Such time will not pass without of any other results, modeling just one side of modding there is also other way to mod until tool will be available.
But I must say Oblivion has much faster progress in mesh modding then Morrowind has even with official exporter.

Unrealistic desire, but pretty much anything that is on the drop down list of 3DS Max.



That's my main gripe. There are problems to fix, but they aren't really trying. When you have a company supporting something at least, it tends to end up better because they have standards of work and quality.

It would be nice if Bethesda released a converter themselves. Both Unreal and Cryengine release their own exporters for their own mesh format. But this problem really lies in the fact that NIF isn't Bethesda's mesh format.



This. I'm wondering more about the fantastic new engine developments than how models will look. Dynamic clouds and snow? Yes.

Any non-propietary format for a game would be bloated and ridiculous to use. I can understand wanting something easy and out-of-the box though.

I doubt we'll see Bethesda move to 3.x nifs, which would require a hefty amount of work on our part to support. But I don't know how far removed from Gamebryo the Creation Engine actually is. I've asked Gstaff to pass along a message for me, asking for any information and possible sample exports. It would be nice to have at least NifSkope somewhat ready for Skyrim on release. The new Havok Behavior nodes should be interesting!

Edit: I'm most curious about how snow collection will work. They mentioned somewhere they're doing it without any special maps for it.

I admit I don't know much about those formats, but I'm sure theres a reason Beth doesn't use them (beyond making life harder for us, of course ). My guess is that they don't contain the information that Bethesda needs.


I would love it if the nifskope team spent all their time working on exporters for me. But they are modders just like us, not our personal slaves. Bethesda would be even worse with exporters, because they have no reason to release anything other than a single exporter for the version of 3DS Max they uses to make the game. Older versions, newer versions, and other programs would be unsupported. I also don't think that the nif exporters are low quality - just incomplete.

I can't help but mention that not having access to the .nif file format used by Skyrim isn't the death of modding for years to come. Plenty of cool things can be done without needing to do custom meshes. Assuming the textures remain in .dds format, there's plenty of possibilities there. Even if that isn't the case, one can still do plenty of nifty things with what's provided in the game itself.

Of course he has a fine swagger about him lol!

My question is this:
Why don't they use a more standard format like 3ds ??

Oh and another one: Oblivion might used nifs,and Fallout 3 also used nifs but each game used different nif versions and you couldn't transfer easily a mod from one to another.
Why not to use the same .nif version on all games ?

And a final one: Will it be as hard to import new creature models in Skyrim ?
I never made it to import new creatures in Oblivion because of an animations issue.

Probably because a Nif contains a lot of embedded information that the game needs to know how to handle the file that a 3ds file format does not.

As to why different versions of the nif format, my guess is that with each game, they tweaked and improved things. As the game could do more, then files needed to do more, also.

And the last question, who knows. I don't think enough is known about that, yet. It might depend on their use of Havok Behavior, though. If it's used on everything, it might be nearly impossible to create custom animations that are up to par. That would make putting new creatures into Skyrim very difficult.

I personally love nifs, they are incredibly easy to work with imo. I was really happy to hear this news.

Fine, but they should implement a built-in system inside the editor to handle the importing and exporting of NIF files. It's kinda sad that we need 3rd party software to do it.

I was glad to see the NIF format make a comeback for a number of reasons:
1) Free tools. Have you priced commercial 3D software? With the NIF format, and the appropriate converters, you can use NifSkope as a top-notch editor, and Blender as a top-notch creator. With the exception of skeletal work, which Blender still seems to have problems with, you can use free tools to do 90-95% of what can be done with commercial tools.

2) It's a file format, not a limitation. I've imported incredibly high-res models into Morrowind - and surprisingly, the game engine handled them just fine. I'm talking about furniture models that tripled the number of polys from vanilla or more. The same is true of Oblivion, and will likely be true of Skyrim. However, what the NIF format has that other formats don't is a tremendous amount of open-source code and support behind it. This means that modders can focus on what they are good at, and get help or parts from others.

Lastly, Nifskope is not that bad. It's a bit opaque at times, but once you get the hang of it, it's actually incredibly powerful. I was actually creating new meshes in it, before I finally succumbed, and learned Blender.

.3ds or any app-specific format aren't suitable for realtime gaming. (as a Maya user, i'd be left in the dust anyway.) There's lots of extra data in formats of this type that wouldn't have any meaning to a game engine, and it can produce geometry that would be invalid realtime. The amount of 'why isn't my model working' threads would be very high


Bethesda's policy on transferring content from one game to another is one reason. Making it easy to transfer mods would also mean it's just as easy to transfer between games. Also changes to the engine and how they read/use the nifs, it was a necessary change.
Edit: Also this helps keeps lawyers away from NifTools, and I believe Bethesda requested that it not be made super-easy to convert between versions at some point.

The importer/exporter is a module that the modeling programs use, not the SDK.



1: As others said, 3DS is not a format optimal for game engines.

2: The format becomes more advanced as rendering technology advances. I could make a TL;DR post about how many advancements there in the FO3 NIF version over the Oblivion NIF version.

3: Who knows? We haven't seen any details on what Skyrim's NIF format involves.

then why doesn't bethesda supply a convertor that can take fbx or dae files and convert to nif.

the modders don't need to deal with NIF ever, only the engine does. it makes no difference at all what the input format was as long as it contained all the relevent info. it depends on the model what input format is the most practical. ie obj is fine for 99% of environment props, fbx or dae for animated objects.

just to put a fine point on it. it makes no difference what format the game itself uses. as long as there is a converter with good generic input options it will not bother anyone.

to date torque 3d's pipeline has been the simplest i've used. live updates were very welcome. unreal 3 has the best material system i've ever used. that includes softimages node editor. modders will not be angry at things getting easier. and a change to simpler systems seen in other engines would not be a bad thing. i've never gotten into modding tes because i found the cset too hard to manipulate objects.

Bethesda uses 3DS Max. If they released their converter, it would be for that program. An extra consideration though is that unlike engine developers with their own mesh format like Unreal and CryEngine, Bethesda does not own the NIF format. They may very well be leasing their converter from the company that does own the NIF format, and so they themselves might not be entitled to releasing whatever they use. If they created their own converter, it would be for 3DSMax, leaving other modeling programs like Maya and Blender without official options. So what we're left with are unofficial converter plugins for popular programs, but because these are third-party and independent, the people behind them aren't very reliable when it comes to updating their tools to meet demands. Ergo, poor support for Fallout and zero support for 64-bit 3DSMax.

What we need is simply a reliable set of plugins for popular modeling programs that work without flaw, but that really is a lot to ask for and the possibilities for getting such a scenario are slim.

But it also means really good stuff like Jojos and Lhammonds mods probably will too.

GStaff informed me that "closer to release or post release" they may share information regarding the nifs. Not unexpected, but it would be nice to have some advance preparation.

Bethesda doesn't need it. Though they have been incredibly good to us in terms of modding, they too have a game to make. Everything they make is first and foremost for them, we only get it cause they love us. There is no need for Bethesda to spend time developing an exporter for tools they will not use, so they won't make them.

When they say "because our modders know if well" they also mean "because our in-house modeling team knows it well." Switching formats would have been hard on them as well, especially if they decided to re-brand the engine once the development had already started.

Does this mean that Bethesda/Zenimax bought NetImmerse?? I thought that and GameByro went out of business??

Also, this is welcome news.

:D

Curious about this arrangement myself. I wonder if BGS could fully decode NIF for us now.

Holy thread necromancy batman :biggrin:

I am glad they kept nif, simply from a mod user standpoint it means that content will be released faster for the game. From a mod maker standpoint I don't really know what else they would have switched to, so I am neutral.

so you were hoping you would get a file format that you knew absolutely nothing about? and yet you were disipointed that you got one you are at least a little familiar with?

No, I don't think you do. You seem to be expecting it to do the kinds of things that 3D StudioMax or Blender do. It wasn't designed for fully editing a mesh, only certain aspects of an existing one. And the things it can do, it does well.

of all the files I have seen (and I have seen a lot) nothing really beats nif files, they do support a lot, and they are easily exported from programs, it almost has the compatibility of obj, but is kinda better than obj because it supports more, like collision

That sounds like the same line of thought that produced the gem "If mods are to be put on consoles then PC modders will get lazy and only make their mods good enough for the consoles". :huh:



...and we would be prohibited from altering said program which leaves us no choice but to re code it from scratch anyway.



The reason we need third party software is because the NIF file format is itself a 3rd party format licensed to Bethesda. Even if they wanted to they wouldn't be allowed to share the official tools nor any iteration of them with us. Nif-tools which is open-source is the only way around that licensing and Bethesda was kind enough to endure those licensing fees so as not to send the community back to Morrownd age of modding.

We are lucky indeed in so many respects.