How To: Make Leaderheads! Ekmek's Guide

[cybrxkhan]

Ekmek, I just had a quick question.

Perhaps you remember that I asked you a question concerning the hands on my LH thread. Anyhow, another question occurred to me -

Given your experience with the LH business, how difficult is it to swap one hand with another (similar to how you swap suits in the tutorial, except now you swap hands!)? There may not be too much a practical use with it, but I thought perhaps some hands could work better with certain suits rather than others.

 

[Ekmek]

Given your experience with the LH business, how difficult is it to swap one hand with another (similar to how you swap suits in the tutorial, except now you swap hands!)? There may not be too much a practical use with it, but I thought perhaps some hands could work better with certain suits rather than others.

i never do it. i just copy over textures. of course women's hands are different. but i would NOT try to follow the basic import-rigging routine. way too much rigging for each finger. a skeleton swap will work but in blender it may be tedious to det it lined up right. just thinking off the top of my head I would open the original nif, separate the hands and then check transform properties for each one to get the exact x,y,z coordinates. then do a skeleton swap etc and then import in blender again and assign x,y,z transform properties to the new hands. but again it may be tedious.

 

[cybrxkhan]

^Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

 

[The Capo]

I was wondering how I could add an effect from one leader to another. Specifically the fire-light effect taht Sitting Bull has to my new Dido LH. I think cfkane has worked with different effects, would you mind helping me out on this one? C'mon man, can you say no to a girl like this?

What do you say?

 

[The Capo]

Does this have anything to do with it?

 

[Ekmek]

I'll look into it. I want that fire effect for caligula and attila too.

 

[The Capo]

Alright, well apparently I'm not "there yet" myself. I attempted a NifSwap on Dido and it didn't work out.

I have posted a few images, the first one are the settings I had when I exported the nif, the second are the two LHs in NifSkope (in this case Catherine and Dido) where you can see that all of the nodes are not the same, and then the third image is the obvious screw-up on the NifSwap just to show it wouldn't work (although I figured it wouldn't when I saw the nodes).

Now, my question is whether or not there is a way to salvage this LH without having to start all over. I don't remember if this is possible, but I'm thinking it isn't. So if anyone could help me out that would be fantastic. I have also posted the latest blend for Dido as well. Please help!!!

 

[Ekmek]

1) why do you have export skin partitions checked taht will give the invisible or shattered look.

2) see node 264 on cathy the trishapes come under there but your dido trishapes come directly under sceneroot. so try swapping under the ninode 264. OR import in blender and line it up by hand.

those should do it.

and welcome back

 

[The Capo]

1) why do you have export skin partitions checked taht will give the invisible or shattered look.

Because, apparently, I have no idea what I am doing.

2) see node 264 on cathy the trishapes come under there but your dido trishapes come directly under sceneroot. so try swapping under the ninode 264. OR import in blender and line it up by hand.

I'll try that out, I am not sure what you mean by import in Blender an dline it up by hand, but that sounds like I'll it up somehow. So I'll try this out and see if this works.

those should do it.

and welcome back

Let's hope it does, and don't welcome me back yet. When I post my first LHs I'll remove the "Rusty" from my name.

 

[The Capo]

Hmm, didn't work. So did you take a look at it in Blender at all? Can you tell what I did wrong?

 

[The Capo]

Well this one didn't take long, and by that I mean didn't take long to screw up.

I threw together this LH to be Cetshwayo kaMpande for the Zulu. I thought I did everything right and, lo and behold, the NifSwap didn't work... AGAIN. So, I must be doing something wrong, or I might not have the right settings in place or something. I am posting this Blend too in hopes that someone can maybe take a look at both of them and figure out what it is that I am doing wrong.... this sucks...

 

[Ekmek]

its a nifskope issue so i need your nifs, not just blends.

and i think your objects are sharing multiple materials thats why your nitrishapes are coming under a ninode and not the sceneroot. so instead of copying the trishape branch and pasting it on the sceneroot copy the ninode branch (i.e. #3 ninode on your dido gametestnif) and paste that on your sceneroot.

 

[The Capo]

I understand the issue is in NifSkope, as far as the NifSwap goes, but isn't that the direct result of something I did incorrectly in Blender? I don't really get what I am doing wrong here, there should really be nothing wrong with the Cetshwayo LH because the only alterations I made to it where sculpting the head and jaw to look like hair and a beard, so to me it makes no sense that that wouldn't NifSwap. That's why I think it has something to do with my work/settings in Blender.

But here are the Nifs as requested, thanks for helping me out on this. I really thought I had these done and this happens.

 

[Ekmek]

I think it happens when you join objects that use different textures/materials. for some reason blender groups them. one way around is to join, get the bones then separate and clear the number of materials. but i really think its just nifswapping right so shouldnt be an issue. I'll look at it now.

 

[Ekmek]

ok, i just checked and i was right just do a copy branch of the ninode (it will take all the sub trishapes with it) and it will be on the skeleton right. should work fine. you were just copy and pasting "wrong"

 

[The Capo]

ok, i just checked and i was right just do a copy branch of the ninode (it will take all the sub trishapes with it) and it will be on the skeleton right. should work fine. you were just copy and pasting "wrong"

Man that's good news. So I just select the NiNode in the Nif I made, and then copy to the top line in the original nif?

Also be sure to let me know if you figure out that Sitting Bull thing. I obviously haven't had time to, and I think that will really help make leaderheads more unique.

 

[Ekmek]

Man that's good news. So I just select the NiNode in the Nif I made, and then copy to the top line in the original nif?

yeah click the dido ninode (not trishape)->copy branch then click cathy's sceneroot and pastebranch it lined up for me

Also be sure to let me know if you figure out that Sitting Bull thing. I obviously haven't had time to, and I think that will really help make leaderheads more unique

will do. still need to look at askia too.

 

[The Capo]

Well, I got home and tried it out and it didn't work. It lined up correctly in NifSkope (Dido did, Cetshwayo didn't) but the animation isn't there. I don't want to start over for the obvious reason that it would be time-consuming (it took a long time to resculpt her) but also because I am worried I did something wrong in Blender and if I started over I'd just do the same thing again, maybe my export settings were wrong or something? (there is a screen-shot of them in post #1143) I looked at it again in Blender and everything is rigged right so it isn't that, well at least I think it isn't that.

Here are two in-game shots, the first one is swapped the way Ekmek told me to do it, the second is the regular way I NifSwapped it the first time (just for comparison). In both you can see the eyes and mouth (which are from the original catherine) are properly animated (well you might not be able to tell, but they are) while the rest of the body just stays still like that.

Also the torso texture isn't showing up right, but I think I can fix that pretty easily.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Should I have "Export Geometry and Animation" clicked?

 

[Ekmek]

well it looks like you were attempting a skeleton swap so after you swapped on catherine you need to import it again into blender and check the objects for being lined up then export from blender and nifswap onto catherine (yes again). yeah it sounds like a pain but swapping skeletons can be worth it.

the black body is because you have mixed a shaded and nonshader leaderhead like mechaerick did with his sash a few posts above

but the other thing i noticed is that none of your trishapes have skininstances - no bones assigned. thas weird and will require more looking into.

 

[The Capo]

I didn't attempt a skeleton swap on either leader. I used catherine and cunhambebe as a base for both of them and kept their regular skeletons. I wanted to just make regular LHs before I started trying new things out (well new things for me). So these are pretty basic. So I guess you are telling me I have to start all over again?

But here's the problem with that. Cetshwayo should have no issues. All I did was remove Cunhambebe's decorations/accessories and then add the things on his arms, the sash, the necklace, and the hat/crown thing. I rigged those to the proper bones and then exported it. Everything else (look at the blend) is rigged as far as I can tell, so how is it that it doesn't swap right? This is why I think I must have done something wrong in Blender somehow.