Generate precombined visibility for worldspace?

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Hello everybody.

I know how to generate precombined visibility for a loaded cell (to avoid the "not beeing able to spring"-bug) and I have read all of this:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5522717-fallout-4-optimization-and-performance-systems-explained/

 

(I have looked through it to see if anything worldspace related has been explained there, but the only thing I found was editing a few cells and regenerating the precombined stuff for those few edited cells)

 

I would like to know if there is a way to generate precombined visibility for a large custom worldspace.

My worldspace is about 510 x 510 cells big.

So far I only have imported the landscape and I haven't added any objects yet.

Do I have to go through every cell by hand or is there a way to generate precombined visibility for an entire worldspace?

[VIitS]

Sprint bug should no longer be a concern, Bethesda fixed it well over a year ago. I have heard a handful of people reporting that they are experiencing it, but I don't know if they are using an ancient version, or somehow managed to break things in a new and unusual manner, but a lack of precombineds shouldn't cause it.

 

There is an option to generate precombineds for the whole world (that's the optimized meshes, though whether or not the CK will crash trying to do so is anyone's guess), but for previs (i.e. Precombined Visibility) it looks like you only have a "loaded cell" option. Also, previs is generated in 3x3 blocks, so it wouldn't need to be done on every cell :laugh: .

 

That said, it is probably best to only worry about precombineds/previs in more densely cluttered areas, it will have minimal impact in areas that are just wilderness with not much stuff.

 

Edit: Also, the main FO4 worldspace is 155x155 cells, I think you are being a little excessive there with your new worldspace.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Thanks for the quck answer!

When I try to sprint in my newly created worldspace, I can't.

Don't worry, the actual "playable" area of the worldspace is much smaller.

It is +-64 cells on the X axis and +-255 on the Y axis.

There is a bug that lets you only use +-64 cells in the X direction or physics will be bugged or something, no matter anyway.

 

Yes, whenever I try to sprint in the custom worldspace my character moves slightly faster then walking but slows down after a few seconds and then speeds up a bit again.

That even happens when walking slowly.

[VIitS]

I already listed this info in the other precombined thread I saw you post in earlier today, but for previs you can use a commandline parameter:

-GeneratePreVisData:<plugin>

You just need to make sure that the plugin is flagged as ESM already (a good idea for any large new worldspace mod even without this). The precombined parameter would be:

-GeneratePreCombined:<plugin> clean all

followed by

-CompressPSG:<plugin>
-BuildCDX:<plugin> <-- (should be last step)

but last I heard you have to fix a single integer in the CK.exe (using a hex editor) for it to work, and I don't know what that integer is. They may have fixed it in the recent CK updates, but I would be surprised if that was the case. It may be easier to just use the "Generate Precombineds for world" option in the CK, assuming you can get it to stop crashing.


Also, just a heads up, I could never get the commandlines to work even with the patched CK, so if it just generates a Previs.esp (no .uvd files) with an ITM Worldspace record (no children) and a Navigation Mesh Info Map, I won't be much help.


Edit: If you want to try applying the fix to the CK so commandline precombined generation works, you need to open CreationKit.exe with a hex editor, search for the hex values:

2b 02 B9 01 00 00 00

and

74 11 B9 01 00 00 00

and replace the 01 with a 00, so they look like this:

2b 02 B9 00 00 00 00

and

74 11 B9 00 00 00 00

I got some help from someone else on what to search for, it is two bytes that need to be changed, and the updated groups of bytes will work for both the older CKs and the newest (1.10.162.0). I would recommend making a backup of CreationKit.exe before editing it just in case.

*If using HxD (what I used), make sure you change the search parameters to Hex Values, default datatype is Text-String, which won't find it.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Sorry, I have been away for some time ...

I read the thing with the sprint bug here:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4461460-tips-for-large-world-space-creation-and-workflow/

My FO4 version is (almost) up-to-date. (I didn't download the november 2019 update).

 

I don't really care about optimizing every little bit, I just want to be able to sprint in custom worldspaces ...

Edited February 10, 2020 by YouDoNotKnowMyName

[pra]

For me, this CLI precomb/previs generation probably worked, but I don't know what to do with the files afterwards. I suspect you would need to setup this whole bethesda ESP version control system and merge them into your main mod...

It does NOT work if you just copy over the changes from the resulting files into your main mod via xEdit. At least, it didn't for me.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Ok, so I think I found something interesting ...

 

I just created a new worldspace in the CK and edited the landscape a bit (just a little "island" a few cells big).

I did not generate LOD, PreVis or any of that crap, I just COCed into the a cell in that worldspace and the sprint bug was gone.

I could move normally, sprint, jump, sneak, everything worked fine!

 

Weird ...

 

The other worldspace that I generated which had the sprint bug was created using TESAnnwyn (from a heightmap).

[VIitS]

YDNKMN,

The linked thread is from before Bethesda fixed the sprint bug (which used to happen for any cell in which a non-ESM flagged plugin broke precombineds). I have no idea what that fix involved, but even disabling Previs and Precombineds globally (using the ini edits or using scripts to apply the necessary changes to all cells) doesn't cause the sprint bug in the Commonwealth. So I have no idea why it was happening at all with you other worldspace.

 

@Pra,

If you mean copy the changes from the generated files (CombinedObjects.esp and Previs.esp), it should be fine to just copy the data over. If you are trying to generate with a separate file and copy into your main plugin, that won't work due to Shared Geometry precombineds being extremely finicky, and requiring the plugin name to match what the plugin name was when generating.

 

After my last post I was able to sometimes get it to work (some plugins were fine, others would just refuse to work at all, no discernable reason), which is when I confirmed that changing the file name afterwards is bad. One note: When copying from the generated plugins, I copied only the relevant subrecords (PCMB and XCRI for CombinedObjects.esp, VISI, RVIS, and XPRI for Previs.esp), not the entire record. If you copy a record to another plugin in xEdit, it will wipe out the VC Info 1 timestamp. I don't think that should matter for CELL records, but it WILL break previs/precombineds if REFR records are missing that data.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Yeah, I am starting to think that this bug that I am getting has nothing to do with all of this precombined stuff ...

 

(So another pointless thread here ....)

[pra]

YDNKMN,

The linked thread is from before Bethesda fixed the sprint bug (which used to happen for any cell in which a non-ESM flagged plugin broke precombineds). I have no idea what that fix involved, but even disabling Previs and Precombineds globally (using the ini edits or using scripts to apply the necessary changes to all cells) doesn't cause the sprint bug in the Commonwealth. So I have no idea why it was happening at all with you other worldspace.

 

@Pra,

If you mean copy the changes from the generated files (CombinedObjects.esp and Previs.esp), it should be fine to just copy the data over. If you are trying to generate with a separate file and copy into your main plugin, that won't work due to Shared Geometry precombineds being extremely finicky, and requiring the plugin name to match what the plugin name was when generating.

 

After my last post I was able to sometimes get it to work (some plugins were fine, others would just refuse to work at all, no discernable reason), which is when I confirmed that changing the file name afterwards is bad. One note: When copying from the generated plugins, I copied only the relevant subrecords (PCMB and XCRI for CombinedObjects.esp, VISI, RVIS, and XPRI for Previs.esp), not the entire record. If you copy a record to another plugin in xEdit, it will wipe out the VC Info 1 timestamp. I don't think that should matter for CELL records, but it WILL break previs/precombineds if REFR records are missing that data.

I have tried copying the precombined data from CombinedObjects.esp and Previs.esp into the main file. It did wipe the version control info, IIRC. It definitely didn't work in-game. That made me suspect that you would need to use bethesda version control to merge these two into the main plugin.

 

I wish xEdit would allow you to edit the version info...