Scope Help... 05/14/17

[daglob]

Okay, what I want to do is take an FX nif and use it as part of mesh. The problem is, the FX doesn't reference a texture, the color and all is in the materials. Can I change the FX so that it will reference a texture, and, if so, how?

[Cyber Burn]

I might have some notes on that. I'll check when I get home.

[Cyber Burn]

The notes I have are for an Embedded Texture on an FX, like the Shields from Renegade's Captain America Meshes. I can post those if you want. Just out of curiosity, though, what FX are you trying to work with, and is it FF1 or FFvt3R?

[daglob]

I will use it in both. I'm working on a Zoom from The Flash TV show. I did one based on Afghan Ant's Speed Force Flash, but it's for FFv3R only, and Kenn X was kind enough to send me his Speed Force Flash for FF1 (which I should be able to convert). I'm using the GL Lighting Bolt for the earpieces. I can use the Materials block to change the color, but if I do a Barry Flash from the TV show, I can't match the "gold" I will be using on the skin.

[Cyber Burn]

Here's the Tutorial from Vorelliwiseau. But I'd be interested in checking out the Piece you're working on, if you wouldn't mind sending it my way.


0.)   Back up the mesh/mesh piece. For some reason, this trick only works once after you do steps 1-5, delete the new free slot, and want to add a detail map again. Not sure why, but it's probably doable - I just haven't looked hard enough. In any case, the end result works properly.

1.)   Fire up the mesh in NifSkope.

2.)   Find the NiTriShape with the embedded texture. Branch it out and find NiTexturing Property.

3.)   Now, branch that out and find NiSourceTexture. Right click that and choose Block > Remove Branch.

4.)   Now, right-click NiTexturingProperty and choose Add Detail Map.

5.)   You should see a free slot where you can designate a new skin!

[Cyber Burn]

I think I'm out of my depth on this one. 

[SickAlice]

Send it my way if you still need help. I'll get to it by Tuesday at the latest.

[daglob]

This is a scope combining Male Belt Pulserifle (unknown creator; readme says found at The Hub) with Lord Emshiddey's  Necron Soldier. There exists a 3R version of the Necron that seems to use the Soldier keyframes, but not one for FF1. I have tried to a body transplant to all the similar meshes I can think of, The Soldier, Tau Firewarrior, Male BAT, Male Basic Rifle , and I get error messages that something can't map to such-and-such and the transplant fails. The Necron will transplant to Male Belt Pulserifle, but there are problems with the mesh, basically that the pulserifle, thus the Necron's gun, floats around most of the time. I've transplanted the pulserifle to Male Basic Rifle (see the cyborg thugs), and it worked fine. Still I'd like to have a Necron to play around with in FF1. I will take any help I can get. If someone want to get the scope and see if they can stop the gun from floating, I'll send it to them (you can PM me an address), or if you know and want to tell me how to do it, I'll be glad to listen.

[Cyber Burn]

Are the Necron Soldier and his Gun a single Mesh Piece, or two separate Mesh Pieces?

[daglob]

Gun, Shoulder pads, and Necron are all separate. The pads transplanted pretty good.

[Cyber Burn]

I know that you would prefer to have both the FF1 and the FFvt3R Versions on the same Mesh, but would you be alright if they were on a different Mesh? I'm thinking maybe Gren's Punisher or Crossfire Mesh. That "May" get rid of the floating issues, plus you'll have both Versions on the same Mesh.

[daglob]

I'd prefer it, but I'm not set on it. If I could consistently switch guns, I'd have put it on Punisher_Gren, probably.

[Cyber Burn]

That may be feasible, if I Skoped an FF1 Version onto the Punisher _Gren Mesh, then technically it should convert for FFvt3R.

[daglob]

I'm sorry; I wasn't clear. Syn has done a scoped Necron for FFv3R which works very well. Although... another scope with additional animations wouldn't hurt.

[Cyber Burn]

If you send me all the Meshes in question, I'll still try to do the Punisher Skopes, but I'll also try for an FF1 Version of Syn's Skope.

[daglob]

This is an attempt at a new scope for The Fat Boy of Metropolis. As you can see, there is a problem with the right sleeve. They come from Tommy's Spirit mesh, kind of his Male Suit New mesh. So, what happened with the sleeve? It looks a little crushed in Nifscope, but here it looks rather peculiar.

Suggestions?

Oh, and I can fix the tie.

[SickAlice]

In Nifskope click on the mesh itself. Find it's NiSkinInsatnce and NiSkinData. In the details for NiSkinInstance there's a Bone List dropdown. Find the right bone which is probably the clavicle bu the looks of it. When you put the mouse over the bone in the list a pop-up with a number comes up. In NiSkinData there's also a Bone dropdown but numbered. Find the same number and open it, then adjust the XYZ Vector coordinates (your going to want to make it do down here of course). Takes a little guesswork but easy enough as you'll see the bit of polys move about in the preview window. Once your down save the nif, that should do it.

[daglob]

The popup doesn't have a number. It says

Generic Node object for grouping

Ancestors:

NiAVObject
NObjNet
NiObject

[daglob]

Okay, here is the weird thing. Checking the Niskninstance of the sleeve, it has four bones: Right Forearm, Right Upperarm, Spine1, and Left Upperarm (in that order). Checking the left arm the bones are Left Forearm, Left Upper Arm, Left Clavicle, and Spine1. I've tried change the name and the orders of the bones in the right arm, but that doesn't make it any better. The double checked, and it isn't an artifact of the transfer; The Spirit has the same arrangement. The Standard for The Spirit has smaller, "narrow" sleeves. so it isn't  noticeable unless you use the "plain" sleeves, the ones for the trenchcoat.

[detourne_me]

That's really odd. 
When you changed the NifSkinInstance from Spine1 to Right Clavicle did anything happen?
If you open it up in Blender, it might be easier just cutting out the vertexes that stick up instead or re-weighting the piece.

[daglob]

When I tried to change the order and bones, I got a spiny effect on the shoulder. Nice for future use, maybe, but I already have a Porcupine Jimmy scope.

And something else: the sleeve doesn't look all that weird in Nifscope.

[SickAlice]

Send it friend. I'll go with what dm is saying and fix it Blender, that way you'll have a bug free mesh for future use as well. Also send me The Spirit so I can use it for the donor. I ran into this same problem with INK's Gambit on the right coat sleeve and made a clean version after a few fails in Nifskope as well.

[Cyber Burn]

I know that you would prefer to have both the FF1 and the FFvt3R Versions on the same Mesh, but would you be alright if they were on a different Mesh? I'm thinking maybe Gren's Punisher or Crossfire Mesh. That "May" get rid of the floating issues, plus you'll have both Versions on the same Mesh.

I have working Skopes of the Necron Soldier on the "Crossfire_Gren" Mesh, and just about had the one on "Punisher_Gren" finished, but I think I may have broke it, but since I'm pretty sure I know where, starting over shouldn't be an issue.

As for the one on the Soldier Mesh for 3R, going through different FF1 Meshes, I think I can replicate that as well.

[daglob]

No big deal, really. I'm in no hurry.

[SickAlice]

Finishing up Jimmy tonight. Note for reference using non-TV meshes with tv meshes is almost always going to cause some sort of grief. Tom's tv and lite's were made pretty specifically and I believe set up for quick conversion to Activision games as well, not really FF friendly. Best to avoid those when possible.

[Cyber Burn]

This is a scope combining Male Belt Pulserifle (unknown creator; readme says found at The Hub) with Lord Emshiddey's  Necron Soldier. There exists a 3R version of the Necron that seems to use the Soldier keyframes, but not one for FF1. I have tried to a body transplant to all the similar meshes I can think of, The Soldier, Tau Firewarrior, Male BAT, Male Basic Rifle , and I get error messages that something can't map to such-and-such and the transplant fails. The Necron will transplant to Male Belt Pulserifle, but there are problems with the mesh, basically that the pulserifle, thus the Necron's gun, floats around most of the time. I've transplanted the pulserifle to Male Basic Rifle (see the cyborg thugs), and it worked fine. Still I'd like to have a Necron to play around with in FF1. I will take any help I can get. If someone want to get the scope and see if they can stop the gun from floating, I'll send it to them (you can PM me an address), or if you know and want to tell me how to do it, I'll be glad to listen.

2 quick questions:

1) Do you still want a Skope with the Pulse Rifle?

2) I am going completely Blank  What is the "Male BAT" Mesh?

[The_Baroness]

there was a BAT with a rifle, but if you took the body to make it male basic, it needed Renegade's GA_Atom keyframes. Was a pretty good looking Cobra B.A.T.

[daglob]

What she said. There was also a skin for it that was for Kang's soldiers I believe.

The pulserifle transplanted to Male Basic Rifle quite easily (making it one of my two weapons transplants that worked), and while for completists sake it might be nice to have a Male Belt Pulserifle that the rifle didn't float around, it isn't really necessary.

[SickAlice]

Looking at Jim now, I was off for sure. It's just the sleeve that's jiggered, should be a quick fix.

[SickAlice]

Sent ya the patched Jimmy. I also decided to snapshot the process so you could see it for future reference.



What went wrong is the vertices grabbed either the wrong bone weights or none at all. Models vertices need to be relatively adjacent to the model they're getting the info from or the model to them. Like say a character has huge hands, you'd want to either scale up the FF ones hands to match first or scale down the new models then resize them later.

So in this case in the first and second snapshot is what you sent me. I highlighted the problem vertices in the second one. See how they fall inside past anything? Those clavicle and armpit areas can be tricky since FF nifs usually aren't T-Posed. Here those vertices on that side missed the right clavicle all together and instead went for the next nearest being the right arm.

In the third is how I fixed it, just by shrinking those out and moving them into the shoulder. Not shown but most of the sleeve was behind the arm as well so I moved it forward. You can see in CTool were the shoulder is slightly off since I didn't move it forward enough. Anyways that was about it. I exported just that piece (along with the bones to keep it place), opened it up and made sure it's texture assignments were proper, re-imported, weighted it again and exported a  nif. Then the Nifskope process of course. Side note in Nifskope I used a time saving trick. You already had a Node to put the model in but off course it ended up in space somewhere. Rather than try and move it into place for twenty minutes I simply edited the Node and zero'd out all of the axis and rotation positions.

There you have it, now Jimmy is ready for his date! Hopefully he remembers his check books this time.