NIF File Format Library and Tools - Public Announcement

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NifTools - NIF File Format Library and Tools
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About a year and a half ago the Yahoo Group called NIFLA, (the NetImmerse File Format: Liberation Association) was founded to provide a place for people to learn about the NIF file format used for 3D models in games that utilize NDL’s NetImmerse/Gamebryo engines such as Morrowind and build tools for editing such files.

A few volunteers from NIFLA have created a SourceForge project for this purpose. The NIF File Format Library and Tools Project is a new open source project and the successor to NIFLA. The aim of the NifTools project is to build software that enables users to create and edit content stored in the NetImmerse File Format. By creating a project hosted by SourceForge we now have a more dynamic environment for development, which will improve communication as well as design. With the collaboration of many NIFLA contributors we have laid the groundwork for the project and already are reaping benefits.

The project is now open to the public. New versions of several tools are already available and there is detailed documentation on the file format in our NIF File Format Browser. A public forum is available for feedback, support, and general discussion. Our development discussions are conducted on the public forum as well, and we encourage participation. The same collaborative atmosphere that made NIFLA successful is a big part of the project.

Our current selection of software includes:
An import/export plug-in for Blender
An import plug-in for Maya
Niflib, our C++ library for reading, modifying, and writing out NIF files
Niflyze, a command line utility to aid in analyzing NIF files

We hope to rouse enough interest to attract additional team members as well as people that will participate in lively discussions that will help us investigate the NIF file format and aid in developing our shared library and tools. And I wish to personally invite the members of NIFLA to join with us in our effort to help support the modding community.

humbly,

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Wow, that’s awesome! I sure hope TES4: Oblivion uses NIF, that way I can do some tight mods!

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Actually Oblivion is using the Gamebryo engine which is the successor to the NetImmerse engine.

It will be a much newer format, but most likely Oblivion will still use NIF files. Which means we should understand 80% to 90% or more of their structure right away.

Right now we’re trying to focus on getting the current NIF version better supported before Oblivion is released, but we’ll definately work on the new version as well.