Hello, If anyone has any experience with exporting from 3ds max to a nif, I really need some help. Specifically experience with armor rigging. I will outline my problem using a few pictures, so that the problem is clear.
http://img227.imageshack.us/i/bones3dsmax.jpg/: Bones in the skin modifier in 3ds max
http://img9.imageshack.us/i/bonesnifskope.jpg/: Bones in nifskope
http://img827.imageshack.us/i/exportsettings.jpg/: Export setting
http://img20.imageshack.us/i/bonespaldies.jpg/: Paldrons - The problem doesn't always happen. It only seems to happen to the armor pieces with a lot of biped nodes(over 10).
http://img232.imageshack.us/i/importsettings.jpg/: Import settings for the character skeleton.
http://img208.imageshack.us/i/dragscalearmor.jpg/: How the armor will look when I get this figured out.

So can anyone see something I'm doing wrong. I've tried downloading 3ds max 9, 2009, 2011 and installing the niftools plugin for each and trying the skin procedure in all. It always results in the same problem. However I did get the Bip01 head node to export on the piece in the images once(just once). I made the model in 3ds max 2010 32bit and used an experimental niftools plugin. As far as I can tell that isn't the problem because I get the same results in other versions of max. When I export I use "export selected" and select all the armor pieces and none of the bones.

bump. Nobody has had this problem before?

tbh I don't know what your problem is supposed to be. the image you posted of your problem is just an image from nifskope highlighting arm twist bones in some objects skin partition. ok. is that bad? what exactly is that object, are any of its verts weighted to those bones? basically is it rigged how you like and how does it deform under animation is the only question that needs an answer at this stage.

If you do not actually rig to those bones, nifskope/exporter may remove them from the objects skin partition list. seeing they are unused and its pointless to have them in the partition
If you rig a vertex blended to 4 bones or more you may have errors in some way, so I recommend ticking everything under skin in the export dialog. these only for optimizing. and will also cull any bone weight a vert is rigged to after its 4th bone, starting with the lowest bone weight. Because oblivion iirc only supports 4 bones per vert... even though I think there is a option on at default that disallows you from doing this in the skin modifier... anyway you just want those on as they only help.

also untick export hidden nodes and tick flatten hierarchy in your export dialog.

I don't know who or where you are getting that you should select everything and export selected. export the whole scene.

Thanks for the reply. I guess you of all people would be the one with an answer to my problem. Since you don't, I must have really screwed something up. First, to understand what I did and who told me what to do it, go to this http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1042345-nifskope-and-niskindata-madness/page__p__15114129__hl__niskininstance+3ds__fromsearch__1#entry15114129 and scroll to the last post. That is where I got my info on how to skin and what not. I have a feeling, given what you said, that this is a lot more complicated then what that post says. Here is what I did. I imported the _male skeleton into 3ds(my model already matched it's position). I then reset xform on all objects and then collapsed them all individually. After that I added a skin modifier to each and used the niskindata for each piece(the armor is just made up of existing armor pieces, made by bethesda, slightly modified) from nifskope to select which bones to link the mesh to in 3ds max. I then exported using various variations of export settings. all of which had similar results.
The object in the 1st and 2nd image is the main chest portion of the cuirass. It's nearly the same as the mythic dawn armor main chest piece but slightly modified. I think I saw a tut by you about rigging in 3ds, when I was searching google for a solution for my problem. I'm sure you know what tutorials you've made. Could you link me to one that would help me (maybe the one I found and lost) with rigging.

P.S. How would I go about testing it using animations? Also, what version of 3ds max do you use? I finally found a trial copy of 3ds max 7 so I could use http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/3ds_Max:_Exporting_Rigged_Models tut to try and get it export(civ4 plugin needs v7 I guess). No luck with that though it didn't work

To test with animations, import a kf into max. Some get jumpy though. If you are persistent you can get working by saving and reloading them. but most will import correctly. Or if you want you can paste your outfit into a version of the skeleton.nif and attach a kf in nifskope. Or you can export to a nif and load it in the CS and test anims there or in game. basically at any stage you could be testing the rig job.

Niftools plugin works with nearly all versions of max and gmax.
civ4 plugin works with max v6-8.

anyway you have confused me by saying " I imported the _male skeleton into 3ds(my model already matched it's position). I then reset xform on all objects and then collapsed them all individually. After that I added a skin modifier to each and used the niskindata for each piece(the armor is just made up of existing armor pieces, made by bethesda, slightly modified) from nifskope to select which bones to link the mesh to in 3ds max. "

specifically the bit where you "used" the niskindata in nifskope to select... yeah. You mean you just looked at what bones were in those lists and added the same bones seen there but in the skin modifier for your version of the mesh that is now in a max scene.... right. Now where did the actual rigging happen? You bound the mesh to bones, so technically you rigged it. But there's more to it than adding bones to a list.

oh and just incase you actually did this, your wording is not quite right. you should reset xform individually for each mesh, but now matter how many object you have done that for, you can select all of them and collapse the modifier stack in one go, just rclick>convert to editable poly.

and i just noticed you are using editable mesh. Don't. use editable poly, skin will not correctly update from changes to a editable mesh. But it was made to do so for poly.

Anyway I think you are making mountains out of mole hills. I still don't really know what your problem actually is.

as to that link, the last post in that thread. Anyone who says in step 2 to export your mesh. Then step 4 to import your mesh so it is basically exactly where it was just before you exported it. In a 10 step where 2 of those steps are exactly a waste of time, hasn't really thought it out well. Says as much for the rest of the information.

I think I need a tutorial on rigging armor in 3ds max and exporting in a nif. I'll look for one. It helps if the tutorial uses plugins compatible with max 2010. I couldn't find one, but I admit I didn't have much of any idea of what I was looking for. If you know of one please direct me to it. This is my first experience trying to get something that has modified geometry into oblivion. You correctly understood most of what I was saying in my last post. I looked at the niskindata in nifskope and used that to determine which bones I should select in 3ds. Except, when I said, "I collapsed them all individually", I meant I used the collapse tool under the utilities tab. I can't remember where I learned that. I think it was a tutorial for getting an object into oblivion. However, the tut involved a static. Back to my problem. Thanks for the help so far. My original problem was that when I exported the nif from 3ds, a couple of the bones disappeared from the niskindata. My new problem seems to be that I need to learn how to properly rig. I did nothing after adding the bones to the list in the skin modifier, except export the model.

max 2010 has nif support. So you should be cool. Any rigging tutorial explain the skin modifier will be the same from max 7 onwards maybe useful, as nothing has changed since. TBH the only tutorial I ever found interesting or helpful in terms of skin was an autodesk feature demonstration for max 8. Every single other tutorial using skin basically svcks. If I mention "skin utilities" and "skin wrap modifier" you can go do your homework and figure out how those work, because they will do things you were wishing that you could do when you were learning how to rig from scratch.

Skin utilities doesn't work with editable mesh. so make everything you copy/paste to/from editable poly. you can cut the copied mesh up and only use parts of it to copy from. you can paste weights across any different bones.

I would probably end up using skin utilities to copy skin weights from vanilla meshes to my modified mesh (this could net a very good result in part or most of it, depending on how much you have modified the mesh) or you can try skin wrap. and then patch up any goofy weighting in the skin modifier. I mainly use the weight tool or perhaps painting weights (with no falloff or blend weights, because no one actually uses it like that)

Yes, that worked(skin utilities). Thanks for the help ghogiel. I'm glad I can finally get this armor in the game. To anyone who needs help with skinning with skin utilities watch http://www.cgtutorials.com/t1773/Autodesk_3ds_max/Skin_Utility video for the basics.

Update: The intial copy and paste of the rigging from the original meshes to my modified ones appeared to work, but after testing with animations I get some very ugly deformations. At this point I'm think I'm going to give up on trying to finish this mod. The process of rigging seems bit too tedious for it to be worth doing. Especially, considering I don't even play oblivion anymore. I might just upload it to tesnexus as a modders resource. Unless you still modded Oblivion and wanted the files. I was planning on releasing it as a Dragonscale armour replacement.

Ghogiel do weapons require any complicated rigging? If so I might make some weapons for oblivion/skyrim.

nope.

weapons are (de)attached to the actor by a simple extra data node in the nif. Which have to add via nifskope. Takes 2 sec. They are basically clutter items in every other respect.

Good. I can actually make something with becoming too frustrated then. I just made a weapon model with a half done texture. I think it looks pretty good for being only my second model I ever made. http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8290/mmlls.jpg