HOW TO[with blender]: do a simple rig/assign vertecies with bones

[GarretSidzaka]

nice tutorial bernie!! this one is getting bookmarked and added to my TUT files!! im gonna have to go over this one later with a fine tooth comb and make a rigged leaderhead!! now just to come up with ideas..............

 

[bernie14]

nice tutorial bernie!! this one is getting bookmarked and added to my TUT files!! im gonna have to go over this one later with a fine tooth comb and make a rigged leaderhead!! now just to come up with ideas..............

thanks, i'll keep my eyes out for comments/questions...btw, excellent job on Dublya!

 

[GarretSidzaka]

oh thanks. that was ALL texture baby!!

 

[bernie14]

oh thanks. that was ALL texture baby!!

NAH...I can tell u did some fine work on the mesh, to get the face shape and hair....

 

[GarretSidzaka]

NAH...I can tell u did some fine work on the mesh, to get the face shape and hair....

you got me
but the thing that knocked it outta the ballpark was the skin graft texture.

 

[dutchking]

Ja, the texture's face is a mirror image of bush! Its a creative one GARRET!

 

[dutchking]

OK,
Rigging idea, since CU is down atm I'll just post it here.

I think you can rig an entire body just by copying and replacing the skin instance in nifskope. No Blender involved.

I'll go into detail later.

 

[Ekmek]

OK,
Rigging idea, since CU is down atm I'll just post it here.

I think you can rig an entire body just by copying and replacing the skin instance in nifskope. No Blender involved.

I'll go into detail later.

that will make it easier for a noob like me. but I still have to do your unglue for swapping heads right?

 

[GarretSidzaka]

mmmmm detail.......

 

[dutchking]

ERmm...
Ok, once it worked, now its insane. I haven't had enough time to test it out. I'll come back w/ more info.

 

[Ekmek]

dutchkin I just followed your tutorial located here:

http://forums.civunited.net/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1142

as I was getting the hang of it I learned two things:

1) that when I take a body part off I'll export it as a *.3ds and upload it to your body parts forum...so here comes charlegmane's clothes
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=248061

2) I'm never requesting another leaderhead..its a lot of fricking work. Assuming that how you separate stuffis how you hack off heads..its alot

 

[dutchking]

^lol.
Ok, well Ekmek, for hats and stuff you should export 3Ds, but for everything else (it depends) feel free to export a Nif. (when you export a 3Ds its just a poly, like arms on a body won't move anymore)
We'll get that thread going soon.

 

[Ekmek]

yeah i ran into that problem just now. I exported charlie's head and bones to 3ds and nifskope wouldnt open them

I had to go back to blender on that and i did export it as a nif. it opens fine in blender but nifskope won't open it. whats the problem?

should I be exported suits (with no bones) as 3ds. will grafting them in nikskope%niviewer work or do they have to be rigged in blender?

 

[dutchking]

OK, ekmek, you're confusing me.
You can import 3Ds but I only use them for hats because they don't move at all. Or when I'm doin the head-body mix up I make the body a 3Ds...
*confused**

 

[bernie14]

yeah i ran into that problem just now. I exported charlie's head and bones to 3ds and nifskope wouldnt open them

I had to go back to blender on that and i did export it as a nif. it opens fine in blender but nifskope won't open it. whats the problem?

should I be exported suits (with no bones) as 3ds. will grafting them in nikskope%niviewer work or do they have to be rigged in blender?

the ONLY thing i have learned to do with nifskope is import a LH into a game as per CROLAND's TUT, i mainly use it to get a good "picture" of my units and LHs as i texture them....i CONSIDERED "boning" a leaderhead in nifviewer to give it another's animations, but there are TOO MANY NODES, never really tried it.... if u want to rig one body to another head/hands, try my suggestions above, export a "suit.nif" object, don't mess with head and hands, rig the torso, neck, shoulders, arms...(i think u can have some overlapping assignments, for example, some neck and some torso vertecies may be assigned to both bones, or some clavicle and shoulder....., so u don't have to be 100% precise on assignments, just make sure all the "suit" vertecies are assigned pretty much to the same bones as to the original LH suit...) see above in more detail.... i followed the above steps, saved as blender file and then went back and reworked the mesh (in blender) and the texture (i use PSP10) to make jose marti of the cuban civ

 

[GarretSidzaka]

uh huhuh uh huhuhuh

you said you considered boning a leaderhead
uh huhuh huhuhuhuh

 

[Ekmek]

one thing i noticed is that I'm using blender 2.43. that shouldn't be a source of problems right?

My main problem was that when I saved it as a nif in blender and then tried to load the nif in nifskope I got an error. Whats wrong with my blender nif?


other questions:

5) i rescaled the suit to fit gandhi.

How do I rescale?

6) i went back to the gandhi mesh and in edit mode, deleted the torso and arms, left the head and hands. (i did this using faces again, NOT the vertecies associated with bones, cuz i would lose faces that i did not want to lose).

Is it done through edit mode or faces modes (going to faces then edit->edges->mark seam then separate then object mode, then delete)

11) to get it in game, follow CRoland's excellent tut, except for one little thing....since you have TWO meshes, u follow the TUT to a TEE for the first mesh, but then, the other mesh gets COPIED to the parent NiNode!

Is this part where nifskope is needed?

or for dutchking's method:

1. delete churchill's body and just replaced the original LH like what you do with C.Rolands "how to modify import/export LH" tutorial.
2. Delete De Gaulle's head, export 3DS so that its boneless.
3. Import the 3DS into the Head.nif in nifskope, scale it up by 10, fix the textures, etc.
4. Attach the body to ninode "torso"

when import my 3ds back into blender it does not show up. But if import from nifskope it does. Am I miss understanding something?

 

[dutchking]

Ya, you don't import anything back into blender...I dunno where you got that from.

 

[bernie14]

@Ekmek...I also use blender 2.43 so i dont think that is a problem...

to answer some questions....

#5 rescale: essentially, (in edit mode) that is picking the vertecies (or faces) u want to change size and moving them....in this specific example, what i did was place the suit "object/mesh" over gandhi's body (fdr's suit would be way to big for gandhi). i did NOT "join the meshes", i entered edit mode, select ALL (A key), then hit the S key (scale), pull and push on the mouse and u can see that the suit gets bigger and smaller. center your view in all three axis, right in the center of his chest....with the mesh ALL selected, move it around in front and side views (1 and 3 NUM keys), until the suit is centered on the body and "scale" (S-key) it....go to object view to see how it fits (u have to have a texture file assigned to the mesh, if u don't know how, let me know).....now, with the suit "almost" to the same size as the body, u have to make sure that the sleeves are also where they are supposed to be (this will happen with some LH and not with others, because of the size, some sleeves will end up right on the hands and in other cases, u will have to go back to edit node, pick the vertecies around the sleeves/arms and drag them around the wrists)

#6: "faces" sorry for the misuderstanding...it is EDIT MODE....when in edit mode, u can select to "see" either edges, faces or points (vertecies). in edit mode, i chose to "see" the mesh with "faces" (that is when u see the trianges and a DOT in the middle) it is easier for me to delete faces by selecting the DOT that correspondes to the face, once i "light up" the areas i want to delete, its just hitting the delete key and selecting (delete) faces.

#11: with my method, yes, this is the only place u need nifskope, in order to get the mesh on the right bones (FOLLOW CROLANDS TUT).....

 

[Ekmek]

#11: with my method, yes, this is the only place u need nifskope, in order to get the mesh on the right bones (FOLLOW CROLANDS TUT).....

Thanks guys. Before I get back at again. If I strip charlemagne down to bones, head (with hair) and hands and I have lincoln's suit do I need to join them in blender or would importing a 3ds of the suit in nifskope work for attaching the body.

Also I post the error get when I export the selected object in blender as a nif. I won't load in nifskope.