Well I've got a nice workflow down for
-creating a mesh in Maya
-exporting to Mudbox as an obj
-using either Retopologizing to average the high poly and the low poly or if the count is already low simply letting it be
- then exporting from Maya as a Nif after ensuring the scale is correct by using NifSkope to export a reference sword as an .obj and comparing it side by side with my mesh
- Ive also figured out how to ensure that the texture paths are correct for my mesh

I have decide to not learn the backdoor to putting my mesh in the game as the Creation Kit is going to be released relatively soon. My only question is, if my mesh opens correctly and appears textured correctly in NikSkope is there anything else that I am required to do. I do recall something about copying over a physics node or something like that from a Skyrim sword and matching it up with my sword so that the weapon will sit correctly in the game world. However I am not sure if NifSkop is doing this for me or if I have to do something in either Maya,Blender or NifSkope. Also, I see that many of the weapon meshes have dedicated 1st Person meshes and something called meshnamego.nif. Now if I have matched up the orientation of my sword to the reference sword will these meshes appear correctly automatically or is their some other step I am missing?

Bump... I hate to do this but the only help I have found on the internet has been either converting .objs to .nifs ( a process I understand(I think)) or using the backdoor method to place the mesh in game. I am not sure what to do for this specific instance.

Please?

I know I saw a thread about this somewhere... ah, here it is! http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1303667-video-tutorial-how-to-get-custom-weapons-into-skyrim/

I am not totally sure I understand your question, but nifskope is only an approximation for the game. You need to test in-game before you know for sure that you have done things right.

I have created meshes which display fine in nifskope and which crash the game. I have created meshes which display differently in game than in nifskope.

No my issue is what else I have to do in NifSkope and elsewhere to make my mesh game ready. You see currently I cannot access because I dont really wish to learn the backdoor method but was trying to use my mesh as a replacer. I was implying that if all the settings appeared correct and the texture paths were defined, then did that mean that my mod was ready or was their anything else I needed to do in the program. Attach nodes, define physics or what...when I named my mesh imperialsword and placed it into the meshes folder all I got was the missing mesh icon. Also my question was if I had to make a 1st person mesh by hand, if I could use NifSkope to generate one, or if the game would generate one for me...

I do not know how to have the game generate meshes, and am not prepared to speculate on what creation kit will give us.

Currently, I think best practice is to use nifskope and compare your item's structure in nifskope with a working in-game item -- if they are logically consistent, things should work for you.

Did you read the link that Asterai posted?

I'll just assume at this point that replacing a mesh without using any additional tool ( such as TESnip or some sort of hexadecimal trick) is not possible. Seems that the mesh paths may not work the same way as texture paths. Probably need to direct rather than a relative path...

Just about to start following along with the videos, just wanted to clarify my question in case you understood my particular issue so I didnt have to sort through about an hour of video to find the specific info lol.

That's a very general question.
That a mesh shows "properly" in nifSkope doesn't mean the game is going to read it or recognize it. It depends on a number of things.

That is why I asked what else needed to be done in NifSkope...I figured there is more than needs to be done outside of just ensuring texture paths and orientation are correct. Luckily the 1st video discusses exactly this within the first 10 mins so I should be all set

Well my model is in the game, the uv map is correct, I have a normal map, I have a texture that is lined up with the UV outline. I have followed that video tutorial to the tee and given all of my files appropriate names. Yet for some reason the mesh is appearing blue, as i the game is using my normal map as the texture... anyone have any clue of what could be causing this?

Nevermind, turns out I didnt match everything up, I had left the enivironmental map from the original texture path within the new texture path. Completely my own blunder.....boy my mesh looks like crap! I guess thats what happens when your first completed mesh for a class assigment meant to be really low poly, goes into a real game engine.