I'll write a much longer article about the fallout and skyrim games
and rpg's
but i'l dump this here, the instructions of how to replace a molerat
short version
extract the meshes and textures with bsa extractor
meshes-creatures-molerat
textures-creatures-molerat
open molerat.nif with nifscope
click the main body / main "trishape" then file-export obj
import game mesh as tool
do not ever change the vertices or add any, the meshes are NOT closed.
You can only work on the subd mesh as sculpt and paint or you will mes up the uv's and animation weighting which is tied to the low poly lowest subd vertices.
subd 7 times and import the texture molerat.dds, flip it vertically and apply
maybe save or duplicate the tool
create polypaint from texture at sdiv 7
go nuts, only use flat or skinshade mat, mats are useless in this flow
when done export the tool as obj at the lowest subd
which is the raw import mesh
create a new texture from polypaint at the sdiv 7
it helps to delete all other subds while doing these last operations and just keep reloading the highres tool if necessary
also at highest generate a normal map then clone it flip it export it
in a any editor you can convert to .dds
convert both
next time I'll look, maybe zb can export straight to dds
dxt1 is fine and it will work without mipmaps, it will just appear red in the geck level editor,
so open nifskope, select the body/main trishape go ile-import obj
it will warn you about replacing the current selected trishape choose the zb exported low res which will be the original obj with the points moved to the new form.
save the nif in the
game/data/meshes/creatures/molerat/
save the main .dds uv texture rom zb and the nm from zb
in game/data/textures/creatures/molerat/
create the directories if they don't exist
the normal map needs to be tangent space, check its direction, it should be called molerat_n.dds
if you have archive invalidated set on your bethesda game then at this point you should be able to play it and see the zb modified creatues and texture if you go to an are with that creature.
that's the simple version.
