Hey hey!

Yeah, yeah,I know. I allready got ... 1..2... topics on the first page. But you see, I really don't see how a question like " How does X weapon work" fits into " Retexture problem". So I thought I'd make a topic where I'll collect all my questions! Doesn't that sound awesome?! Right, I guess I'll just list my questions, tell what's up, and well .... mark it when I know the aswer!

Okay, here goes:






Retexture problem --- SOLVED

I allready got a topic for my question there, and will probably have an answer shortly! It should be at the first page called "Retexture problem". In short: this VDoorSliding01 doesn't feel like getting retextured by me .......




How does a weapon/weapon effect work? -- ABOUT SOLVED

Okay, here is what I stumbled on yesterday, after giving up debugging that bloody door: I thought " hey... since I love laz0rz weapon, perhaps I should take some time to make some? mm.... I did make OK particle effecs in Oblivion!" so yeah ... I thought out .. what is the best way to do this? My best idea was to start by understanding how it work, and Retexture some effects to my liking. Then move on to custom effects, and in the end make custom weapons.
I found my favourite weapon, the Plasma Rifle ( Plasmarifle.NIF). Before I opened the .NIF I checked the GECK version of it, to see what bullet it used and so on. It tooke a good... 5 minute to figure out this menu ..it is so diffrent than the CS. Right, What I found that looked interresting was "EnergyImpactGreenDataSet". Which sounded like Giberrish, but I went to the "ALL" node in GECK and filtered the search to EnergyImpactGreen. I found out this is the impact effect when it hits something, atleast that's what I found out when the menu popped up showing stuff like " Ground, rock, etc"

'kay. I went into my 'NIF files and found mpsEnergyImpactGreen.NIF, took a look at it, understood about nothing, but found the texture location.
Back to the GECK I found something interesting .. the "projectile" thing, which somewhy told me "hey .. this gotta be the lazor thing!". I filtered a new search and found the "PlasmaProjectile". Now here I got toally lost. I saw 2 stuff here which seem to be of use:

Effects/MuzzlerFlashes/PlasmaRifle
and
Projectiles/Plasmaprojectile01

As a starter the "Muzzler" part confuses me... but that could be because I've never heard the word before =o

After digging out the .NIFS for these, I found the texture shortly after ...

OKAY, now for my question:

How does a weapon work?
How many different files is there to make a single weapon?

And why the FLUX is there so many files in this? Here is a list of all the files I dug out:


mpsEnergyImpactGreen.NIF
Plasmaprojectile01.NIF
Plasmarifle.NIF
PlasmarifleMuzzlerFlashBLUE.NIF

All the texture to the Plasmarifle.NIF ( the model)
fxelectrictile01.dds
fxenergyimpacring.dds
fxglowysparks.dds
fxparttinyglowy.dds
fxtendrils.dds
fxtinysparks.dds


........................................

Coming from Oblivion this is a lot =o in Oblivion it was ... 1-2 texture for the model ... 1 texture for the particle effect .... 1 texture for the BilBoardNode ... yeah.


So anyone care to eleborate what half of these is used for, what I should focus on to retexture, what I am suppose to retexture and a little story how all these combined turn into a weapon? ^^ The more I know, the better!



That's all my questions for now... but trust me, I'll be back! managed to get 3 questions in 1 day. It is lovely, 'amirite?



Thanks for any help!

Cheers,


Matth

Sorry, I cannot anyswer either of your questions right now, but I just wanted to say something. Don't worry about posting alot of questions. Its not really 'spam' as long as they are actually questions you need to know. When I first started the geck a few months ago, I would post a new topic with a question every 15-30 minutes for like a week straight. Half the board was questions from me, but it helped me learn, and nobody minded as thats what this section of the forums is for. So post questions to your hearts desire and good luck modding.

Gunmaster95

'Twas hard to find the question in all that, but here goes:

Each weapon model is different. The number of meshes and textures varies with each weapon and the designer's wants. The more 'parts' to a weapon, the more models and textures. For your example:

mpsEnergyImpactGreen.NIF
Plasmaprojectile01.NIF
Plasmarifle.NIF
PlasmarifleMuzzlerFlashBLUE.NIF

All the texture to the Plasmarifle.NIF ( the model)
fxelectrictile01.dds
fxenergyimpacring.dds
fxglowysparks.dds
fxparttinyglowy.dds
fxtendrils.dds
fxtinysparks.dds

These are not all weapon models. Some are for the weapon, others for the projectile and impact visuals, still others for particle effects the wepon makes - like muzzle flash.

If all you want to do is retex a weapon, then just look at the weapon nif. If you want to retex the projectile it shoots, look at the projectile nif. If you want to retex the muzzle flash, then look at its nif, the same goes for impact visuals. If you want to retex everything, then you'll have to look at all of it. But you can still do each one-at-a-time.

Yeah, I can't make it easy for 'ya!
Well, all the files I pulled out was stuff I found by going through every piece of the PlasmaRifle. You see, I want to retexture the laser, not the gun. Because, well, it is just too much to start making custom effects before I know how it works. But I got no clue how it all works =o From oblivion you had the whole effect in 1 .NIF, here you got 4-5 .nifs just to form a weapon. I basically want to know which file to open, what to alter, and why to do it exactly like that. I could go into the .nifs and start changing every single visble texture .. but I somehow believe that will make me just as clueless. I also could change 1 and 1 texture to see the different, but here I assume I will get half a million errors I got no clue of, since I do not know how it works.

ugh .... I know how to cloud a question =o let's start with this:

How many different .nif is it from Point A - Point B? Let's say I take this Plasma Rifle and shoot you.
Here I would assume you would have:

1) The model of the laser itself with particle effects around it
2) The impact effect.


So in my head I can think of 2.nifs, approximately 3 textures, for the laser. However, I got 6 textures here. Some of them used more than once too.
Let's say overall the textures has been used .. 12 times. so 4 times the work I can think off ... HERE I need help. To understand that mess =o

Oh, and most of the /textures/Effects/FX*name* textures is all white, but got a weird alpha. I mean, I can't for the love of god understand how that alpha can turn into something...... awesome?

I would love to just sit on the GECK wiki for houres figuring this out, but it looks quite limited. I know the CS wiki had limited knowledge of NifSkope, so naturally the GECK wiki got less ... but someone gotta know something of use?


Cheers,

Matth

As an example, I re-textured the flame effect to add blue flames along with the reddish - yellow ones. That effect had several models/textures. I ended up having to retex four individual textures for a single model. They used four to get a better flame animation. There were also smoke effects that I left alone; all for one nif.

For a weaopon, its more like this:

1) The weapon
2) The muzzle flash
3A) The projectile (like the red laser beam)
3B) The projectiles particle effects (sparks and whatnot)
4) The impact effects

If all you want to start is to retex the laser beam, then just look at the textures listed in the laser beam projectile's nif, which is called "BeamLaserProjectile". That is used by both the laser pistol and laser rifle.

hm..... Right, okay. I just started at the "PlasmaProjectile01" which was the one linked to the Plasma Rifle. It is basically a greenish orb, with green thunder around it, having a path of .. green.. stuff. I found out this nif consist of 2 part: the orb itself, and the energy surounding it. I took a look to see what texture it had.


FXParttinyGlowy.dd
FXElectricTile01.dd


Okay. What else I noticed is that both of these textures are bound to a BIlBoardNode. That means they turn to the camera at all times, right?
The other thing is.... the texture is WHITE with an alpha?? o.O shouldn't the texture.. have a color? .....


Ugh, confusing stuff

Cheers,

Matth

Okay, for the PlasmaProjectile01.Nif, the colors are part of the NiMaterialsProperty(s), under Emmisive Color. Changing the color of the beam would just be a matter of changing the emmisive values and saveing a new nif, then pointing the projectile's model to the new nif. That would change all of the plasma rifle projectiles in the game as well as how the Mr. Gutsy's weapon looks when fired.

hm... so basically the texture is simply the alpha, and the color is from Nifskope itself?
What use is it to retexture then?

hm.... so what is the overall best way to make a particle texture?

1) the normal way with a colo and alpha
2) this way: White color map and an alpha


ugh, this is confusing >.>

... hai

It depends on what your are re-texturing I guess. Some meshes get their color straight from the NIF file - particle effects seem to fall in this category - though I can't say this holds true for every particle mesh. Others get their color from the texture files (.dds).

To answer your question directly, I just don't know as I am no expert in the field. When I do a retex, I look at what there is and make changes that I can to what I can to get a new result. Its not like I have an exact look I want and try to make it, its more like I play with what is available and decide whether to use it or loose it.