BDA - Updated...or not.

Found a solution to the vertex count problem: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/521561-3ds-max-nif-importer-exporter/page-8#entry5243549

Editing normals above the Skin Modifier but below the BSDismember Modifier fixed it. I wonder if this'll fix the viewangle clipping on the female body...

The male version was all ready to be deployed until I saw the upload window.

3MB over. That's one texture too big. Looks like I'll have to halve the textures for Steam after all. Which isn't a bad thing given the limited upload space modders have on the Workshop. I blanked mine out for some reason. *shrugs*

On the plus side, I now feel it's ready to release as a Beta on the Nexus.

EDIT:

Bwahahahaha! Found a glow texture that is bigger than it should be. Lowering its resolution will put me just under the upload limit.

BDA - Nif exporter unrelenting

I didn't preserve the _0 models in the same scene as the _1 models, so I had to go back one version to the _0 models I initially exported. Since 3ds Max thinks preserving skin weights is stupid, I couldn't import/export/merge one scene's models into the other. Merging resulted in either the existing or imported models losing skin data or, if I merged the skeleton, the skin data was preserved for what imported, but broken for everything else because the "new" bones replaced the "old" bones (They're the same bones!). "Save" and "Load" for the skin modifier did nothing whatsoever. Well, "Save" did indeed save the envelopes, but "Load" didn't load them; presumably because of the same new/old bones thing.

Oh, and Skin Wrapping 1 over 0 didn't work.

Anyways, I buckled down and remade the _1 torso models. I started by welding all vertices within .1 units of each other on the _0 (the only vertices that close were between the glowing panels on the chest) and followed up with scaling it all out, again. Upon export, I expected everything to go well, like on the female armor. By merely writing that last sentence, you already know that didn't occur. Still off by 4.

Here's the weird bit. If I do not weld, the vertex count is 3214. If I weld, the vertex count is 3319.
I tried exporting as .obj and importing that into nifskope, but the _1 has 7 extra vertices. Exporting and importing a .3ds kept the same vertex count, but I do not have a Skin Instance or Dismember modifier, so the imported mesh is only good for a static model (and probably not even that).

*sigh*

EDIT:

I've tried putting everything into one smoothing group using the Smooth and the Smoothing Groups section of Editable Poly. While the poly count did go down, the _0 model has 3 more vertices than the _1. This would have been a suboptimal solution given that parts of the armor do require different smoothing groups to look correct in game.

BDA - Nif exporter strikes again

Well, it's doing it again. Same vertex order, same number of vertices, same number of faces, but the exported nifs have a different vertex count. But not only are the vertex counts off, the polygon/triangle counts are off. I didn't even touch the skin modifier (the fiddling of which caused the problem last time).

This time, it's the new chest and arms that are missing pieces. Everything else is scaled up and tweaked from the female body (you could probably weight slide between them as is).

When I compare the welded vertex counts at a .1 threshold, the _0 model ends up with more vertices in the arms than the _1. At .01, neither loses vertices. I think I'll try skin wrapping _1 over _0 next.

BDA - Male Progress

The _0 model is pretty much done. I just have a couple skin tweaks left. The problem is going to be "growing" it to the _1 model. As, well, they are drastically different physically. It goes from the scrawny Skyrim Courier to Brick from Borderlands; quite a big change.

The female armor was kind of easy. The _1 was just that, a bigger woman. Same overall shape; more accented curves. Male_1, not so much. Instead of scaling the entire part up, it looks like I'll have to choose a couple polygon rings and scale them with Soft Selection on. I suppose this is why you maintain good edge loops.

BDA - Male Texture

I've got the major details in for the chest, but the arm bands are still unadorned. The dragon doesn't wrap around across the back seam, so I don't have to patch it like I did on the female torso. To avoid reinventing the wheel and save time, I think I'll copy the detail layers from the female torso textures.

BDA - Male armor

Well, there it is. I built the torso out of Skyrim's male_0 body instead of trying to preserve the UVs of the female torso. It would have been nice to keep the UVs, but I didn't want to mess up the masculine look by trying to de-feminize the armor. I'll have to create another texture for the male armor, however, I can make the texture only cover the new geometry. So, it'll be one more texture, but smaller than a complete remake.

This could have worked too. It saves the existing UVs and looks masculine, kind of.