Retsam

That's exactly what I was asking. TYVM. Looks like my assumption was correct. I make my collision the poor man's way: in NifSkope with Export/Import Obj. I'll have to figure out the 'how', but this sounds like something I need to back-track and add to all my models. Yeesh. I have a lot. As for foundations - that will depend on what I learn about how this works. I think it is doable (and I should). The vanilla wall I looked at has that navcut collision area, that area does not go all the way to the top. The assumption being it is used to remove AI pathing where the wall is at floor level, but does not extend all the way up so as to not interfere with pathing on levels above the wall. The same logic could be applied to foundation blocks. Some folks will want to use them to make big walls, so the lower part should have a navcut, but the upper part no so it can be used as a floor. I'd also like to try to add this to the stairs and see if that solves the traffic jams I keep seeing on (and under) them. Thanks for that link. I have a lot of re-work to do now.

When I inspect a vanilla concrete wall, like WorkshopConcreteWall01, I see a NiNode labled c_Wall01NavCut. This node has bhkNPCollisionObject that, if I'm viewing it correctly, envelopes the majority of the wall object. It looks like it might not include the upper 10% or so. This is a separate node from something labeled like c_WorkshopConcreteWall01 which does envelope the entire wall and contains what I assume to be the standard wall collision / material physics for this object. This specific example is on a solid wall, not a wall with a doorway or window. The thing I am asking is if the c_Wall01NavCut is something like 'anti-navmesh'. In other words, does the game have the concept of removing a navmesh based on object placement? If we take an object, like a wall, and place on top of navmeshed area, like the ground or a floor, it does seem like it would be efficient for the game engine to know to not even try to calculate the navmesh if something is blocking it - but I don't know if that is a thing or not. The thing that lead me to this line of thinking is I have observed, with some of my custom walls, toons attempting to go through them. The walls have collision so they can't go through, but they will stand in place and walk into the wall. Looks like one of those wind-up robot toys walking into a wall. I have seen this same behavior with the vanilla stairs with handrails- the toons try to walk off the stairs at an angle. The handrail collision prevents them from doing so but the AI behavior is as if it is not aware of the handrail when it is generating its path. The end result is a traffic jam of toons trying to walk off the stairs at an angle half-way down. Is there the concept of preemptively telling the AI pathing engine to exclude an area from pathing calculations?

I looked that one up. Not much about it, but it did lead me to viewing Nifly. https://github.com/ousnius/nifly I have an awareness of Nifly, pretty sure one of my Blender plug-ins is based on that. But even though I call myself a Senior Developer, I've never really done any work with C++. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm kinda surprised no one has taken that and made a gallery/thumbnail viewer. It would be an interesting venture, but realistically it would require too much learning time for me to do anything with it. Shame. Thanks for the input though. Gave me some new thoughts.

I've searched for this sort of thing off-and-on for awhile now, but never found anything really useful. Figured I'd ask the community. The first goal would be to have some sort of Gallery view of a directory of Nif files. Much like thumbnail previews of Images in Windows Explorer. The second goal is a better way of generating PNGs of Nifs. Typically I use either the screenshot feature in Nifskope or open a Preview in CK and use Windows Snipping tool to grab a picture of a Nif model. Thing is, this time around I have several hundred models and there is no way I can do that many individual screenshots and have any hope of keeping them uniform (scale, perspective, etc), or keeping my sanity. Although I doubt there is such a thing, it would be marvelous if there is some software that could either provide a full screen gallery/thumbnail view of a directory of Nifs or a way to automate generating a few hundred screenshots of Nif files. Thoughts?

Not what I was expecting, but still useful info. I had been using the name's alphabetical order to get 'close' results. Not exactly the best results. I just tested using the priority as you said and it works. Excellent. Thanks. :)

Thanks. That was pretty much my assumption, but I just wanted some confirmation.

In CK (FO4), on a Constructible Object is a field called "Priority". My question is what is it? I was wondering if it had anything to do with how the game prioritizes rendering a cell's objects. If so, what is a valid range and what is 'high' and 'low'. I was just thinking if it does effect render priority, it would be good idea to set 'floor' pieces to render sooner to try to avoid things falling through the floor. Of course, it might also be one of those many deprecated fields that does nothing... TIA

This question is about something I see in FO4Edit. It shows an edit: Cell -> Block 7 -> Sub-Block 3 -> 00000025 NavMeshGenCell -> Temporary -> 0200B731 Navigation Mesh My mods do not have Cell edits. I'm only adding workshop items that need navmeshes (floor pieces). I have seen this in FO4Edit before and assumed it was indicative of how Navmeshes just appear. That perhaps it uses that temporary cell to store the navmesh info. However I am currently working on another mod, and the short summary is based on what I am seeing (counts and names don't match up) I am wondering if this is actually a bad thing. Like it is showing a navmesh that was not properly finalized or was corrupted when CK crashed - which has been often. I'll make a copy of my ESP and then delete this entry in FO4Edit and see what happens, but this particular mod has dozens of navmeshed items so I might miss something. I wanted to ask the community about it. Thanks

Great tip. I did not know about that feature. I will try it out. Thanks!

Fallout 4 modding question This is such a dumb question, but my searches failed to find the info I'm looking for. I have a mod I made for personal use and have been using in my game from almost the beginning. I've decided to publish it, but I did not give the esp a decent name when I made it. Ignoring the dependency changes required, meshes etc, that I can do easily enough, I was was hoping that a save game would not fail when the esp name is changed. Alas, it did. Apparently I do not properly understand record IDs. I thought they were unique and agnostic of the file name, and that's how mods are kept from conflicting even if they give item X the same name. After my little experiment I'm assuming the unique ID for an object the game is tracking is most likely some compilation of the esp name and the record ID, but I'd like someone to either drop some technical details or point me to the right reading material. And if possible, is there a way to change an esp name without breaking my save? I can redo the mod easily. It's very small. But I figure this is a good learning opportunity. Thanks Edit: I forgot to mention I also use Vortex, which might be a factor in this.

lol, Turns out I had an Imgur accout from 2016 I had forgot about :P I did end up posting on the Git page for the plug-in, with pics: https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly/issues/150 Summary: "I determined the Specular setting in Blender was the culprit. But whatever I set in Blender, I can not change in Nifskope in the BSLightingShaderProperty. I did not think it worked that way, but apparently it does." Again, this is probably my lack of knowledge, but I'm perplexed that once I export the Nif from Blender, I can not change the (Specular) values in Nifskope.

I guess it would be better if I included some screenshots but I don't know where people host images to insert into this BB. As I said it is easily repeatable if you use the aforementioned programs, so I was hoping someone who actually has those programs would know what I was talking about. It can be recreated by literally opening Blender and then exporting the default cube with Pynifly and looking at it in Nifskope scope. I'm aware of setting materials and textures Blender, in bgsm, or the nif itself. I'm saying the nif being generated by the PyNif plug-in seems to be ignoring those. I tried for hours using every combination I could come up with and could not remove the artifacts. I can take a generated nif, manually add a BSLightingShaderProperty with no material or bgsm, apply one texture set and it shows up. It it seems like some default data is being baked into the triangle data when the plug-in generates the nif. I might make a post on the Git of the plug-in. I'm apparently using a version that was just updated a couple weeks ago. Might be a bug.

Blender 3.5.1 with PyNifly add-on (https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly/releases/tag/V9.10) NifSkope 2.0 Dev 8 Fallout 4 The symptom I am trying to solve is my models (.nif) that I am making have a "shiny-shadow" at the far end. I have tried every combo I can think of to get rid of this. It is very easily repeatable. Open Blender, and export the cube model using Nifly set for Fallout 4. You can see it in Nifskope as soon as you add a texture. And of course it shows up in game also. Nifly will create the nif with a BSLightingShaderProperty already inserted - even if the Blender model has no lights/textures/etc. I have tried deleting that from the nif (Nifskope), as well as adding new ones, copying branches from other models, changing every number I can see in both nifskope and blender... nothing works. It's like there is a setting hard-baked in somewhere. I'm still learning all this, but at this point I don't know what to try next.

Thanks for the response. As I mentioned, I did experiment with making my own subgraph data, animation replacements (just using pre-made ones) etc. My inability to work with animation files is the blocker for now on going any further in that direction. It'll take time for me to learn how to use Blender and animation stuff in general. What I was hoping to find out is where I can find a list of pre-defined node names the game uses, like P-WS-Origin in a .nif. If I ever learn how to open one of the animation files it is probably obvious. Within CK, unless I am missing something the only add/remove entry options are the check boxes that tell the behavior file to use what it finds in the animation file that match up to "front, rear, left, right, other". The actual locations are what I assume are in the animation file, named something the game has hard-coded to look for. Thanks again for replying.

Thanks for the information LarannKiar. I had figured out some of that by spending an entire day doing a 'break and see what happens' approach lol. I changed subgraphdata stuff, copied vanilla animations but treated them as custom ones, extracted hkx into XML, generated and poked around in AnimTextData files, etc. I tested a lot of combinations without even really knowing what I was doing. I'm an old pro at the 'break-fix' approach to learning something hehe. I had concluded that what I was looking for was probably defined in the FurnitureBehavior.hkx and I would need to add any new entries I wanted in that file or have nodes? in the new animation file that matched what FurnitureBehavior was looking for. But as of yet I have not opened an animation file since even figuring out what/how animation software is a full task on its own I just have not had time to do yet. The FurnitureAllowEnterThroughGeometry and FurnitureAllowExitThroughGeometry keywords I had found mentioned in another post, and those gave me a different idea. For now, I came up with a different approach to accomplish the end-goal I want that simply bypasses the whole issue. But again, thank you very much for the clear information. I have copied your post into my notepad for future reference. :smile: Cheers EDIT: Forgot to ask. Would you happen to know the exact names of the nodes (Entry points) as used by the game? I wanted to experiment by creating NiNodes in the furniture nif named the same as what it looks for in the hkx files. Just to see what happens. For example, in a vanilla nif I found a NiNode named "c_StairHelper". So there must be a naming convention I could use. There are some other nodes in there with 'anim' as part of the name. It seems like they might be useful for this purpose. But I have not found a definitive list of what all those are and my random experiment approach takes too long to try them all. I tried a few guesses, like 'FrontEntry' etc. but so far no winner.

First, I did search the forum and did find a couple of threads that at first sounded like exactly what I was trying to figure out. But in the end I'm still not certain so I want to ask a simple question and get a direct answer to clarify my understanding. I do not have animation $oftware or knowledge, and I think that is where the answer is and thus why I have not figured this out on my own yet. The question relates to in Creation Kit, Fallout 4, the properties window for a workshop constructible piece of furniture. When an animation is attached via the keywords (AnimFurnsomething), upon saving and reopening we can see the blue and yellow circles. I understand these represent entry points for the animation and where the animation takes places. I'm aware we can use transform in the Active Markers window to move them, but it moves all of them. Conversely, even if we enable one of the entry types, front, rear, etc. it will have no effect if there is no correlating yellow circle for it. The question is "Where are those entry point circles defined?" I'm guessing they are part of the animation file, the doSomething.hkx. Most likely there are nodes, one for each of the entry types (interact point 0,front, rear, etc). If they are part of the animation, reckon I can't do what I want. I can't afford Adobe stuff. I want to add&move the yellow circles for existing animations. I have a situation where NPC can not get to them to initiate the animation sequence. When I test with a different, random, vanilla animation that, in the preview, has the yellow circles beyond the edges of my object - it works. In the animation I want to use the yellow circle is not beyond the edge of my object and it does not work. NPC will stand at the edge of the object but never enter the sequence. If I move the circles around using the transform values in the Active Markers section, as long as I bump a yellow circle beyond the edge of the object, it works. By "works" I mean the animation sequence will begin. But of course that is moving everything so the animation itself is in wrong place. And in case you are wondering about "edge of the object", picture a floor piece with an animation in the center. I need the yellow circles beyond the edge of the floor piece. This is for player buildable objects, not cell modifying. TIA Edit: I should mention I have been using NifSkope a couple of weeks now and one thing of interest in there is BSFurnitureMarkerNode... but not luck experimenting with that yet. I also tried out HKXPack and poked around in the generated XML file hoping to maybe find some kind of node definition in there. No luck.

I figured out how to accomplish my goal purely in NifSkope. It may or not be the best method, but so far it seems to work. I'm not going to try and give detailed steps, just the general idea so others might be able to figure something out for their needs. I copied a block from a nif file that had a marker arrow. I pasted that into the destination nif file. I moved hierarchy stuff around so the new block was in the root. I removed the textures from the new block. I converted it to BSMeshLODTriShape. Under that added BSLightingShader property, and within set Alpha to zero. Now, the arrow is part of the whole object. This means when it is shown selected in the workshop build menu, prior to placing it on the ground, the arrow is seen since it is glow-colored like any other object. Once it placed, the arrow is not seen because alpha=0 makes it transparent. It also has no collision, so for all intents it 'disappears'. The original object, in this case a ground decoration, was not touched. It still have materials/textures/alpha settings as they were. So the ground decoration remains visible, the arrow is only visible when the ground decoration is selected in the workshop build menu. I still have to test things out more thoroughly, but that's what I have so far.

Thanks for the info. I have no way of making 3D files, and I have not got into scripts yet, although it is on my list. I did figure out how to accomplish my goal though, I'll post it separately. It is purely nif based, so it may not be as good as what you suggest. I'm still learning. Again, TYVM for the info. I'm filing it as 'Most stuff to learn'. :)

To be a little more descriptive: First, I have no modeling experience or programs. I have got this far just using NifSkope. I was considering how when in the Workshop build menu, an item that is selected appears in the world as highlighted with the UI color, in my case bright green. My thinking was that perhaps that highlighting is being applied to the entire model, regardless of visuals; textures or materials etc. With that in mind I was hoping I could add a marker with no texture/material/collosion that would be highlighted while in build menu but once placed, the part with no skin would be invisible in the game world. To that end I took a nif with a marker arrow and copied the BSTriShape node into a floor mat nif. (I just used imgur for the first time ever in an effort to share a pic of what I have. Hopefully that works.) https://imgur.com/a/3I9OfJg I am not savvy in the slightest with graphic terminology or NifSkope. I've only been using it a few weeks now. My approach has been primitive- I delete and change stuff to see what it does. So far I have not found the right combination. I end up with either the mat and arrow showing up in the game after being placed, or a combination of one or the other. To reiterate, the goal is for the marker arrow to only show up (in any way) only while in build mode. It should be invisible during game play.

I'm not referring to markers in CK. I mean in the game. But thanks for responding.

For Fallout 4 mod The goal is to show players some form of orientation marker while placing a workshop constructable object. Specifically the objects are furniture objects with animation markers. The objects are squares, so the transform/preview does not really help. They have animation, so the direction the object is placed is important. I'm fine with the Marker Model I use showing, or using something generic like an arrow. I've been scraping through CK trying to find an example, and even Google failed me. If someone could give me a hint for where to look for examples or the correct key words for searching that would be great. Thanks.

Awesome. This is visually exactly what I wanted. The 2 gap fillers don't work out-of-the-box like the beam did. AI is not pathing them. I tried applying navmesh in CK like the video showed, but still did not work. When I view the nifs in NifSkope, I see a difference. There are 3 items that have the X translation at 112 rather than 0 like the working model. 2 BSTriShapes and a NiNode. I assume this is where you moved the 3 components (materials?) after cropping the 'width'. I've been trying various attempts of applying transform in NifSkope and navmesh generation in CK but so far I have not got it right. I'll keep messing with it. I'll eventually figure out how this stuff interacts with each other. Thank you very much for the nifs. It was cool to see an idea from my head actualized. :) Oh, BTW I did add 4 P-Floor snap points on the corners.

My usage for the pieces are when building using Workshop Concrete structures. Due to the way the walls are made to be placed on the perimeter of the concrete foundation, it limits the interior wall options and can leave gaps in the roof. Using this concrete beam, I can place one between every foundation piece, and it will maintain uniform spacing throughout the structure. Then, I can replace the beam with a wall wherever, and whenever, I want without worrying about a wall changing the entire layout spacing. Of course a matching piece is need for any roof sections that are not joined by a wall. Incidentally, this approach will also need to use the pre-existing vertical beam around the exterior in any place there is not a joining wall. They included that vertical beam in the vanilla game- but not the same thing for the floor, hence my mod... Anyway. I like building using the floor/roof combo piece WorkshopConcreteUpperFloor01.nif. This satisfies the roof requirement for beds, and provides a pathable floor for putting roof-top planters. The issue is if you have a wall, and snap the upper roof/floor piece on each side of the wall, the top will also have a gap between the roof/floor pieces where the wall is. Visually it is just a small dip, but since the pieces are snapping to the wall and not each other the AI views that as a path boundary and the settlers will not cross it, just like the full gap between the foundation blocks. I've watched my settlers teleporting from one roof tile to the next because they could not take that one step over the gap. The concrete beam you fixed for me can sink into the floor, so technically it can be used on the upper floor and would solve the pathing issue. But I don't like overlapping pieces like that and figured might as well have a proper sized piece that matches the existing material. So the short summary of what I want would be another wall gap filler. The same X and Y as the ConcreteBeam, but the Z, thickness, of the vanilla floor-only pieces. To that end, the piece WorkshopConcreteMidFloor01.nif has the same texture as the top part of WorkshopConcreteUpperFloor01.nif. It's a chicken wire/concrete looking surface. It also looks to me to be the same thickness as the gap that needs to be filled. That would most likely be the best match for existing vanilla pieces. I really don't know how this sort of stuff is done, so it might be easier to take the concrete beam and reduce the Z of it. As for the texture, I'm also fine with just the full concrete look using the beam would give. Concrete or metal like WorkshopConcreteUpperFloor01, either one would match the game pieces. The catch is going to be the metal trim... again I don't know how this is done. I'll attach a zip with the vanilla upper floor and roof/floor combo so you don't have to go look for them. I'll also put the new ConcreteBeam in there for completeness. I was going to add a few cropped screenshots showing stuff but that exceeded the 250KB limit, but I managed to squeeze one in that shows the gap on the roof I want to fill. To me this sounds difficult, so if it is just tell me. I'm already grateful for what you fixed. :) Thanks

Awesome! I tried it first without messing with the mesh and it worked right out-of-the-box. And you did that so fast... I am both jealous and very happy. I really wanted this piece lol. The setters were not pathing correctly in my building without this. It is probably beyond me, but what software did you use? There is a second similar piece I want but it would have to be done from scratch so its not something I could ask someone to do quick like you just did with this file. If it is software that is not crazy expensive I might try. I still kinda want to post my mod, as insignificant as it is. I don't really care if no one uses it, I just want to have something posted. It still bums me out all the cool stuff I made so many years ago is now long gone since I never uploaded anything. I need to go review how to properly package this for uploading, and of course I'll give proper credit to pepperman35 for the model tweaking. I guess it would be proper to also try and contact that original mod owner since I used his nif as the starting point. Thanks again everyone for the assistance!

Great tip pepperman35. As soon as I viewed with F4 it was obvious my guess was correct. I can see the collision object does not match the model. Wrong size and placement. No, I did not know about that navmesh feature greekrage. I watched the video, thanks. I did experiment a little with it, but the navmesh apparently snaps to the collision object, and the collision is incorrect. So basically I am back at square one with the collision object not being correct and I do not know how to fix it. I was refraining from posting the file because I wanted to figure this out on my own, but I don't think I can since fixing it probably requires modeling software and knowledge. At this point I have made dozens of unsuccessful attempts so FWI I'll post a zip with the game's original, the one I found in a mod, and one of mine. My files are prefixed with 'sag_'. Thanks everyone for the input. I learned a couple of things I did not know... Or maybe I did know and in the >10 years I have been away from games and mods I have forgotten ;P