[LE] Black textures (probably not VRAM)

[DarkWing241]

I've been having an issue with my boots mod. Two of the newer boots I added (there are like 20 in total) show up with solid black textures. My research tells me that black textures (not pink missing textures) usually come from VRAM issues, but I don't think this is the the issue as I have a very powerful GPU. I also have had users the same issue with the boots (so probably not my system). I have tested the boots with a minimal load order and it is ONLY these two boots that have texture issues, and they have it consistently.

When I load a game with the offending boots already equipped the textures hows up fine. If I switch boots and then switch back they go black. quicksave/quickload also does not fix the problem, only first time loads get the textures to show.

Any idea's what could cause this? bslightingshaderproperty shaderflags check boxes are the part I usually mess up but the offending boots match the working ones exactly.

I have experience Flipped/inside out mesh before and that usually gives 'dark textures' these are black, regardless I tried 'face normal' to fix it, I think that worked in the past but I am pretty inexperienced with diagnosing/fixing this kind of issue. I don't really think this is the problem as in the past it manifested as darker textures, these are black.

I just uploaded my mod to the nexus if anyone wants to take a look at the files. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/93069?tab=files

[Pineappletree]

One note at the start: Please tell us which boots / meshes exactly you have problems with exactly in the future. Makes it much easier and quicker to troubleshoot.

So, I was able to repoduce your problem. Took a bit of time because
a) I concentrated on the "Leather" boots first, as I indentified them on one of your screens but they worked fine for me. Meanwhile the "Nightingale" and "Shrouded" boots did not.
b) the problem only occurs on characers with a body weight between zero and one and the character I tested on had it on one.

Looking at the Nightingale and Dark Brotherhood NIFs in Nifscope, I noticed they looked odd and the boots' NiTriShapeData had the BSVectorFlag "Has_Tangents" unchecked (and therefore the tangent data removed). By importing and exporting the NIF to and from 3dsmax I was able to restore the tangent data and the boots then worked fine.

 

In conclusion, the tangent data is appearently needed so Skyrim can correctly interpolate between the _0 and _1 meshes for body weights from 0.01 to 0.99 (if there is no tri file containing the interpolation as a morph at least). Make sure you don't delete it accidentaly while preparing your meshes.

While hunting for the problem I also found another few items of note:

1. Several of your boots (Leather, dragonbone and others) have mutliple meshes / parts in their NIF, which is perfectly fine, but you put the NiStringExtraData containing the heel height information on each one of them. That is not necessary. It's enough if one of the meshes has the node.
I'm not sure the redundant data would actually cause any problems, but why risk it if it's not necessary...

2. In all of your UUNP meshes you included the whole UUNP body, which is why their NIFs have such disproportionaly large file sizes.
When you save your meshes / projects in BodySlide, make sure you have "Copy reference shape into output" at the bottom of the window unchecked.

3. While my BodySlide generated the UUNP boots without errors, trying to load them in the game leads to an immediate CTD. Whether this is due to the superfluous body mesh or another problem I'm not sure and didn't examine further.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Pineappletree

[DarkWing241]

Wow thanks this is great feedback, this whole thing is a learning process for me. I tried to include as much information as possible and forget the most important part! I guess I'll take the offending pieces back to 3dsmax to sort that issue out.

 

1. Most of the boots just use copies of the default textures, but some of them are actually use sections of other items, mostly gloves and weapons. Setting it up in multiple pieces allowed me to handle the textures for all that, their's probably a better way.

 

2. This was an issue that cropped up when I converted them to UUNP. The originals were nice and clean without all the extra skeleton and body stuff. It's high on my list of stuff to optimize, but I have really limited understanding of how UUNP stuff works (beyond using it in game) and I wanted to sort out the texture stuff first.

 

3. Likely true, I have experienced similar problems, but only intermittently. Like I said this version was a bit of a rush job. Looks like I will be rebuilding tonight.

[Pineappletree]

You're welcome!

 

Having multiple meshes in one NIF is a great and absolutely viable tool, so use it whenever it helps you.

I make use of it extensively myself, so I can set individual textures, texture sets and material properties for different parts of the model. A chromed metal clasp need an envrionment map shader, the suede leather it holds together does not, for example.

 

And don't worry about your UUNP woes, having to go through the conforming process a couple of times is just part of the game. I have lost count of how often I accidentaly left reference body shapes in my models because I forgot that checkbox I mentioned above...

[DarkWing241]

You're welcome!

 

Having multiple meshes in one NIF is a great and absolutely viable tool, so use it whenever it helps you.

I make use of it extensively myself, so I can set individual textures, texture sets and material properties for different parts of the model. A chromed metal clasp need an envrionment map shader, the suede leather it holds together does not, for example.

 

And don't worry about your UUNP woes, having to go through the conforming process a couple of times is just part of the game. I have lost count of how often I accidentaly left reference body shapes in my models because I forgot that checkbox I mentioned above...

So I took your advice and tried some stuff out and I think I fixed the crashing issues with the UUNP stuff, but I was unable to resolve the black texture issue.

 

I did some more testing importing/exporting boots and had no luck fixing the old boots, or even quickly importing/exporting stock skyrim models. This leads me to believe the the problem is coming from my 3dsmax, niftools or my import/export settings.

 

I use

-3ds max 2018

-niftools 4.0 (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/84041)

 

Everything I've made since switching to 2018 has the same problem.

[maxarturo]

Did you check that the "Vertex Colors" are not all set to black ?, and as it's already been mentioned that the "Vector Flags" has UV_Set_1 & Has_Tangents.

Also that the mesh + textures are not inside out.

Edited October 12, 2019 by maxarturo

[DarkWing241]

Did you check that the "Vertex Colors" are not all set to black ?, and as it's already been mentioned that the "Vector Flags" has UV_Set_1 & Has_Tangents.

Also that the mesh + textures are not inside out.

Some of this has already been discussed above. The vector colors is "no", the vector flags "has_UV" and "has_tangents" I am 99.9% sure it's not inside out, as I've run into that problem before and fixed it.

 

Summary of symptoms

 

-black textures only when weight slider is not 0 or 1 (some work arounds, like opening/closing racemenu also makes them appear)

-when at weight 0 or 1 everything looks perfect.

-problems only occurred after switching to 3dsmax 2018 and nif plugin 4.0

-end product seems to be missing some tangent data stuff? (I have no idea how this part works)

-even if I import/export stock skyrim boots, changing nothing I get the problem (it has to be something automated?)

-the error appears for others, not just my computer

 

The last part makes me believe there is an issue with the import/export process. Either 3ds max 2018, the nif plugin or my import/export settings is causing the problem. When I discussed this above, Pineappletree claims to have had success simply re-importing and exporting the model to "restore the tangent data" this did not work for me.

 

You can check things out https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/93069/. The problem appears on both the dark brother hood (shrouded) heels and the nightingale heels.

[maxarturo]

I haven't read the whole/all post, but this guy had a similar issue and manage to resolve it.

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/8033253-model-seeming-to-not-use-lighting/

* I'm only coming to this forums during modding breaks to provide some assistance (if i can), and sometimes i'm too tired to read big posts. Sorry if it's already been covered...

[DarkWing241]

So none of the above solutions fixed the issue, although the recommendations were definitely helpful.

 

The ultimate fix can be done in NifSkope

 

NiTriShapeData>Consistency Flags>CT_STATIC

 

needs to be set to CT_MUTABLE.

 

I have no idea what this actually does, but changing it fixed the issue of the black textures at non 0/1 weight settings.

 

I still have no idea why 3DS MAX suddenly started generating this problem when it didn't for dozens of previous models. I even tryed switching from 3DS MAX 2018 to 2012 and a different nifplugin.