Zero Two Pilot Suit (WIP)

[Horkerkiiin]

Well this has been a not so fun-but somewhat progress making and learning afternoon. So I began trying to get my whole suit in minus the gloves, so the suit, headgear and handles. did as I did before loaded into outfit studio and copied the weights. I've decided once I've then exported from from OS to load my NIF up in Nifskope quickly just to check and see if I get any errors, that way I dont waste my time fiddling with the CK and can Identify any problems earlier. Well I started getting an error again even though I did EXACTLY the same thing I did the other day when it worked, I started getting the first error I have above about an MD5 Hash comparison but thankfully no others. and Upon looking in the details of my Nif in Nifskope

I had an extra line I didnt have before for NiStringExtraData. For the life of me couldn't work out what this was for. I tried deleting this and saving the Nif from nifskope. Crashes creation kit. Cue my rage. There was so much salt flying around.

 

After calming down I tried the process numerous times making sure I did everything the same as the other day. Still didnt want to play. So I had one last ditch attempt at this, I deleted the added block of NiStringExtraData, saved my Nif from nifskope. Then RE imported as a Nif into OS did nothing else and then re exported as a nif. Tested in Nifskope and no errors. Things look promising as OS should of exported as a F4 ready Nif. Put into CK, CK does not crash. Looking better. Get into game and then test. IT WORKS! SCREW YOU NIFSKOPE AND YOUR ERRORS!

 

And thanks to Vom's post above I had a texture in game to! Granted the texture didnt fit at all because it was for the vault suit and not my mesh but ya know.

However, I need to do some adjustments back in blender. As Vom said, use an OBJ body as a reference in blender so that when in OS it all lines up, well this is my Blender with my finished mesh and the reference body I SHOULD of been using

 

 

Sadly just rotating and scaling my Mesh down It dosnt quite fit, despite that body being exactly the same one I used to model my current mesh just much smaller and horizontal instead of vertical so I'm going to have to rotate and scale as close as I can and then make some adjustments, I need to do this is messing with some of the weights when copying as its not lining up 100%.

 

But PROGRESS AND LEARNING TODAY! Im going out for a bit but fully intend to get back on this when I come back. My whole mesh WILL be fully weighted and in game by the end of the weekend (which is Monday for me) unless any more unforeseen errors come about.

 

 

[Horkerkiiin]

I still cant figure out how to do spoiler tags. I'm sorry everyone.

 

Its all working in game!! The textures are so wrong though using others as placeholders haha

 

 

My biggest problem now is the weights on the headgear, they are screwey, I've messed around with it a bit and it dosnt seem to be the weights im thinking off but I can play more with it tomorrow. Only one other issue is a split in the seam between the wrist and the hand in first person, this seems unavoidable as this happens even with the base CBBE body as well.

 

But I'm so happy its all in game! was beginning to think I wouldn't get here! Now just to fix weights and then make some proper textures.

 

Thanks for all the support and help so far guys!

Edited June 4, 2018 by Horkerkiiin

[vometia]

That's great!  Nice job with the weighting, hopefully you'll find which is the best to use for the thingy in question.

Regarding the gloves, I tend to just make a slight overlap between the sleeves and gloves/hands to disguise any unwanted seams, so maybe that might be one approach?  I know by definition that isn't seamless (!) but perhaps a small cuff would look better than an occasional gap.

[Horkerkiiin]

My God. I think I love outfit studio. I was scared of it at first as I can with most new programs sometimes because I didnt really understand how it works but its actually really simple. It also makes this whole process so much easier, I literally leave OS open, adjust the weights export the NIF again with a new name (just running through test1,2,3 etc), I'm also keeping the CK open, I already have my mod open, just amend the model to the new test one, save, then re open the game and test! I already have a save where my character already has the armor I can do this all under 2 minutes (unless amending weights takes longer).

 

I know I could technically just save over the old nif and not have to change in the CK to the new model but I'm slightly paranoid if I do that the effects wont work correctly so I'm happy to take the extra 30 seconds or so. Now that this is working and I know how to make it work this is SOOOOOOOOO much easier that it was in Skyrim, so much fiddling in Nifskope. I've not had to touch Nifskope since I got it all working in game. Its glorious.

[vometia]

If you want to adjust it in game, you don't have to exit: save over the nif, in the console type

player.unequipitem refid
	pcb
	player.equipitem refid

and it should load up the new and hopefully improved version: no need to quit and restart!

And I agree, OS makes life an awful lot easier and removes a lot of the faffing about that was previously required in Bethsoft games.

[Horkerkiiin]

I think I'm happy with where this is in game now Happy with the weights after messing around with the weights on the headgear for a while. I even used OS studio to make a first person mesh! Literally just put a mask on the arms and hands and deleted anything that wasn't masked! OS studio has been amazing.

 

I have decided I AM going to take a creative liberty with this outfit though, I am going to make a band that goes around the wrists to cover the seams, it wont be a major difference to the reference. Will not take me long to make those (Literally going to be done in about 15 minutes).

 

So now I move onto making Textures. Definitely my weakest point when it comes to Mod Creation. Wish me Luck.

[vometia]

It's awesome that you've got the mesh together properly; especially sorting out the weights, as that's something I often struggle with a lot.  Skirt physics in particular are awful to do, but even straightforward weighting I've historically lacked very much aptitude for.

With the cuffs or rather seams, my usual approach is usually to select the end ring on one side, scale it up by just the tiniest amount, do a face fill and pull it just ever so slightly so it overlaps a little with the end ring on the other.  The resulting "step" may be barely noticeable in game, and hopefully less so than a gap!

Texturing: must admit that's not entirely my forte either.  I've learnt a fair bit while doing my recent Bioshock outfits but my level of knowledge still isn't great; I'm happy to pass on what little I do know, though.  For me, use of layers has made life a fair bit easier, variously using masks and things like soft light, multiply etc to get the overall effect I'm looking for.  I also found that the blender-created normalmap can give a handy guide to adding some shading to the texture to add some "depth" to it.

And regarding normalmaps, I also use the same texture file for those to ensure everything stays properly lined up, and just name them accordingly so that it's easy to find the relevant layers I need to turn on or off to produce the respective dds file.  One of the main differences tends to be that the ones I've prepared for normalmap generation tend to be of very much higher contrast, and are sometimes inverted depending on how the height map should look.  I'm not 100% satisfied with the outcomes I've managed but generally speaking they're good enough, which is, well, good enough!