Impytus

As an after thought. that doesnt make a lot of sense. how would the bullet holes and other fx work if it wasnt exactly perfect to the original mesh?

so is there no point in which having so many box collisions outweighs the performance and practicality of a mesh collision? The way I look at it is its probably going to be close to having a box colllison per double set of polys (square), to account for all the detail. Seems like a lot.

I wasnt honestly expecting that. RR has a lot of small details on it. strip light fittings, electric boxes, pipes and other small details.. what you are talking about is goign to be a great many box collisions.

so with this redrocket thing im doing, would you recommend mesh collision? Do you know if there is a way i can find out what the vanilla collisiongroups are? I'm looking for an easier way to copy the ones from the vanilla model.

ok so never delete an object in a cell. got it. thanks Sorry still struggling to follow. I thought we were talking about the material in the collisiongroup utility (in max). Is that not the thing we are talking about here? what exactly is it you avoid as much as possible? using mesh collision or using several mixed primitive collisions? furthermore can you give a few examples of where you would use a mesh collision over a primitive collision and vice versa?

Oh i forgot to confrim. are we talking about the same thing here? when you say references do you mean the actual form id? it should be safe to delete an object from a cell while leaving the form existing, no? or are you saying that is still not a good idea?

So you are saying that it is in fact the thing that causes bulletholes and explosion marks? That was my gut feeling too. which is why i've been torn. Do you use mesh collisions yourself?

ok but what I wanted to know is whether or not it is common usage to use mesh collision instead of several primatives (ie. box or cylinder) combined to make up the shape. Also is VlitS correct about the material type being the thing that determines bulletholes.. etc..If so can you recommend materials i should use?

Ahh right, i get it. The occlusion would be hiding things behind the walls and thus removing them would not force display the hidden things. Thanks Why is that exactly? Also can you confirm the stuff VlitS is saying about the collisions, or answer any of my questions regarding that?

No i really appreciate it. Im trying to learn how all this works. Sometimes it s a little difficult to understand things but im trying. So i mentioned above that actually I will probably have to delete things from the cell. Does that mean that this previs stuff actually will apply to me? Also what do you mean exactly by "significantly alter the shape of the building"? What I am trying to do is create a flat top of the building (no slope). Ive removed a few other bits and bobs, but is that significant enough? As for collision, i think i chose the "metal" one, for the roof (which is what im currently testing). Are you saying that it is likely that the "metal" option doesnt allow bullet holes? While on that subject, i noticed that it is recommended to use boxes and cylinders instead of a mesh collider. Understandably so. but for something as complex as this i find it hard to believe that anybody would mash together tons of the primitives to create the collision, did you just use a mesh collision for yours? thanks for the further explanation, It makes so much more sense now.

Awesome, thanks. I'll give it a go.

So what you are saying is that there is nothign inherently wrong with ITMs, they wont break the game or reduce performance. Its just that people don't like them because they interefere with their own mods? One other question, the steps above, are they needed if something else is changed in the cell besides the replacer? I suspect i will need to anyway. like for instance, the bush that is growing on the roof. that will need to go. Will the mod still be dirty and need the above steps doing if i deleted the bush? Also did you have any thoughts on my collision problem?

Thanks for the responces. I really appreciate it. I've been having a bit of a play around with all this. Some of the terminology ive had to look up and some of it was still gibberish to me and made it hard to follow. I'm still having some difficulty understanding some stuff: I followed your instructions. It worked i can see the replacer has made the changes. What I'm unsure of is, are you saying that its bad to have ITM's? and when you say this is a test to see whats happening, what do i do for it not to be a test, rather as something i will actually use? (As for your offer. I'm actually just testing a few things at the moment. what im working on isnt actually anywhere near a finished state, I just wanted to know how to solve this to see if things like the collisions were working ok. more on that lower down. Id only be too happy for you to look at it once its nearer something i will actually use.) Past this point everything you and Vlits said kind of went over my head a bit. not your fault. im still learning. I had a look, the data details more or less show the same i created in my plugin following chucksteel's instructions. I only want to affect the player settlement building though so it was slightly more condensed. Now this is where i got a bit lost. I havent the slightest idea where to find those things, what they are or how to delete them and more importantly what this is for and why I need to do it? Can you ellaborate on this? again i did a search on it but nobody seems to use layman terms an im really struggling. Where do i set the no Pre-Vis flag, and what is it for? what does the bug do if it is left? Also (and I'm about to change the subject a little here but better than starting a new topic I think), now that I can finally test my objects in game. Ive noticed that the collision is a little undesirable. It seems to be present and doing what basic collision should do but very more aesthetic things like shooting at it dont seem to present the same results that the vanilla has. namely the bullet holes, explosion marks.. etc.. Do you have any ideas as to why this might be the case? I have been using 3dsmax with the havok tools... etc...(as outlined in the only tutorial/guide videos i know of)

I'm sorry, I don't understand. So i just move the object, and then what? i now have a red rocket roof that isnt on top of the building anymore? Can you give a bit of a brief step by step on what i need to do? I've tried a search on this but cant seem to find anything.

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its not a material problem. maybe i should be more exact with what it is I'm doing. I've remodelled red rocket. Now, i know that there are 2 versions of the object. the version in the player settlement uses different meshes. when i replace them with mine. going into the game i see no changes. its just the same old red rocket.

its modified from the vanilla. should that make a difference?

How exactly do you mean? if it appears correctly changed/replaced in creation kit shouldnt it be the same in game?

Can anybody think of any reasons that my mesh/.nif replacer isnt overwriting the original and displaying in game? I have a static mesh .nif file that I created myself for a world object in game. I have put it in the correct folder and should replace the .nif exactly. However when i go in game it is displaying the original mesh without my changes. Replacer shows perfectly in creation kit by the way. thanks.

Oh that solved it... yep. Would explain why Id never seen anything like this before. Mainly because its not a genuine thing. Thanks

Thanks for the link throttlekitty... just tested it all and it works perfectly from what I can see. Nice to finally be able to play around with normals.

Heres an example: (note: ive compressed this down to post here. but it looks just like this in its dds format.) It should be "forestgrass01_d.dds". It is the only one of the grass textures that does this for me. http://i1118.photobucket.com/albums/k615/impytus/forestgrass01_d.jpg I used BAE to extract and use PhotoshopCS6 to edit.

Nobody knows?

still looking for info on this.

If the subject needs ellaborating: Some of the diffuse texture files seem to be twice as large, rectangular instead of square and have 2 textures crisscrossed together in one half of the image. (trees for example use these type of textures). Ive never seen anything like these before? do they have a name? I suppose the following question is, how do we utilise them for modding? making edits, changes, etc... Is there something special about the way they work and for that matter, why did they choose to use them in some places and not others? If anybody can explain how they work id be grateful? Thanks