ASnakeNeverDies

Yes, you could say I create in "an optimized way". I do everything with quads and in the latest version of Blender. When the time comes, I triangulate the mesh with the appropriate modifier (for more control), check the shading is correct (and manually adjust edges if necessary) and then move to Blender 2.49B for animation and export. Also, I Remove Doubles before applying the Edge Split modifier. I can't do it after that, because the intentionally duplicated vertices (by the Edge Split modifier) would get removed which would be an undesirable result. I know there's a new feature in recent versions of Blender, called "Auto-Smooth", that works to define smoothing groups, based on edge-angle values, without actually modifying the geometry, but older versions of Blender seem to be incompatible with it (I haven't tested enough yet). Beyond that, the collisions and scabbard empty objects are already defined before switching versions, so all there's to do in 2.49B is to load the project, make the diffuse .DDS file the new texture and (if there's no need for animation) export the mesh. Thankfully, one vertex, two vertices (or vertexes if you prefer) are no big deal. Thank you for your time Hanaisse!

I was just googling around and found this: I was reading through and noticed this at the end: I was really surprised to learn this, because a couple of days ago I was having trouble exporting a sword mesh I modeled in Blender. For some reason, the number of vertices changed on export and I had no idea why. In my case, some vertices were duplicated rather than erased. My sword model is already very efficient, even more than the swords already found in the game, but has a lot of duplicated vertices (like the swords already found in the game) to define sharp edges. In the end, I managed to solve most of the problem by re-exporting the exact same mesh with the Blender NIF Scripts for Blender 2.49B again, but there remains a difference in the form of a duplicated vertex in the scabbard I couldn't avoid after the export. The mesh in blender and the exported sword have the exact same amount of triangles (less than 900), but the exported one always has an extra vertex. It's no big deal now, but the first time I exported it, the sword ended up having shading problems because of some vertices that got removed and others cut, even though no such geometry was present in the source .blend file and I've no idea why re-exporting the same unchanged mesh solved the issue either. Anyway, what I'd like to know is if there's a way to disable this PyFFI functionality and leave the meshes untouched on export? I'm a noob when it comes to 3D modelling, but I'd think experience modelers would prefer to optimize their meshes themselves. I didn't even knew what PyFFI was when I installed the Blender NIF Tools, I just thought of it as just another obscure requirement, but now that I know it actually makes judgement calls for the user I'm concerned about the fact that the version required for running the NIF export tool is not the latest one released. I'd appreciate if someone out there could shed some light here. I'm not even sure if what user Arthmoor said is true, but based on my results it makes sense to me.

1. I don't think there's a way to hide specific objects in the render window, not even with the CSE. That said, there's a way to disable object rendering in its entirety (useful for landscaping) with the shortcut Shift-C. Here's a link to where I learned that: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Terrain_Texturing 2. I don't understand this one. Note: if I'm mistaken and there's actually a way to disable specific objects in the render window, please, please share your knowledge with us. I'll sure be grateful!

Aren't bedside tables usually containers in Oblivion? In any case, you should do yourself a favor and download the CSE. It adds search features to the object window (and to a bunch of other sections), the ability to create prefab libraries (very, very useful), performance and stability improvements, a vastly superior scripting interface and even achievements (which I've found hilarious!). For me, it made all the difference and that's why I recommend you try it and see what's like. If anything, it'll save you hours of searching and will transform the object window into a useful tool rather than an obstacle you have go through to get what you want. If for some reason you'd rather not use the CSE, you can access the "Find Text" function within Edit menu of the normal CS (Edit -> Find Text). It works similarly to the one found in CSE, but it's slower and looks for strings in the active window so make sure you've the object window selected before using Find Text (if Render Window is active you'll have to close and re-open with the appropriate window selected). It's important to note that in the normal CS, it might help you find the item you want, but it won't allow you to drag and drop it from the Find Text list to the Render Window. Note: the CS's height map editor doesn't seem to work correctly outside the XP compatibility mode which will cause the CSE's improved scripting interface to crash. I'm new to the Construction Set, so I don't really know if that feature ever worked reliably. I had plans for creating some test game worlds with it but after unpredictable results I decided not to pursue them. It might get fixed in subsequent versions of the CSE though, since it's regularly updated.

I'm making a simple quest mod which requires animations and I got to the point where I need to start implementing those animations. The scene I planned is very simple, so I made it and put it into the game, but I had some issues. The animated object (a sword mesh I made) was randomly disappearing just after its falling motion was completed. In response, I chose to simplify it even more (with hopes to isolate the problem) and created a new ESP and a new NIF with an animated cube object with a simple box collision (which is just the same object duplicated and assigned as a child of the original). It worked just fine at first, but after a few tries it started to randomly disappear as well, and I've no idea why. Sometimes it plays fine, sometimes it disappears and sometimes it gets pushed high into the sky. Here is a video of the Animated AnimStatic Cube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EscruzgWPAU The sword and the cube were made, animated and exported with Blender 249B (Blender NIF Scripts v259) as AnimStatic objects set to Stone material and the AnimSequence string value of "Forward". I exported the geometry and animation separately and later attached the KF file to the NIF, as I read somewhere that's how you're supposed to do it. I haven't tried exporting both at the same time. Anyway, I've attached to this post all the files (.blend, .nif, .kf, .esp) related to the Cube AnimStatic featured in the video above. Maybe someone can take a look and tell me what I'm doing wrong. Thank you. Note: the animations always look perfect in NifSkope. ASNDOblivionAnimProblem.7z

I'm not sure how to use the information right now, maybe this is referring to some modders resource or is in some way tied to the latter Modelling lessons? This is a very interesting topic and doing something like this appears to be simpler than I thought it would be. In any case, I'll be skipping this one for now, but I'm sure to come back here once I get more into asset creation for Oblivion. A simple clock mesh with handles should be good practice!

The site is back online! And that means it's time to continue with the training. I've just finished this class and found that it not only works, but it's pretty funny as well. Thanks.

I replaced the script from the ARSwitch activator we created during the last lesson to keep things simple. I tested my ESP and didn't encounter any problems. It would be nice to be able to see how others did it, but I understand why there are no solutions posted. In any case, it sure was fun, thank you!

I already have some ideas on how to fix those seams, but I'm currently in the middle of the Scripting Class (I skipped the Worldbuilding one for now). As soon as I'm done with that one I'll be back here to work those things out. Strong foundations are always most important!

Thank you Hanaisse!

Right you are, the Caviar Blacks I've are 7200RPM ones. I do have two 256GB Samsung 850 PRO SSDs in this same build but use those for OS, Main Apps and Caching only. The way I see it, I shouldn't be experiencing this massive frame drops with my current configuration, although I will run it on an SSD in the future when people start uploading massive HD texture compilations and similar stuff. In any case, I finished the game already and enjoyed it to the point where it has become one of my favorite Bethesda games ever, even if I disliked a lot of the changes they made to the formula and the fact that my character's pre-war background was already set in stone by the devs. But right now, I'm waiting for them to release their new GECK software and see if I can (hopefully) do something worthwhile for the community with it.

Something has happened to the formatting in this lesson, but I was able to follow the steps and in the end, it works. Also, the requirements for this lessons appear to differ from the others in that there are no screenshots requested and no need to provide proof of completion I believe, so I'm moving on to the next one. Thank you!

I've tested my resulting ESP and found everything to be working as expected. I believe this is all that's required: Training Area Argonian NPC Object Stats Argonian NPC Object Inventory Argonian NPC AI Packages (List) Training AI Packages (Detail) XMarkerHeadings Thank you for your efforts, this was fun and I learned a lot!

It could come from there, I've the game running on a 1TB WD Caviar Black drive. It seems to me it should be good enough for a game like Fallout 4 since they're designed for performance as far as I know, and it's not even a year old. It bears mentioning that I don't have any problems with other games released this year. I've read that god rays in the game have a significant impact that could cause the low frame rates I've been experiencing, but I like having things maxed and the game never goes below 30FPS. What bothers me, is that I get worse performance with Fallout 4 than what I get with Witcher 3 (even with Hairworks enabled) which is technically more impressive, or at least it is in my opinion.

I'd normally say that an i7 4790K would be overkill for a game like Fallout 4, but I have an i7 4790K, along with a GTX980, and I've experienced significant slowdowns while travelling through the most intricate urban areas so I can't really recommend much, since it's obvious the game has some optimization issues, but it's not clear to me whether the team at Bethesda plans to solve them. As far as I know, all that has been released for the game is a single patch that fixed some quests and a problem related to the Launcher, they took their time to release that, so there's no telling when we might expect those performance oriented fixes. Furthermore, I've read Radeon cards seem to have issues with Tessellation and they offer no support for GameWorks nor PhysX features (obviously). ATI technologies, like TressFX, are opensource while NVIDIA ones are closed, which means that the latter will always have the opportunity to implement performance improvements over new Radeon's features while the former can't even afford compatibility with the more advanced closed-source offerings of its competitor. It's obvious NVIDIA are the real villains here, but that doesn't change the fact that they offer a better package overall. Just sayin'.

I tried to keep the number of screenshots as low as possible, that's why I'm not including any in-game ones. I've tested the ESP and it appears to work correctly, except by the fact that my High-Elf Vendor doesn't seem to want to sleep on the bed at the Merchant's Inn, probably because he doesn't own it, but I'm unsure how to handle that in this particular situation and that's why I chose to ignore it since it's not covered in the lesson. Here are my screenshots: Melie | Female Breton MerchSmith Breton Vendor Placement Breton Vendor Object Breton Vendor Merchant Container Tab Breton Vendor AI Packages (Details) Breton Vendor AI Packages (List) Istandil | Male High-Elf MerchBookseller High-Elf Vendor Placement High-Elf Vendor Object High-Elf Vendor Merchant Container Tab High-Elf Vendor AI Packages (Details) High-Elf Vendor AI Packages (List) Note: the link to the pre-made ESP is dead, but (fortunately) the original market resources used here are easy to find.

He walks...He eats... He sleeps... She survives... And the travel package... I didn't include screenshots for the non-homework AI packages since I followed those instructions to the letter. I also chose not to include a screenshot of the location section of the travel package since I'm already showing her arrival at the destination with the provided in-game screenshot. I'm lazy I know.

Here are my results: I didn't include the Faction section screenshot for the Khajitt NPC, but I can assure you it has the PlayerFaction item in it. Also, I chose to add a leveled upper class gold item instead of the singular Gold001 item, but I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do it.

I just finished the Final Exam! Here's the link to the album: I'll include here a link to some of the more pertinent pictures to pinpoint some of the specifics. It can be a little bit disorienting, that's why I included a more general view of every layout in the pathing pictures. Garden I decided not to go with the aquatic garden this time, mainly to take advantage of the above-water space already available in the newly claimed cell. NPC House (Front) The new house as requested. FarmHouse01. I chose to make it an NPC House. There are more pictures in the album. NPC House (Connecting Bridge) I chose to do it like this because I didn't want to adjust everything just for the platforms to be nicely connected by a single bridge prefab object. Pathing Exterior (General Layout) Here I used the blue nodes for the road because I had to fill in some spots along the coast with red nodes since I seem to have erased too many of the original orange ones and there appears to be no way to create more. NPC House Interior I chose to include this picture alone, but there are more in the album. Pathing Int NPC House This is simple enough (I think, I hope). NPC House Basement The basement in this house is connected to some ruins through a secret door behind a giant wine barrel in the center. NPC House Basement 02 (Secret Door) Yes, that's the HugeBarrelSecret object from the Skingrad Wine Cellar. I remembered it from a quest from the Thieves Guild and thought it should qualify as having something "unique" in the basement. There are two activators so the player is able to open it from the basement and then close it from the other side. NPC House Basement to Ruins Here's a picture from the other side looking back to the house's wine cellar. NPC House Basement Ruins (Blocked Path) Since it appears to me it wouldn't be plausible for this simple structure (the NPC House) to have sole access to some ancient ruins I added this blocked path to imply some kind of connection to the neighboring Fort Teleman. I thought of connecting both basements, but I got lazy in the end. Pathing Int NPC House Basement (General Layout) This should give you a pretty good idea of where everything is in the in-game basement pictures. I studied how the pathing was done in the Thieves Guild quest that involves the HugeSecretBarrel object and linked the red node to the secret door activator. It appears to work. Here's a picture of that. New Cell (Cave Below Garden) I created this new cell to connect the basement of the NPC House to the exterior garden. I used a new cell to make it darker with dungeon music and dungeon water. I created a new form ID from the Cheydinhal Well Door object and, along with a feature from CSE, I managed to change its associated NIF file to that of the Castle Well. Just to see if it could be done. Pathing Int CaveBelowGarden (General Layout) Just a formality. I think that's all I wanted to pinpoint about the cells, objects and pathing. Now it's time to move onto the issues that appeared during this last stretch: seams! Landscape seams! Landscape Seam I suspected this might happen if I got too close but I kept going anyway... TES4Edit Screenshot The seams are really easy to fix with the landscape tool, but now I'm unable to remove those cells from the ESP unless I want the seams to return. I don't know if there's a solution for that. For now, I purged the ESP of everything but this two cells (000041DD and 000041DE) I had to modify to fix the seams. I suppose this makes the mod "dirty", but oh well.

I already used TES4Edit because it seemed easier to me, without all those options at the start. On top of that, I already started the Final Exam and used the resulting ESP to continue the lesson, probably not the smartest thing to do since I was probably going to have to clean it again anyway. I don't know if I did it right though, that's why I chose to include a screenshot of the tools interface displaying the look of the ESP after cleaning. In any case, it's probably better if I just go back and do it again with TES4Gecko just to be on the safe side, after all, I did retain a backup of the untouched ESP just before cleaning as was suggested. But if you could spare the time, I'd really like to know if my cleaning was done incorrectly for future reference. Thanks! P.S. I did load the clean ESP to make sure there weren't any problems and all seemed fine. EDIT I installed Java and TES4Gecko but when I load the plugin the branching folders don't appear color coded for some reason. I'm using the latest version (of both Java and Gecko) and the untouched ESP. Here's a screenshot. Oh no, I wasn't, forget what I said. I downloaded the incorrect file. Now it works.

Thank you Hanaisse, but I'm afraid I don't understand your first line. Are you talking about a graphics mod you made? My Oblivion installation has no mods beyond the official DLC and Bugwater Borrow and the CSE is the only external modification I've installed. EDIT Now I think I know what you meant, it dawned on me just as I was hitting send. Sorry for that. English not primary language. Got confused. Forget it. Anyway, I think I've found the mod you were referring to and it's right here. I used google though, maybe that's why I found it, haven't tried the site's search function yet. It sounds useful, I'll definitely try it later. Thanks!

I just finished this lesson and I'm ready to move on to the final exam (I think). Here are my results: Note: most of the exterior screenshots were taken at night with the purpose of showcasing the lighting in-game, but only exteriors since I didn't change anything from the interior cells for this lesson. For lesson number three, we were required to build some place for the player's horse on the surface of the platform and I chose to use a farm stable static object with a modified scale property to fit within those limits. However, as I was playtesting, I found out that the horse wouldn't fit through the openings while the player and other NPCs would. Since then, I added this horse feeder thing (on the right) to still cover the previous lesson requirement. In the end, I kept the stables but re-proposed them with container crates and some furniture because I like how it all fits together. Anyway, I chose to use TES4Edit instead of TES4Gecko for cleaning purposes since the latter has not been updated for some years now. I think I managed to achieve the same thing with this tool, although I'm not entirely sure, that's why I also included a screenshot of the resulting ESP in TES4Edit after cleaning. EDIT I forgot to add that I did test my pathing and placement of havok-enabled objects. The first by having a monster follow me through both exterior and interior cells. And the second by interacting with the books and making adjustments to ensure they don't explode the moment they were manipulated by the player. EDIT 2 I've included a new picture of the ESP view after cleaning with TES4Gecko.

I've recently started the CS Basics tutorial series here in TES Alliance. By now I've reached lesson #4 in which I'm supposed to clean a mod with the TES4Gecko tool, however, I've heard of another tool called TES4Edit which serves the same or a similar purpose. I went to the TES4Gecko Nexus page and noticed the file hasn't been updated since 2008 while the TES4Edit file was updated just recently(last month). So, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any reason why I shouldn't use the TES4Edit tool to clean my mod instead? Thanks!

Thank you Hanaisse! I'm glad I found this class, it has been really helpful so far. As for the painting yes, it's tilted, but I did that on purpose since it's not actually hanging on the wall. The picture is not clear enough to notice, but it's laying against the wooden frame of the window and resting over the shelf that comes by default with this interior prefab. Thanks again for taking the time to peruse the pictures.

Well... that took a helluvalot longer than what I initially thought it would take!!! Landscaping in this game is a friggin' nightmare! But I pulled through and managed to get those damn grassy sprites out of my platform and cobblestone road. It is a shame that there's no way to lessen the effect of the soften brush or to properly undo big mistakes. Anyway, here are my results:Note: I took the time to properly title all the images, so it should be easier to separate them between lessons at a glance now. During this lesson I started using the CS Extended OBSE Plugin to make it easier. I'm not sure if that was available at the time this tutorial series was originally conceived, but I would nevertheless recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone planning to follow this course as it was of tremendous help to me. The filter option for the object window alone made it worth my while big time! Note2: I also found this website featuring an image library which may come in handy to some.