Game Skyrim Forum

I'm not sure if this is the right location for this. I'm trying to get my new pc setup to start modding again, and I would like to get a single mesh making setup that will handle both Morrowind and Skyrim. ATM, I have Blender 2.77, and 3ds Max (student edition). I would like to use 3ds Max, if there is a way, and wondered if anyone knew of some good tutorials to figure out how to use this one software for both games' mesh making.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Hello and welcome to the community, here's a fishy stick! (I love dead traditions)

I don't know much about mesh creation but I think you can use the programs you already have. People that come to mind that are great at textures and meshes that you could send a private message too for advice include Remiros, Pherim, Hedgehog12 (you can find him active at The Assimilation Lab page) and Autoclock.

Nice, ty Enclave. I svck at making textures. But, I do love modding. I'm working on a city builder for the strongholds in Morrowind, and when Skywind is finally finished (hopefully someday soon), I'd love to recreate my work there. I haven't posted anything yet, as I'm still rebuilding my resource list to start over... my old pc croaked before it was finished.

I only work with NifSkope. Also, InkBunny and Melchior Dahrk know a bit about Blender.

Unfortunately, there is sill no working NIf plugin for newer Blender versions, and I am beginning to doubt there ever will be... the last supported version is 2.49b, which is VERY old. But you can use a new version of Blender to create your mesh, save it as a Blender file wit "Legacy Mesh Format" enabled, load this file with 2.49b and export it with the Nif Plugin. It's inconvenient, sure, but it works, as long as the meshes are not animated. See here for downloads and details: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender

3dsMax I don't know for sure, but I heard the situation is better there.

This works for 3ds max for most stuff, can import/export to both morrowind and skyrim

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5622/?

As for tutorials, for basic mesh making just lookup general tutorials for application of your choice, game specific quirks are needed for more advanced stuff like animations/weightning

The Blender nifscripts don't work with Skyrim and you have to take quite a few extra steps for importing and exporting Skyrim-compatible .nifs. If you have 3ds max I would recommend it at least for Skyrim. For Morrowind it's just a matter of which program you feel more comfortable using, but as Pherim already said, newer Blender versions do not support the nifscripts and you have to keep at least 2 installations if you want to work with .nifs. It's not the smoothest workflow, but it's working.

Bahamut, are there any significant differences between Morrowind, and Skyrim .nif files?

Yes, there are. They are completely different versions of the file format, as are Oblivion's meshes. Which is not surprising as every new game had an improved engine with new graphics and physics features.

Fun. so I also have to learn the differences, so that I don't accidentally break the game...

Yes, if you don't export the mesh in the correct nif version the game will crash. But the exporter should make sure the exported mesh is compatible with the game you selected on export (at least with the Blender plugin), but if it uses features that are not supported by this game, it might still not be exported correctly.

Not that much, as Phenrim said, more advanced stuff usualy requires more than just exporting, some nifscoping is required too,

If you want to make some weapons, or statics it should be pretty straightforward, the staris are starting with more advanced stuff like skinned meshes or animations

Mostly just doing statics. Adding a few structures and some walls with battlements to Bal Isra, some additional walkways to Uvirith's Grave, and a Mesa Verde style cliff city for Odai Cliffs.

All as part of a huge city builder mod...

Well, I'm going to work on learning 3ds Max, while working with Blender. I have the latest and greatest blender, and now have 2.49b. I'm working on getting everything I need for it, but I don't recall exactly what i need for morrowind/Oblivion, or any clue for the workarounds for Skyrim... Maybe this is more headache than it's worth... Nah, well worth it.

I see that Python 2.6.6 is 32-bit only... is that going to be a problem with a 64-bit system?

As of this point, I have

Blender 2.49b

Pyffi 2.2.3

Python 2.6.6

Blender_Nif 2.6.0a

Please correct me if I have the wrong files, or something, before I do something stupid lol.

ugh... followed niftools as best I could, and not seeing import/export .nif files in Blender...

For Blender 2.49b you need the Nifscripts 2.5.9: https://github.com/niftools/blender_nif_plugin/releases/tag/blender-2.5.9

2.6.0a is for newer versions, but unfortunately far from finished. You also possibly need PyFFI 2.1.11, but I am not certain about that.

Ok. Yep, the nif scripts was the issue... Now it's working, and I can load my nif files. How do I fix the "absolute directory" issue I created with my textures? And... is there a comprehensive, and easily understood walkthrough for using the newer blender to create meshes for Morrowind, and port them down to blender 2.49b, or should i even bother with the newer blender? Same goes for Skyrim?

I have a series of meshes i created, that for whatever reason simply do not line up on the typical whole numbers used in Morrowind... Does anyone know, using Blender, what the dimensions should be to fit in properly?

I'm going to keep looking, on the off chance that it is out there, but at the same time, asking experts never hurts... Has anyone made a mesh set for Morrowind to simulate a proper medieval brewery, mill and other such that would be adaptable to native architecture? Obviously Telvanni would be virtually impossible to actually do in the architecture style, but use of outlander style structures there is forgivable.

You'd best do that in NifSkope after exporting from Blender.

Well, I don't know about a walkthrough, but for statics it should be enough to check "legacy mesh format" when saving it as a Blender file with the newer version, that way you will be able to open it in 2.49b. Just make sure there are no polygons with more than four edges (n-gons). Whether you should use the newer Blender version at all I cannot really say... there are a lot of new and improved functions over the older version, but many of them are not important for Morrowind modeling, so unless you get to something you could not do with the older version but with the newer one, you might want to stick with 2.49b, at least for now. The UI is also quite different, though in my opinion it is a lot better in the newer versions.

I suppose you are talking about the Construction Set grid that is used for snapping pieces of architecture together? Well, the standard grid setting is 64 units, but most interior tiles are 256 units wide. The average NPC height is 128 units, and 1m translates to about 70 units or 64 units to one yard.

Blender units are translated 1:10 when im- or exporting meshes, so 1 Blender unit is 10 Morrowind units.

Wow... umm. are those units in CS, or for blender translation to CS?

Both. If you go to "File-->Preferences" in the CS you can set the grid snap in the upper left corner, it is set to 64 units by default, and most tilesets will probably align nicely to this setting, because they were created with it in mind. The base for all geometry scale in Morrowind appears to be the 128 units as average NPC height. And as I said, 10 Morrowind units translate to 1 Blender unit when ex- or importing meshes.

More about units here: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Oblivion_Units

It is specifically about Oblivion, yes, but much of it applies to Morrowind as well.