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

[Ekmek]

thanks Bernie I'll give it a shot a report back (may be a day or so)

 

[Ekmek]

I'm still getting this problem with the nif I export from blender -

in NIfskope, the discrepancy I notice between mine and the original is the part NiSkinInstance when I click charlemagne it takes his whole body and that trishape has these skininstance which I assume are the bones or bone links. Mine does not have these. Why am I losing this stuff? does it matter? if it does how do I get it back? Do I copy the branches in my new one then bring my new body into old charlemagne or do I have to go back to blender?

Thanks,

EDIT:
Ok I found a way to get the skin instances back. You have to (in blender) click the object button (F7) and assign the mesh to the Scene Root Parent. So I finally did that. Then exported to nif. Had a decent nif in nifskope and did Roland's tutorial of swapping the NiTriShapes. Some of the TriShapes weren't exact matches but I did my best. I then went to NifViewer/SceneViewer. Moved some stuff around but didn't go all out because I wantedto make sure I could still see it in game. The suit STILL didn't show up and the skin was just ugly -

Here are my two blender files, the nifskope file and the nifsceneviewer file. Whats going wrong here?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/20358/JD_Test3.zip

 

[bernie14]

took a very quick look, i'll be out of town for new year's but will be back 2nd or 3rd....seems there is something going on in the transfer from the custom mesh to the original in nifskope, but havent figured it out yet....

 

[dutchking]

I'll take a look at him too. I think I may know something.

EDIT: I've looked at it. O_o
I think you have a few problems:
1. The skin instances are screwed up.
2. You might've exported a skin partition on export from blender.
3. The suit is a bit weird, transparent it seems. (you didn't include any textures in the zip )

EDIT 2:
I suggest you start over again, yes I know. But this one has too many confusing problems.

 

[Ekmek]

I think you have a few problems:
1. The skin instances are screwed up.

how do you guys preserve the skin instances when you swap suits. I assigned it to sceneroot which took me awhile to figure out and its not in any of the tutorials. Is there another way to do it that I may have missed?

2. You might've exported a skin partition on export from blender.

how does one export a skin partition, just so I know not to do it.

3. The suit is a bit weird, transparent it seems. (you didn't include any textures in the zip )

Its just tgas of Charlemagne, FDR, and Churchill's DIFF.dds. But I did notice that when I exported it and looked in NifSkope it tried to assign it something like FDR_noskin (with a palette icon next to it). I then opened up FDR's nif to find what it should say and editted to say that. It appears that in Blender it lost those textures But in the screenshot you can see some of the suit (FDR's gray suit with the red tie removed, but its 'shadow' remains)

EDIT 2:
I suggest you start over again, yes I know. But this one has too many confusing problems.

grrrr. I might start with a simpler skin. But it seems like I need more tips on how to attach a suit to a body. Maybe the tutorials are missing some steps

thanks for the help

 

[dutchking]

how do you guys preserve the skin instances when you swap suits. I assigned it to sceneroot which took me awhile to figure out and its not in any of the tutorials. Is there another way to do it that I may have missed?

Well if you have to mess around with skin instances if you either rigged it correctly or didn't rig anything. For example if you want a care free a little less detailed way of doing this just follow my steps:
1. delete the body of the head you want
2. delete the head of the body you want
3. after deleting the head of the body export a boneless 3Ds (ONLY FOR THAT PURPOSE ONLY SINCE ITS BONELESS)
4. Import it to the head you made and attach it to ninode "torso". That's it really...but the only turnoff is that the arms and hands don't move but the face and body do. Its a nice effect when you don't want to spend a lot of time. For an example see my Patton LH.

I does one export a skin partition, just so I know not to do it.

Well for the future just unclick the little "export skin partition" button on export.

Its just tgas of Charlemagne, FDR, and Churchill's DIFF.dds. But I did notice that when I exported it and looked in NifSkope it tried to assign it something like FDR_noskin (with a palette icon next to it). I then opened up FDR's nif to find what it should say and editted to say that. It appears that in Blender it lost those textures But in the screenshot you can see some of the suit (FDR's gray suit with the red tie removed, but its 'shadow' remains)

mmm...I did notice that blender looses a few characters on the material properties, but the names don't really matter.

grrrr. I might start with a simpler skin. But it seems like I need more tips on how to attach a suit to a body. Maybe the tutorials are missing some steps

Following this whole discussion can be confusing, you just have to bear with us.

thanks for the help

Anytime, if you need extra help feel free to ask.

 

[Ekmek]

Well for the future just unclick the little "export skin partition" button on export.

I select export (in blender) from file drop down and then choose nif. it gives me a bunch of file names and the buttons at the bottom all organize the files. Where is the skin partition button located at?

 

[dutchking]

Its on the nif export screen. When you export a screen comes up with lots of buttons in the middle it says "export skin partition". you unclick that and export.

 

[Ekmek]

in blender? hmmm mine doesn't pop-up these are the screens i get when i try to export

 

[dutchking]

Don't you get a screen before or after that one?

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

EK, you must see that :

 

[Ekmek]

no i dont get that screen at all!!!!!!

But over the past few minutes hours I was able to make a simpler leaderhead. George III of England by removing Joao II's hat and hair and replacing it with washington's hair all in blender (and because Jaoa has a big hole in his head under the hat and washington's hair looks more to the time period). So I don't think the skin partition export was the problem.


I did learn a few things -

1) regarding skin instances I keep having a issue where the filename is the to NiNode and the child to it is the NiNode SceneRoot whereas in all the firaxis nifs the top NiNode is SceneRoot. I then noticed that in the skininstances of anything I import it has two NiNodes the SceneRoot and the Top NiNode (in this case George3). I noticed that that messes up the skin instances so like editing the trishapes I changed the NiNode to SceneRoot instead of the top one and was able to make a rather simple leaderhead. but do any of you guys have this issue? I don't see it mentioned in any tutorials?


2) The skin texture to George Washington's hair seems to get forgotten on export. In blender the UV face select still shows it, but after blender and nifskope I get in Sceneviewer George Washington's hair on Jaoa appears to have the texture of his hat! It may be because I swapped the TriShape for his hair with that of Jaoa's hat, but why did it remember that?

3) Lastly, why did my new leader head get all shiny?

 

[Ekmek]

grrr...i went back to a blend of this leader to see why it was mapping washington's hair to the hat and removes the glossiness. i can get it to run in nifskope and in the sceneviewer but when I save it in the sceneviewer it crashes the game. I'll try a few times more and if no luck I'll post the files ;(

 

[bernie14]

grrr...i went back to a blend of this leader to see why it was mapping washington's hair to the hat and removes the glossiness. i can get it to run in nifskope and in the sceneviewer but when I save it in the sceneviewer it crashes the game. I'll try a few times more and if no luck I'll post the files ;(

.... and now i'm back! (from outer space ), sorry, have not detailed your jeff davis yet, but from the looks of it, u seem to be complicating things more than they should be ....

...u seem to be doing something weird in blender, cuz i have never had to do any sort of "assign the mesh to the Scene Root Parent" (in blender )....i only use blender to import a nif, modify it, and export a nif (yes, there r quite a few steps in between, joining meshes, rigging, etc.).... i will usually use a JPG (not TGA) version of the skin that i am working on to view the texture (UV mapping stuff)....i have never seen the screen that snipper refers to above.....and the shiny face has to do with SPECULAR settings (most easily changed in nif/sceneviewer)....dutchking is working on a TUT on how to do all the correct shaders with blender, BUT, if u transfer (as per CRoland) your CUSTOM LH to an ORIGINAL LH (NOT A NON SHADER), u can work with the little "light bulb" thingies in nif/sceneviewer to change the light, as well as the SPECULAR for each mesh... i do it in nif/sceneviewer---SELECT a mesh (NiTriShape)---properties---NiProperties---NiMaterialProperty-----there u can change the shininess, diffuse color and specular color if the SPECULAR PROPERTY is ENABLED .....also, until i really know how to work with "proper" shaders (all those ENV-MASK-NRML things), i use the NON_SHADER.DDS (has much better detail) as well as play with the lights as mentioned above...

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Bernie, the screen I have shown is in version 2.45 of Blender.
It's a shame that I can't get the time to practice 3D and master the whole thing.

 

[bernie14]

Bernie, the screen I have shown is in version 2.45 of Blender.
It's a shame that I can't get the time to practice 3D and master the whole thing.

i'm still running 2.43, i dl 2.45 to my laptop at work and could not get it to work right....(didnt have alot of time), hey, as long as it still works...

 

[dutchking]

I'm running 2.45 and it works with the Nif scripts 2.2.5

 

[bernie14]

Ekmek, ok, i took a good look at your pack...there are a couple of things, both weird and wacky

the WACKY: there is some wacky thing that u are doing in blender...i took your "charlie_bodyandnewsuit12.blend" file, opened it in nifskope, assigned nonshader.dds to the meshes and got this..

the meshes seem to be in a strange NiNode (dont know if that even matters), this is trudeau's initial nif (my exported .blend file)...

the sequence from scene root to alex_parent, etc., seems to make more sense...

now for the WEIRD, as i mentioned, i dont really know if the above makes a difference, because Charlemange.nif is MESSED UP....yes, load up the ORIGINAL nif in nif/sceneviewer and u get that weird translucent/backside texture...i tried playing with different NiProperties (stencil, vertex, alpha, materials and specular), but could not make the texture appear "normal looking" u may try the charlieNONSHADER.nif....

 

[esnaz]

Great tutorial! But I have a problem, I attached Alexander's clothes (armor, shirt, sleeves) to Julius Caesar using what you did for Gandhi. Anyway, it worked great, but there are a few minor problems with it so I tried to re-import it into Blender. When I do this, a message comes up saying: Python Script Error: Check Console. I don't know what to do, can anyone help me?

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Console might be the black screen window behind the working window, no ?