It's pretty much impossible for one person to know everything and really difficult to cover everything there is to know. I don't know it all but have been asked by many for some time now to write a tutorial. Most recently Arcimaestro Anteres has politely asked me about it, which inspired me to finally give it a go. Keep in mind I have RL breathing down my throat with a job, wife, and baby, etc. so I will release it in parts as I get around to it.

My aim is to help complete noobs to modeling understand Morrowind meshes and how to edit them using nifskope. I hope to explain things in a way that someone who can use the CS should be able to understand nifskope.

I also hope to eventually add parts on creature editing, animating nodes, animated textures, and editing particle properties and more.

Input, suggestions, corrections, and even help is always welcome.

EDIT: new guide format with all in one archive.

I made some corrections and additions, new link:

http://treyleavens.webs.com/NifskopeGuide.rar

Old links have been deleted.

Still have many holes to fill in i get there when i get there

This is great mate!!! :drool:

I'm working a lot with nifskope, copy paste, changing textures and so on. But what I still can't figure out is how to rebuild the right tree-structure of a sample nif.

So I'd be mostly interested in the handling of this program, linking nodes, parenting...

I've tried to build a nif with a sequenced texture, as you described on the old forum archives, but I still can't get the tree structure right, so I hope you can do that as an example more detailed.


Greets, TheDaywalker!!! :rock:

Awesome! Thank you so much for this! I will take all the tutorials I can get!

Yay this will be so much appreciated - I did download some video tutorials once but they were for Oblivion and didn't really help that much - thanks for doing this

these are wonderful news!!!!! :woot:

I remember you have explained me how to make an invisible creature (which is frequently asked) and how to make a double faced textured mesh.

Your tutorials should appear in the list of this thread

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=24

Thank you Trey,

Back in the day when i was a newbie it was you who showed me the basics of Nifskope, Demon Xen then came along and showed me how to manipulate meshes in nifskope. Still to this very day i am learning something new about it.

:goodjob: Thanks again for this. *bookmarked*


=MA=

Cool idea, this will come in handy!

I can assist here (naturally).
Irrational Games released two exporters for Freedom Force, one for 3DSMax 3.1 and one for 3DSMax 4 which also supports 3DSMax 5.x.
They also released copious documentation on how to use them and the Nif format as you produce it in Max in general.
All this is still available on their website.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone! :icecream:

And thank you Symon69 for the information on the freedom force plugins.

Arcimaestro Anteres when I get them more refined they'll be uploaded to a proper site or two and we'll get someone to add them to that list. But I think I could add this topic to Larissa Mems thread, bumping it up so it don't get lost.

Now I just did part 2, I'm half a sleep and delusional so I hope its good. So far these are just rough drafts. I'm using MS office and saving as filtered web pages, for several reasons, it's already installed, it's easy to use, and the htm format saves space and anyone can view it.

And the link to part 2 on TriShape Branches
/Nifskope_Tutorial_Part2.rar
:foodndrink:
part 3 will be on TriShape Data
part 4 will be on Texturing

I don't know what will be after that, sure is a lot of ground to cover.

Yay! I actually did not know there was going to be more parts to this! This is awesome, I am so glad that you are imparting this knowledge on us Trey!

Thanks a bunch and great work :goodjob:

thank you soooo much for sharing this information with us. ill continue to download as long as you continue to share your knowledge . much appreciated.

the second lesson!

:celebration:



I am interested (among hte other things) in how the dremora, ancestral ghost, bonelord disappear and leave dust/bones/ectoplasm in place of them when they die. If I remember correctly, you have already explained it. but I wasn't able to do it with other creatures :shrug:

This is a very requested tutorial, thank you so much!

Some suggestions:

1. Could you structure it somehow ? e.g. based on a task (e.g. combining not-skinned MW meshes in NifScope) or basic NifScope operations and how the can be used for MW modding (e.g. working with arrays, copy/paste branches).

2. There are more flags for AlphaProperty. I think we have to collect information about their usefulness.

3. It would be great to find better place for these tutorials: they will be "lost" soon here.


Few remarks: MW Bonding Box node is not only collision node as RootCollisionNode branch but also a sort of a reference/scene pivot in all boned animated nifs (it is also present in PC/NPC animation files and cannot be deleted ? animations will be corrupted).

"Effects" value of a NiNode specifies whether this node has environment/reflection maps or not and what they are.

To my knowledge with official exporter Max5.1 (default configuration) supports all (bone animations, particles, etc.) except morpher animations. It is definitely more robust and therefore preferable for work with projects that do not require morpher modifier.
Official Max exporter has a very serious limitation: it does not support skin modifier only outdated not-stable physique. NifTools plugin supports skin modifier.

I'd suggest the NifTools Wiki, which already has a Morrowind section. My Freedom Force tutorials have survived very well there in the FF section.

Part 3 is now available! :grad:

/Nifskope_Tutorial_Part3.rar


I vaguely explained it, I'll definatley be sure to do something there



I'll try to find some kind of structure, It took me the first 3 parts to try explain a simple coin, For the complete noob to 3D modeling some basics need to be explained that I usually take for granted. As it evolves more specific and useful examples will surely manifest.Yes I agree, alpha settings are elusive. I'm no expert here. Don't worry I'll find a home for them
Ah ha, thanks-a-bunch, more info to assimilate
Yes I have max5 myself and am able to export everything I've tried. I haven't tried morph but it's been well documented to crash the exporter so it's probably true. The physique modifier is part of Character Studio, I used max5 for about a year before I tried the physique modifier, when I finally did I had to enter the authorization key for Character Studio. I wondered what that number was for



Yeah, I did most of the Morrowind section there, I haven't updated or revised it in some time

Keep on shelling these out, I have friends in need :goodjob: . This will make a great book to have on the shelf, many thanks!

http://treyleavens.webs.com/NifskopeGuide.rar

I made some corrections and additions, and its now all in one archive. It has a main page with links to each part, and an appendix including a snapshot of the niftools wiki page, with a link to the real wiki page.

While still a work in progress I thought i'd share it as/is so it may help or be helped

:foodndrink:

Awesome!

Downloading :foodndrink:

Awesome! This is just so much to take in! Thank you so much for this amazing contribution to the community. I will treasure it always :wub:

-Melchior

downloaded

Thank you lots for this! I've just recently started playing around with NIFSkope a bit, so this will be very useful for me.

I am trying to make new models for the unique ghosts that are in Morrowind, like the one you have to defeat in the main quest to get the bow, the one that left a wife in Caldera and others. so the PC can recognize that they are not common ancestral ghost. Also, I'd like to make a new model for the greater ancestral ghost of tribunal.

I know how to replace the trishape of the ancestral ghost with other meshes, however, these new meshes don't disappear when the ghost is defeated. even if I tried, I didn't succed.
I tried to learn something from the file XAncestorGhost.nif and copied the NiMaterialProperty of the ghost in the NiTriShape of the new meshes but it doesn't work.

can you help me?

Maybe you could post a screen shot of the tree view from nifskope with your edit?

here it is

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/3779/immagineciz.jpg

little nudge so this doesnt get lost, and also perhaps others could share more knowledge/ideas/tutorials on the subject