I'm having a strange issue with my armour mesh when viewing the newly created nif in nifskope. As I rotate the mesh, certain parts of the front are showing through on the back. Also certain parts of the armour show through the belt. It's not clipping because it changes as I rotate. This is melting my brain, I haven't got a clue what I'm doing wrong. Maybe its my export settings?

If anybody has an idea what's going on, i'd really appreciate any help or pointers

- Hypno

Sounds like you have a few flipped normals. Inspect the areas again in 3DS, you should be able to individually flip the faces.

Thanks for the tip, I'll go over the mesh with a fine-toothed-comb now. If that is my problem, I've got no idea how that happened

- Hypno

Hana to the rescue

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vijpcfmpa55y80g/NoblePlate5.bmp

All the normals are facing the right way, i even tried flipping them anyway and once i did it was obvious that they were right way round to begin with. im really confused. Hanaaisse, do you use 3ds max? if so, would you mind giving my armour a quick once over if i pm you the .max file? no problem if the answer is no

- Hypno

I don't, I'm a Blender gal, but you could send me the nif file and I'd be happy to take a look. Actually, send me a 3DS file and the nif.

Could you post an image as to what you're seeing in the nifskope viewport? The one where you say the front is showing when viewed on the back.

Select the Editable Mesh/Poly sub-object, insert an Edit Normals modifier, and then move that Edit Normals modifiers to the top of the stack before exporting. That'll hopefully help the exporter figure out normals.

If the normal markers are too long, there's a setting to reduce their length in the modifier's setting panel under the stack.

Also, Do NOT export with a full tangent space. As far as I know, all Max exporter versions for Skyrim mix up the tangent and bitangent data sets. You can generate the full tanspace set in NIFSkope though. In the NiTriShapeData sub-object for the NiTriShape, set "BS Num UV Sets" from 1 to 4097. Then right-click the NiTriShape > Mesh > Update Tangent Space. Presto, full and (mostly) properly formed Tanspace.

Thanks

I'll just package it all up and send it over.

The nifs are just the raw ones exported from 3ds, so they are missing a BSLightingShaderProperty, etc. I'll also include the .obj file I used to generate the normal maps, so you can open that up in blender at least (it doesn't contain the skin information, I did that after I made the obj)

EDIT: Double Ninja'd

@jeclxohko

I would've, but for some reason when i set the vertex colours to no in nifskope it remains bright white. Wasn't doing that earlier, went grey like normal, now no. So its hard to see the problem in a screenshot. Also, in a still image it just looks like clipping, but as you rotate you see that it changes and the missing mesh appears again. Its almost like some parts of my model have ahigher priority and show through the parts in front of them no matter rotation. Its f'ing weird

@madcat221

Just tried the first suggestion, no difference. And i do the tangets routine religiously after a found out about it a few weeks ago

- Hypno

tangents seem fine on the exporter I'm using Only one I had issues with was TheFigment's branch

EDIT: Nevermind, looks like it does mix them up. Never noticed that Glad I visited this thread now

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t1k38mhkshu00xc/NoblePlate.7z

There's the link to the archive on my dropbox for anybody who fancies a look. My plan once i have this problem figured out is to paste the cuirass block into the vanilla fineclothes02 nif

- Hypno

Could possibly be alpha values of your vertex colours? (I'm not that well versed with .nif files but alpha to me usually means transparency) Though you said the mesh is bright white (to fix that just disable vertex colours in nifscope, btw)

You just have 1-sided polys, don't worry! It's normal.

Will check it out some more (just took a literally 2 sec look) and tell you if I spot anything else.

@SilentSpike: thats how they get exported no matter if i uncheck the vertex colours in the exporter. i usually just go into the NiTriShapeData and change "Has Vertex colours" to no. Then i do as madcat mentioned and set BS Num UV sets to 4097, then do the tangent thing.

But im just stumped as to what's causing this.

If anybody has downloaded the nifs, the issue is most noticable at the both the very back and front of the belt, but the rest of the armour does it also when theres a mesh underneith

EDIT: for clarity, Ninja's everywhere, thanks Lorelai

- Hypno

Ah lorelai to the rescue You're in good hands

I just added in a random shader (well, not random, the one from the steel plate armor) put it on 4097 on the TriShape and "no" on vertex colours, and it goes gray as it should.

Edit: If you don't want to have that single sided look in-game, you either have to build it somehow around the body so that it "connects" - so that people won't be able to look "under" it, cap the missing area with some polys in max, or turn on double sided in the shader in *skope.

ah right, so can you see my weird "clipping but not clipping" issue as you rotate? or is my computer just playing games with me...

- Hypno