Hi all,

I am completely new to modding of any kind and I desperately need some guidance. I have read and watched what seems like a blue million tutorials on Blender/Nif Scope as they pertain to modding Oblivion.

I am working on my first mod and have it almost finished and have play tested the quests and dialogue a million times but now I have run into a problem I cannot seem to get past. To start, I am using the latest Blender and Nif Scripts/ Nif Scope along with PS CS4 and the NVidia DDS Plug. Running on 64 Bit Win 7 but using the 32 bit version of PS due to the plug in not working on the 64 Bit version.

The situation is this. I take the vanilla chain mail cuirass from my extracted BSA. I import it into Blender using the default Oblivion settings. I modify the armor in Blender and the perform my UV functions with my own .dds and _n.dds saving the .TGA file to the Blender directory. (all using the same file name ie: ChainCorsetCuirass.Nif, ChainCorsetCuirass.DDS, ChainCorsetCuirass_N.DDS)

At this point I have tried several things all of which result in my models/textures being visible and correct in NifScope but showing either a nvde upper body without a visible cuirass OR a completely invisible upper body. I have gotten armor into the game twice but they were not UV'd in any detail.

My directories are:

data\textures\armor\wulfarmor
and data\meshes\armor\wulfarmor


The actual steps I take follow:



Scenario 1:

I import the chainmail/f/cuirass.inf into Blender using default oblivion settings. (I am not really clear on when you have to import a skeleton seperately so sometimes I do and sometiems I don't. My results are crap either way) When I do import a skeleton.nif I have tried Black Dragon's skeleton, the max compatibility skeleton and the one from full_human_male_and_female_topless_import_ready as well as fullhumanmaleandfemaletoplessimportready and of course the vanilla. Wehn I do import a skeleton I select "Realign Bone Tail + Roll" and "Import Skeleton Only + Parent Selected". I have followed the steps to ensure I had only one Scene Root and that it is named "Scene Root" not "Scene Root.00" and also performed the steps in Blender to add the armature modifier to my mesh (only if the exported mesh failed in game.)


I parent my armor to the skeleton shift select cuirass > select skeleton. Then ctrl - P > armature > No Groups then ctrl - a > scale and rotation data. I check the weight painting to be sure that I have not added unpainted vertices (and nothing has changed). I hit "A" to select all and then export. I select the "restore default settings for selected game" with Oblivion selected.

I then open NifScope. I load my newly saved .nif. I go to the NiTexturingProperties and click the flower to select the texture for each the upper female body and the cuirass. I then open a new window from the file menu and load the vanilla chainmail cuirass. I select the female upper body in the vanilla chainmal and go to Block > Remove Branch. I then go back to my modified file which is still open in the other window and select the female upper body Meshes > Smooth Normals ... Meshes > Update tangent Space ... Block > Copy Branch. I return to the vanilla armor window and select the scene root Block > Paste Branch. I repeat this for all branches (there are only two branches, the female upper body and the cuirass) I then save what used to be the vanilla armor with the name of my .nif. The name matches both my .dds and the _n.dds. I open CS and use my mod's ESP set to active. I then open the glass armor cuirass change the ref ID, change the model info to match my .nif file. Put that cuirass in a chest in my mod. Close all dialogues, save my ESP. I then launch Oblivion and loot the armor. I either give to a companion or wear on my character. Either way, I either get an invisible upper body or an invisible cuirass with a visible upper body. I have also taken other .dds and _n.dds files from other armor and renamed them inside of my textures/armor/wulfarmor folder just to eliminate the possibility that it was a corrupt .dds.

I have not always parented with modified vanilla armor. The only times I was able to get my cuirass in game, I took the vanilla chainmail cuirass, modified the model, applied a really fast UV, saved the UV. skipped parenting exported with default Oblivion settings. Opened in NifScope, performed the standardizing as described. Saved as my own filename with matching filenames on the .dds files. This method has worked twice. I spent almost all day UVing my current cuirass ... performed these steps and got nothing.

Please, do not refer me to another tutorial. I have read and read and read and watched and watched and read some more... I have searched all over the net for a solution and in every forum I could find (the 300 second wait between searches on this forum has limited my search ability here so I am sorry if there is a luscious post somewhere that I cannot find giving me all the answers I need.) If anyone knows why this is happening, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to help out. Do not assume that I know anything. Even the most simple answer could solve my problem so please, if something occurs to you as peculiar, let me know or if you think "well surely he is doing this ..." I very well may not be doing it, let me know.

Thanks again,

Wulf

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Let me make sure something first:
So your normal map works correctly? You said you took a normal map from other mod and used it as your armor's normal map (for testing purpose) and it still doesn't show up?

Have you tried to put the armor in Cell Render View? (put the armor in open world in CS) it simulates the armor's view in game. If your data is alright, it should show up

I have experienced this kind of problem, and as I recall the problem lies on the fact that my normal map didn't work correctly (my fault), and another time I accidentally chose the wrong nif (which doesn't have textures applied on it)

Thanks for the reply. I just tried putting it in the world view inside of CS and none of the "broken" armors show up, they all are the big "!". I have tried a different set of .dds files and they did not change anything. I renamed them to be the same as my NIF.

Thanks,
Wulf


One thing I noticed when I put them int he render window, I put a normal unmodified armor in cell view and it just looked like the ground item, not what the armor looks like when worn. Since I have not assigned a male version of the "ground model" I did not expect them to show up.

mis-post

One thought, the Glass armors use glow maps, so they may have texture settings that are inappropriate for the new texture setup. The game may be objecting to the lack of a xxx_g.dds for the armor, but you don't want to add one, just adjust the .nif parameters to indicate that there isn't one, or repeat your NifSkope process starting from a Steel or Chainmail instead. You can look at the materials properties in those to see the difference from Glass.

Glow maps doesn't really matter I think. What it does is alter how the object should look in darkness. Missing glow map should only mean the custom glass armor won't "glow in the dark", not disappear completely, although I don't actually know either. Wulfy1, do you have glow map along with the normal map and color map?

@Wulfy1:
Yes, it will appear as the "world model". If you wish to check if it appears or not when in CS render view, assign your model to "world model" (not biped model), that's what CS render View displays. Of course, this is for checking purpose only, or if you don't have an appropriate world model and decided to use the armor as world model

Big "!" means your mesh wasn't loaded. I'm 99% sure the problem is that the path to your custom armor is incorrect. Did you put the mesh in "Data" folder? (can be in Data\meshes or simply in Data\). It doesn't matter actually but it will make your life easier, and I believe Oblivion will only look for files within Data folder

It looks like I may have just fixed it. I actually did have a _g.dds in there btw. I believe that what fixed it was a combination of changing my filing structure and file naming to mimic Oblivion's more closely ... I.E. naming the Cuirass nothing but "Cuirass.nif" inside of a folder named after the armor as opposed to dumping a bunch of misc files into the wulfarmor folder and expecting the game to sort them out and I also took the advice of RazorPony on the TESNexus forums. He gave me a much more siplified process to get my models into the game. This is what he suggested:

Import vanilla mesh, cuirass.nif.
Delete vanilla skeleton.
Make any changes I want to make.
Select everything.
*Import the same vanilla cuirass.nif as before, only this time click "Import skeleton only and parent to selected".*
Save .blend file (Optional, but I always keep a backup in case the export goes wrong)
Export my .nif. (courtesy of RazorPony)


I tried this several times and it did not work until I changed my file structure and then it did work. My structure is as follows for a Cuirass called Blu Corset:

Data/Textures/Armor/WulfArmor/BluCorset/Cuirass.DDS ... etc
Data/Meshes/Armor/WulfArmor/BlueCorset/Cuirass.NIF ...etc

As opposed to

Data/Textures/Armor/WulfArmor/BluCorsetCuirass.DDS ... etc
Data/Meshes/Armor/WulfArmor/BluCorsetCuirass.NIF ...etc

I think that sub directory made a really big difference. I have been able to duplicate the success using Daedric, Glass, Blu, and Chain variants so far. All models have shown up in game.

Thanks for the help and replies. I am posting this information here in hopes that it might keep someone else from spending several days of butt scratching trying to figure out why things aren't working.

Thanks again all,
Wulf