
Flags set for the BSLightingShaderProperty. The shader will apply light and effects based on 2 things: Just keep in mind and work around it if needed.Īlmost all textures used by Skyrim are DDS (Direct Draw Surface) files. This is more an issue with how 3D engines work and not anything you can control. It is therefore important to understand that when vertices are moved, they will stretch and shrink the face and can cause the texture to look strange. This way the game can project a texture back on to the mesh based on the information in this UV Map. The UV Map is where you take the geometry of your mesh and map them on to a flat plane. As the mesh is built using triangular faces, to know what to draw on each face, you create what are known as UV Maps in Blender or 3D Studio Max. Textures are the only way for you to paint your mesh and make it look the way you want which means that, apart from the mesh itself, the textures will be the single most important work. This block has no effect in SE (no parts fade out individually). This is used in LE to make small details on architecture nifs fade out before it is replaced with an LOD model. However, most LE nifs work fine in Special Edition, and do not need to be converted.īSLODTriShapes are the same as NiTriShapes, except that they fade out some distance away. They can be converted back and forth by nif converter tools like Cathedral Assets Optimizer or SSE Nif Optimizer.
They are not widely supported by nif import and export tools, and cannot be manipulated as easily within NifSkope. It contains the vertex weighting to handle limbs being dismembered from the base mesh, and deform during animation.īSTriShapes, used in Skyrim Special Edition, combine the NiTriShape and NiTriShape into a single block.
BSDismemberSkinInstance: only present in skinned meshes like armor. NiAlphaProperty: tells the game how to handle transparency in the mesh, if any. Shader Property (BSLightingShaderProperty or BSEffectShaderProperty): holds lighting and texture information.
NiTriShapeData: the actual mesh data (vertices, normals, tangents, UV map). Animations are defined in Controller blocks, or in child nodes of the shader property.Ī NiTriShape can have the following child properties among others: The surface material is defined by a shader property block, either a Lighting Shader or an Effect Shader. The root node will usually have attached metadata blocks that activate other nif properties like animation, Havok physics, and inventory display. It is most commonly a BSFadeNode (static bodies), a NiNode (skinned rigged meshes like armors), or a BSLeafAnim/tree node (plants). The root node always has a block ID of 0. Nifs are organized into blocks or nodes arranged in a hierarchy or "tree." Each block has various properties that define how it functions in the game.