures adapted for the book covers. If there are, then they need to be replaced with OB book cover textures or Modder created ones, which is easy enough to do.

The first issue is sorted out, although I have caught a couple items that were missed as I've been going along and generating normal maps. As for the normal maps themselves I'm about 3/5 done. I hope to have then last of the normals sorted out by tomorrow evening, then it just a matter of clearing up the books.

After all of that is finished, I will combine the nifs and textures into a 7z for you and get it online for you to download and work on.

Thank you both, very much! I'm hoping to set Privateer's Hold up as the first dungeon on my personal High Rock mod, to teach myself the art of dungeon design.

Edited June 30, 2010 by Braggi

[Braggi]

@InsanitySorrow: A quick update on the preparation progress...

1. I have all 122 of the textures renamed and normal mapped.
   
   
2. It turns out that there are also underscores and dashes used in the 122 Nif names so I am clearing those out as well. (Only 59 left to go... )
   
   
3. The static books in the two book cases do indeed use Morrowind textures, so I am going to swap them for some of those in Metallicow's Oblivion book resource.
   

I'll tackle the rest of point #2 and all of point #3 tomorrow after some well-earned sleep.

Getting closer, and thanks for your patience so far.

[Braggi]

@InsanitySorrow:

...and I'm finally done all the texture prep! Took a touch longer then I expected, but then I had to go back and convert all the base textures from 16 bit to 32 bit (forgot that step originally... doh! ) and then redo all the normals as well. It was also a bit more finicky then I expected in changing all the book textures over.

Check your PM's for the link - the file is titled "Privateer's Hold Meshes and Textures.7z" and clocks in at about 38 MB.

Notes

- The directory structure in the archive is how I intend to set it up in the mod, so please use it for the texture paths.

- The exterior mound entrance Nif references a Morrowind grass texture over much of its surface. The texture was not included in the original mod, so if you want to substitute a stock Oblivion grass texture with a rock or dirt base, that is fine by me.

Thank you once more for your offer of assistance - I have wanted to update this interior set for a long time. I hope my prep work with the textures will save you time and headaches.

[InsanitySorrow]

I've not recieved any PMs , What I'll do is see how the converstion works and relay that info to you, that way you'll be able to convert the meshes too.

[Braggi]

I've not recieved any PMs , What I'll do is see how the converstion works and relay that info to you, that way you'll be able to convert the meshes too.

I just got the PM off to you - had a power failure early this morning just when I was going to send it off.

Thank you for offering to show me how it works as you go. Also, please let me know if I goofed up anything with the textures - every bit of constructive criticism helps.

Thanks again.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Braggi

[Braggi]

Woo-hoo! I got one of the meshes converted properly. :rofl:

It took some research and some trial and error, but it works. The basic method I hit on goes like this:

1. Open the TES3 Mesh in Nifskope and delete any bounding box entries. Save the Nif.

2. Import the mesh to Blender.

3. Select the entire mesh and duplicate it using CTRL-D.

4. Select and rename the duplicate mesh section(s) to something like "CollisionWalls" or "CollisionFloor", as needed.

5. Go into object mode and select the collision version(s) of the mesh duplicate.

6. Set Drawtype to Bounds, and in Draw Extra options, set Boundary Display to Polyhedron, and finally select Wire.

7. Switch to Logic. Make sure the drop down reads "Triangle Mesh".

8. Hit the Add Property Bar five time to create 5 new empty properties.

9. Set the properties as follows:

a) String:HavokMaterial HAV_MAT_STONE

b) String: Oblivion Layer Static

c) String: Game Quality Type Fixed

d) String: Game Motion Type Fixed

e) Float: Mass 1000

10. Repeat the process for any other parts of the mesh that need collision.

11. Once all of these are done, hit "A" to select everything in the render window and then export the nif.

12. Finally go back into Nifskope and repair any texture paths (very necessary here since all the texture references had underscores that had to be removed from the updated dds names for the room textures).

13. Import into Oblivion through the CS and go to town modding.

A couple of questions for any of the Blender/Nifskope wizards out there who know both TES3 and TES4:

1. What is the purpose of the bounding box I had to remove? Was it the TES3 version of collision?

2. The room and it's textures show up correctly in Nifskop and also show up in the game. However, the room appears textureless and black in the CS. Why is this?

Edited July 6, 2010 by Braggi

[Braggi]

I just wanted to mention that my internet went down today - I'm coming in now via a borrowed laptop. It'll be about a week before they can send a cable repair person, so I'm offline until then.

Thanks in advance for any comments on the thread.

Until later folks...