Give Feedback
0 of 0
About this mod
A simple tool to transfer morphs between different objects, bundled with import/export functions for FaceGen TRI files.
- Permissions and credits
- Mirrors
- Changelogs
About
This addon adds three functions to Blender: import and export FaceGen TRI files, and transfer shape keys between objects. Its purpose is to quickly generate the various morphs required by Skyrim head parts.
Supports Blender version 3.2 and 2.79. Other versions (including those in between) have not been tested and may or may not work.
Import-export
The import-export functionality follows the FaceGen specification. As does Skyrim, as far as I can tell. There exist other file formats that use the .tri extension, but those will not be readable.
The data that is processed includes vertices, faces (tris and quads only), (optionally) UV coordinates and shape morphs. Some data is discarded, since it cannot be represented in a simple way in Blender. This includes labels for vertices and surface points. As far as I can tell, this functionality is not used in Skyrim.
FaceGen TRI supports both absolute/static and relative/difference morphs. Blender doesn't really have the former concept, so any imported morph will come out as a relative shape key. The names of absolute morphs is prefixed by an asterisk to indicate the difference. You can edit and export them as normal, or add/remove the asterisk to interconvert between the types (though I do not know what consequences, if any, doing this might have in game).
Import-export supports coordinate system transforms. Default settings make sense for Skyrim models: scaled by a factor 10 and facing the opposite direction (positive Y). To import or export the model exactly as it is, set Scale to 1, Forward to -Y and Up to Z.
TRI Tools never changes the vertex order of any model, but a NIF exporter might. If you are making a new mesh from scratch, it is wise to export it to NIF and import it back again before making a TRI for it.
Skyrim can handle any TRI format output by this exporter, but the other TRI importers I have seen cannot. I don't think they had access to the complete format specification. For compatibility with other importers, I recommend against exporting models with quads or UVs per vertex. Such files may incorrectly be regarded as invalid. They work fine in game, though.
Transfer Shapes
This simple tool allows transferring shape keys between unrelated objects. That is, instead of transferring the shape keys by vertex order (the built-in way), it transfers them by proximity between the meshes. Each vertex of the target mesh is morphed the same way as the closest point on the surface of the source mesh.
Optionally, the influence of the source morph on a target vertex may be set to decay (exponentially) with distance to the source surface. This is useful for long hair or beards, that aren't supposed to fit tightly to the face.
Installation
Download to a temporary location and install from the Blender user interface (Preferences > Add-ons > Install...)
Short demo
This addon adds three functions to Blender: import and export FaceGen TRI files, and transfer shape keys between objects. Its purpose is to quickly generate the various morphs required by Skyrim head parts.
Supports Blender version 3.2 and 2.79. Other versions (including those in between) have not been tested and may or may not work.
Import-export
The import-export functionality follows the FaceGen specification. As does Skyrim, as far as I can tell. There exist other file formats that use the .tri extension, but those will not be readable.
The data that is processed includes vertices, faces (tris and quads only), (optionally) UV coordinates and shape morphs. Some data is discarded, since it cannot be represented in a simple way in Blender. This includes labels for vertices and surface points. As far as I can tell, this functionality is not used in Skyrim.
FaceGen TRI supports both absolute/static and relative/difference morphs. Blender doesn't really have the former concept, so any imported morph will come out as a relative shape key. The names of absolute morphs is prefixed by an asterisk to indicate the difference. You can edit and export them as normal, or add/remove the asterisk to interconvert between the types (though I do not know what consequences, if any, doing this might have in game).
Import-export supports coordinate system transforms. Default settings make sense for Skyrim models: scaled by a factor 10 and facing the opposite direction (positive Y). To import or export the model exactly as it is, set Scale to 1, Forward to -Y and Up to Z.
TRI Tools never changes the vertex order of any model, but a NIF exporter might. If you are making a new mesh from scratch, it is wise to export it to NIF and import it back again before making a TRI for it.
Skyrim can handle any TRI format output by this exporter, but the other TRI importers I have seen cannot. I don't think they had access to the complete format specification. For compatibility with other importers, I recommend against exporting models with quads or UVs per vertex. Such files may incorrectly be regarded as invalid. They work fine in game, though.
Transfer Shapes
This simple tool allows transferring shape keys between unrelated objects. That is, instead of transferring the shape keys by vertex order (the built-in way), it transfers them by proximity between the meshes. Each vertex of the target mesh is morphed the same way as the closest point on the surface of the source mesh.
Optionally, the influence of the source morph on a target vertex may be set to decay (exponentially) with distance to the source surface. This is useful for long hair or beards, that aren't supposed to fit tightly to the face.
Installation
Download to a temporary location and install from the Blender user interface (Preferences > Add-ons > Install...)
Short demo