In order to understand my issue I'll give you a breakdown...

I needed a structure to act as an Orc hut but I am very inexperienced at modeling anything outside of weapons and prop type objects. Using 3DS Max I came up with a solution, import the fullOrcAwning mesh and the stockadefreewall1 mesh and arrange them to create a single nif. Now I've created the structure and it is textured correctly within the viewport. I export as a NIF and volia, I think i've got something ready to be brought into the game. I even double checked to make sure the texture paths were correct via NifSkope. I've done everything that I have learned and feel that it is now a game ready mesh, matched with a game ready texture.

I open up the CS and right click to create a new object. When I go to select the bash mesh about a dozen error messages pop up. It tells me that each stockade wall (which i imported into Max, scaled, ((I combined two of them together to make a panel of sorts)) cloned and arranged around the awning) is missing a diffuse map and is marked for eye-reflection but missing the required texture. After all of these error messages are cleared the CS crashes.

I'm really lost here, I can't seem to find any instanse of a diffuse map within NifSkope and I (stupidly I might add) figured that if the mesh was being textured correctly within Max then all the correct data had been imported, thus would be exported cleanly.

The only plausible thing that I can think of is that combining meshes in 3DS max is simply a no-no, but honestly I have no idea where I would start within NifSkope to scale, combine, and arrange the seperate meshes the way I had done in Max.

I would greatly appreciate some assistance as this was basically my only plan for making unique architecture to fit within the style of the orc longhouses.

I would suggest opening two instances of Nifskope, one with your new mesh, one with the existing stockadefreewall1 mesh and start comparing every single value/option, especially the BSLightingShaderProperty and TextureSets. Change your mesh to match the stockade mesh if necessary. Sounds like a few values are off.

Thanks for the response, been pounding my head against a wall for a while now. I compared the two in NifSkope and the data matches except for one part, the Num Textures Value in the original mesh is 9 and in my new mesh it is only 6. However, both meshes only have a texture and normal map assigned to them and editing my mesh didn't change anything.

can you post a screenshot with the expanded Nifskope Data Structure? The error message "missing a diffuse map I had too, but it did no harm to my model, which works fine ingame, and combining meshes in max I did also and it was no problem. Did you export as Ni-Node or Bsa fade Node?

BSA Fade Node. I'll work on getting screen-shot up, should take a few minutes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58887748@N08/7515665476/

What exporter are you using, because whatever it is there is a tree that looks unfamiliar to me (the bhkCompressedMeshShapeData). I have never seen this tree before in any meshes I have ever worked with...

That's how the mesh was when I unpacked it from the BSA. It might just be a result of it having been compressed into a BSA file.

The very top of your mesh tree is a NiNode. Skyrim doesn't use NiNodes for statics. It has to be a BSFadeNode like the other one. Probably the cause of your crashes.

To fix, highlight the NiNode, and in details scroll down to Children. Change Num Children to 0 and click the green arrows just below it. Right click anywhere in your Block List and add a BSFadeNode. Scroll down to it's Children, change Num Children to what it was before and click the green arrows. It should attach everything to the BSFadeNode like it was with the Ninode and leave a blank NiNode. Right click on the NiNode and select Block > Remove.

Okay, ill run through that and see where it goes.

I`ll never get a bhkcollisionobject working on a custom NIF, tried that for trees but the mesh is getting invisble then, its simply not working, for static meshes you want to use a BSA fade node, NiNode u want to use for animations, creatures and armor (everthing which is using a skin dismemberment modifier)

for static meshes your setup should look like

0BsFadeNode
1NiTriShape
2NiTriShapeData
3BSLightningShaderProperty
4BSShaderTextureSet

this is enough for a working static mesh, for Collison you should use a in CK Collision Box around your mesh.


hope this could help

Edit: I uploaded two screens, one for export in max, one for Nifskope settings


http://i45.tinypic.com/161zuvn.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/351fymw.jpg

Really a huge help guys, thanks a bunch.

Only having one issue, when I add the children to the BSFadeNode none of the children attach, it says all the children are empty.

All you had to do was right click on the root NiNode and go to Block > Convert > Bethesda and choose BSFadeNode. It keeps the structure as it was so you shouldn't have to worry about moving around children.

Well I was able to convert the NiNode to a BSFadeNode. Unfortunately the same errors appear in the CK...

Its telling me that each Stockadefreewall is 1)missing a diffuse map 2)missing a normal map and 3) marked for eye reflection but is not skinned

Well you need to make sure you have Shader Flags 1 and 2 set properly in the BSLIghtingShaderProperty. Typical values for Flags 1 are Specular, Receive Shadows, Cast Shadows, Own Emit, Remappable Textures, Zbuffer Test, and for Shader Flags 2; Zbuffer Write, Vertex Colors, EnvMap Light Fade. Make sure you DO NOT have Eye Environment Mapping checked as this is usually what causes the eye cube map texture error and subsequent crash. Depending on your version of the Max exporter, I know it has messed with the Shader Flags in the past, especially the eye environment mapping always being checked. I've since upgraded my version of the Max exporter and it no longer does this (but has its own set of export problems).

That certainly sounds right. Could you point me in the right direction for that new exporter, as long as you think that the new problems are less troublesome than the current ones .

I'll check all of those values and hope for the best.

Edit: How do I check to see which flags are checked and which are not? I've found where to see how many flags there are (769 on the default wall and 1 on the new wall). Unless were talking about Shader Flags in which case there were 0 on the original and 1 on the new.

Geeze nevermind a bonehead move on my part, the flags weren't appearing because I was using an old version of NifSkope that apparently had not added those features yet

Well after unchecking the eye-environment mapping from every block the subsequent error no longer appears. However they are still missing diffuse and normal maps(even though the normal maps have been properly assigned) also, the creation kit is still crashing after reporting all these errors.

I'll keep trying but this whole process is getting a bit frustrating.


Edit:Okay so I downloaded the new 3DS Max Import/Export Plugin from The Nexus and opened up my mesh that was savd as a 3DS scene. This time I exported it correctly, double checked it in NifSkope to make sure the correct shader flags were marked, and proceeded to the CS. Now this time a different kind of error popped up stating the something was amiss with the BSTextureSet line:806. I could either retry,abort or ignore the problem. I hit retry and the error message went away. However, the mesh never actually appeared. I was able to drag it into the worldspace, but only as a bounding box. My guess is that it is one of the different issues associated with the new version of the plugin,

Edit2: Okay so I was able to get rid of the error message by unchecking the Skinned shader. Now I can successfully import the mesh without an error. But I the mesh is still invisible/not there.

Edit3:FIXED! Well almost, I have to manually attach the textures to each branch(unless correctly setting the filepath in which to look for textures in NifSkope will fix this ). Apparently one of the issues with the current Max NifExporter is the fact that every mesh is given a very low Alpha value. Thus it makes the mesh nearly invisible without close inspection. I changed all the values to 1 and now the mesh appears in the CK albeit, textureless.

I had no idea that it was this messy to deal with Skyrims meshes, I know those shaders wont be the same for every mesh and I think it will be difficult if I try to say, add a window to my hut. What shader gives it a glass appearance, how do I get it to emit light at night? These are just examples but I am very discouraged if I'm sort of left in the dark as to what works and what doesn't. Does anyone know of a place to find this info without having to ask a forum?

'Glossiness' is what controls shininess/glassiness (that and lack of normals would do it too). It's in the bsLightingShaderProperty node. Specular 'Color' and 'Strength' also help glassiness by adding reflectivity on certain surfaces (though that may not be technically correct, that's the gist of it I think).

I had bad results with v3.7.3 of the Max plugin (on the Nex), so I went back to 3.7.2 (available somewhere in the NifTools forums, but not in the home-page link to resources). That newer one kinda destroyed my meshes and I wasn't willing to mess with it to find out why.

About collision: You can splice Vanilla collision into your NIF (the entire root bsFadeNode) by adding it as a child of your root node. Then you reposition/rotate/scale that bsFadeNode so the collision is where you want it.. then delete the niTriShapes (visible geometry). You just have to find a Vanilla mesh that has a similar shape to what you want to do (keeping only the bhkCollisionObject). You also need a bsxFlags if you don't already have one. Unfortunately, I don't mess with actors, so I'm not sure how you could apply this to a skinned mesh.

Okay well after getting the correct mesh to actually appear in the CS i now have an untextured mesh. I even attached the correct texture to each branch and still the it appears textureless in-game. I've tried pointing to the unpacked BSA, I've tried pointing to the data/texture folder, and still nothing works.

Check the "Num UV Sets" in the NiTriShapeData of each piece. The exporters sometimes revert this value to 0 or 1 but it should be 4097. Once you change it to 4097, a few lines below, where it says "Has Normals" you should click the Refresh/Reload button next to Tangents and Binormals. Then at the top in the menu you should go to Spells > Batch and Update All Tangent Spaces for good measure.

Also, set up NifSkope to see the textures. Go to Render > Settings and in the Rendering tab add the Data folder as well as the Data\textures folder. If the textures aren't showing up on your model by this point in NifSkope that means something else is wrong with your TriShape or the BSShaderTextureSet

Did everything that you mentioned and still appears un-textured in the CK.

The entire time the mesh has had its textures in NifSkope. Something is just getting lost in translation between NifSkope and the CK.

Heres a http://www.flickr.com/photos/58887748@N08/7524550906/of what it looks like in the CS

But it's not crashing the CK? Have you gone in game to actually look at it?