So yeah, I decided to take a crack at some 3D modeling. I've done a lil bit of work in 3dsmax a long time ago, but I'd never used blender before so I took some time, watched a lot of vids and read some tuts.

So my first project was to mod the infamous gas mask and remove the helmet from it. I know there's another like it, but this was more for the experience than anything. i also did a custom UV Map to learn that. And added a basic texture to it, but no normal map until it's finished.

Anyways, all is well as far as blender goes.. but then the fun part begins, getting it into the dern geck. I read everything I could find on clothing and static mods, but couldn't find much help specifically for helmets/hats. I heard they are easier because you don't need to rig them like other armors. Is this true? Also I was constantly running across inconsistencies about settings to use when exporting the nif. Some say 'make sure you click this..' others saying 'make sure you DON'T click..' for the same thing. Argh this is tiresome. :banghead:

So I have tried every combination of ways to export the dang thing and transferred the NiTriShape data to the vanilla nif. Updated the arrays and all the other stuff I could find a reference about. Compared it to the vanilla file and all seemed correct. When I load it in GECK it's all spiky and messed up. Only thing I could find about this happening is saying make sure it's rigged to the skeleton properly.. but I thought helmets didn't need the skeleton... Is this a problem related to nifskope, exporting from blender, or both?

Well, here's some screens:

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/772/hathoodgasmaskblender.jpg

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1816/hathoodgasmasknifskope.jpg

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/4474/hathoodgasmaskgeck.jpg :facepalm:

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/978/hathoodmaskblender.jpg :ninja:

Seems like this is probably some obvious problem, so I was hoping someone could slap the noob outa me and tell me what I did wrong. Any takers?

looks like it wasnt rigged properly.

So it IS supposed to be rigged then? Would you rig it like any other armor peice? Import skeleton with helmet as parent, then export the skeleton as cloth?

Skeletons don't rig meshes automatically, the verts need to be bound to the bones so they move properly. You should look into how to rig.

I think I understand how to rig. I was just confused because sources said no rigging was needed for a modded hat/helmet. Oh well, thanks for the help. I'll give it a try again then.

Edit: Got it rigged and it shows up in geck now, but of course.. http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/6651/hathoodgasmaskgeckmissi.jpg

One of the triangles/faces is missing from the mesh. It is on a seperate NiTriShape. If I leave them both, the texture won't show up in nifskope and the mesh won't show up in geck. If I remove the NiTriShape with the lone face, it shows up in geck. The rigging is working fine in blender and the runaway face is attached at the verts. It wasn't changed in any way as far as I could tell, so I'm not really sure why it is doing that. Any thoughts?

The face normal is probably pointing inwards (you can see the face normals in Edit Mode in Blender). Just select that face in Blenedr and press Ctl+N to flip the normal of that face.

Also, if you want that face to be part of the same NiTriShape, just make sure it is part of the same object in Blenedr and has the same material assigned as the rest of the faces.

Hope this helps

Thought I'd go ahead and reply about the last issue. It wasn't the normals, they appear correct in blender. It is all part of only one object all with the same material. I checked each vertex as well and they are all connected. Couldn't figure it out, but that mask was rather ugly anyway so I just scrapped it. I was, however, successful at getting the other version with just the hood and mask to show up fine in-game complete with the skin and no clipping issues so I'm happy. As far as the original reason for the topic it was definitely a rigging issue and me being silly and not just following the tutorials. Thanks for all the help.