The paws and head show up but the body is invisible. Why would the rest work but not the body?

Did you make a normal map?

(Questions like these are best put in the Construction Set section)

The paws and head are seperate Nif files so would have the Textures assigned seperately also -- So it could be either :

1. you used a new texture name and either misspelled it in the NIf path or used a different name and did not create a new normal map with the same name ( a mising normal map will result in invisible creatures in game since the game uses the normal map for the reflectivity of light and no normal means no reflection so light just passes through (so it is invisible)

2. there is a problem with the weight painting (skinning) that attaches the model to the skeleton.

Or could be something else but would need more info on what it is you are doing (ie. are you merely retexturing or using a new Nif ? Did you also retexture the head and paws ? etc.)

I made a dds

Did you also rename it ? If so then you need to make a copy of the normal map ( _n.dds) from the original texture and rename it to match the new dds texture name (ie. MyLionTexture.dds would need a MyLionTexture_n.dds file also !) -- As mentioned in my last post the Normal map tells the game how light interacts with the model and if it is missing it means light just passes through so in game it is invisible.

But then why do its paws and head work? I made a normal map and im going to check it out.

Its still does'nt work

I had this exact same problem with a horse I was working on a couple years back. I don't remember the exact fix, but it was a problem with the normal map. If I remember right, the "XXXX.dds" and "XXXX_n.dds" have to match exactly - I had an upper case letter in one but not the other. At least... I think that was it.

EDIT: Oops, had NIF instead of DDS. Thanks Tar!

You mean .dds im sure

Are they using the new texture as well ? and What exactly did you name the texture ?? ( ie. did you use an _ character in the name somewhere -- If so the normal map name may not be a match -- for example a dds texture named My_LionTexture.dds would need a normal map texture named My_n.dds !! since the Underscore is a special character and the game engine truncates the rest and only looks for special characters after the underscore like G for glow map n for normal map. )

Also is the Nif a new nif or just a texture path change ? (If a new NIf are you sure it was rigged to the skeleton correctly ?)

It works now thanks.