I've been looking for info about Nifskope, NifExporter, etc. and wherever I looked it said that the software is new or still in development or something like that. But Oblivion was made in 2006. Then it crossed me. I'm probs missing something blindingly obvious but if all that software is more or less new, WHAT THE HELL DID BETHESDA USE ?!? What kind of tools do they have that I am not aware of. I realize that they have lots of software for engine development and that sort of stuff. But what I wanna know is what tools did they use for their models and animations...

Can someone help me with this...

3DS Max, IIRC. Version 8, I think it was. You can still use Blender to do the job. More info here - http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/NIF_Importers_and_Exporters

what is IIRC, never heard of it. What really interest me is how did they make theyir models collision. I suppose they didn't use stuff like NifSkope.

If I Recall Correctly.

yep...I'm an idiot

I've started this topic mostly because I'm working on a house model that needs collision...that i don't know how to make. So if they have something besides 3ds max that could be helpful, great. I don't know how to use blender but I can handle basic modeling in 3ds max.

I believe bethesda uses the max plugin that shipped with their license for the gamebryo engine. I also know that they have definitely made a lot of in house development to the tools, ie they have built the CS/Geck world editors, and use that instead of the gambryo editor > even though they are quite similar. They have also programmed in the havok sdk into their export scripts, amongst several other things/middleware. Basically bethesda is the only crew with that particular too lset. it is heavily customized.

to make a collision mesh with our tools- its just like creating ant low poly model that acts like a cage around your actual in game model. There isn't anything special to it. If you use max, I recommend saiden storms collision tutorial. just google it.

I figured out the basics about collision making. I know it should be as low-polly as possible but since I'm making collision for a house model, none of the tutorials I found were good. The only one that actually worked more or less is http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/How_to_make_a_nif_with_multiple_collision_materials one. The game recognized the materials just fine but didn't have correct walking sound. When I compared my collision to other vanilla houses in NifSkope I noticed that my house didn't have that bhkmoppsomething branch under the bhkRigidBody. Neveer heard for SaidenStorms tutorial till now though. Gonna try it out so I'll let you know how it went. I'm even gonna post some pics of the house =D

nifskope is more of a viewer and numeral editor, rather then a modelling program.

I believe orginally bethesda were going to release thier nif viewer program, but when they saw nifskope they decided not to, properbly because nifskope was more advanced then thiers and had a team constantly updating it, rather then bethesda's which might have bugs.