11 replies to this topic

[Sessine]

I have a bow Mesh that I'd love to see in Skyrim, and although I've become reasonably experienced at the porting of sword meshes to Skyrim, the deformation of a bow means I haven't a clue how to port it in. Apparently, the process is the similar as to the import of armour - so would someone with more know how than me be willing to cover this workflow in a brief tutorial?

[LegendXCarisso]

Sorry Sessine. XD I really don't know much about adding objects to the game like that... let alone ports, but... I believe a project like this will just have to wait, sadly, until the Creation Kit is released sometime in January, 2012. Most of what you see on the Nexus for example, is in-game tweaks or re-textures, not really anything constructive... unless there's something beyond my expertise. Theoretically speaking, a sword is pretty much static; no moving parts or anything. The only thing that makes the sword move is the hands it's attached too. The Bow however has a "bending" texture, along with the bowstring. Weather or not the arrow counts along this remains to be seen. This may all be a failed answer, but ultimately, the CK is the key to Skyrim's modding potential. :3

[dazzerfong]

It's not a 'bending' texture: it's actually a rigged mesh. CK does not define this, Legend, only NifScripts and (to an extent) NifSkope do.

[Katsuyuki]

From what I've read, you could probably pull it off by rigging it and exporting the bow with the NiSkinInstance then copy and pasting like usual except this time with both the NiTriShapeData and the NiSkinInstance to a Skyrim nif... However, I'm not entirely sure if this is possible using Blender instead of 3ds Max because last time I checked, there are no Blender import nifscripts. Can't really get rig a model if we aren't able to get at the bones. Might just be better to wait until we have access to some scripts and tools to get things like this done.

[Sessine]

LegendXCarisso, on 09 December 2011 - 11:32 PM, said:

Sorry Sessine. XD I really don't know much about adding objects to the game like that... let alone ports, but... I believe a project like this will just have to wait, sadly, until the Creation Kit is released sometime in January, 2012. Most of what you see on the Nexus for example, is in-game tweaks or re-textures, not really anything constructive... unless there's something beyond my expertise. Theoretically speaking, a sword is pretty much static; no moving parts or anything. The only thing that makes the sword move is the hands it's attached too. The Bow however has a "bending" texture, along with the bowstring. Weather or not the arrow counts along this remains to be seen. This may all be a failed answer, but ultimately, the CK is the key to Skyrim's modding potential. :3

No, not in the case of meshes. Occasionally texturesets may be used to swap things around easily within the GECK, but meshing and animation is not related to the CK/GECK/Construction sets in any way that I know of. Dazzer's got the heart of it, and while I've found a decent youtube video on how to import a rigged mesh like armour, I'm having trouble with my import into MAX because both nif and obj files show up already completely deformed. Unfortunately I don't use Blender, but at least Max scripts are working.

Quote

From what I've read, you could probably pull it off by rigging it and exporting the bow with the NiSkinInstance then copy and pasting like usual except this time with both the NiTriShapeData and the NiSkinInstance to a Skyrim nif

Wait, could you expand on this please?

[dazzerfong]

Doesn't work like that: it's not exactly a rigging, it utilizes a collision with designated nodes that fix the collision in place while stretching the middle. At least, in Oblivion, it worked like that, and it most likely works like that in Skyrim.

[Sessine]

Have you tried importing any meshes at all then Dazzer? For either Oblivion or Skyrim? I'm encountering a problem where if I try to import a nif or obj into max, it deforms the bow as if it was already drawn, when in fact, it should be at it's default state. For the ACTUAL drawn state, it then deforms this yet further, so the bow appears to go between the states of drawn and overdrawn only. Is this something you encountered in Blender with Oblivion nifs?

[dazzerfong]

I can't, Sessine: I only have Blender. It does the same thing in Oblivion, though, it had something to do with vertex keys or something, I'll go have a dig at it again.

[Sessine]

EDIT: I can duplicate that error in Nifskope by deleting the NiGeomMorpherController - so it looks like Max isn't reading this correctly.

Yes, I recall you work only in Blender, I was just asking if the same problem came up there, and it looks like the answer is yes then - that makes me feel better, at least I know the problem is known and has been solved in some way.

[Katsuyuki]

dazzerfong, on 10 December 2011 - 03:19 AM, said:

Doesn't work like that: it's not exactly a rigging, it utilizes a collision with designated nodes that fix the collision in place while stretching the middle. At least, in Oblivion, it worked like that, and it most likely works like that in Skyrim.

I'm merely assuming it's using some sort of rigging because it does have a NiSkinInstance and indicates a list of bones in it's block list as various NiNodes however, I don't really know much about bows in the first place and this mostly theorycraft until I can actually test this. Those nodes are also listed in the collision data so it's probably similar in method to Oblivion but not entirely the same?

Sessine, on 10 December 2011 - 03:17 AM, said:

Wait, could you expand on this please?

What I am referring to is the fact that you can export static meshes as .obj files and as Fallout 3 .nif files. What you would do from there is to copy the NiTriShapeData and paste it into the Skyrim .nif's NiTriShapeData. Then you would import the .obj file over the NiTriShape or something of that sort and it would fix the issue with the tangents screwing up. I read somewhere on the Nexus Forums that it could be possible to do something similar with a rigged mesh but given that I don't have the tools to test this, I'm not entirely sure it will work.

Sessine, on 10 December 2011 - 12:49 PM, said:

Have you tried importing any meshes at all then Dazzer? For either Oblivion or Skyrim? I'm encountering a problem where if I try to import a nif or obj into max, it deforms the bow as if it was already drawn, when in fact, it should be at it's default state. For the ACTUAL drawn state, it then deforms this yet further, so the bow appears to go between the states of drawn and overdrawn only. Is this something you encountered in Blender with Oblivion nifs?

Importing an Oblivion bow into Blender doesn't deform it for me. I can however flip through the pull of the bow string by going through the frames in either Blender's Timeline or NLA Editor.\

Anyway, you might want to ask Ghogiel on the Nexus Forums as I would think he would have the most knowledge as to what is currently going on and how to do what. I'm pretty sure he also uses 3ds Max too.

[Sessine]

Ghogiel definitely seems like a good person to speak to, I've learned a crapton from just reading his banter, let alone anything else he writes. That's a very good call. As for Blender, I can't get it to work on my system despite spending the better part of a week or two attempting it. I'm unfortunately leaving for a holiday in a couple days, and although I'll be online, I won't have my tools with me, so perhaps when I come back, I'll try once more. Thanks for the tip.

[Sessine]

Hey all, sorry for the long bump, but I didn't think I should start a new topic -

Has anyone managed to find out how to import a bow mesh? I've solved my original problem, and managed to get some nice geometry in the form of at-rest and deformed OBJs, but I still have very little idea how to actually start getting a working nif for Skyrim.