Difference between revisions of "Making New Armor Using NifSkope"

*For transparency you need to edit DDS files: [[DDS Tools]]

[[Image:Cutandpastetut01.jpg|thumb|right|Setting the Texture Folder]]It's a very good idea to put all your textures and meshes related to body, armor and clothing into the Oblivion Data folder. Usually pathed at

C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data

Then you open up Nifskope and then at the top you go to "Render>Set Texture Folder"  and point it to the Oblivion Data folder. That way it won't have any problems finding the textures for meshes you are opening.

==STEP 4: Adding a piece of armor==

Sometimes, it will give you an error when you try and copy the branch 'cannot link to node 'XXXXXX'. That's because the armors are using the same nodes, but they are named just a wee bit different. Just rename the most similar node in your original armor to the name it's looking for. e.g.: Biped Neck01 to Biped Neck1. It will paste the branch in properly now. And if you are paranoid you can always change the node's name back after you are done.

The armor piece is in the file now, but that's not good enough. We need to make it part of the actual armor, by linking it to the skeleton. It's super easy, and we have 2 ways to do it.

==STEP 5: Linking the pauldrons to the skeleton==

[[Image:Cutandpastetut04.jpg|thumb|right|Paste Over]]

Highlight the NiTriShape of the branch you just pasted in, and right click and choose "Block > Copy".

[[Image:Cutandpastetut05.jpg|thumb|right|NiTriShape]]

Then click a piece of the armor you wish to sacrifice for this piece. The left list will expand showing the NiTriShape that piece belongs to. Just right click on that NiTriShape and choose "Block > Paste Over" (paste over only works if you are trying to paste over a block that's the same type as the block you copied.

If you are trying to paste a NiTriShape over a NiTriStrip, just right click the NiTriStrip and choose 'Mesh > Triangulate' to turn it into a NiTriShape)  

 

 

===Linking Method 2===

This is throttlekitty's way to add new pieces without sacrificing one! Just like the above, copy the branch of a NiTriShape from a set of armor you like. And paste that branch in, just the same as above.

 

Now we need to show the block details. Go to "View > Block Details" to get a whole whack of info at the bottom. Click on the original armor's main NiNode and look at the details at the bottom. You need to find the name Children and right click on it, then choose "Array > Add Empty Link".

 

[[Image:Cutandpastetut07.jpg|thumb|right|Linking NiTriShape]]

You'll see that a list of indices expands and one at the bottom named 'none' is highlighted. Just double click 'none' and type the number of the NiTriShape's Branch you just pasted in. The piece is magically added into the armor! Super sweet! And there are no junk blocks left over!

Now you're done with pasting armor, you've successfully merged two armor pieces. But you're not done yet, first of all you need to make sure your armor doesn't crash the game. That is explained below. But first this, deleting a piece of armor.

Deleting pieces is easy, just click the piece of armor you want to delete and you'll see a NiTriShape get highlighted on the list to the left. Right click that NiTriShape and choose 'Block > Remove'.

This will cause a bunch of junk blocks to appear at the bottom. So instead, choose 'Block > Remove Branch'. This removes the block you right clicked on and all the children.

Each armor takes up a space in the game (e.g.: the cuirass takes up upperbody and arms). That part of the body is removed when the armor is equipped. If your new armor doesn't have every part of the upper body and arms covered, you will need to add either the arms and upper body meshes in, or you can open other armors and use little pieces of the body that they have to fill in the gaps.

First use the method above to add a body mesh underneath, if your armor should have some skin under the parts you are going to cut out. Otherwise you're going to be able to see through the person in those areas.

First click on the piece you want to add transparency. The left list expands to show it's NiTriShape. Right click that and choose 'Node > Attach Property' and pick NiAlphaProperty. Boom! A new block appears called NiAlphaProperty.

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/1032/tut99nw.jpg

Right click NiAlphaProperty and choose 'Flags'. Set that so that 'enable testing' is checked off and 'Alpha Test Function' is changed to 'greater' or 'always'.

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/7696/tut101gc.jpg

 

 

 

Now open up the texture map and the template map (if you made one) in photoshop. Put the template map over the texture and set it's 'Layer Style > Blending Properties' to Overlay. You may need to resize the template map to the same dimensions as the texture first. You'll get an image like this.

 

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/3967/tut128fx.jpg

 

Now you can select the areas you want to be transparent. Use whatever tool you like, I prefer the polygonal lasso, but I'm a nut case.

When you've selected the areas you want to be transparent, click on channels and go to the alpha channel. It should be all white, you want to make just the areas that you want transparent black, so use the selection you made to blacken those areas (you can use shades of gray to make parts semi-transparent too).

Here's my alpha channel to cut the chest part out (I've overlapped it onto my texture map to show you better what parts are where...

 

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/3899/tut123ib.jpg