Difference between revisions of "Working With Nifs 201 : Meshes, Data, and you"
Working With Nifs 201 : Meshes, Data, and you (edit)
Revision as of 13:04, 21 December 2023
, 13:04, 21 December 2023no edit summary
imported>Throttlekitty |
Tag: Manual revert |
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'''Mesh>Prune Redundant Triangles''': Not sure on the exacts here. Likely to be useful in cleaning a troubled mesh, or covering for modelling oversights? I assume that it removes same-space triangles. | '''Mesh>Prune Redundant Triangles''': Not sure on the exacts here. Likely to be useful in cleaning a troubled mesh, or covering for modelling oversights? I assume that it removes same-space triangles. | ||
'''Mesh>Remove | '''Mesh>Remove Duplicate Vertices''': Some smoothing methods duplicate vertices in-place. These won't be used in oblivion, in lieu of vertex normals. This removes the extra ones. Optimize! | ||
'''Mesh>Remove Unused Vertices''': Another troubleshooting attempt, for cleaning off unused vertices. | '''Mesh>Remove Unused Vertices''': Another troubleshooting attempt, for cleaning off unused vertices. | ||
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I should note that the Spells menu has import/export multi modes. These differ in that nifskope will then im/export all the meshes from the .nif to a single .obj. | I should note that the Spells menu has import/export multi modes. These differ in that nifskope will then im/export all the meshes from the .nif to a single .obj. | ||
==On the subject of injecting meshes and it's importance== | ==On the subject of injecting meshes and it's importance== | ||
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Each vertex has a "Normal". Normals define how light reacts to the mesh. By default, vert normals are "set to face" - They point away from the polygon perpendiclarly. When viewing this polygon straight on, it will show the most light. As you rotate this polygon, it reflects less light to you, to help determine the "depth" of the scene. Also, having all normals set to face results in hard, chiselled edges between every polygon- the kind of thing we associate with older-model low-poly 3d graphics. | Each vertex has a "Normal". Normals define how light reacts to the mesh. By default, vert normals are "set to face" - They point away from the polygon perpendiclarly. When viewing this polygon straight on, it will show the most light. As you rotate this polygon, it reflects less light to you, to help determine the "depth" of the scene. Also, having all normals set to face results in hard, chiselled edges between every polygon- the kind of thing we associate with older-model low-poly 3d graphics. | ||
We can give the model a smoother look by altering each vertex normal. If we need to fix this in nifskope, you can do rClick>Mesh>Smooth Normals. This is an operation usually easier done in a 3d modelling app, where greater control over what gets smoothed is available. This method applies smoothing to the entire shape | |||
We can give the model a smoother look by altering each vertex normal. If we need to fix this in nifskope, you can do rClick>Mesh>Smooth Normals. This is an operation usually easier done in a 3d modelling app, where greater control over what gets smoothed is available. This method applies smoothing to the entire shape up to the maximum smoothing angle (default is 60 degrees). This works fine for most objects where the only edges that need to retain their "hardness" are greater than 60 degrees. Object that have edges that need to remain hard that are less than the smoothing angle need those edges to be unwelded. [Say you have a knife blade where the seam between the sharpened edge and the blade's core is 12 degrees, but you want that seam to remain hard (visible). If the vertices along the seam are welded together, the visible seam will be removed by the smoothing process. If the vertices are unwelded, so the faces are free-floating from each other, but still in the same positions, the visible seam will not be removed. You can create a set of free-floating faces in Blender by selecting the faces, pressing 'Y', and clicking to Ok the split. You can use smoothing groups in 3ds Max]. | |||
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'''BinaryExtraData''', which is generated by rClicking on the trishape node, and doing '''Mesh>Update Tangent Space'''. This data block is needed for rendering the mesh, and is the base for which the normal maps bend the normals. Clicking on this data block will cause nifskope to display the vertex normals for your mesh. When making a new mesh, The first thing I do in nifskope, is do the tangent space, apply a flat gray texture, which has a flat normal map (which has a white alpha channel). Then I Set the material settings to nearly black, except I crank specular up to white. Rotating the model around, I can easily check that all my normals are in the right direction. If you have an ugly seam, that causes a diamond pattern, or a zig-zaggy non-smooth face, check with the normals view on. You'll probably see that normals are bent crookedy. This can be caused by overlapping UVs, or duplicated vertices. To get a smooth normal here, you can do the following in your 3d editor and export again: | '''BinaryExtraData''', which is generated by rClicking on the trishape node, and doing '''Mesh>Update Tangent Space'''. This data block is needed for rendering the mesh, and is the base for which the normal maps bend the normals. Clicking on this data block will cause nifskope to display the vertex normals for your mesh. When making a new mesh, The first thing I do in nifskope, is do the tangent space, apply a flat gray texture, which has a flat normal map (which has a white alpha channel). Then I Set the material settings to nearly black, except I crank specular up to white. (If the object appears too dark, you can temporarily reduce the glossiness in the material properties and/or uncheck Textures in the Render Settings). Rotating the model around, I can easily check that all my normals are in the right direction. If you have an ugly seam, that causes a diamond pattern, or a zig-zaggy non-smooth face, check with the normals view on. You'll probably see that normals are bent crookedy. This can be caused by overlapping UVs, or duplicated vertices. To get a smooth normal here, you can do the following in your 3d editor and export again: | ||
Make sure the offending vertices are joined. | Make sure the offending vertices are joined. | ||
In some cases, flipped UVs will cause the seams. This can be fixed by unwrapping the uvs fully, or by splitting the vertices along the seam, and then re-averaging the resulting normals. (this may not be the best advice, but it works.) | In some cases, flipped UVs will cause the seams. This can be fixed by unwrapping the uvs fully, or by splitting the vertices along the seam, and then re-averaging the resulting normals. (this may not be the best advice, but it works.) | ||
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[[ | [[NifSkope Alchemy]] - This is my first guide, it's a little shorter and is a little quicker and easier to digest than the others. | ||
[[Category: | [[Category:Tutorials]] | ||
[[Category:NifSkope Tutorials]] | |||