As far as many of ya know, I am a 3DS Max 9 user. I make armor, weapons, etc. But when I re-import/export my made models, I throw them back into 3DS Max, and I only want just only the player skeleton left alone itself. Not extra bones! The bones are already included on the mesh, and what's the big deal with the extra bones? I don't need them!

I have never been happy with my modding for as long as I did. Not with the bones. The reason why I post this thread, is because I'm sick and tired of removing extra bones. I decided today that this is enough, as I'm going to let it walk past the line any further. It slows my modding progress when asked to rename extra bones.

So if anybody knows a program or such that removes like 1,000 unused bones on meshes, that would be great! Thanks in advance!

Regards

Lord Slyther

You may need to double check your import process. The only bones which should be getting imported are those being used with that mesh. If you are getting bones for other skeletons, you are doing something wrong. As far as bones for the same skeleton, just because they are not being weighted to does not mean that those bones are not needed. For instance removing the bones for weapon or spell nodes can cause some problems. Howmany bones there are in the scene does not really matter when you export. This is because of the process needed to take your weighted mesh and turn it into a usable item requires implanting the mesh within an existing .nif which has all the bones used by that mesh. Since you are only copying the mesh and the skininstance, none of the bones you exported matter beyond what is needed for that skininstance.

If this is some obsession with optimizing a nif, those extra bones on vanilla .nif files are needed, and contribute very little to the file size. Since you would always be implanting a skinned mesh into one of these .nif files, this should not be of concern. From a filesize issue, textures or actual mesh complexity will always be the main cause for filesize.

But if you are getting 1000's of extra bones, chances are that you are doing something wrong, or have something broken on your end. Weapon importing should NEVER cause bones to be imported, weapons don't normally use bones, and normally cannot use bones.

I agree on that behalf, and I never use bones on weapons. Problems that I'm encountering is I'm working on several armors, and extra bones are included. If this is the case, I may as well start a new model, because I wouldn't just be letting it overflow. I know the extra bones require no attention, but it's kinda a slowing progress when asked to rename instances. Something like bone1334 or something.

you could just select the choice that doesnt import the skeleton

Or select all of the bones in a the list selection. And delete 'em all at once.

Replying to the previous 2 posts.



I set "Remove all bones" tagged in the exporting screen. Still nothing though.



This will require me to freeze the mesh left alone the skeleton itself. If I do this, it will delete the entire skeleton.