I've wanted to do this many times before but never figured out how. I want to give the impression of a "new" object by overlapping two objects in the GECK - like a pipe with a control panel on it, for example. In the past I've just selected each mesh seperately, moving them together to position them or do whatever I wanted to do, but in this case I want it to be a Misc object the player can pick up. I could just write a script to disable all the parts at the same time, to make it look like the whole thing as one object disappeared (into the PC's inventory) but I'd rather have it all as one mesh if possible. And besides being picky about this, I'd just like to know how in general, if it can be done.

So any pointers would be lovely. I've tried adding custom meshes to existing ones in 3D Max but things stopped working pretty fast, what with trying to make collision geometery and... it just turned into a mess. That's why I'm hoping it will be easier to use existing meshes - with existing collision geometery, etc. - and just combine them.

There's an tutorial in one of the Stickies. You'll need Echo's NifSkope Tutorial. Happy editing

I'm not seeing a Nifskope tutorial... I found a Blender tutorial... is that what you're talking about?

I know it can be done in Blender, but that program is beyond my understanding. If it can be done in Nifskope then I'm all ears lol

Yeah, I'm not finding anything yet.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf_Qt_lfMxM

[EDIT:] Nevermind. XD

Right click on the part, and choose transform>Edit

Yeah, I couldn't find that anywhere, and then I posted that... and then I found it. XD

So far it's working, thanks a lot!

And... now it's not. I had 3 objects combined in nifscope - all overlapping and looking fine - but in the GECK when I load the nif it only loads the one original object and not the others I added to the nif file.

Now what. :confused:

I can answer this

When you paste them, you must attach them to node 0. The most upper one in the list. You can just copy and paste every block to that node

Oh I did that, but I just solved the problem. I renamed the file first (the original object) then started adding on other objects to the nif. The GECK was (somehow) loading the original nif only, from when I changed the name first, so I just renamed the nif again (once all the pieces were in place) and it worked fine.

Eh, more problems. The maps didn't all apply properly. There's supposed to be a glow map on the control panel for the lights, but that's not there... and the pipe is supposed to have that thing on the ends that make it fade to black, so it looks like a shadow around it when it's against the wall, but instead it's just a solid square of metal-texture, which looks all wrong... I thought of using a texture set, but that would affect the entire nif now, wouldn't it? Not just the part I care about?

Wait a minute... in that video it said to, after making a copy of the NiTriStrips branch, copy the NiTriStripsData block ONLY, and I know that works for the model as it changes the mesh, but wouldn't it be easier to copy the whole NiTriStrips branch to carry over all the texture and extra data in one shot? Or does that somehow affect it? Because that was my problem, the pipe had an extra Alpha block that made the shadow effect, but the Alpha block wasn't carried over to my new nif file because I only copied the mesh (NiTriStripsData) and not the whole object branch.

I'm running my own thread here...

So as far as I can tell from the data under NiTriStrips, the only thing lost by copying the whole branch as opposed to the mesh only (NiTriStripsData) is the transform values, rotation and scale, which will be reset to whatever they were in the source nif, even though it's usually 0 for everything anyways.

At best, I just copied and pasted over each section individually, to keep the transform data but get all the other blocks I needed.

Also, still no luck with the control panel. The glow effect isn't showing. In the original, the file is "[xxxx]_g.dss" under the third texture slot, so that's where I put it in my new one but nothing - that's supposed to be the "Environment" texture but I don't know what it's for... I tried moving it to the actual "glow" texture slot, but now the whole control panel glows, not just the lights... *confused* :confused:

The lights are seperate branches.

Oh that's what that branch is. I can't tell because... well that's something else I never figured out - I can't see textures in Nifskope. All mashes show up as white (or whatever mesh base colour modifiers are applied) when I open them, so it's hard to see what is highlighted. I thought that second branch was just the shadowy-fade effect around the outside edge, like the pipe.

Click View at the top bar, select settings, and click the nearly sqaure big button.

Umm... what?
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m315/Kaileo/Fallout%203/Nifskopemenu.jpg

Found it! It was Render > Settings > Auto Detect Game Paths

Still no dice. I copied the second NiTriStrips branch, which did add that alpha shadow effect around the outside edge of the panel, but still no lights, and somehow the whole panel is still glowing. o_O

Thanks to this thread, I was able to change a mesh to be much more to my liking! I've just opened up a new world of mesh editing for myself

Well, that is, you guys opened it for me, I just paid attention long enough to step through

I ran into a small issue wherein the left arm would sometimes get stuck and not bend at the elbow (making it hard to use the pip-boy). I think it was because when I pasted the branches, it gave them a name relating to the left arm. I've gone in and changed the name of the branch in each nif I edited, but I wanted to be sure that this was the likely cause or if there's something else going on. I edited 2 meshes, one to replace the default underpants with a pair of shorts, the other to replace that same default underpants with a skirt. They look great ingame, no visible clipping at all. The first one became the effective body mesh, the second an armor item.

On a side note, how would I go about retexturing the t-shirt and shorts on the body mesh? I can't seem to find where the texture is defined in the nif, and there doesn't seem to be a way to define an alternate texture for a body mesh.

EDIT: I found where the texture is defined. It's buried really deep!

Glad it's working out for ya (mostly) Kristoffer. I was hoping you'd get something out of this two after I saw your first post.

Right now I'm wondering, is there a way to show the glow map in Nifskope too? Because I can see textures now, which helps a ton, but I still have to save the nif and reload the GECK each attempt to see if the glow effect worked. That's a long and painful process to perform after each small change I make. I just want to see the buttons glow.....

CRAP.

The collision geometry does NOT carry over when new meshes are added. That means only the original .nif used will have an actual mass in-game.

I started with a small box and added the loooong pipe onto that, I just got the glow map to work finally so it all looks good, then I had a thought. I turned on the Havok sim and sure enough, the pipe length just fell through the ground and the box in the middle thumped against the ground as though there were no pipe at all, just the original box.

Solution 1: I'm going to restart, which isn't too bad since I know how to do it this time, but starting with the LARGEST nif (the pipe) so that it's own collision geometery covers the additional parts.

Solution 2: Does anyone know how to make the collision geometery carry over as well? And line it up? Because if anyone ever makes something with two or more major parts, with solution 1, only the original will have an in-game mass and... well, you know.