[TUTORIAL] Creating/Skinning Armor

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Arcadea
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[TUTORIAL] Creating/Skinning Armor

Post by Arcadea »

This tutorial specifies how the body parts are divided in armors and how to create new ones using TES: CS. It does not teach you how to model.

Armor Creation(And Skinning) Tutorial


In this tutorial we will go through how to create totally new types of armor; well, kinda. We will still use the basic models that came with the game. In this example we will make a new type of light armor: Spidersilk.

Before you start:
As I explained in my "Creating a custom race" tutorial, making a directory for your files is highly recommended.

Make a new directory (called MOD in this example) and recreate the basic directory(dir) tree you see in Morrowind:

MOD
--Game Data
----Meshes
------A
----Textures
Copy the textures and models you want to work with from the editor CD (or local editor dir) into their appropriate directories.

In my case I wanted to make a new type of light armor that would give my char a more thief-like appearance. So I decided to use those dark brown clothing articles as a base. I copied ALL the meshes and skins from C_Commonshirt_C3 to C_commonpants_4 (I think; I'm writing this from the top of my head).

NOTE: There are both male and female versions of many of the models, if you want females to have a more female-like set of clothes you have to edit a second set of files using the female versions of the models.

Remember the file structure:

Textures -> mod/gamedata/textures
Meshes -> mod/gamedata/meshes/a
Renaming Models & Skins
First, I renamed the models to A_Spidersilk_(S for shirt P for Pants)_(part) because I think Bethesda's naming system works pretty good in identifying the files afterward.

Rename files to something appropriate; remember to keep the file names at roughly the same length as this simplifies hex editing

My body part renaming key:

UA - upper arm
LA - lower arm
LL - lower leg
UL - upper leg
w - wrist
g - groin
c - chest
a - ankle

It doesn't necessarily have to be like that, but it works :D

Now do the same to the textures, then open them all up. I did something rather simple with mine; I darkened the pictures and gray scaled them.

NOTE: If you're making a second model for females you do NOT have to use a different texture, simply hex edit the models to use the same one.

Example:

The models:
A_Spidersilk_FS_C
A_Spidersilk_MS_C

Both use the texture:
A_Spidersilk_S_C

Hex Editing
After I finished naming my files I started hex editing the models to use my newly created textures.

Hex edit model files to use new textures.

For information on hex editing models please refer to a Hex Editing tutorial.

Making the Armor
I copied all the files in the mods directory into my game directory and fired up the editor to start the actual armor making(if you copy the game data from the mods directory just paste it in the Morrowind root folder).

Here comes the part that people fail to notice: armor parts must be created as a body part before they can be pieced together as armor.

Create new body parts with your newly made models.

Load up your models, name them appropriately and remember to tick the ARMOR tag, for the female armor(if you made that), tick the FEMALE tag too.

Now with all my body parts done, switch to the armor tab and make a 'new' item.

Switch to the armor tab and right click -> new

The Bipedal model part on the right is the actual model and placement, as you can see, you get a full list of appropriate body parts for that area.
I.E. If you looked at the model for chests, you would only find chest pieces.

For the ground meshes, use the models ending with _GND.nif
If you want, you can also make a custom icon for your armor and put it in the Gamedata/Icons/A folder.

Then add appropriate AV, price & hp values, and add a script or enchantment if needed.

Closing notes:

I decided to make my new spidersilk armor a bit different from other armor sets, since it's essentially strong clothing; I included the upper arms of the shirt in the torso part, deleted the lower arms, and I also added some re-textured shoulder guards from the Boiled Netch armor greaves.

The greaves are attached to the Clavicle part by the way. Took me a while to figure that out :P

Now, if you were to add a pair of other greaves to this armor in-game, then the arm and shoulder part will be exchanged with the greaves part.

Essentially you can make a complete armor set that is worn from a single location; Khajiit suits anyone :P


Tutorial by Sorceror
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