Well after nearly three hours of fannying around with this (how simple it was in Oblivion) I have thrown in the towel and come here for help.

All I am trying to do is get a simple test box from Max into Skyrim.

Using the latest exporter I am doing basically what I did in Oblivion.

Create box, add texture, uvw map it, export to skyrim/data/meshes/testbox.nif

dds texture a straight lift from a mod in Oblivion to the textures directory of Skyrim.

Of course that couldnt possibly just work in Skyrim. Open CK, create new static, edit, add the model and watch the red exclamation mark appear. Hmmm.

I have tried all kinds of export settings. Anyone any idea? All the tutorials appear to be about armour, swords and the like. Mine is just a simple static box for testing purposes so I can start porting across large quantities of basic statics.

Surely one person somewhere has done this?

There currently are no exporters that support Skyrim NIFs. There also were none for Oblivion for a long time after OB's release.

Save your mesh as 3ds and import it into a Skyrim nif using http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope or later.

Actually there is an exporter that supports Skyrim, but the export results are...less than optimal. The BSLightingShaderProperty settings are messed up and it also exports with a NiNode instead a BSFadeNode as scene root (which works, but you can't select the object in the CK with a NiNode). Personally I export to Skyrim format, then copy over the ShaderProperty I want (from a Beth nif, adjusted in Nifskope how I want it), then I copy over to a Beth nif with BSFadeNode. I guess JOG's suggestion is just as good, but you'll have to adjust things in Nifskope either way. It's like in the good old Oblivion days, you have to spend a minute or two in Nifskope copy/pasting over branches, blocks etc for an average model. Not that great, but better than nothing. I already converted a few dozen models that way.

Collision is not possible right now (other than messing around in Nifskope with convex shapes or primitves), but they're finally making good progress on the Niftools forum in that regards as it seems.

Good, thats good news. I think it may be better holding off for a month or so before starting the aruous task of moving stuff over then. Do you have a link for the nifskope forum where this is being devloped. There seems to be a few threads that go nowhere much over there,.

Link to Niftools forum:

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/index.php

Especially the 'decoding the nif file format' subforum is interesting.

I wouldn't hold my breath for a full-blown max exporter anytime in the foreseeable future. Currently no one is working on it and there are still a lot of things that are unclear anyway.

There is a drop down box (down toward the bottom of the screen losted as Root Node Type) in the export settings to select which of the 2 to use for the export !! http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc189/JDFanning_bucket/setting-1.jpg

It appears, looking at the forums, no-one is working on a max exporter, and Blender isn't being worked on either. That could pose quite a problem as currently the work arounds are pretty onerous. Please tell me that one or the other will eventually be available. I am happy to use Blender.

I'm not sure how well that setting works though. When I first tried it it worked fine, but I haven't been able to get it to work again. I've just been renaming the NiNode as BSFadeNode in NifSkope and that seems to work (after I've selected the BSFadeNode in the exporter of course).

Its a bit bemusing and worrying. The lack of interest in developing nifskope, max and blender exporters for Skyrim seems when compared with Oblivion, the sign of decline in interest. Has much been done in the last couple of weeks for instance?

Appears not.

Is there anyone who can step by step explain this. I have produced a static for testing purposes in max and exported it as per the previous tutorials. However I cant work out how to get it to show up and work in game. Can someone perhaps explain what needs to be done in nifskope. The youtube tutorial takes an already exported static as an example then cuts and pastes from it. Thats catch 22.

This tutorial is great except that its silent: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11793 with no explanation of what and why. I get lost at the nitrishapes bit and nifskope tells me it has an error,.

Can you upload the mesh that you are using for the testing to a host site and post a download link -- much easier to explain if using a specific model so the node numbering is present --- and what type of object are you attempting to make with it ( moveable static, collidable static, etc.)

Also what is the error Nifskope reports ?

I think "decline in interest" is putting it a bit strongly. For Blender the issue seems to be that they are having to port (or reimplement) the import/export tools to a new, very different API - and incorporating support for the new features in Skyrim NIFs is a whole load of complexity on top of that. True, not many people are working on this, but then I suspect not many people have the skills to work on this, and those that do are probably mostly working in their free time. I think another factor is that we don't see much progress because regular updates on progress aren't posted (since the developers aren't answerable to anyone, why should they?). That said, there was a recent "state of the world" post on the NifTools forum, which describes the goals and approach being taken: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3520

As said after your post this is not an easy job and there aren't many people that have the "know how" to do this, with Oblivion it took more than one year with constant research to achieve the actual exporter to work, and even the first editions were very basic compared with what you have nowadays.
I say don't despair but also don't expect much in the foresee future, it's literally a pain to export anything, Do a search on You Tube on "how to export" and you'll see what I am talking about, if you're going for mass production like you did with TES4 then be prepared for a sweat!
I don't believe there's a lack of interest but against the few serious modders around here, the gross majority of community members quickly achieved their main targets which is to have all the nvde/body mods and Hentai clothing into the game without the needs of more advanced tools.
Actually I'm having great fun importing Skyrim meshes to Oblivion Tamriel Heighmaps mod, but this is private modding so i guess it's OK to mention it.

I am working on basic building statics, exterior, interior stuff, basic furniture, amphorae and the like.

Which version of Blender are they working on plugins for? It seems the max exporter isnt being worked on, so I'll bin that pathway and go over to Blender. (I should be studying with maxso its better I dont mod with it, modding distracts from me learning. )

Here is how I was able to get something created from Max into the game:

1. Find an ingame object of similar size. For you, it'd be one of the crates. Export it with Fallout Mod Manager.

2. Create whatever it is you wanted to create in 3ds Max. Finalize and 'set' the UV Map. Export as an .obj

3. Open the exported ingame (parent) object with NifSkope. Import your .obj. If you get a message of it being imported to the root of the file, then you did it right.

4. Delete imported NiMaterial

5. Go into the parent NiTriShape or BSLODTriShape, change the Data reference to your imported NiTriShapeData

6. Delete Imported NiTriShape

7. Delete parent NiTriData

8. Delete imported NiNode (important that this is done last)

9. In imported NiTriShapeData, change UV Sets # to 4097 and HasVertexColors to yes

10. In BSShaderTextureSet apply your custom textures