Blender/Adapting Armor to Bodies with Lattices

Introduction

This is an advanced Blender tutorial for making existing armors fit new body meshes in Oblivion. I've used this method to adapt default game armor and clothes to fit Corwyn's Fantasy Figures. It could reasonably be used for any sort of body model with a little practice.

This does not teach you to make new armor (I've covered that elsewhere), merely to adapt items that already exist. It could be used on default armor, or armor from your favorite mod that doesn't fit the body model you're using. Always make sure you get a modder's permission before releasing his or her own work.

Warning

This is an advanced tutorial. Do not even try to start it if you haven't already successfully exported and playtested at least one piece of armor as in this tutorial. If you're a total n00b, go learn the procedure first, then worry about mass adapting things.

Important Preliminaries: Your Modding Toolbox

You will need:

• A BSA unpacker: BSA Unpackers
• NifSkope, a powerful editor for meshes: NifSkope
• Blender and NIF import/export scripts: Installing Blender
• A full copy of whatever body meshes you want to fit the armor to.

Downloadable Picture Version

You can use this on its own or with the main tutorial. I'll try to host it at www.tessource.net also.

http://sickleyieldmods.ufrealms.net/LatticeTutorial.7z

Importing What We Need to Start

1. Import the body mesh you want to use. You'll need it for reference.

2. Import the piece of armor/clothing you want to adapt.

3. Save the file with a name describing the armor/clothing and what you're adapting it to, e.g., "corwynmithrilcuirass." This isn't that important, but it's useful. DO NOT edit the mesh yet.

Adding The Lattice

1. Center on your mesh by pressing '1' or 'shift-1' on your number keypad (not the main row of keyboard numbers). Make sure your view is set to orthographic, not perspective. The view toolbar is on the lower left of the 3d window.

2. Go to the top row of buttons and click add-->lattice.

3. Now you have a little four-pointed box on, near, or inside of your mesh. Try to center it as much as possible on the upper torso.

Adapt the Lattice to Your Mesh

1. The lattice needs to be big enough and complicated enough that it covers your entire mesh piece - this is why you'll want a separate one for different items (one for cuirass, one for greaves, and so on). You want the borders of the lattice to be totally outside the borders of the mesh. Expand your lattice just as you would a regular mesh. You can also see, down in the edit window, a set of buttons that shows how many vertices your lattice has horizontally and vertically. I used about 8 both ways for a cuirass. That's a lot of vertices, but for an oblivion mesh you'll need quite a few.

2. You can choose "inside" or "outside" to have just a framework of vertices on the outside of the lattice, or all the way through. This is up to you. I've used both.

Set Up the Cuirass to Use the Lattice

1. Now click on the main part of the cuirass. I prefer to merge cuirass pieces to make this part easier, but that's up to you. Click through the edit window buttons until you get to "add modifier". Click that and choose "lattice." You'll need to add the name of your lattice where it says "ob," but the default name in Blender is generally just "lattice."

2. If you keep the cuirass in more than one piece, you'll need to do this with all the pieces.

Adapt the Cuirass to the Body Mesh

1. Select just the lattice and go to edit mode, just as you would with a mesh. Note that you can grab, drag, scale, etc. the vertices just like you would with a mesh. What's the difference? Now when you move parts of the lattice, the cuirass moves with it! You can use the lattice to smoothly edit the mesh.

2. Drag the cuirass around with the lattice until it conforms to the body mesh you imported (remember?) in a way that you like. This is where you may have to add more vertices to the lattice for more detail. Oblivion meshes are very complex.

3. When that is done to your satisfaction, go back to the cuirass. Go down to the edit screen again, to where you chose the modifier. Click "apply" to make it permanent. You may need to create more than one lattice for a given piece, especially if you’re making female armor – I use a separate lattice for just the breast region because it’s rounded and complex, both of which makes it harder to model around. Don’t be afraid to subdivide the mesh if you need to do so.

Save the Lattice Without the Cuirass

1. Export the cuirass (or whatever) and delete it from the screen. Delete the skeletons and body mesh, too. You want nothing but the lattice left. Save the lattice as a separate file.

Using Your Lattice

Now comes the really useful part; the above is really just preparation.

Open your cuirass lattice file that you made using the above procedure:

1. Make sure the lattice is still there and isn’t perfectly square, so you know your changes have stayed.

2. Import the cuirass you want to adapt. That’s file-import-netimmerse/gamebryo, in case anyone forgot.

3. Select all parts of the cuirass. Merge them, if you wish – I prefer to because it avoids seam problems.

4. Go to the edit buttons and "add modifier." Choose lattice and put in the name of your lattice where it says “ob.” You’ll need to repeat this for each part of the mesh, and for each different lattice if you have more than one.

5. Check the results in the window. Surprise! The cuirass has now altered to look as if it fits the body mesh to which you adapted the lattice previously.

6. Click “Apply” for each piece and each lattice modifier to make the changes permanent.

7. Delete the lattice. The changes should remain. If they don’t, use ctrl-u to undo and make sure you applied the modifiers correctly.

8. Save as a new file with the name of the new adapted cuirass.

Clean Up and Adjust

1. Import the body mesh back in again.

2. Check to see how well it matches up. Chances are it’s not quite as good a match as your original adaptation by hand. This is particularly true, again, around female breasts, because they’re such a difficult area to model.

3. Adjust the vertices of the cuirass as needed. This may take a little time, but trust me, it’s a lot less than trying to do the whole adaptation by hand.

4. Save and delete the body mesh.

5. Export. This does not mean just press "Export Netimmerse/Gamebryo" and assume it will work ingame, because it usually won't. Go back and do the same export workaround that is in the cuirass tutorial here.

Conclusion

You have now used your lattice as a template to adapt a new cuirass to a body mesh. Making the lattice is the hardest part, and you will probably refine your lattices as you go along, but once you get one made it’s completely worth it for the amount of work it saves you.