[REQ] Skyrim/stone/cold houses, walls, int's, etc

[Greybeard]

I need a guardhouse, 2-3 house, perimeter wall, interiors (including rough wood furniture) and a working portcullis scripted to give damage to any fool who stands under it when it comes down (about 10 health for 100 sec's should do it.)

I went through a few pages of threads and tried a search, but no luck, so I thought I'd just post a request and see what/who is available. The immediate need is for Haerter's Gap, but I expect these pieces would be used quite extensively in Skyrim.

If no one has anything like this, I'll try my hand at it myself. Thanks for your consideration - Grey.

[Razorwing]

I've got three Nord houses on my comp, modelled by Prometheus, which I've been meaning to bring in one way or the other. They've never been used before, anywhere; Prom modelled them for Tamriel Rebuilt but they came out too polydense for them to want to use them in their TES3 mod, and their TES4 mod is at least for now confined to Hammerfell, so there wasn't any problem for them or Prom to give us permision to use the models if we wanted to.

If anyone wants a copy of the max scenes to develop and import them into the Skyrim mod, I'd be happy to supply them.

[Axen]

The Vvardenfell mod is also having some Nordic settlements.

[Greybeard]

Prom!?! Now, that's a name from loooong ago! If I remember correctly, those were wood-based buildings. Agreed that they'd be fine additions to the towns, but I need roughstone - and the rougher, the better.

Razorwing, I didn't know that we could get max files into TES4. Do you have a way to do that? That'd really make things a lot easier!

[Zarf]

It depends on the version of 3DS Max that you have. If you have 7 or 8, it's easy. There are some drawbacks at this point, however.

You will need to download the NIF exporter in the database. When you have a model ready to put in the game, simply export it as a .NIF and choose it in the CS as your artwork.

The drawbacks: Currently, Max can't do armor, clothes, etc. You can do weapons.

You can't add collision detection or Havok details... in other words, you would fall right through your house. RW has learned the art of using collision boxes from the CS, but it's really annoying to do that. Besides, when we do get an exporter from Bethesda that allows for collisions, you will have to go through and remove all of them...

Oh well. Better than nothing.

[Axen]

Originally posted by Zarf
You can't add collision detection or Havok details... in other words, you would fall right through your house. RW has learned the art of using collision boxes from the CS, but it's really annoying to do that. Besides, when we do get an exporter from Bethesda that allows for collisions, you will have to go through and remove all of them...

Oh well. Better than nothing.

You can make a new object (or objects, like making another to use as a door) that uses the collision box mesh, and when you have properly collison'ed models, you can just delete the collision objects you made and be done with them all in one fell swoop.

[Greybeard]

Thanks. I read Nighthawk's tut, but I don't think it'll work with version 5

Well, I just downloaded some stone wall pic's and will just try to retexture the most likely bldg's. Once we get more equipment, I'll probably have to replace those, though.

[Siegfried]

Armor can be added in game with the most recent release of Nifskope if you have Blender, I dont' know how thats done though.

[Razorwing]

Greybeard: Mm, we were fortunate to get permission (thanks to Zarkis) to use all the Narsis stuff Prometheus created for TR, in our Oblivion mod. Not much of it has been imported yet because, naturally, it's intended for a Hlaalu-style town and development on Silgrad (city) hasn't come anywhere yet.

The Civ4 Nif Exporter is the way to go, like Zarf mentioned. It only works for Max v7 or Max v8 I'm afraid, but it's very easy to work with, letting one concentrate on modelling rather than mucking about with NIFs. You can download a 30-day trial of v8.0 here if you like:
-DOWNLOAD-

Here's a very brief summary of the method; the NifSkope Alchemy tut might be worth reading first:

- export the models from max without baked textures
- copy the texture files to a folder in Data\textures\
- fire up NifSkope and load the Nif
- unroll the lists to find all the flowers and click in the texture name and paste the relative url to your folder before the texture name. For me, I'd see for instance MetalIron06.dds so I click at the beginning of the filename and paste textures\ST\
- don't leave any texture urls highlighted when you save; the changed url won't take effect until you deselect the text box
- save to a new nif (or overwrite the old one)
- if you see any pink color in the CS / in the game, one or more texture url is wrong

Good luck, and have fun!