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>JPerrone86 m (None) |
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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, | 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 | '''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.) | ||