Accessing models from (and for) TES3 via NifSkope

[Razorwing]

For the longest time, the only way to access NIF models from (or modded for) The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was to use the "Nif Importer" plugin from 2004. The only problem with it is that it only works for old versions of 3D Studio Max, and as time wore on fewer and fewer people still had access to versions that old. Personally my install file of the old Max version got corrupted, and stupidly enough I hadn't backed it up. Then when I switched to a new computer, I lost access to it. Things like that just happens.

Being able to access Bethesda's old TES3 NIFs is nice in itself, but the true potential in being able to import old NIFs lies in the vast amount of models modded for TES3. If we don't care for them, it's just a matter of time before they'll be eradicated, never to be seen again. All it takes is for the site that hosts them to go down and then, surely enough, over time less and less folks keep the NIFs on their comps and before you know it, it's gone... forever.

But anyway, I digress; my point is:

The NifSkope utility, in the newer versions, has the power to import TES3-related NIFs! :bananarock:

I hardly claim to be the first to figure that out I just wanted to mention it, and how it's done. (it's very easy and straightforward)

First, load up the NIF you want to work on. It'll look something like screenshot #1 below.

[GALLY]tes3_nifimport_via_nifskope_scr1.jpg[/GALLY]

Most NIF models consist of several meshes, because it's easier to map a model that way. The one I loaded is "light_paper_lantern_01", found in Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Data Files\Meshes\l. Notice the four "NiTriShape" entries? Each of those entries represent a mesh, and if you left-click through them you'll see different parts of the model 'light up' with a green mesh grid.

To get a complete model you have to export all the NiTriShape entries. Do that by right-clicking on each of them and selecting ".OBJ > Export Mesh", and then save them to a new folder on your computer.

So now, we have for instance a paper lantern cut up into four parts in four files. Luckily, their orientation and position in the imagined universe is kept intact, so when you re-assemble them they'll fit together perfectly. Personally I did that by importing the .obj files one by one into 3D Studio Max, which turned out like in screenshot #2. Perfect!

[GALLY]tes3_nifimport_via_nifskope_scr2.jpg[/GALLY]

Now, *using* this model in a mod would be illegal, because Bethesda has forbidden us from using their assets from TES3 in mods for TES4. Like Locklear93, a Zenimax employee, said: doing that would be giving people content they didn't pay for. For TES3 mods it didn't matter much if you reskinned a lamp like that and released it as a mod, because it could only be used by people who paid for TES3.

But in the majority of cases that wouldn't be a good option even if it was legal, because most of Bethesda's old models are heavily optimized and intended to run smoothly on an average computer back in early -02. They would look pretty bad in Oblivion. No, the benefit (at least to me) in being able to do this lies in the fact that being able to check out the model threedimensionally in Max, which is a real help when trying to mimic the design and proportions.

[GALLY]light_de_paper_lantern_razorwing_1.jpg[/GALLY] [GALLY]light_de_paper_lantern_razorwing_2.jpg[/GALLY] [GALLY]light_de_paper_lantern_razorwing_3.jpg[/GALLY]
Just like old times, ey? Awning model by Caligula, textures from MVP

NifSkope is a program made by the NifTools group and can be downloaded here.

[Darkness Eternal]

That is great Razorwing!

As you know, I'm currently learning 3DS Max (with steady progress). I've been wondering if it's possible to play around with the old Morrowind meshes created by the community. It would really be a shame if they were to just dissolve into nothingness on the web.

However, I have a complete DVD full of Morrowind mods. Quite a few of the now very rare mods and resources (like n'dibs Twilight - which isn't available anywhere anymore) all stored in categories, so if anyone needs anything, I'll be more than happy to provide.

I think the community would benefit greatly if some of those resources were ported over to Oblivion (with the author's consent of course). Once I actually know what I'm doing with Max and Nifskope, I might just give it a try...

~Dark

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Darkness Eternal
That is great Razorwing!

As you know, I'm currently learning 3DS Max (with steady progress). I've been wondering if it's possible to play around with the old Morrowind meshes created by the community. It would really be a shame if they were to just dissolve into nothingness on the web.

However, I have a complete DVD full of Morrowind mods. Quite a few of the now very rare mods and resources (like n'dibs Twilight - which isn't available anywhere anymore) all stored in categories, so if anyone needs anything, I'll be more than happy to provide.

I think the community would benefit greatly if some of those resources were ported over to Oblivion (with the author's consent of course). Once I actually know what I'm doing with Max and Nifskope, I might just give it a try...

~Dark

Cool, a kindred spirit!

There could potentially be a problem with one type of old NIF files; ones that have been exported from 3D Studio Max v6. Bethesda never got as far as using v6 when they created Morrowind, so all their TES3 NIFs were made with v3, v4 and v5. But I think the official exporter worked with v6 as well, and so there was quite a few TES3 modellers who used that version. Problem is that the old "NIF Importer" seemingly was designed to only recognize NIFs exported by v3, v4 and v5, so NIFs exported with v6 was unreachable. It's possible that NifSkope can't recognize them either, but I haven't tested yet.

Mm, Brillo did some amazing work on that mod. I actually wrote a report on "N'Dib's Twilight" in October last year, where I voiced my opinion on the usefulness to our Oblivion project of the individual models he created for his mod. Hold on, I'll dig it up. (I posted it on our internal board)

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[blockquote]"N'Dib's Twilight 0.5", created by Brillo, contains a large collection of original models. This is my personal report on it, my assessment of the models' uses in Silgrad Tower: Oblivion, and various personal opinions. The filenames of the screenshots linked in this post correspond with the name of the nif and .max file in the download; a few screenshots show several models, and those are named _pic_1-2 and similarly and shouldn't be too hard to spot. Please add your opinions on these models!

[title]Architecture[/title]

1. Treehouses

There are basically two treehouses in N'Dib's Twilight, one small and one large. The base structures are supplemented by separate balconies, doors, canopies (~overhangs), stairs and windows, which often have variations in color or size.
Small treehouse: Exterior | Interior
Large treehouse: Exterior | Interior
Balcony: Basic | Full,small | Full,large
Door: Blue | Blue, wide | Brown | Brown, wide | Green | Green, wide | Red | Red, wide | White | White, wide
Canopy, small: Blue | Brown | Green | Red | White
Canopy, large: Blue | Brown | Green | Red | White
Stairs: Short | Medium | Tall
Windows: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4

Beyond the houses themselves there are a few sundry exterior placeables. Arch is a sortof exterior doorjamb, Hook are branches, and I assume Posthook is for banners and similar. The centerpoles I'm not sure of, but they may be poles you can place to illustrate support for a balcony or just for decoration.
Arch: Arch 1-3
Hook: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5
Posthook: Posthook 1-3
Centerpole: Small | Large

And here are some examples of interior details beyond the 'husks' for the treehouses above.
Doorjamb: Doorjamb
Floor: Half | Quarter-L | Quarter-R
Railing: Short | Long
Stairs: #1 | #2
Supports: Basic | Cloth-covered

Personal opinion on quality: Four out of five. The meshes are clean, detailed and doesn't look primitive on a scale of what we can hope for in terms of Oblivion modding. That's the meshes; many of the textures are fuzzy and could really do with a makeover, but that's true of most things modelled for Morrowind as I think that game had problems with larger textures. The set contains everything needed to build a full settlement that - if retextured - wouldn't look bad, but the limited selection of two house models causes it to land on four instead of five.

Assessment of use: Firstly I would like to cut out the intended use of these as treehouses and rather see them used as normal earth-bound buildings, for a couple of reasons. One, I don't think we would mod anyone living in a treehouse as there's no precedent for Dunmer or others living in our neck of the woods (pardon the pun) that resort to that practice. Two, Oblivion trees are animated which would be hard to reconcile with static buildings. Three, there are plenty of ways to use them as earthbound buildings that would serve us better, but which of those ways that is best... that I am not sure of.
Ideas:
1. We could ask the Vvardenfell team if they want to use them to make houses for House Telvanni. I'm not too fond of that idea because Telvanni are supposed to live in mushrooms, and as I don't think treehouses will be technically possible, them living in lodges just seems wrong.
2. We could think up a mainland equivalent to the Ashlanders, and let the houses be used by what would then be the native Dunmer population of our lands. If so they might live in a mountain valley somewhere, as that is the only remote location I can think of. I like this better than idea #1.
3. We could invent a minor House (there are supposed to be minor Houses in Morrowind apart from the five Great Houses) and let them live in these, and mod a small enclave somewhere in our lands - perhaps just one village - which is ruled by that minor House. I like this idea better than idea #1 and #2.
4. Instead of offering them for Telvanni or inventing something new, there is a potential practical use for these as -- just plain Dunmer houses. TES III had shacks where the poorest of Dunmer lived, like in Seyda Neen for example, or why not the slums right there in Silgrad. While these doesn't look like those shacks, they are still wooden houses and doesn't look overly fancy to me. The small house could be used for singles or a small family, while the large one could be used by a bigger family, which would add to the impression that they aren't richer because the house is larger. If we did that, we could even tie in with the Sylvan houses and make the latter houses rural versions of poor residentials, while any medium- or rich NPCs would live in Great House buildings whether in the city or on the countryside. I think I like this idea best of all because in my mind it would fill an existing need.




2. Ildossa - sewer?

Examples of set pieces; there are many more of them than these, but you get the jist of what it looks like:
3way | 4way | Corner | Gate-exit | Room #1 | Room #2 | Root | Port #1 | Port #2 | Port #3 | Vent

Personal opinion on quality: One out of five. Mesh-wise this set is basically just made up of cylinders and toruses and looks crude and primitive.

Assessment of use: Well... none. I mean I could think up things like them being used as sewers beneath strongholds or used as sewers in our cities, but I think Oblivion can see to those needs, and as I personally don't see much artistic merit to them I don't think we should use them, but I'm open to opinions on that.




3. N'Dib's Ship

I think the Packs are meant to be cargo.
Exterior: Black | Brown | White
Interior: Interior
Door: Door
Ladder: Ladder
Packs: Black | Brown | Green | Red | White

Personal opinion on quality: Five out of five. This looks as good as anything Bethesda created for Morrowind.

Assessment of use: I think it would make a fine addition to any of our ports without needing any deeper explanation. It would probably be more cargo- or fishing-related rather than transporting the player around, but who knows.



[title]Flora[/title]


Giant Kollop: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4

Personal opinion on quality: Two out of five. Jagged.

Assessment of use: If it's made into a small kollop instead of a giant one, the jaggedness might not look so bad.


Lamp-fungus: #1-#2

Personal opinion on quality: One out of five.

Assessment of use: None, really. I think it's meant to be a glo-in-the-dark mushroom, but it just looks too bad imho.



Mooncap: #1 | #2 | #3

Personal opinion on quality: Five out of five. It doesn't show very well in the renders, but these mushrooms have a layer in the cap that makes it look like there's water there.

Assessment of use: Could be used with good effect in any non-Bitter Coast-forest, I think.


Tef: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4

Personal opinion on quality: Four out of five. It looks tasty!

Assessment of use: A wonderful shelffungus for non-Bitter Coast-forests.


Tkapod: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6

Personal opinion on quality: One out of five. Jagged and very fuzzy.

Assessment of use: If it's heavily sized down I think it could be used in our forests if we want to.


Whitebell: #1 | #2

Personal opinion on quality: Three out of five.

Assessment of use: Well... I think it uses the stoneflower mesh, and the stem (still) uses the bittergreen stem texture. With that in mind I don't see that much use for it.


Woodear: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4

Personal opinion on quality: Three out of five. Not as nice as the Tef, but still quite good I think.

Assessment of use: A nice shelffungus for non-Bitter Coast-forests.



[title]Other[/title]

1. Pots
Green #1 | Green #2 | Green #3 | Green #4 | Green #5 | Brown example | Red example

Personal opinion on quality: Three out of five. Not bad, but not eye-catching.

Assessment of use: If they're sized small enough, like say a bottle, then I think we could use them. I don't think we need them, but we could use them.



2. The N'Dir race
The mod includes a new race with quite a few faces, but given Oblivion's new face-generating system I don't see how we could use these.
Female | Male


3. Cliffs
N'Dib's Twilight contains a number of statics that can be placed to look like cliffs. I don't think they look good enough to meld well with Oblivion's environments.
Screenshots: #1 | #2


Browse the whole screenshot directory [/blockquote]

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black[/HR]

Unfortunately I don't have access to the NIF files anymore, and as you say, his mod isn't on the net. I think I got my copy from the "Mod Detectives" on ESF.

[Darkness Eternal]

Well, it seems I'm making steady progress on importing my own models into the game. Of course, this is VERY simple at the moment, basically only simple primitives with rescaled collision boxes surrounding.

Btw, I just tried your method described above with some TES3 models and it works!!!!

I'm not as far as texturing at this point, but it's only a matter of time. I'm finding the basic tutorials here and on the net easy to comprehend (even for me). Texturing seems to be a whole different ballgame. I am luckily quite experienced with Photoshop (I used to create custom GUIs for VST Plugins - a type of "mod" used in audio applications), so I'm hoping it'll be easy when I get to that point.

Also, I think it's only a matter of time before we get either an official im/exporter or a community made. From reading various posts, it still seems far away, but not hopeless .

Anyway, I find this forum much more useful for this kind of thing than the official TES forums....great work and thanks for sharing any new discoveries. It's really helping new people like me dive right into the fun stuff

~Dark

[Razorwing]

I'm glad to hear that! If you have questions just let me know, perhaps I can answer them. I've never gotten into texturing myself, because I know all too well I have absolutely no skill in that department. Slapping fancy text on pictures is about as far as I go.

On the other hand I know of several sources for textures which have been a big help. Retexture packs like "Morrowind Visual Pack" has been a real lifesaver. Often they're made for exactly the same object or material I'm trying to recreate, and they're already set up with use in games in mind. I start out in MVP, because I like those textures the best. If I can't find a good one there I go to "Mixed Textures 1.1", and if that doesn't have it I go to "Vibrant Morrowind". Between the three I usually always find what I need. When I don't, I have other collections from Noctua Graphics, lemog3d and other sites to dig from.