Trying to bring .Nifs into Blender *Fixed*

[Ouflah]

Alright, so I'm following Ewzzy's Freedom Force tutorial for Blender, but I'm having a ton of problems.

I downloaded all four programs he listed in order (including the old Blender. Why can't I use the new one?) and opened blender. I found the .nif import button and imported the Minute Man nif with the settings the way Ewzzy had them. Then it imported only the skeleton. This has been happening in NifSkope too, but it doesn't do it to the head nifs. I've redownloaded all the programs multiple times and rebooted. Still a problem.
Also, there's another thing. When I close blender and re-open it, it doesn't have the nif format in it. In fact, it only has VRML 1.0, DXF, and STL. It only works when blender opens after I download (or redownload) it.

[Cyber Burn]

Are you using the Minute Man Nif from  or  ?

I've downloaded Blender and all the related Programs, but I'm so far behind on everything else, that I haven't installed them yet. But if you open the  version of any Irrational Mesh (Minute Man, Microwave, Etc.), I believe that all you will see is the Skeleton. I don't know if this is true for Blender though.

[Ouflah]

Yep, I'm using  . I forgot to mention I tried it on the Ant and a couple other meshes too, and it still didn't work. So what is the solution? Do I just have to try it on  ?

[hoss20]

It may be possible to use a newer version of Blender. Keep in mind that Ewzzy wrote that tutorial five years ago and the latest version of the Nif Scripts was made for that Blender version. You are going to be  limited by the version of Nif Scripts available as that is what is necessary for importing the nifs. I have found a Nif Script for Blender 2.5.9, which was still done some time ago. I think you would need to do a search for the PyFFI to match.

I haven't tried to import Irrational meshes into Blender (at least the ones that come with the game). I haven't had any problems with importing any other meshes. Even though they are nifs, Irrational meshes have a slightly different structure and this may be causing the problem. It may be that  the import settings need to be adjusted.

EDIT: I just saw your post and wanted to let you know that I've imported FF1 meshes into Blender with no problems, just not those that were created by Irrational Games. I hate to say it, but you may want to double check your import settings to ensure they are correct. It also sounds like you may be having issues with the Nif Scripts since sometimes the Import Nif option isn't available.

[Ouflah]

Alright, I'll try that as soon as I can! I'm totally fine with 2.59. It's just there was a huge change in the UI when Blender updated from 2.49 to 2.5, and it's been such a long time I forgot most of pre-2.5.

Okay, I'll work with that. I tried it in a couple different configurations with no luck, but I'll keep at it. But as I said earlier, something very similar happens in NifSkope too (except Minute Man's cane is there) so I'm not sure if it's the problem.

And I'll check that out too when I can. Also, I'll post some screenshots later.

The good news is after re-installing Blender just to get the nif importer working, I tried a couple  nifs. While I can't even find the nifs for the game characters, I was able to import any of the custom characters in and save a variation. Then I went from my newer version of blender to mess with it, and everything went fine. 

Also: I apologize, I just realized that this should be in the Technical Issues thread.

[Ouflah]

Spoiler

So recently I've been able to export anything without a skeleton to blender as a .OBJ, but anything with a skeleton doesn't work.
(also, I'm still using  )
I can click the mesh in NifSkope and export as an obj for, say, the head.nif. But the whole character shows only the skeleton, as if the mesh isn't even there. When I try to import it (which actually seems like I'm importing the skeleton, I get this result:
Upon closer inspection, it looks like this:
If it helps any, I'm not doing this (at least, yet) to create any new Freedom Force characters. I just want to import the meshes of my favorite characters, possibly pose them a bit, then export them out to pepakura and assemble as rather large action figures. So, my end goal is a posed mesh that pepakura can read.

As an added bonus, it's also an easy way to make costume armor resembling your favorite FF hero.

[Ouflah]

Come on, let's think about this logically. What if one of you guys wanted to make a variation of the Ant's mesh, either  or  . Well, you'd first need to get the original mesh into blender to edit it, right? That's all I want to know how to do.

[Cyber Burn]

Come on, let's think about this logically. What if one of you guys wanted to make a variation of the Ant's mesh, either  or  . Well, you'd first need to get the original mesh into blender to edit it, right? That's all I want to know how to do.

If you are going to edit an actual Freedom Force Mesh, such as The Ant, then I would suggest trying the FFvt3R version. I've got Blender 2.4.8 installed, and with that I can import the Nif File (I used Microwave). I didn't go any further since I was just testing things out.

[Ouflah]

Great!
...except the nif file doesn't even show, for me. It's there for the custom characters but not the official ones.  Could I be looking in the wrong place?

[Cyber Burn]

1. What Version of Windows are you running?

2. Have you already extracted the Files from your "Art.ff" File?

3. The actual Freedom Force Characters are in a different Folder than your Custom Characters.

Custom Character Meshes: Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich\Custom\Art\library\characters

Irrational's Character Meshes: Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich\Data\Art\library\characters

[Ouflah]

Hahaha, ahaha, aha, oh...
Yeah about that art.ff file...
Thanks a million, man. I do believe I have the solution.