HOW TO: Import/modify/export LH

[NikNaks]

With the new nif scripts you can just hit the export button. You configure it once you've selected a destination.

 

[Ekmek]

Croland, Bernie, or Dutchking

is it normal that when I do the trishape renumberingthing to notice in my newleaderhead that it doesnot have the bones or anything else in it? do I have to add them from the old leaderhead?

 

[dutchking]

...
It depends, why didn't your new one have any bones? Did you export a damn 3DS?!

 

[C.Roland]

Croland, Bernie, or Dutchking

is it normal that when I do the trishape renumberingthing to notice in my newleaderhead that it doesnot have the bones or anything else in it? do I have to add them from the old leaderhead?

Be carefull not to delete the armature (the gray skeleton) in Blender. If there is no armature, your model won't have any skin partition (the thing that tell the game wich part of the model is attach to wich bone). Even if you don't use the armature of the modified mesh, you have to keep it in blender during all the process.

 

[Ekmek]

No I'm off 3ds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and the bones were in blender - and i assigned the suit to the torso. selected all and then exported as a nif. Just weird. I'll try again tomorrow. If I have probs I'll post my stuff it might be easier to see the problems.

thx for the help.

 

[dutchking]

Glad to hear you've gone cold turkey Ekmek. Good luck tomorrow.

 

[Ekmek]

I just tried making a new leaderhead but got this blender error:

ERROR
Vertex color painting/lighting enabled, but mesh has no vertex color data

that was with Pericles non-shader.nif any ideas on what causes that?

 

[bernie14]

I just tried making a new leaderhead but got this blender error:



that was with Pericles non-shader.nif any ideas on what causes that?

sorry, no idea

 

[Ekmek]

thx

it happened with both the nonshader and the shaded? I noticed it happens when you import the nif, you dont even have to do anything, and the try to export it you'll see the error show up.

 

[GarretSidzaka]

some leaderheads have this glitch bad

 

[dutchking]

-I believe-
*puts hand on chin*
That when you get that error, it means that there's a vertex color property in the NIF, try removing it (nifskope), importing it, DO NOT MODIFY IT, and export it. DON'T MODIFY in case it doesn't work and you wasted all your time...

 

[Ekmek]

-I believe-
*puts hand on chin*
That when you get that error, it means that there's a vertex color property in the NIF, try removing it (nifskope), importing it, DO NOT MODIFY IT, and export it. DON'T MODIFY in case it doesn't work and you wasted all your time...

Good call! I went through all the Trishapes and deleted vertex property and it seemed to do the trick. I added that to my making leaderhead TIP sheet. Its a work in progress but it includes a lot of stuff I had to figure out thta weren't in the tutorials. If you guys have any please post and I'll consolidate!

Draw Program
	Convert skins to TGA


BLENDER
download blender (2.4.3)
download python
download Nikscripts
Set Blender to export NIF
Set Blender to 20.4.XXXXX

TIPS:
- Vertex Error – See NIFSkope tips
- To just get a hat –select all the faces then go to object mode. 
- when selecting faces save blends as you progress in case you accidentally unclick it all
- You can select the faces you want rapidly by going to edit mode and selecting the muscle group and then select and continue to do so, then you can separate the object by mesh->edges->mark seam and then edit->mesh->vertices->separate
-	If joining  a hat mesh to a body mesh first in object mode select the hat, then go to edit mode, then select all. Then go to object mode shift click add the body mesh – go back to edit mode and your hat should be all lit – easily rig/assign it to the b_head.
-  when joining meshes click the new object then shift-click the object that has the bones that way it will be assigned to the scene root parent
- to remove bone assignments and assign all to torso or something go through each component and click on the bone then select then remove keep it lit and move to the next bone then assign it all to the torso (if that’s what you want to do) 


NIFSKOPE
-	Trishapes
-	If you have more tri then just add them to the end – don’t try to replace anything
-	Less tri remove branch
TIPS: If noskininstances
		IfNiNode error then reset skininstance to scene root
TIP: If you joined a noshader nif to a shaded nif (or a unit.nif) then you need to click on that piece and remove the alpha property.
TIP: Remove Vertex property

SCENEVIEWER
Setting the objects
Click and drag the orange trishape under the main body
Resetting by numbers
TIP: you can add stuff from units. After you loaded your leaderhead go to File->adda file then pic the unit you want … This will require you to go back to blender to reposition etc and redo everything – so I’ll consider this an advanced technique.

 

[dutchking]

You should post that in my "graphics basics" tutorial.
When you need help just ask Dr. DK and his nurse Ekmek.

 

[kevinman4404]

I've been working on resources, so I've been importing/exporting a lot.

Mostly I've worked with cow, but now I am changing the model of the banana tree to be a date tree.

Unlike the other resources, which import/export properly, I get that "vertex color painting/lighting enabled, but mesh has no vertex colour data."

For this I use blender and nifskope and it's always worked. I would assume something has to be disabled (what?)?

EDIT: one moment let me check whats written just above me hopefully that fix will work with resources too

EDIT: Fixed. Didn't involve deleting anything, just setting the "Has vertex colours" in the NiTriShapeDatas to no.

 

[Ekmek]

EDIT: Fixed. Didn't involve deleting anything, just setting the "Has vertex colours" in the NiTriShapeDatas to no.

where do you do that at?

 

[kevinman4404]

inside nifskope.

However, when I later exported, instead of the flat rectangles where the skin goes being transparent, they were black.

 

[Ekmek]

that maybe an alpha or specular property problem. i'll mess with it but not for a few days.

 

[kevinman4404]

cool, thanks

 

[C.Roland]

inside nifskope.

However, when I later exported, instead of the flat rectangles where the skin goes being transparent, they were black.

Do you have an alpha propriety ? If not, add one via nifskope and than you should be able to control transparence with alpha channel.

 

[cool3a2]

Just wanted to edit a leaderhead made by Zerver. It was based on cyrrus. It should have the crown removed, but when the lh moves it's still visible. I guess there are still some obsolete vertexes in, so I wanted to remove them. But I can't even import it (get these errors mentioned some pages before). With original lh's from civ that works. Nevertheless I wanted to try to make small changes to lh's, so I opened the original Cyrrus. After removing these vertexes and exporting it, the crown is in again after reimporting it. Not to mention that I can't do any changes to the model anymore. That Blenders interface is horrible is not new, but I thought for this little changes I could live with it. That there are these unacceptable problems with im- and exporting makes it simple impossible to use. Is it planed to correct this in the next versions of Blender / nif import script that works? Is there a workaround? Can't imagine that Blender can't import / export an ordinary civ4 compatible nif properly. Firaxis has also made nif's that can be changed, why is it impossible with Blender?

Well, I am not that familiar with Blender, but I followed the instructions given by C.Roland in this thread, so I don't see that I made mistakes. Blender is a disappointment...

BTW: I have installed python 2.5.2, Blender 2.45, latest nif import script and Pyffi, this can't be the reason.