Hey guys, i have read a lot of threads, and tutorials on the subject, but none of them ever seem to get right to the point of explaining how to get gauntlet armor working right. especially when you are trying to add gauntlets to one of the sets that has none.
so, to explain what im facing, i have already released a mod that replaces dwemer armor with a complete new model, that actually works in game, but the one thing i wanted to do before release was to give it gauntlets. my reasoning is i thought it was silly to have a heavy armor set without them, and it would just look much better aesthetically, so i set about trying a few things. first i tried making just a set of gloves, but even after trying to trick the CS (with help from a friend because i cant get mine working in linux) the gloves cant be worn simultaneously with the bracers, so no thanks to that i had an 80s dwemer armor set. not realy my style but oh well. next i decided to try just adding bracers to those gloves and almost had it working except the hands were invisible for 3rd person, and in first the right hand was invisible, so that was out.
so i finally decided to examine the nifs in the BSA, and found that all sets with gauntlets have one thing in common. they have a skinned file and a hands.1st file. easy right? so i decided to look for a donor. and i was in luck! the chitin fits the bill, i could keep the gloves (already had my textures for those from the gloves i tried before), and just replace the rest, and then thing would be ok. well no dice. the nif node structure is all out of whack and this causes them to be invisible in the game again. or in the CS.
so i set my mind to redoing that, and i successfully got it to the point in blender where i have the model the way i want it. now i saved it at that point, and followed some instructions i found that said to delete all the leftover donor stuff besides the mesh of the armor i want to keep, and reimport the skeleton only, and parent it to the mesh, so it is the parent of the mesh. simple enough right? well, it didnt parent correctly. even after weight painting, the thing does not move anything, and the outline (blender equivalent to the nodes tree) has the same screwed up heirarchy as it would if i exported it to nif. so i now have two stages saved. one before the reimport of the skeleton (just the assembled pieces) and one after the reimport of the skeleton.
so before i go further, i would like to know how to properly parent child this thing so it will work.
so i have to do them individually to each bone? what should the cuirass be childed to? what about the greaves groin area? is it ok to have a cuirass with three parts childed to the same bone? or does it have to be separated into the three parts? can i parent/child from the outline?
it is clear to me that unless i solve this in blender first that i wont successfully export it as a working nif. and trying to fix it in nifskope is a nightmare, so i want to fix it before the export.
i have approaced many people about this and i need some very specific answers, and not just a forum link or a tutorial link. most of the tutorials leave important details out or rush past things, or they assume the reader knows already (big mistake). i understand nif theory, and i know the heriarchy has to be right because i had a similar issue with the cuirass but was able to correct it in nifskope, however im new to blender and its functions, so i need to know the steps to get this right. my goal is to succesfully get these gauntlets in game with an esp and show up as an alternative to just the bracers, not to exactly replace them outright, but to be a choice. so they would be a new item in addition to the armor that replaces the vanilla parts. of course the player can only wear one or the other, but i think it would be cool to have the choice, hands covered or hands bare.
i really do not want to add to the confusion by using a better bodies skeleton, and i know about the naming convention, that is already fixed, so my imported parts are named according to the example from the donor.
i really just want to know what to do next so morrowind recognizes the outline (node tree) correctly so the gauntlets show up in game, and nothing else is invisible or i dont ruin the set by trying to add this as an optional piece.
http://i.share.pho.to/5e6a5e7c_o.png