Once again, I have to ask for help in modding.

I am in the process of creating a mod that uses custom meshes. Or maybe not-so custom, since they originate from the vanilla ones.
The problem is as follows:

The mesh itself is working as it should.
I have created _0 and _1 meshes to accommodate for player's choice of... fatness.
The meshes themselves are working as they should, but only if the character has the EXACT... fatness they are made for:
....i.e: _0 mesh shows on characters with "npcweight" 0
.... _1 mesh shows on characters with "npcweight" 100
But everything in-between is just a bunch if messed-up polygons.

The meshes were created the following way:
after all the changes to mesh were complete in 3d max, the mesh got exported to the NIF file(the dismembermentSkin modifier was deleted)
the NIF file got removed the material node and the LightningShader branch, and got a new one from a vanilla mesh.
Mesh is working in-game, but has the described problem.

That's kinda it.
Anybody knows, what step have I missed to make the in-betweeners work?

Sounds like your vertex order or count isn't being maintained between the two mesh sizes -- in order for the tweening to work properly the vertices all have to be in the same order, and the BSDismembermentSkinInstance needs to be the same as well.

I've never used the 3ds max exporter, and it's been a while since I exported two sizes of the mesh, but I remember having a problem like that orginally as well.

In order to avoid the issue, after exporting both sizes, I would open the second size in NifSkope, copy each shape's NiTriShapeData block, and then 'paste over' the similar NiTriShapeData data in the first size.

These days I use bodyslide and import obj shape keys, of course.

-Caliente

in 3DS Max, when you have finished your first weight morph collapse the Edit Poly if you are using it (but DO NOT collapse the skin modifier). then add a brand new Edit Poly modifier at the top of the stack. export this morph target with both the Skin and Edit poly in the stack (and obviously the bsdismember as well).

your stack should be in this order:


BSDismember
Edit Poly
Skin


from this point on do not collapse anything

click on your Edit Poly and use that to move the verts for your next morph target, do not edit verts at the base of the stack. once you are finished export the model with the same stack order and nothing collapsed.




having the Edit poly modifier set up this way will allow you to retain your vert order, and still go back and edit either weight morph (assuming you saved them as separate files) without messing up your vert order.

Whenever people talk about meshing, it sounds like made up Sci-Fi technobabble to me. "weight morph collapse the Edit Poly", your vertex order or count isn't being maintained

I agree, it is utterly incomprehensible to me too

I will try something completely different than what I did. I will try manually modifying the mesh to fit the other body, instead of copying the bethesda one.
But for now, I have a follow-up question:
Is it really necessary to have the Dismemberment Modifier?
What happens if you don't have it?

Tried manually modifying the mesh and it worked.
But I am still wondering if there is a downside to NOT using the dismemberment modifier.

Ran across a strange issue:

Some meshes do not change from _1 to _0 when changing weight.
In the CK, armorAddon points to the randomname_1 mesh, just like the vanilla ones.
There is randomname_0 in the same folder, as randomname_1, but it does not work with some of the items. Only some.