nif files with armors and clothes have no bones
bones are in meshes\characters\_male\skeleton.nif and skeletonbeast.nif files

but 3dsMax costs money and a lot (over $400)

I'd like to model but I can't spend that much money on software...

Use Blender instead of 3DSMax, it's excellent and best of all free!

http://www.blender.org/

Thanks I'll try using that!

It's hard to imagine that I've been away from this thread for a year. I'm back again, with more modeling and animating experience behind me. Now I'm ready to get my foot in the door with my own Oblivion mods!

This is a general notice to the modding community that I will check the this thread more often to maintain the helpful links and faqs at the beginning of this topic as well ask a few more questions regarding asset creation for Oblivion.

Thanks everyone. It's good to be back!

Update: June 3, 2010 - Added a Textures section to the Helpful Links.

------------------------------

Hello again!

I'm due to texture an object that going into the engine soon and decided I'd post the few links that I found that helped explain to me how to save out .dds files for use in Oblivion.

One piece of information that I didn't find is how to edit the Alpha channel in the Normal Map file so that it holds your specular map.

I would be grateful if anyone can correctly answer this.

Thanks!

Each of the popular paint programs create transparent textures in a different way. Hopefully, those using Paint.Net, the GIMP, or PhotoShop can provide links to tutorials on creating transparent or partially transparent textures using these programs. There is also a way of creating transparent textures that works with almost any paint program and the free program DXTBmp. You can find a tutorial on this method at the TES Alliance: http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/2637-creating-transparent-textures-an-alternate-approach/.

general tip- http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=198



this is wrong. kinda.

Actually by default, 1 max unit = 1 inch.

check for yourself. customise>units setup...>system unit scale

the actual scale representation of those units doesn't mean squat after you get into a nif/ game world, because those units(which are actually inches in max) don't correlate to our perception of how inches work in real life... ie an advlt male would be a giant if he was 120+ inches tall.

so perhaps its wise just to forget inches completely and never mind I said anything.

Hey Vince, your link is good but the link for the document is broken I believe. Do you know if that document can be found anywhere else.



Ha, ha. I know what you mean Ghogiel. If you look at one of my early posts I ask about the units setup. The default settings are 1 general unit = to 1 inch. However, you can also change the measuring system from 1 generic unit to 1 inch as well. It's just a whole lot of redundancy.

Head down 6th Street, then go left at Sixth Street, then right onto 6th Ave...

It not only doesn't match scale, it doesn't match shape either. You'll find that almost all houses in TES IV are different inside from outside. The windows are in the wrong places, there are rooms that would project through the walls, or unused spaces. Don't worry, this place allows magic to happen.

prestige, I just checked the link. Clicking on "Making Transparent Textures.doc" allows you to save the file or open it in Word. You might want to try it again.

EDIT: You do have to be signed in to view the document.

Allannaa, the reason the exterior and interiors don't match is because all of the vanilla Oblivion houses and the vast majority of houses in mods exist in two cells. The exterior exists in an exterior cell and when you click on the door, you are warped to the interior in an interior cell. This eases the burden on the graphics processor which doesn't have to handle both the exterior and interior simultaneously. It also avoids a variety of complications like raining inside the house. There are a handful of "exterior" houses, like my Abandoned Mountain Shack, but they are the exception rather than the rule. I can't speak to the batty part.