Difference between revisions of "Blender/Custom Cuirass (part 1)"

Okay.  First we need a skeleton. Click on File-Import-Netimmerse/Gamebryo.  If you don’t have that option, you probably haven’t installed the NIF scripts correctly.  Now you have a menu showing some directory on your computer.  Click around until you’re in your BSA folder of unpacked Oblivion data files (mine is c:\oblivionbsa).  Go to data\meshes\armor\arenaheavyblue\f.  Double-click cuirass.nif, then click Okay to import it. 

 

 

Now you have the entire Arena armor set in your Blender window, but you probably can’t see it because of the huge angular skeleton sticking out in all directions.  Click the skeleton to select it.  Now look down at the buttons window [http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s197/sickleyield/Tutorial/?action=view&current=3.jpg below.]  You should be able to see a display that says things like X-ray, Draw Names, Stick, et cetera.  Click on Stick.  Your skeleton is now a set of thin lines that don’t interfere with the mesh.

 

 

Now select and delete all the parts of the Arena armor you imported, but NOT the skeleton.  This skeleton is one that the game will recognize as armor, but it also has enough bones that you can have a cuirass that goes to the ankles if you want.   

Now let’s see the body.  Import again, but this time go to data\meshes\characters\_male.  Yes, Bethesda put all the female nifs in here, too. Now you should see a long list of nifs.  I’ll start with femaleupperbody.nif, because I’m female and my characters usually are, too.  If you want to do the male version of your cuirass first, you could use upperbody.nif.  Double-click the mesh and press “Okay” to import it.

Now you should see a torso floating above the grid in Blender in Object mode (the default mode when you open Blender). It will probably be virtually obscured by the skeleton that came with it. Don’t worry, we don’t need that. Click on the skeleton to highlight it, then delete. Make sure you delete the one from the body, not the armor one that you just spent so much time clearing nifs from.  

VERY IMPORTANT:  Now click on the body, click on the skeleton, and press ctrl-P IN THAT ORDER. Then click [http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s197/sickleyield/Tutorial/?action=view&current=4.jpg armature] and [http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s197/sickleyield/Tutorial/?action=view&current=5.jpg don’t create groups]. This will make sure your new cuirass moves with the skeleton as it should.

Now repeat this process for femalelowerbody.nif, femalehand.nif, femalefoot.nif, and if you want, also humanhead.nif from the "imperial" folder (not the "_male" one).  This should give you a complete body.  I recommend that once you’ve gone to this much trouble, you save this as something like femalebody.blend.  Then do File-Save As again and save it as mycuirass.blend (or whatever you wish).  This way you’ll have a stored version of the body that you can use for future armor projects.  I mostly work with Fantasy Figures and Robert's Male Bodies, but I try to keep a version of both sexes of whatever bodies I'm using for this sort of starter purposes.  The pictures I'm making are using a smoothed-out version of Fantasy Figures Beta.