PyNifly VS CommonLibSSE-NG

https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly/releases AFAIK

Not in NIFSkope; you need a real mesh editor like Blender or 3DS, with a plug-in that understands Skyrim NIFs (or something like https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly that can transfer between Blender and NIF). You have to edit the mesh to add the bones that move the mesh, then generate the xml file to control the physics. You can look at some of the SMP jewelry mods to see how it's done.

Not sure if this is relevant, but I also prefer using pynifly for .nif import/export.

I personally find PyNifly much easier to use, so I’m more familiar with that.

https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly use this - it is much better - currently using blender 3.1 and it works great. No scaling or rotation issues - faster and simple - exports in LE and SE nifs - Select all your objects ( weapon and blood fx meshes) and export into a new nif - choose a vanilla weapon with a similar profile and save a copy of the nifs to the same folder (1st person and 3rd person meshes) - open both the nif you exported from blender and the vanilla nif you are using as a template simultaneously - copy the BStrishapes from you exported nif into the vanilla nif one at a time and set all your BSshaderproperties and flags up accordingy, using the vanilla nif as an example - once you are happy with the way the new model looks, delete the original weapon and blood fx meshes and save the nif as a new file and name it accordingly - after that, in xedit, find the records in the vanilla game for the weapon you used as an example - right click and copy the record as a new record into a new plugin - give it a new ID - after you tweak the new plugin, save it and give it a unique name and note the ref ID you gave the weapon - activate the plugin and enter the game - open the console after loading and type player.additem (YourRefID) 1 or type help (YourWeaponName) 4 and get the ref ID there and then add it

PyNifly is probably the easiest for you to use.

You can use PyNifly to import/export NIFs with Blender. It’s under active development and works with the newest version of Blender too. I find it a lot easier to use than the NifTools plugin.

(https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly/releases/tag/V5.10) This is the plugin I was/am using.

You can get more info on using PyNifly on its wiki here: https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly/wiki

If I were to set out to do this, I'd find the github repo for a plugin that got upgraded to the NG variation of CommonLibSE, and read the commit history to see how the modder went about doing it. I took a look at one of these a while back, and it's mostly pulling in the NG library, telling cmake about the new library, then walking through all the places where the APIs changed. You might want to find a Discord where the plugin authors hang out to get some head starts on dealing with the API changes.

You can technically write an SKSE plugin in any language (see PluginAPI.h for the minimum requirements your DLL must provide), but all of the interesting middleware that makes writing a plugin easier is in C++. I would highly suggest looking at https://github.com/CharmedBaryon/CommonLibSSE-NG. It wraps many gameplay objects with a modern interface, and does a lot to help abstract over the differences between different patches of the game.

Next Gen. It's a term used for mods that utilize the CommonLibSSE-NG which makes this NG DLL mods work on any Skyrim SE version.

Ask them if they would be willing to move it over to the CLIB-NG framework, it only requires building one plugin, and maintaining updates for future SKSE versions only requires editing one line

Please note that I am NOT trying to ask this in a sarcastic way. I've seen some SKSE plugin authors say in their descriptions that their plugin works with all game versions due to being build with CommonLibSSE-NG. Given that there was only a 5 hour gap between the release of POISE - Stagger Overhaul SKSE and POISE - Stagger Overhaul - NG, it seems like its a relatively quick process. Is this just not something that can be done with any plugin?

I know nothing of developing plugins, so this probably isnt even useful for you, but someone made a fork of CommonLibSSE for it to be able to support multiple versions of the game with a single .dll, its is what mods like True Directional Movement uses. It should make the port more straight forward and the documentation seems pretty good.

SKSE plugin development doesn't get any easier than CommonLibSSE. The NG fork has significantly more documentation and lets you compile SKSE plugins that support Skyrim SE, AE, and VR simultaneously.

It means the plugin was built using the CommonLibSSE-NG framework, NG stands for Next Gen