CS Basics: General Questions

[DarkRider]

Sounds like your install is really too borked to be reliable in the best of circumstances. I would backup your .esps and do a complete uninstall from all locations. Nuke all shortcuts and everything (just keep your .esps and save games backed up elsewhere). Then do a clean install to C:\BethesdaSoftworks\Oblivion restore your .esps to your data folder and then see if you have the same issues.

[Game3nder]

Will do, I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks a million for all your help so far

[DarkRider]

No problem, good luck!

[Citrus]

I think this doesn't warrant its own thread and since it is related to the final exam, here it goes:

I'm currently landscaping for my mod and everything i going well so far. I only have one question: since I've changed a few things in the land (slopes, heights, the works) and added some statics, namely a big house (well, not so big; it's a middle class Anvil house), do I need to generate LOD files using the CS' "Generate LOD" function (the one that shows up on the render window when you right-click)? Or this isn't necessary? It really is all I need to know. Everything else is going smoothly. I just need to muster some more enthusiasm to lay down some more stone walls...

[DarkRider]

In short, it depends on how much you modified the landscape.

When you change landscape you want to try and make only the changes you need to. You don't want to bulldoze flatten 10 cells for your 2 cell house, for example, as you are sharing the map with the vanilla game and 40,000 other mods, big changes usually create mod conflicts and LOD issues.

The best way to tell if you need LOD is to test. If you find a weird floating mass where the hillside used to be, you need to regen LOD. Or if you added an island off shore and it's only partially visible from the beach, you should regen LOD to include it.

For most house mods, LOD is not necessary.

[Citrus]

In short, it depends on how much you modified the landscape.

When you change landscape you want to try and make only the changes you need to. You don't want to bulldoze flatten 10 cells for your 2 cell house, for example, as you are sharing the map with the vanilla game and 40,000 other mods, big changes usually create mod conflicts and LOD issues.

The best way to tell if you need LOD is to test. If you find a weird floating mass where the hillside used to be, you need to regen LOD. Or if you added an island off shore and it's only partially visible from the beach, you should regen LOD to include it.

For most house mods, LOD is not necessary.

Well then, in this case, it won't be necessary. I am only lightly modifying 3 cells (mostly fixing some texturing screw-ups by our dear friends... and cutting all that bloody grass) plus a 4th one where my house is. Thanks for clearing that for me.

[DarkRider]

Sounds good, glad I could help

[Citrus]

Here I am again, with a couple more problems: I want to stick some arrows to a hay target and also to a lower class table as if they had been shot and were stuck. I simply position them there and, when I go in-game, they all fall to the ground. I know I had tried something similar except it was with a sword carved in a stone and it stood there. Is this impossible to do with arrows or am I missing something?

I am also using some stones to make a flowerbed; not the ones under "Rocks" but the ones under "Architecture - StoneWall" (StoneWallStone01Static). I place them on the CS with the arrangement I want, including all sorts of rotations to make them look like they were placed by hand and it all looks good in there. Once again, when I go in-game, they are all messed up and some don't even appear while others are above the place where I placed them. Is there something I should know about this static or it's just an anomaly? It's not a very big deal but it's bugging me. I should also say I was using a clean save on both situations.

Silly me, it's under Statics but it is havoked Gotta use other stones.

Thanks in advance.

[DarkRider]

For the arrows it's probably a bad havok/collision relationship between arrows and haybail/table. Try making static arrows, it's very simple and will work for this effect. This thread will tell you how it's done:

[EDIT] To clarify, it should tell you how it's done, that's untested as Im not on my rig atm and can't confirm no extra steps for ammo.

[Citrus]

For the arrows it's probably a bad havok/collision relationship between arrows and haybail/table. Try making static arrows, it's very simple and will work for this effect. This thread will tell you how it's done:

[EDIT] To clarify, it should tell you how it's done, that's untested as Im not on my rig atm and can't confirm no extra steps for ammo.

Yes, that's what I thought so I moved them "deeper" into the haybail and the table so that the collision boxes clipped but no effect. I decided to take that out. It was a minor detail that didn't warrant new statics (because then you wouldn't be able to use them...) Thanks for the help.

That marks the end of my house mod. I'll be posting it once I have the screens set up.

[DarkRider]

Sounds good, for future ref though, you could still use the static arrows using the old bait and switch technique. Adding the static arrows as activators, with a simple activation script that disables the static arrow and deposits a real arrow in the player's inventory. Devil's in the details, those little things are the spice of the modder's creativity, don't sell your details short.

[Citrus]

Sounds good, for future ref though, you could still use the static arrows using the old bait and switch technique. Adding the static arrows as activators, with a simple activation script that disables the static arrow and deposits a real arrow in the player's inventory. Devil's in the details, those little things are the spice of the modder's creativity, don't sell your details short.

Once I learn how to properly script, I'll include that. It's a thing for v1.1, that's for sure!

[DarkRider]

Master WillieSea can certainly help you get there.

[daisytx]

Hello

I have been getting this error since I began the CS classes. This time there is 200 nifs and I don't know where that came from. I am working on the interior for my final, just adding clutter - ahhh there is that anvil lighthouse I added, I bet that is what it is! I scaled it down real small, has to be it. Anyway I have just been ignoring it - my mod has been working ok - so far. I have the latest patch installed, and I have the latest CS (1.2.404) installed. Thanks - Daisy

Nevermind this post - I put a comment on the error message and someone already answered it for me - sorry for asking twice - I didn't mean to.

Error msg

Edited June 2, 2011 by daisytx

[DarkRider]

It's mostly informative, the CS likes to let you know it's still loading and processing nifs. It's safe to hit Yes to All and shut it down without waiting. You will encounter many of these odd but harmless messages in the CS

[daisytx]

It's mostly informative, the CS likes to let you know it's still loading and processing nifs. It's safe to hit Yes to All and shut it down without waiting. You will encounter many of these odd but harmless messages in the CS

Thank you DarkRider!

Guess you were answering as I was editing. Working on my final! yea!!!

Daisy

[dennis97795]

EDIT: fixed it

Edited June 20, 2011 by dennis97795

[mALX]

When we were raising the lake bottom up to cover up the "under house" portion of our houses a tear was created right on the border of the base fabric between my cell and the next.

I edited the landscape of the next cell right there to bring it up to the height of mine, then smoothed it down by softening the ventrices. Everything was fine till I cleaned my mod and removed any edits I did outside my own cell.

Now the tear is back, and I'm not sure how to handle this, can you advise me?

[DarkRider]

Just resmooth the tear and dont clean that adjoining cell. Sometimes if you're right near the border you'll need to leave and accept changes to that neighboring cell.

[mALX]

Just resmooth the tear and dont clean that adjoining cell. Sometimes if you're right near the border you'll need to leave and accept changes to that neighboring cell.

Okay, I appreciate the help a lot, thank you. I was really worried about leaving it like that.

[UmTheMuse]

Oops, the curse of the invisible sticky strikes again. Sorry for creating those new topics when I could just as easily have posted here.

There are limits on the number of textures a cell can hold, the exact number is 9. With your edit radius over the spot you wish to texture, tap the i key for more INFO on the textures in that cell. A window will open with four panes.

Anyway, I ran into the texture overflow issue that you mentioned in the quoted post. I was wondering if there's a way to see what gets deleted when you delete one of the textures. The reason I ask is that I have the textures pretty well segregated such that each of them is a fairly high percent. I'm afraid that if I start deleting I won't catch all the changes. I had already started to delete them, but it didn't seem to fix the issue. I'm nervous about deleting anything over 30% or so. Especially since those textures are the ones that I'm trying to add!

[DarkRider]

If you delete a texture with a very low percentage to open a new slot, odds are good you wont see any visible changes. The point is just to free up a slot so you can add something new. If the textures you want have the highest percentage they should be taking precedence. What is the issue you are trying to solve?

[UmTheMuse]

If you delete a texture with a very low percentage to open a new slot, odds are good you wont see any visible changes. The point is just to free up a slot so you can add something new. If the textures you want have the highest percentage they should be taking precedence. What is the issue you are trying to solve?

I had that straight line of textures (I assume they delimit the quad boundaries?) that you talked about. I thought that it was because I had too many textures, so I started deleting them one by one, starting at the one with the lowest %% use, except for the texture that I was using as a path. Just now, I tried deleting them until there was only one or two textures left in each quad, but it still didn't make the problem disappear. In fact, I ended up with a green square of land.

EDIT: Huh, that's weird. I reloaded the CS and was able to spray on the new textures, no problem for one of my straight lines. Does that mean that just deleting textures is not enough to blend boundaries together? The other straight line turned out to be mostly fixable by raising the terrain.

Well, so long as I've got your attention, I'd like to ask another question: On the CS wiki, they mention that it's a good idea to copy a terrain, rather than just choosing one from the list on the landscape editor box. Is there a trick to doing that, or do they just mean looking it up on the info box, and choosing the same one on the landscape editor box?

Edited August 9, 2011 by UmTheMuse

[DarkRider]

What you do is just delete one texture then paint over the line to make it go away. That green square is just a single texture unblended with others. You could start painting on it now and paint it how you like. The point of deleting textures is just to open a slot. Once a slot is open you have to paint over the line to blend it back into the group. You don't keep deleting textures or what you end up with is an unblended square with only one dominant texture in it. If you have a backup, go back and just delete one bottom texture and paint over the line. If you don't have a back up, start painting that square with other local textures to blend it back in.

[UmTheMuse]

Cool. Sorry for bothering you for something so trivial. I could've sworn I tried that. Btw, I edited my last post while you were apparently writing your latest.

I've got another question, too, if you don't mind (well, I'll have it either way, I suppose ). Am I right that you should only put pathnodes on the water's surface where possible, or do NPCs understand drowning, and I need to make the network 3D? I tried to use the automatic pathgrid generator for the current cell, but the CS crashed. That's what I get for not doing the work myself, I guess