Making New Armor Using NifSkope
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STEP 1: What tools you need
You'll need this software....
- To edit NIF files: NifSkope
- To unpack the textures and meshes: BSA Unpackers
Optional:
- To edit DDS files: DDS Tools
STEP 2: Getting your workspace ready
It's a very good idea to put all your textures and meshes related to body, armour and clothing into the Oblivion Data folder. Usually pathed at C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data
Then you open up Nifscope 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 3: Playing with stuffz!
Now open a new peice of armour in Nifscope. I like to open the meshes C:/Program Files/Bethesda Softworks/Oblivion/Data/meshes/armor/arenaheavyblue/m/cuirass.nif C:/Program Files/Bethesda Softworks/Oblivion/Data/meshes/armor/arenaheavyblue/f/cuirass.nif because they have alot of pieces in them already, and they have all the skeletal nodes that armour pieces may need to link to!
Now we need to go to "File > New Window", to load up another armour. If you open up another armour just by double clicking the icons, it won't save what you copy into the right clipboard and it can't paste the pieces from one file to another, so always use "File > New Window" to load another mesh.
Let's say I want to add those super cool Daedric Pauldrons to this arena armour! First load up the Daedric Cuirass in the new window. Now click on the Pauldrons and you'll notice the list to the left opens up and a NiTriShape gets highlighted.
Right click that NiTriShape and choose "Block > Copy Branch"
Now go to the armour you originally opened and right click the left list and choose "Paste Branch"
Sometimes, it will give you an error when you try and copy the branch 'cannot link to node 'XXXXXX'. That's because the armours are using the same nodes, but they are named just a wee bit different. Just rename the most similar node in your original armour to the name it's looking for. ei: 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 armour pieces is in the file now, but that's not good enough. We need to make it part of the actual armour, by linking it to the skeleton. It's super easy, and we have 2 ways to do it.
1) To add the piece while removing a piece from the original Highlight the NiTriShape of the branch you just pasted in, and right click and choose "Block > Copy"
Then click a piece of the armour 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)
Boom! You're new piece is in the armour and your original is Zapp'd!
See how my chest piece is gone and the pauldrons are on the shoulders?
I chose to replace the chest with the pauldrons. The pieces will always be placed in the right area when pasted in this way. After the procedure you'll notice if you collapse the left list, there are all these blocks left at the bottom.
They aren't being used and to avoid clutter should be deleted. Just make sure to collapse the main NiNode so you don't delete anything in there by accident.
2) This is throttlekitty's way to add new pieces without sacrificing one! ohmy.gif Just like the above, copy the branch of a NiTriShape from a set of armour you like. Now 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.
Now click on the original armour'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"
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 armour! Super sweet! And there are no junk blocks left over!
You can also delete pieces you want from armours too. Just click the piece of armour 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. Just like the first method, collapse the main NiNode and delete those junk blocks. It doesn't need them anymore, they are just clutter.
After you have finsihed mixing and matching armour pieces, click on the main NiNode and go to the block details at the bottom. Remember the section in there called Children?
If we right click on that and choose 'Array > Remove Bogus Links' it will delete any bogus indices the main NiNode is looking for that don't exist anymore. I hope this helps with any crashing issues. I'm going to keep playing with that to make sure.
Not only can this all be done with armour, but it can be done with body parts, and clothing. Each armour takes up a space in the game (ie: Cuirass takes up upperbody and arms.) If your new armour doesn't have everypart of the upperbody and arms covered, you will need to add either the arms and upperbody meshes in, or you can open other armours and use little pieces of the body that they have to fill in the gaps. If you don't have all the gaps filled, your armour is going to have an invisible person inside of parts of it! ohmy.gif Don't worry about skin colour on the body parts you put in. The game will use the actors skin colour to colour those pieces properly!
Here is a simple armour I made by mixing and matching pieces.
Sometimes when you put different armour pieces together you will get parts clipping through other parts. You can use transparency to hide those parts poking out.
Transparency Time
Now to apply transparency to pieces that you either want to avoid poking through other pieces, or you just want to make a V-Neck Sweater or something silly. ohmy.gif
First use the methods above to add a body mesh underneath, if your armour 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.
This is how to apply transparency to a piece (you'll need photoshop and that .dds plugin I mentioned up top, in order to control transparency)
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 that piece has transparency properties which are controlled by it's texture map's alpha channel. It's best to duplicate that texture map the piece is using and rename it. Then point to the new texture by opening up the block NiTexturingProperty within the NiTriShape of that piece. You'll see a place to point to a new file name there.
Now to apply transparency. One good thing to do is right click on the pieces NiTriShape and choose 'Texture > Export Template'. That will give you a template map you can overlay onto the texture map to make it a little easier to figure out where to add transparency. http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/5205/tut116ib.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 nutcase. 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 tranparent black, so use the selection you made to blacken those areas (you can use shades of gray to make parts semi-tranparent 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
Here's what my dude looks like with no chest piece on his ebony armour! http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/6834/te...garmour29yj.jpg
It can be very tricky to do, but it takes practice and patience. Stick with it and it can be really fun!