I've been working 12-13 hours a day, for 4 days.

My mod is a helmet I made myself in Blender, and in order to get it into the game I have been following this tutorial:
(I do not have permission to post links) - Search 'creating an armor for skyrim' it is by Nexus Wiki




Its badly written, and missing important parts which I've scrabbled for hours to figure out. In the end I've gotten my helmet into the game, but here are the glitches

1: The helmet is where the head should be, but does not 'track' it properly. When the body sways in normal stance, the helmet remains where it is.
If I crouch, the helmet stays in the standing position


2: The helmet is completely black, it has no texture.


3: The characters head is invisible when wearing the helmet

--- Please help me resolve these problems, I can give you any information you want. I have the .nif files, I have nifscope, I have Blender, I have Creation Kit, its all there.

Just tell me what would cause the helmet to not track the head ect...and help me fix this.


This is how I made the helmet:
1: Modeled it in Blender 2.63A
2: Used FO3 Utility Archiver to extract the malehead.nif file from the compressed .bsa meshes folder.
3: Used Nifscope to edit settings and delete certain nodes according to the tutorial in order for Blender to open the file
4: Installed Nifscripts for Blender 2.49B and then used it to open the modified malehead.nif
5: Saved the Blender file with the malehead for later use
6: Imported my helmet into the malehead.blend (Using 2.63A)
7: made sure my helmet fit on the Malehead, then saved and closed
8: Got a UV map, and then downloaded GIMP, then (Following the tutorials steps) I edited them both into .dds forms, making a 'color' map and a 'normal' .dds file for the texture.
9: Opened Blender with 2.49B, Selected the malehead, and then the helmet. Chose to 'Bone Weight Copy' the weight of the Malehead to the Helmet so it would work ingame.
10: ERROR: No vertices selected (Every time I try)
11: Opened the file in Blender 2.63A, used a plugin bone weight copier to select my helmet (All verts selected), then the malehead. Hit 'copy weights'
12: After it 'apparently' copied weights (Fans kicked in and it took a while) I deleted the malehead
13: Selected my helmet, then imported the malehead again, this time assigning it as parent to my object.
14: Exported it as a .nif file
15: Opened the .nif file in Nifscope, edited parameters to make it work in game, listed below are the changes
Load the mesh you've just created into NifSkope (for example MyArmour_0.nif)
First of all, edit the NiHeader to make it compatible with Skyrim (this is the reverse step of what you did for being able to import Skyrim meshes into Blender):
In the Block detais section, expand the NiHeader property as shown in picture Editting the NiHeader in NifSkope
You'll see that the User version property has a value of 11. Double click on the 11 and then change it to 12.
Then go to the User version 2 property, that has a value of 34. Double click on the 34 and then change it to 83.
Next thing is to get rid of the Scene Root node that Blender has exported with the armour:
Expand the Scene Root node as shown in picture Getting rid of the Scene Root node.
Browse down the Block details section until you see the Children property.
Expand the Children property. You'll see it contains the node of the armour (in the picture, the 1-bbe2femalebody_0 node). Double clik on the number of this node and delete it, so the Children property points to None.
Now you'll see something like what is shown in picture Getting rid of the Scene Root node 2: the bbe2femalebody_0 is not under the Scene Root node anymore.
Select the Scene Root node and press Ctrl + Del or right click and select Block -> Remove Branch.
Save the nif file.
Now you are ready for the second batch of adjustments:
Load the nif file again in NifSkope.
You'll see that some new nodes appear just below the armour node (bbe2femalebody_0 in the example) as shown in picture Deleting unwanted nodes. These nodes correspond to properties that are not compatible with the nif version used by Skyrim, so you have to delete them.
Select the first one (BSShaderPPLightingProperty in the picture) and press Ctrl + Del or right click and select Block -> Remove Branch.
Do the same with all the other nodes (NiSpecularProperty, NiMaterialProperty, etc) until you only see the armour node (bbe2femalebody_0 in the example).
Save the nif file (this is not strictly required but is a good practive to save often just in case).
Expand the root Ninode (bbe2femalebody_0 in the example) as shown in picture Setting the properties of the body data.
Expand the node that contains the body parts that are shown by the armour (the newBBE_1_noweight in the picture).
Select the NiTriShapeData node of the body parts.
Browse down in its Block details until you see the Num UV sets and the Has Normals properties:
The Num UV sets will have a value of 4097. Double click on the 4097 and change its value to 1.
The Has Normals property will have a value of yes. Double click on the yes and change it to no.
Note: You only have to edit these properties for the body nodes. They are fine as they are for the armour/clothing nodes.
Select the BSDismemberSkinInstance node of one of the NiTriShape nodes of your armour as shown in picture Adjusting the dismemberment data.
In the Block details section expand the Partitions property.
Expand the second Partitions property.
Make sure that the Part Flag property has bloth flags selected: PF_EDITOR_VISIBLE and PF_START_NET_BONESET. If not, double click and select both flags from the drop down list.
The Body Part property will contain one or more of the body parts ypu've created in Blender (BP_TORSO, BP_LEFTLEG or BP_RIGHTARM). Double click on these values and change them to:
From BP_TORSO to 32
From BP_RIGHTARM to 34
From BP_LEFTLEG to 37
Repeat this steps for all the BSDismemberSkinInstance nodes of all the NiTriShape nodes of your armour.
Save the nif file.

Adding transparency
The next step consists in adding materials and textures to all the NiTriShape nodes that form your amour. To do that:
Load the nif in NifSkope
Select one of the NiTriShapes, for example the newBBE_1_noweight in the example nif)
Right click and select Block -> Insert from the menu
A new menu will pop-up. Select Bethesda -> BSLightingShaderProperty. This will add a new node at the end of your nif file.
Select the NiTriShape node but it is not under the NiTriShape node, as shown in picture Adding a BSLightingProperty node. To correct this:
Note down the number of the new node you've just added (2 in the example picture)
Select the NiTriShape node again and browse down in the Block Details until you see the Properties property as shown in picture Moving the BSLightingShaderProperty node to its right position.
Expand the Properties and in the first value change the None to the number of the node you've added (2 in the example). Now the BSLightingShaderProperty node has moved and is shown under the NiTriShape node.
Select the BSLightingShaderProperty node, right click and select Block -> Insert.
A new menu will pop-up. Select Bethesda -> BSShaderTextureSet. This will add a new node at the end of your nif file. To correct this:
Note down the number of the new node you've just added (3, for example)
Select the BSLightingShaderProperty
Browse down the Block details sections until you see the Texture Set property and change its None value to the number of the BSShaderTextureSet node (3, in the example). This will move the new node under the BSLightingShaderProperty node.
Repeat these steps for all the NiTriShapes that form your armour, adding to them a BSLightingShaderProperty and a BSShaderTextureSet nodes.
The next step consists in setting the right properties for the BSLightingShaderProperty nodes you've just added.
Select the BSLightingShaderProperty node you are going to edit.
Set its properties in the block details:
Picture BSLightingShaderProperty settings for the body shows the settings for all the properties that are used for the body nodes (the parts of the armour where the body is shown).
Picture BSLightingShaderProperty settings for the armour shows the settings I've used for all the properties that are used for the armour nodes.
Repeat this for all the BSLightingShaderProperty nodes of all the NiTriShape nodes that form your armour.
The last step is to add the textures to your armour:
Expand the BSLightingShaderProperty node.
Select the BSShaderTextureSet.
In the Block detils section you'll see that the Num Textures properties is set to 6 as shown in picture BSShaderTextureSet block details. Skyrim uses 9 textures so you will have to fix that:
Double click on the 6 and change it to 9.
Right click on the purple flower of the Textures property and select Array -> Update. Now you will have 9 lines to add textures.
Expand the Textures properties and associate the texture files you created previously in GIMP:
Picture Texture files for the body shows the texture files associated to the body (the parts of the armour that show the skin).
Picture Texture files for the armour shows the texture files associated to the armour.
Repeat this for all the BSShaderTextureSet nodes.
Save the nif file.
It is important that each texture type goes to the right place. The top one has to be the diffuse map (the colour), the second one the normal map.
Check that the texture files begin like this: textures\... as shown in the Texture files for the armour image. If the links to the files begin like C:\Program files\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Skyrim\Data\textures\..., or \textures\... the game may not be able to upload them and you'll see the armour black, purple or invisible