Arcane University: Nif Implementation
This is the main page of the Beyond Skyrim Arcane University Nif tutorials. It serves as hub for the standard workflow and pointers to detailed specific tutorials for Nif Implementation. The Arcane University: Implementation department is structured in three sub-departments:
- Quest Implementation
- Nif Implementation
- Mechanics Implementation
Contents
Workflow & general tutorials
What is important/relevant to learn for implementing (complex) meshes in Skyrim. Within Beyond Skyrim, 3D artists are expected to be able to export their own meshes to nifs, if they are simple enough. However, for some complex to implement meshes, like animated meshes or meshes with particle effects, it may fall on an implementer to bring this into Skyrim. Other partner projects of the AU may have the entire responsibility of bringing a mesh from fbx to in-game fall on the implementer's shoulder. Therefore, the first thing you should know is how to export to nif from a 3D program or from a predefined format like fbx.
Other subjects covered will be:
- animation
- polishing (UV, shader faces, tangent spaces, sanitize, correct names...)
- special effect nodes
Basics
Nif properties are the leverage to modify meshes in certain aspects as intended. Take your time to have a look at the specifics of the NIF data format used for meshes, check Nif Data Format. Topics of interest are especially
- weight center
- collision
- physical havoc material (does it swim, float, hover etc)
- Effect properties (See shaders)
- animations
- BSFX flags
- inventory marker
- UV map fixes
- Changes in rendering the Mesh (Smooth or blocky, shader type, texture sets, flip faces, ...)
- the common sanitize spells
- update tangent spaces
- renumber nitrishape objects
- fix incorrect names
- Change structure of nodes (add / remove nif nitrishapes to have additional effects or only parts of an existing mesh available)
- Change scale
specific topics tutorials
volume physics
- Nif data formate and its structure: https://wiki.beyondskyrim.org/wiki/Arcane_University:NIF_Data_Format
- making a simple mesh rotation animation with Nifskope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmGVknCC_a8
- adjusting size, scale and position of nitrishapes in nifskope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9rlBDrfSP8
- Animate Static Objects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lkrX3HYSDc
- Animate Static Objects via NiTransformController: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYcAA09yygI
- copy animations to custom nif: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SodgAvvEjwQ
- Shader implementation (Fire on a hut): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGO0gwFwnLs
- moving the node centers to fit an animated mesh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H11Kokvqk0&t=24s
surface rendering
- DDS texture formate https://wiki.beyondskyrim.org/wiki/Arcane_University:DDS_Data_Format
- editing the UV map https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u51yDEGzmQ
- making a simple rotation animation with a texture via UV map in Nifskope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBlaY5keZRg
- placing textures on a nitrishape via nifskope including UV map adjustments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbnE5MZhdOE
