[OB] Blender v2.49b trouble with NIF room exporting

[KWITS]

Good Day,

I am still a novice with Blender v2.49b modification of TESIV vanilla imports. Therefore I have a question which I am sure that someone on this great website has the skill set to answer. Okay, I imported a NIF object referenced as prisoncell02. What I want to accomplish should be simple, punch a hole through a stone wall for the Player to enter secretly and export back the results to NIF format within Blender. Evidently, this exportation process removes all collisions from each of the 4 walls of the prison cell including the ceiling and the floor. While I know how to create a new collision box around the whole structure, I still don't know how to open a section of a wall by removing the vertices without removing the the corresponding section on the other side of the cell. Please provide a list of procedural steps on the best practice to accomplish this task. In the meantime, I will be viewing more Blender videos.

Cheers!

KWITS

[Vince]

KWITS, I don't understand your question. What you say you want to do sounds straightforward. You say you want to make a hole in one wall of the cell, but not the opposite wall. Is that right? There are several of us here familiar with 2.49b, maybe a screen shot or a more in depth description of what you are trying to do would be helpful.

[KWITS]

Yes, that is right. I want to make a hole in a wall just larger enough for the Player to pass through. However, when I delete the edges and faces for the wall in question, this removal process attaches itself to the other wall on the opposite side.

[grond]

Have you re-parented the collision mesh to the main mesh? Select the collision, then shift-select the main mesh, so that both are selected, but the main is named at the top of the window, and CTRL-A, to parent the collision. That might be why it's not exporting, because you definitely should be able to export both.

For your deletion problem - Are you circle selecting what you want to delete? If so, that will select all verts in range, even behind what you want to select. If you're not, then try to find a perspective where you're facing away from the wall you don't want to edit, and do your work that way.

[KWITS]

Thank you for your help and quick response. I will investigate my collision issues further while referencing your instructions.

[KWITS]

It is a known issue in Blender v2.49b that when you import a NIF and then make a modification to the end of exporting the saved Blender file back to NIF format, that the collision box or boxes are removed. Can you verify this assumption from your experience? The method I choose to create a collision box is listed below.

1. Go into Edit mode

2. Choose Scripts

3. Choose Mesh

4. Choose Hull

5. Choose Box

Cheers!

KWITS

[grond]

That's the way to go for new collision, yep.

I've never had any problems with 2.49b and exporting collision, though. Even after I've edited the collision mesh it successfully exported with the mesh.

[KWITS]

Strange, I just did everything you recommended, added my own collision box and I can still walk my player through every wall. What is happening?

[KWITS]

Please export prisoncell02 from its mesh BSA file and then import it into Blender and then export it back out to see the results from your end.

[grond]

Have you selected the collision before you export? I do a piecemeal thing - select all the collision, shift selct the main mesh, hit CTRL+A, then, with everything still selected I go in and export. Makes sure I do all the parenting and selecting that way.

Then immediately open it up in NifSkope and check for the collision - I think it's red. It's been a while since I've worked in Blender or NS. Other than selecting, might be that your blender set-up might be a little off, so take a look this page for collision info, as well as the modeling classes here for more info.

EDIT ~ I've uninstalled OB, and have a nasty tv for a monitor, so no modeling for grond. (except on the runway )

Edited August 25, 2012 by grond

[KWITS]

How do I attach a screenshot within this forum discussion?

[grond]

tags, or there's a little bluish box up just under the 'emotes' button in this reply box.

[KWITS]

Do you use the Knife function in Blender to remove a section of vertices? If so, which option? There is an option for multicut.

[grond]

I don't think I'd use knife for this - I think I'd delete faces, and then move the remaining verts to establish the circular hole.

[KWITS]

But how did you select the section. Did you use the box function?

[grond]

I haven't done anything, but if I could, I'd go to face select mode and select the faces I want to delete one at a time. For the life of me, I can't remember how to change modes! It's been a while...

EDIT ~ DUH. The little buttons under the window here ...

Edited August 26, 2012 by grond

[KWITS]

[grond]

I see that now hehehe I see the problem with your collision. It won't work! I think your best bet will be to duplicate your mesh and set the copy as the collision, then export the two.

Go here and scroll down to Create Collision, and choose the dreaded Polyheder PM me if you want to.

[grond]

...I recall a problem with having a hole in a mesh I was trying to convert to a collision box. I think you might run into that problem if you're duping the room with the new hole. You might need to make that part of your duplicate something like an archway, if that's possible. Seems to me that I read somewhere that collision must be a closed shape...

[KWITS]

Okay, first of all thanks for all of your suggestions but in the end, I can't export any longer a stable NIF from Blender after choosing the alternate collision method.

[grond]

Well, I missed a couple very important steps because my memory is muddy, but we'll get you going in the PMs.

[KWITS]

Finally I was able to punch a hole in that darn wall!

http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/image/22245-player-entering-dark-prison-secret-passage/

[grond]

Here's to a long and prosperous relationship with the bucking bronco that is Blender.

[syscrusher]

For relatively low-poly static meshes, you can also have Blender make a linked copy (alt-D) of your visible mesh. After alt-D, just hit Enter to place the linked copy on top of the original. Then, in Object mode, select the Object tool panel and change the Draw Type to "Bounds", add Bounds to DrawExtra, and select "Polyhedr" as the mode. Now, take this linked copy, which is drawn as a collision mesh, and make it a child of the original. Believe it or not, this works.

This is NOT recommended for complex meshes with a lot of polygons, as a hand-drawn collision mesh or a bounding box is MUCH more efficient, but if you have a relatively simple object, such that a hand-drawn mesh would have almost as many polygons anyway, this can be a quick way to get a collision mesh that automatically follows edits to the visible mesh.