Creating Skyrim Armor in Blender Tutorial Series

[GoblinVomit]

It might be worth mentioning in your tutorial that if you make significant changes to your mesh you may need to fix the UV map. Mine had some holes in it causing stretched texture in places, but you just have to open the UV map and fill in the holes by welding the vertices in the right place. 

[Hanaisse]

This particular tutorial is a beginners guide, you're not meant to make significant changes. But that definitely is a good point.

[henshu]

I got past my other issues, now I'm attempting to turn a previously static object into a helmet/circlet.

So far it either doesn't appear, or appears but doesn't stay on the head properly (will sort of drift behind the character, then catch up)

Do you have any specific advice for head pieces?

[henshu]

Okay, well every attempt I make now reliably appears in-game (it seems to have been an issue with the original item having environmental mapping and the game finding that inappropriate for hats), but it's always floating in the general vicinity of the head. When the character is standing up straight, it's in the right spot, but when they move it stays directly above the spine and doesn't tilt with the head. 

I'm figuring there must be some magic armature solution that I just don't see.  

[Hanaisse]

Yes, it sounds like it's not correctly rigged. Delete the armature and the weighting and start again. Make sure to import a clean skeleton.

Did you also import a head mesh to make sure it fits properly and is in the correct location?

[henshu]

It looks like the standard body mesh doesn't have a bone for the head. Have you rigged a helmet using that mesh? 

I'll go through later today and try that and other methods again. This time I'll take thorough notes =p

 

The mesh does appear in the correct location, perched right on top of the head. It just doesn't articulate with the head. Oddly, when

the object had two meshes (a Fine Hat and the aforementioned static mesh), the hat would articulate properly and the other mesh would still trail behind. I'm really starting to think that it's some hidden aspect of the mesh itself that I can't find. I went through every line in nifscope comparing the file to a functioning hat, and the discrepancies that I found and altered didn't seem to make any difference. 

 

One thing I did see in nifscope: under the NiTriShapeData, there are two lines labeled Consistency Flags. On the unaltered hat mesh the first is CT_MUTABLE and the second is CT_STATIC, with the first line being grayed out and un-editable. The flags on my mesh vary with attempt, but sometimes will have CT_STATIC on the first line, grayed out. Are you familiar with these flags, and could they be causing me trouble? Does the order of flags in nifscope actually matter? 

 

Thanks for all your help. 

Edited September 17, 2013 by henshu

[Hanaisse]

Oh, oh, oh..... no, you should not be using the body mesh. For items for the head, you can follow this tutorial but use the head mesh (femalehead.nif or malehead.nif), not the body. Sorry, I didn't realize that's what you were trying to do. The Reference Sheet lists head dismember parts for when you get to that step.

 

Those Consistency Flags should always be CT_Static. It's being changed when the User Version and User Version 2 values are being changed, so just make sure to always check those and correct them.

[henshu]

Here is a screenshot:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-UtklOnag5OY3VXQWVVU1ZVbkk/edit?usp=sharing

 

I've tried using the full body, using malehead.nif, and using an existing hat, but no matter what I do it does this. When he's standing up perfectly straight, it looks great, but when he tilts his head, the crab just stays up there. 

[Hanaisse]

Uh .. so the crab is the hat? Did you strip absolutely everything out of it before you started, just leaving NiTriShape and NiTriShapeData?

It's difficult to tell you where it's gone wrong without seeing the mesh. Can you upload it somewhere? Or PM it to me?

[henshu]

I sent you the PM with the mesh.. Did you get it? Do you need me to send the textures as well? 

[Hanaisse]

Yes, I got it. The textures aren't necessary.

I'll have a look at it today.

[Hanaisse]

Aha! I see the issue right off.

 

Under the BSLightingShaderProperty, at Shader Flag 1, you're missing the SLSF1_Skinned option. Add that and it should work properly now. Let me know if there's still issues.

[henshu]

oh! I didn't include that because it was absent from the original mesh. I didn't realize those flags could impact these kinds of issues. 

It worked! Thank you so much! I can finally move on with my mod 

[Csatadi]

Hi,

 

I got an error when I wanted to load the model in Blender. Could you help me?

I used all the program versions you mention in your tutorial as it is shown in the first line.

If it does matter I would work on necromancer robe.

 

[Hanaisse]

Ah, I should expand on my Part 3. You'll need to delete the node in the mesh called BSInvMarker, and anything else that is not a NiTriShape.

[Csatadi]

Ah, I should expand on my Part 3. You'll need to delete the node in the mesh called BSInvMarker, and anything else that is not a NiTriShape.

 

Thanks for the quick answer!

[LJGB]

Hey Hana, you may remember me from page 1 of the comments in this thread. I was the guy re-texturing the Mythic Dawn robes to look like the Black Hand robes from Oblivion.

 

Anyway, I succeeded and got everything in-game and working fine (thanks again!), but I've noticed that the robes are ever so slightly transparent in certain weather conditions, and they don't reflect light correctly like the hood, gloves, and boots. For example, if I stand in front of a fire the robes seem incredibly black, whereas the rest of the outfit looks fine. Then in other lighting conditions the robes look okay. I'm not sure what the problem is and wondered if you'd know what was wrong. 

 

I'm guessing it's something to do with the specular map of the robes, but I don't remember even touching it, like the boots and gloves, etc.

 

 

Thanks again for your help back then!

[Hanaisse]

Hi LJGB, I sure do remember one of my first students.

 

Could you PM me the files (mesh and texture) so I can take a look? (Use the full editor in the PM and you can attach files)

Also, do you use any lighting mods or ENB or anything graphical that could be causing this effect?

[LJGB]

I've sent the files. I'm using Climates of Tamriel along with Phinix ENB, but when disabling the ENB the problem is still there so I don't think it's that.

[Hanaisse]

Ok, I think I see the problem.

 

You've alpha'd out the "cape" thingy, which is all fine, but you missed the underside of it. So it's reacting because the back of the normals are exposed. Look at the bottom of the texture file, you'll see the half circle shape thing that looks like the top portion. Add that to your alpha channel.

 

Also, in the nif, change your alpha property settings (click on the flag to open the options). Uncheck Enable Blending and check Enable Testing. Change Alpha Test Function to "Greater" then put 128 in the Threshold box. These are standard alpha settings.

 

Also, try changing your Specular Strength to 1.00. Everything else looks ok.

 

Hopefully that should help.

[LJGB]

Once again Hana, thank you very much!

 

That's totally fixed the problem. Finally completed this little project of mine, feels good! I don't think I'll be releasing this as a mod anywhere but if I ever do, I'll be sure to credit you with helping me.

 

Thanks again! 

[alurict]

Hi, I've been trying to follow this guide in order to edit the nightingale hood. Basically I want to remove the hood from the nightingale hood so that the mask part can be worn in the same slot that the dragon priest masks are worn in.

However, whenever I export my .nif, it doesn't contain any BSDismembermentSkinInstance nodes. I've gone over the tutorial twice and tried again because I figured I missed something, but it doesn't seem to help.

Do you know of any special issues when using this method on helmets instead of armor? I used BP_HEAD instead of BP_TORSO, and I used malehead.nif from meshes/actors/character/character assets/ instead of malebody_0.nif.

The mask uses an "eyecover", so maybe I need to do something special for that?

Any help would be awesome. Thanks for the tutorial by the way, it's already helped me greatly with editing some armor and I had no problems then, this is by far the most easy to follow tutorial on the subject that I've been able to find, it's much appreciated.

[Hanaisse]

Hello alurict, welcome to TESA.   It's always nice to hear kind words about my tutorials, thank you.

 

A couple of things;

 

- Double check your skin partitions in Blender and make sure you assigned all your vertices to BP_Head.

- Double check your export settings and make sure 1) you have a clean skeleton and 2) the options Export Skin Partitions and Export Dismember Body Parts are selected.

 

(Reference toward the end of Part 4)

 

If that is not the issue, feel free to PM me your nif file (use full editor to find attachment option) and I'll take a closer look at it.

[alurict]

So this time I went back through and when I imported my malehead.nif with Import Skeleton Only + Parent Selected  I got a python error that said "Cannot import skeleton: root is not a NiNode". Any idea what causes that? Maybe I somehow corrupted my malehead.nif.

[Hanaisse]

Maybe? When you open the malehead.nif in NifSkope what do you see as the root node?