Is there anything that describes the details of building new apparel (clothing and armor) for Morrowind using the Better Bodies scheme? I.e. something that details the steps required in Blender and/or NifSkope to name the parts correctly, ensure that the armature is compatible, and how to use the CS to define the new piece.

I understand the principles: you're defining what gets removed from the figure, what gets added, and what other equipped item gets replaced, but the interactions of those aren't explained well in one place.

I frequently find that I take an existing piece into blender, edit a little, and then have the item behave as if the skeleton it's connected to isn't the same one the character is using. E.g. the clothing is at 90 degrees to the body, or raised up, but also following bones of its own aligned in that direction. Nifskope isn't showing any obvious additional rotations or displacements, when compared to the unedited copy. It's as if the game suddenly decided to align the root node of the clothing to the pelvis of the character, instead of its own root (for example). Somewhere i'm missing a step, or doing an extra one I shouldn't, and I can't find out what it is.

I found a few places where the use of the "Left" body slots is discussed. Did the community reach a consensus on what they get used for?

I do know one thing, that Arcimaestro Antares taught me, is hitting the "Use the Force Luke" button in the nif import menu will make sure the bones are imported correctly into Blender. It otherwise seems to mess it up, exactly in the way you described, when there are more bones than the regular import settings can handle. I had this happen when trying to edit gloves, and hitting that button fixed everything.


Oh, and thanks for mentioning how better bodies uses both right feet in the other thread. Now I know why the left ankle diappears with some BB clothes in the CS, when BB isn't loaded. Does Robert's Bodies work in a similar way?

Yes, I think Roberts uses the same setup as BB. However, I noticed that the Roberts meshes have tail bones in their skeletons, so don't count on everything being identical.

I'm starting to collect notes, and may end up producing the guide myself, if I ever decide I understand it all. But right now I feel that I'm inventing a lot of wheels that I shouldn't have to.