Bridge Commander Central
BC Forums => BC Modding => Topic started by: Mark on May 20, 2007, 09:28:08 AM
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The NifSkope model viewer from NifTools (http://niftools.sourceforge.net/) now supports the Bridge Commander version of NIF, this means the application can view and edit any model in BC.
The next stage for this is to get a C++ programmer with access to the 3ds Max SDK to update the teams open source Max plugins, and thus give us a Nif exporter for Max 9! :)
For now though just nifskope on its own opens up new possibilities.. for instance take a look at the sovereign class captains chair in KM1 (I did this yesterday :))
(http://www.mdward.f2s.com/bestchairinthehouse.jpg)
So go and check out NifSkope at the NifTools homepage (http://niftools.sourceforge.net/).
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looks good, I would love to see max 9 of the nif plugin :)
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I have never thought i'd see the day. Looks brilliant.
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With KM1 you mean Kobyashi Maru 1.0?
Anyway, SVN is running now, at 0.1kb/s for some reason. :|
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there are still a few glitches with the body animations, but better this than nothing
bridges come out more or less usable, so any skilled modder shouldn't have problems with them
*everyone applaud 3rd Era*
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applaud niftools, I just tested stuff :P.
By the way, when you say it has trouble with body animations, thats probably because alot of those anims are stripped of geometric data by the "animonly" tool in the SDK.. it cuts down the size of them by 3/4s but it means when you load them in nifskope there is no body..
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Wouldn't turning on wireframe view not help with that?
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Hmm... I like the program, but what's it used for? I realize it's for BC's nifs, but how do you edit them?
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Hmm... I like the program, but what's it used for? I realize it's for BC's nifs, but how do you edit them?
You export them to another format if your editor doesn't accept nifs.
NifSkope by itself has some direct features for Oblivion and a couple of other games.
But not BC.
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Yeah,I was all over that website trying to motivate people to figure out how to get Bridges to work with at lease Nifscope..
I wasnt having any luck tracking down the wierd error I was getting..(the same one mark was getting I think),and trying to fix it..
So good to hear its working now, ill go get the new version..
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Cool news!
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I exported a bridge with NifSkope, it didnt export the textures? is it the .MTL file?
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I exported a bridge with NifSkope, it didnt export the textures? is it the .MTL file?
That depends on how you mean: "exporting textures". Those are just tga files (already image files).
[EDIT] I clicked save too soon again... Yeah, the mtl file describes textures, colour and other attributes.
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But my 3D Max doesnt open it...I tried putting the .mtl in the same folder and the material folder and it dont read either of them...mybe im importing it wrong.. ill keep fiddling with it..
The model itselft opens..but its not textured..
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The mtl should be in the same directory.
This seems to be the case of most of the OBJ loaders I've seen.
Maybe there is an option in the import section of Max for this (I don't have it)?
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if you export to .obj, the file and the .mtl file should be in the same directory.
when you import the .obj in Max, there should be a checkbox that opens a textbox so you can enter the name of the .mtl file.
I'm using Max 9, FYI.
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Nice to know , if ever I start Modeling.
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bes you are correct, max doesnt properly import the objs which nifskope can export... thats why we still need the max plugins.. and thats why we have people workign on it :)
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bes you are correct, max doesnt properly import the objs which nifskope can export... thats why we still need the max plugins.. and thats why we have people workign on it :)
Great news for everyone, espcieally those with Vista (who can only run Max 9, and don't have the option of using Max 3.1).
So, this importer should be compatable with Ships and bridges, then (and character animations)?
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Great news for everyone, espcieally those with Vista (who can only run Max 9, and don't have the option of using Max 3.1).
So, this importer should be compatable with Ships and bridges, then (and character animations)?
Well, character meshes will probably work, but not the stock animations.
Reason is that they used the animonly tool in the SDK that strips the model parts of the files leaving only the keyframe info, so you cannot backport that kind of file because there?s no mesh to point at max.
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It opened a character model just fine...exporting it would be a ploblem...probably why they added 3Ds max versions of the characters in the BC SDK.
Exporting it to a .Nif shouldnt be a problem if we use that animonly tool and use nifskope.
I been wanting to do Bridges and characters for my Wing Commander mod....so looking forward to all this working right,also if I read the SDK right...if we wanted to make our own missions using characters we have to use LISET,basically its text to voice or something, I dug through the microsoft archive and found the program(just have to remember where I put it now..).
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Hello, it's wz from the NifTools project :)
Great to see you can make use of NifSkope for BC modding!
It was mentioned that NifSkope has a lot of Oblivion & Morrowind related features - that's right! But only because we are all coming from the communities of those games, NifSkope's feature-set is not limited in any direction. If there is a cool and nifty feature ("Spell") you want to see included, just head over to our boards and file a feature request.
Btw, we're also trying hard to fully support the version 3.x Nifs provided by STBC, if anyone has worked in that direction already, please share your insight with us.
Regards, and have fun modding,
wz
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Would be great if you could add support for the various texture folders in BC automatically, so that you don't have to add each folder manually for every ship/bridge/character you load in Nifskope... Just a suggestion :P
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Hello, it's wz from the NifTools project :)
Great to see you can make use of NifSkope for BC modding!
It was mentioned that NifSkope has a lot of Oblivion & Morrowind related features - that's right! But only because we are all coming from the communities of those games, NifSkope's feature-set is not limited in any direction. If there is a cool and nifty feature ("Spell") you want to see included, just head over to our boards and file a feature request.
Btw, we're also trying hard to fully support the version 3.x Nifs provided by STBC, if anyone has worked in that direction already, please share your insight with us.
Regards, and have fun modding,
wz
Hi WZ, nice to see you here.
And it's a great thing what you guys have been doing both for oblivion and BC.
I have one highly offtopic question:
I know nifskope reads animations from oblivion, it does work in exporting them somehow?
I was the guy that made the first new armor exportings straight from max using the civ4 plugins, but found no way to get the animations exported using it.
thanks
LC
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great. finally someone we can blame! (j/k :P)
ok, the program is usefull when it comes to make quick changes in a file when you know what's wrong. it lacks the power of a real 3D editor, but it tows you out of the way in an emergency.
I noticed that it opens and saves .nifs correctly, but when i import a .3ds and try to save it as .nif, it doesn't save anything.....
the resulting .nif has the size it should have and opens correctly in niftools, but not in MPE (the property editor we use for the in-game configuration of it), nor in BC. MPE doesn't show the model window, and BC just crashes to desktop.
one thing I find VERY handy is the fact that it allows you to "walk" around a model, very usefull when you edit bridges. and the ability to export bridges (one of the most dificult things with Milkshape and 3DS 3.1) to 3D studio.
it's still growing up, but with a bit of work it will really come in handy for the whole comunity, so keep up the good work.
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Would be great if you could add support for the various texture folders in BC automatically, so that you don't have to add each folder manually for every ship/bridge/character you load in Nifskope... Just a suggestion :P
You should be able to specify a relative path, like './High'.
Hi WZ, nice to see you here.
And it's a great thing what you guys have been doing both for oblivion and BC.
I have one highly offtopic question:
I know nifskope reads animations from oblivion, it does work in exporting them somehow?
I was the guy that made the first new armor exportings straight from max using the civ4 plugins, but found no way to get the animations exported using it.
thanks
LC
Afaik, it is possible to export animations directly from Max using a combination of NifTools and CivIV - set up the animation with the CivIV panel, then use NifTools to export the scene.
great. finally someone we can blame! (j/k :P)
ok, the program is usefull when it comes to make quick changes in a file when you know what's wrong. it lacks the power of a real 3D editor, but it tows you out of the way in an emergency.
I noticed that it opens and saves .nifs correctly, but when i import a .3ds and try to save it as .nif, it doesn't save anything.....
the resulting .nif has the size it should have and opens correctly in niftools, but not in MPE (the property editor we use for the in-game configuration of it), nor in BC. MPE doesn't show the model window, and BC just crashes to desktop.
one thing I find VERY handy is the fact that it allows you to "walk" around a model, very usefull when you edit bridges. and the ability to export bridges (one of the most dificult things with Milkshape and 3DS 3.1) to 3D studio.
it's still growing up, but with a bit of work it will really come in handy for the whole comunity, so keep up the good work.
I'm sorry, the Nifs that are created by NifSkope from scratch are 20.0.0.5 Nifs as opposed to 3.1 etc. for STBC. I'm not sure, but try opening a BC Nif, delete all contents and import then.
Thanks for the kind words, all :)
wz
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Could there be an option to specify what .Nif version we can export to?...just a thought
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Please ask those questions at our "Feedback & Feature Requests" (http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=8) forum :)
Basically, it should be possible, the limiting factor is simply that the default "blank" Nif created is marked as version 20.0.0.5
wz
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I was wondering, how did you get that chair in without any problems? Everytime I try to add something to the mesh and export it back BC just hangs while it loads.
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I was wondering, how did you get that chair in without any problems? Everytime I try to add something to the mesh and export it back BC just hangs while it loads.
Actually the chair is in a seperate model, and deleting things from the old nif is something I have done before using a normal hex editor... however knowing where to place the new chair was always the difficult part which niftools helped me with.
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So that's the way it works... Thanks, I'll try that out.
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EDIT: NifSkope 1.0 has now been released =)
http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/topic,1908.0.html