Arcane University: Nif implementation

< Arcane University:Implementation

Implementation Departments

Quests

Nifs

Mechanics

In Beyond Skyrim projects, 3D artists are expected to be able to export their own meshes to nifs, if they are simple enough. However, for more complex objects, like animated objects, or those 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 to the implementation team. Therefore, the first thing you should know is how to export to nif from a 3D program or from a predefined format like fbx. For the basic process of asset implementation, see Intro to Asset Implementation

Skyrim Data Formats

Skyrim uses NIF and DDS file formats to store meshes and textures, respectively. That means your mesh must be converted to a NIF and textures to DDS.

Nif properties

• General Metadata
  • BSX Flags (enable things like animation and physics)
  • Inventory marker (changes how the item is shown in the inventory)
• Collision and physics settings
  • Hinge Constraints
• Shader settings
  • Effect properties
• Animation

Nif implementation tutorials

Weapons

• Nifskope Weapons Setup
• Rigging bows with 3ds Max and NifSkope (pdf) by Artisanix

Animated Objects

• Exporting animated statics using ck-cmd
• Animating Crash Course - Basic Static Animations in Blender (video) by Hayden Price