Bits of NifSkopery

A collection of notes about the Static or Havoked nif structure and manipulating nif file settings in NifSkope. All Information

relate to Fallout3 or Fallout New Vegas nif files.

The version of NifSkope used and illustrated in these notes is: NifSkope Version 2Dev7

Tutorials found on the Web, helpful posts on forum, snippets from Discord servers

and results of experiments have been arranged and illustrated to

provide a glimpse of how NifSkope can help you to customize and

troubleshoot your nifs.

See Credits section for details.

The guide has been divided in 18 chapters, from 4 to 12 pages each with many illustrations.

An archive with all the pdf files is provided at the end.

I recommend to read them all, in order. They go in increasing complexity and you might learn something new in each of them.

Each part has been written to the best of my knowledge and thoroughly

tested. Should you find errors, please, contact me with detailed

explanation and examples.

Files Details

01 Introduction to NifSkope

Covers the main settings of NifSkope itself to ensure an easy workflow.

02A Nif Structure - Base

Describes the basic structure of a nif, identifies its parts and how they are linked.

02B Nif Structure - Details

Useful settings detailed Nodes by Nodes.

03A Nif Texture – Alpha Properties & Transparency

How to handle see-through, cut out, and Glass effect.

03B Nif Texture - Specularity, Normal Maps & Glossiness

How they’re interrelated and how they can influence greatly the look of your object.

03C Nif Texture - CubeMap, Glow & Parallax Mapping

Use Cube Map efficiently, make stuff glow in the dark, learn about Parallax Mapping.

03D Nif Texture – NiStencilProperty, Refraction & more

Double sided textured meshes & cool effects.

04A Nif Manipulation - part 1 Basics

Everything about Insert, Transfer, Copy/paste, Paste Over, Duplicate, Remove.

04B Nif Manipulation - part 2

Transforming, Scaling, Vertices and Vertices Color manipulation.

04C Nif Manipulation - part 3 UV

All about UV Editing.

04D Nif Manipulation - part 4 Merging NiTriStrips

Reducing Draw call.

05A Nif Cleaning and Optimizing

Use Spells to make your work spotless.

05B Nif Troubleshooting

What’s wrong with my nif?

06A Collisions - Base

Types of Collision, Creation, Settings, etc.

06B Collision - Havok Material Data

Sounds, Impact FX and Decals for Havok Material.

06C Collisions - Havok notes