Questions about Formats

[TheImperialDragon]

Does anyone know what model format Skyrim uses? And are textures still DDS?

Does anyone know of any tools that work with the formats needed for Skyrim?

[Proditus]

The BSA files can still be poked around with using FOMM, if you'd like to have a look. They are still usable with current tools. I managed to open them with OBMM as well, but it complained about a different version number and complained about occasional extraction errors.

From my observations, the model format is still .nif, though like every game Bethesda releases, it's a different version and will not work with previous tools. Attempting to open it with NIFSkope gives me this error.



The textures are still .dds. They shouldn't behave much differently than they did in Oblivion or Fallout 3, though there may be a new system to work with when it comes to the snow. I'm not sure if that's a separate layer of data embedded on every texture or if that's just a dynamic in-engine process that works with the normal maps. As far as I can tell Adobe Photoshop still uses them just fine (no errors in CS5), but you still need the antiquated .dds plugin to use them, and I believe they have yet to make an x64 version. Resolutions are higher on average than Oblivion. Click for full size.



The interfaces of the game now operate in Flash. I don't think they are any more difficult to modify than Oblivion's or Fallout 3's, but they will require a different set of expertise and knowledge. The visuals are all graphic files that use vector imagery which can be extracted as .SVG files with some difficulty. They are embedded in the interface files themselves. It's also worth noting that most of the interface files cannot be run properly standalone, only through Skyrim. Because each menu has its own file, it could be possible to simply add additional menus for different functions without having to change anything that currently exists. We'll know more when the Creation Kit is released later next month.

I'd attach some reference files, but they are all too large for this site to accept. So here's a link to MegaUpload. No, I don't know why the main texture ends in _d, but I do know that none of the others do. I probably should have picked a better sample.

[TheImperialDragon]

Thanks Proditus! I looked at the files and I'm happy to see that they aren't all that different from what TESIV used. I remember, back when there were rumours about Bethesda switching to its own engine, a lot of people were speculating that we would have a bunch of new formats and we wouldn't see NIF's anymore. Of course, the new version of NIFs will present their own challenges...

I'm wondering: does anyone know if there are any tools under development to work with these files? Maybe ones that would be looking for another coder/developer? We've got a number of models that we'll need to bring into the new engine (even if we need to touch them up a bit later), and it seems logical to help bring such tools to a working stage by the time the CK comes out. A batch converter (or a tool that would be open to having such functionality) would be perfect, IMO. There seem to be a few Blender tutorials around (like this one), but I can't imagine the process would be very fast or easy when we're dealing with large numbers of models...

[Proditus]

I did a little digging up. There is a team at NIFTools who create the model tools, but I hear that release reliability is somewhat low. However, they have updated NIFSkope to work with Skyrim's model formats. I tried it out and it does work in addition to running better than the previous version I was on. It is a Release Candidate though, not a finished version, so expect bugs. The current (as of this post) version up there is 1.1.0-RC4, or you can check the entire Sourceforge listing for previous versions and other tools. Here's a screencap of that statue I uploaded to show that it works.




As far as modeling program tools, the dating on Sourceforge shows that the Blender and 3DS Max plugins haven't been updated since 2010, and Maya since 2009. It's safe to say that it may be a while before we export models directly into Skyrim, though there may be some workaround that I haven't checked with NIFSkope. I don't know if there are any other sites that they keep updated more often, but given that they are updating recently on Sourceforge, I can only assume that what you see there is all they have to give.


I also checked on NVidia's official DDS plugin for Adobe Photoshop and I am pleased to see that they've updated it and now support x64 versions of Photoshop. I checked it and it works, so I no longer need to boot into x86 in order to work with textures. I'd imagine that the old version of the plugin would still work because the format itself hasn't changed, but it never hurts to be up-to-date. The save dialog looks much the same.



If you want to learn any more, I think the next best course of action would be to contact the NIFTools team directly to get the details on the format plugins for our favorite modeling programs. I'm sure they're still working on it, but it'd be nice to have more sources to go on than speculation. Barring that, you could also just spend enough time browsing the Skyrim Mods forum to see if someone asked a similar question and if it was answered.

Once we get the Creation Kit in a few weeks, the NIF plugins are all that we will need to begin full development.

Also, it might be a good idea to look around and see if there is any sort of NIF converter that can work between Oblivion and Skyrim. You shouldn't convert official assets with it, but it might be a good idea to carry over all of the Silgrad Oblivion data that we can utilize.