I have to admit I don't really know what I'm doing with the nif.xml, I couldn't find a vercond in the section for PackedNiTriStripsShape so I simply replaced every vercond in the xml with the line you suggested. That may be completely wrong, but it didn't cause more bugs, neither did it help.

I've got one more question not directly related to the new nif structure. I replaced the mesh of the 'ambient eagle' (the birds you see circling in the sky sometimes) with an animated cliffracer from my Sheogorad mod. That works fine (the cliffracer shows up with textures and moves along the same path as the eagle would), however the wing flap/head/tail movement animations of my Cliffracer don't work and I can't find the error. The cliffracer has a skin instance and is rigged to a few bones. The bones do animate in game (tested that by applying a mesh to a bone directly), but the cliffracer does not. So it seems to be a problem with the rigging/skin instance. In Nifskope everything looks fine. If anyone would be kind enough to look at it, http://www.mediafire.com/file/ia7yjlu228s67er/Cliffracer.nif is the nif.

EDIT: Oh, and of course the cliffracer with all its animations did work in Oblivion, so it's not messed up by default already.

http://www.mediafire.com/?l5gklh7knqagrxx, May want to not release this until we get the CK and you can give it Destruction Data ! as everyone who sees a Cliffracer wants to KILL a Cliffracer .

Actually, that's not entirely true. We've decoded this a bit more:
bit 7 (hex 0x80) in the TES4 record header is the 'isLocalized' flag. If this flag is True (which it is in Skyrim.esm and Update.esm), then this tells the engine that any field of type 'lstring' (aka, localized string) should be a 4 byte number referencing the string entry in the .DLSTRING, .ILSTRING, and .STRINGS files for that mod. If the flag is False, it means that any field of type 'lstring' should be a zero-terminated string. Also, those string files can be packed into BSA's as well, so it's a [censored] to look them up if you're doing it with an external program.

The 'lstring' type fields I've found so far are FULL, DESC, RNAM, CNAM, BPTN, DNAM, ALFD, ANAM, TNAM

http://www.mediafire.com/?l5gklh7knqagrxx, May want to not release this until we get the CK and you can give it Destruction Data ! as everyone who sees a Cliffracer wants to KILL a Cliffracer .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1mdkw5sWeE! May I ask what was wrong with the nif for future reference?

If I replace the cliffracer with the hawk it can already be destroyed if I make a ground model, but I guess cliffracers all over Skyrim would be pretty silly.

Saiden, have you seen http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/478244-playing-as-a-dog-in-skyrim/ thread? I figured that it would up your alley if you haven't been playing with this already.

Thought I posted the link in the readme but maybe not. You can download a zip or get it from https://github.com/figment/tesvsnip. Original source code is available on sourceforge somewhere.

branches/ 685 11 months kaburke Added trace info.
tags/ 112 2 years gfreeman14094 Create a tag for the 0.9.15 code
trunk/ 137 23 months timeslip Show missing master/corrupt plugin warnings in the load order report even if the…

Now my issue is that I don't know of what exact version you created the branch,
but I'll probably find out ... but should you have the SVN version you created it from I would appreciate it

Current SVN version: 685

That makes perfect sense. Thanks - that should make some issues with replacers (ie, replacing esm files) a bit simpler, at least.

@above - use the 01[etc]. Bear in mind that it cannot reference anything in another esp file.

so last night i meddled a bit with the usual pre CS madness...

heres what i found out:

==============================================================================
porting models without rigging aka statics and weapons, not armor:
===============================================================================

1.
you export the mesh as an *.obj or *.3ds

2.
you open a skyrim mesh of similiar properties, aka a sword if you want to port a sword in nifskope with throttlekitties new nif.xml installed inside your nifskope directory (get it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13576177/NifTools/nif.xml)

3.
select the swords nitrishapenode (make sure its highlighted)

4.
click file->import->import *.obj and select your exported *.obj file
this will overwrite the currently selected nitrishapedata and even keep UVs intact!!! (thx ghogiel)

5.
assign textures and copy paste properties etc as you need, save and done, a gameready mesh

==========================================================
getting the item ingame:
==========================================================

1.
open TESSnip, (a tool inside FOMM or fallout mod manager)
(The Hologram was nice enough to post his selfmade version of tessnip for skyrim, give it a try if you like:http://www.mediafire.com/?c1h4hb6lqx73j09

2.
open skyrim.esm

3.
delete everything except GRUP (WEAP) (if your item is a weapon that is), GRUP (CONT) (which are chests and so on)

4.
delete every subentry inside GRUP (CONT) except the one you want to modify or clone, delete every subentry inside GRUP (WEAP) except for those you want to modify or duplicate, preferably one with stats close to your new item

5.
duplicate the one entry in GRUP (WEAP) that you kept, double click it, in the upper right change FORMID to something in hex but also something the game probably did not use yet

6.
while still having your new CONT (WEAP) entry selected, double click EDID (lower left field) and give it a new id, thats not the name just an id inside the CS)

7.
double click MODL and change the path to your new model

8.
doubel click DATA and change the numbers on the lower left to set a price
(dint find out whats damage yet or first person model yet)

9.
now click on the GRUP (CONT) item you kept and in the lower left again select one of the CNTO entries, those are the items inside a chest, select one and hit ctrl+c, select the CONT(whatever i chose) again and hit ctrl+v, thast duplicates that CNTO entry and you got it twice inside your chest now

10.
double click the new CNTO and in the lower right change the FORMID to that FORMID you gave your new item in step 5

11.
click on TES4 at the very top of your esp and uncheck every box!! change unknown 2 to 00000000 and unknown 3 to 0000000f

12.
save your esp, youre done and can now find your stuff ingame inside that chest you put it,
if you put it into a CONT entry starting with "merchant" the merchant using it will also sell your item

===============================================================
rigged items mini tutorial and tipps for 3DMax by Ghogiel, The Hologram and RX31:
===============================================================
Mini tut:

1: Delete all the crap in the skeleton.nif that isn't F3 stuff, I just wiped those 2 trees at the bottom, leaving the regular skeleton data and the bones themselves. Change user versions 1&2 to 11 and 34. save.

2: Import into max. Make outfit. skin. add dismember. Export as a F3 nif.

3: Open in nifskope. In this order: In the Nitrishape block details change the num of properities to 0. THEN change the user versions from F3 to Skyrim versions.

4: Open a skyrim nif, copy branch your NitriShape and paste into the root node. steal one of the shader blocks and hook it up to your nitrishape in property link 1. change Unknown Short 1 to 0. change anything in the BSDismemberSkinInstance partitions to match what ever it is.. or not.

5: Profit. http://www.skyrimnex...1321960294.jpg#

AND

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3178

Out of curiousity... what are the hawks flying around? Are they creatures? Maybe cliffracers could be made into hawk clones if they were... and also effectively be made innocuous too.

For if I find hostile cliffracers in any sort of monster mod, the mod will immediately be uninstalled.

Thats why Gamebryo engine is so damn annoying , there isnt a simple export mesh from 3dsmax , put int game , end of the story ... I hate all this nifcrap stuff....

Thats why Gamebryo engine is so damn annoying , there isnt a simple export mesh from 3dsmax , put int game , end of the story ... I hate all this nifcrap stuff....

Saiden, Gamebryo's package includes more than the renderer.