Question about current modelling technology

[Darkness Eternal]

Hi,

Sorry if this is a total newbie question, but I'm getting more and more interested in making new objects for Oblivion and wanted to know if it's yet possible to get new buildings into the game...the easy way.

Now, I'm totally new at modelling and making nifs, but I've been following as many discussions as I could find, but still need some advice on how-to.
I just downloaded the latest version of Blender and wanted to give that a try before I even go any further with 3DS Max and the conversion process.

My question now is, if I successfully manage to make new objects (specifically buildings and architecture is what I'm interested in) in Blender, what steps do I take from there? Of course, I realize that it's a steep learning curve, but I'm willing to put in the time and effort.
My next question is the thing about collision data. once I have a model created, can it be brought into the game somehow?

thanks for any advice.

~Dark

[Siegfried]

Hello there Darkness Eternal and welcome to the Beyond Cyrodiil Community (title for Silgrad and her sibling projects). From my knowledge you can get new models ingame through Nifscope, and you can give them collision by dropping collision boxes that exist in the exporter around them to give the effect the object has collision. It might be possible to get static collision through Nifscope, I'm unsure because I'm not a modeler though, good luck and I hope I was able to be of some assistance, also check our FAQ Board for all sorts of tutorials on making models, ect.

[Razorwing]

Hi there D. E., and welcome !

:wave:

I'd usually discourage from using Blender if you have a choice between it and 3D Studio Max, both because I personally think Max is easier to work in, and because the net is littered with tutorials, and because it's generally more compatible with TES games. These days though we have the NifSkope tool, and if you get the hang of using it, it's theoretically possible to make NIFs without having to rely on any other program than Blender.

I don't know anything about working with NifSkope though; I'm still relying on the Civ4 NIF exporter plugin and hope to eventually overwrite those NIFs with properly exported ones. But if you have any questions about that process I might be able to help, and if you master NifSkope I hope you take pity on this poor fool and educates him how to export stuff good 'n proper

[Darkness Eternal]

Thanks for the response guys.

Well, I do have an older copy of 3DS Max 5 (Trial), which I got ahold of after hearing that they used that version to create Oblivion. I bought it 2nd hand together with the Book of the series "3DS Max for dummies". I've been dabbling with it for a bit and I do agree that it seems less overwhelming than Blender for some reason. Then again, I'm not underestimating the learning curve and by no means consider myself a modeller.

Let's face it, I've been spending years and years working with Cubase (for audio recording), so I know all too well what it's like to learn an application of such proportions.

However, from what I read, the Civ4 exporter will only work on later versions of Max, right? version 6 to 8 if I'm not mistaken. In that case, I'll probably get a new version and give it a shot from there. I think the only reason I was so focused on 5 was the fact that Bethesda had said they'd release an exporter, which I was assuming would only work with v.5.x.

Either way, thanks again for the responses. I think I'll go download a trial of version 8 and get the Civ4 exporter. I can buy tons of books for Max at the 2nd hand bookstore, so I'm not too worried about tutorials...maybe a Serial number though. But you didn't hear me say that.

~Dark

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Darkness Eternal
I can buy tons of books for Max at the 2nd hand bookstore, so I'm not too worried about tutorials...maybe a Serial number though. But you didn't hear me say that.

~Dark

*sniff* *sniff*
Aah... another 'customer' interested in the dark arts...

*Razor skulks away to his PM box like a lvl 80 ninja*

[Zarf]

Wait a sec. I smell something, how you say, "war iz" around here. :-D

I actually won my copy of 3DS 7 in a Skills USA competition. Not only is it legal, but I can upgrade to Max 8 real cheap now. Not that I have the money to in the first place. :-D

[Harikari]

Ah don't worry, Razor's already taking care of you seems like it... I think you have enough exp to go to lv.81 ninja razorwing

[Darkness Eternal]

Ok, so I got Max set up and running. Been playing around with it last weekend with some (what I think) acceptable results after going through a few video and other tutorials.

Now I have a few questions that are more specific to Oblivion and Max:

1. How do I install the Civ4 exporter? (I just copied the *.dlu file over to the plugins directory in Max and got an error when opening. So obviously something didn't work)

2. What measurement system is used for Oblivion Meshes (Buildings mainly). I downloaded the redoran models from the forum here as test examples, but when I import them, they seem so tiny.

3. This is a question for later, but how do I get textures onto my meshes? I'm not sure if I'm right, but I need to do that in NifSkope, right? Or is it Razorwing's method of "baking the texture into the nif" the way I need to do it?

Thanks for any responses

~Dark

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Darkness Eternal
Ok, so I got Max set up and running. Been playing around with it last weekend with some (what I think) acceptable results after going through a few video and other tutorials.

Now I have a few questions that are more specific to Oblivion and Max:

1. How do I install the Civ4 exporter? (I just copied the *.dlu file over to the plugins directory in Max and got an error when opening. So obviously something didn't work)

2. What measurement system is used for Oblivion Meshes (Buildings mainly). I downloaded the redoran models from the forum here as test examples, but when I import them, they seem so tiny.

3. This is a question for later, but how do I get textures onto my meshes? I'm not sure if I'm right, but I need to do that in NifSkope, right? Or is it Razorwing's method of "baking the texture into the nif" the way I need to do it?

Thanks for any responses

~Dark

1. The "Civ4 Nif Exporter" package is a couple megabytes big.

2. Oblivion (as well as TES3: Morrowind) uses a point-based system to measure models. A level, like the story of a house, is often 256 points high. An average NPC is 128 points high. If you want, feel free to check out some of my older modelling projects on the Visual Dev board; many of them contain Lara Croft ...and the thing about her is that she's sized pretty close to how an NPC in Oblivion is. Back then I had to guess, but when I started importing the models I noticed I'd been right about her size and all my stuff was more or less the right dimensions.

3. I believe NifSkope is theoretically a better method than the Civ4 exporter, but in my personal opinion... Civ4 is so easy and hands-on to work with, and yields amicable results. I fear I'll have to learn NifSkope sooner or later though, because it has a lot of potential, especially in the way it allows for normal- and other maps. There's some info about working with the exporter in this thread which might be interesting to read.

Good luck, and have fun!