A few questions about SCOLs ...

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Good evening everybody!

 

Just a few (beginner) questions about Static Collections:

1. Is there a "size limit" for a static collection? Because I want to put lots of static objects into a SCOL that will be about one "exterior cell" big ...
   (A few large custom meshes and lots of small stuff like railings, ...)
2. If I create a static collection and use a few instances of it, can I later "edit" the static collection in the CK, so that all the "instances" of it get "updated"?
3. Can "non-static" objects (like lights or moving flags) be part of a static collection?
   (Obviously not activators like doors or buttons, but I mean "non-activatable" stuff)

 

Would be great if somebody could clarify these things ...

[Undernier]

1. I'm not sure about size limit and I've used some pretty big scol myself but I tend to keep them within the bound of one cell. I don't know if there's a hard limit but I think you have to keep in mind that the scol will be rendered all at once so, if it's too big you'll probably get some performance or visual issue. In my experience, scol are mostly used to reduce the number of calls needed to display assets, so whether you have one very large one or a few smaller ones shouldn't have too much of an impact.

 

2. If I remember correctly the answer is NO. From my experience it always caused problems when I descolled edited and rescolled using the same name. So I ended up always creating a new version when I needed to change things. (but you might have to do some testing to be sure, I'm not 100% on that one).

 

3. Everything that can be animated, interacted with or has an FX attached to it cannot be scolled. So you can't scol a light but you can still scol a lamp asset (either on or off versions of them work). But that's not all, I found that some items that can be scolled will make the scol unstable in the CK when you activate the physics/havok. (Edit, although it is unstable in the CK, iirc, it was fine in-game).

This is a massive pain in the butt as suddenly your whole scol just fall through the ground and placing it back can be problematic.

Unfortunately I never found the exact reason why this happened or what items seem to cause that, I think it may be items that have both static and non-static versions of them. If that's right, that would mean that for example if you create a static version of a drink and try to scol it, it will work but the scol might be unstable.

 

Anyway I hope this helps. I found that scols are very useful and they work fine in-game but they tended to be pretty unstable in the Creation Kit ... so save often, very often.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Undernier

[Undernier]

I remembered one other thing, You'll have to be careful about textures and material swaps, if you scol items that have similar swap it's fine, but You can only apply one swap to a scol, so if your scol required multiple material swaps you may have to create one scol for each.

 

Also, iirc, high tech buildings parts and (static) cars get very weird colors when scoled.

 

In some rare cases scols created invisible walls. I think it happened mostly with the shipping crate assets from dlc03, but you'll have to test pathfinding carefully.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Ok, so if they can't be "edited" easilly and all those "instances" will update, they are not really THAT usefull to me ...

 

Then I will just use regular objects.

 

I thought I could have an interior cell with only that SCOL in it, to edit it in a "clean environment" and the instances I used in the actual worldspace would get "updated" ....

 

But it seems that it doesn't work that way ...

:down:

 

Thanks anyway I guess ...

[Undernier]

As I said, you may want to test it for yourself, because I'm not 100% sure about using instances of scols and how they update. They might.

 

I think I didn't use them in that way because, the tricky part is that when you create a scol or update it, its pivot point/center point will be located on the last item selected when clicking "create scol".

 

This meant that, if you're not careful and you edit a scol in your interior cell and accidentally change its center point then, the coordinates of the exterior instances will be used with the new center point which will, in effect, move your exterior scols.

 

A simple fix is to use a pivot dummy asset and make sure to always create your scols around it.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Oooohhhh ...

That's why lots of "vanilla" SCOLs have those weird marker things ...

 

Good to know ....

[markusm1000]

Ok, so if they can't be "edited" easilly

They can be edited und updated not-so-easily.

 

Create your SCOL

Open your SCOL to edit it

Click "Recreate NIF from data"

Now you have a .nif in DATA\meshes\SCOL\yourmod.esp\

Put it in your mod-folder

Create a new STAT from this .nif

Work with this STAT

 

If you need changes, simply create a new .nif for your STAT.

 

You'll have to be careful about textures and material swaps

 

With this method you can do material swaps or change textures in nifskope.

[Undernier]

that's really good to know! Thanks for sharing!