SpeedyB64 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 I know exactly what that is, its some LOD land, some very messed up LOD land.Have you ever generated the distant land for the world space? If not is there anything your fallout distant land folder in data (I don't exactly remember where that folder is and what its called) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leadpipe Posted September 19, 2009 Author Share Posted September 19, 2009 Believe it or not, that was enough to send me on quite a chase to get this resolved, now that I know what it is. To answer your question more directly: yes there is a folder called LODSettings and there are files there that seem to control LOD land (which is to say that I can make it appear or disappear by removing/replacing those files. I still haven't sorted it out just yet, but here's what I've done so far and I seem to be at a bit of a roadblock. Maybe someone will point me in the right direction. Knowing that it's the LOD land, I removed those files and regenerated them from within the heightmap editor (file>Generate LOD>Full) then generating objects from World LOD menu. From there it seems I can get the LOD to behave as it ought to most of the time, which is to say that it retreats as I approach it to a point. I can still get to it eventually, but it's a bit more of a hike that it used to be. It could be that I'm simply reaching the edge of the worldspace and that I should expect to be able to catch up to the LOD land eventually. Elsewise, I came upon a method for Hi Res LOD land in Oblivion tutorials, but that seems to be a goose-chase of the highest order for me without that I make a dual-boot system. I'm also beginning to wonder if the LOD is not something I should worry about more once I've got the worldspace populated with more than a single door and COC marker?In any case, a nudge at this point would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leadpipe Posted September 29, 2009 Author Share Posted September 29, 2009 Just popping in for a quick update. I don't have any pictures today as I'm debating whether and how much work in progress of the worldspace I should show. I think I'm going to hold off on showing anything until its in a more finished state, excepting troubleshooting pics, of course. For the time being, I'm giving the distant land issue a miss. I'm working in Vista, so I'm going to have to make a virtual machine with XP to pursue this route. I'm finding that it's a lot more fun and less restricted doing exterior work than it was doing interiors, as the objects don't always have to match up just so. As well, the landscape editor is a pretty articulate tool and one of the things that I'm most impressed with as far as the GECK is concerned. Anyway, I'm sure it will be a couple of weeks before I've got any significant progress to report. Unless I hit a problem, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leadpipe Posted October 14, 2009 Author Share Posted October 14, 2009 Good News! A Pre-release of the Plague Doctor outfit is available for download and it looks pretty stellar. It requires Archive Invalidation of a sort (there are a few varieties, the ones I played with seem to work) so if you're getting the meshes, but screwy textures, this is likely why. Bear in mind that this is just a pre-release, too. There may be some small problems with it (Nuenen mentioned some rigging troubles, though modeling and textures are all Greek to me). Apart from that, work in the worldspace is coming along. It's a real struggle to ride the balance between full enough and empty in the wasteland. One really has to consider what an area was once used for and what it's being used for now. Maybe not to the detail of the Chronicles of Lake Wobegone, but it has to serve as a guiding principle to what is put where. It gets easier as you go, as the relationships between places become evident, but still - there's a long way to go to just place objects where they ought to go. Still trying to decide how to border off the edges of the worldspace as well. Everything seems like a contrivance, and I guess it would be. Here are some pictures. http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot82.jpgHere's a picture of my most recent character, Quetzactl, in the cell wearing a stylish new hat. http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot86.jpghttp://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot87.jpg Here's a couple of my worldspace as it stands now (there's quite a ways to go, I know). That brings me to my next point: Something has come to my attention, recently and it may make me reconsider how I go about designing this mod. It would seem that I face two options in regard to how I will eventually release this mod: in either .esm or .esp form. I'd prefer to release it as an .esm as I'm under the impression that this might be a smaller package, but this tutorial suggests that only static objects can be included in a .esm file (whereas other objects would have to be mapped out in a supplemental .esp) or face dread CTD when entering the world. Here's the actual text: ESMs have a few rules and some strict limitations as well as a few massive advantages. Certain objects in the Fallout3.esm WILL crash out the game if used in your worldspace.esm. So I'll be sticking to items I know are safe in this tutorial, so not to confuse you at this stage with the complexities of the whole ESM topic. Trust me, its a massive topic, War and Peace is light reading compared to it. ESM World Spaces can be painted and can use Static Objects safely. Can anyone verify this? I'll do some work on my own, as well, of course, just in case it's a conditional type thing. But I only get an hour or two a night to screw around with this stuff, and I'd like to make sure I use it as efficiently as possible. Anyway, happy modding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sti3ld3rby69 Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 The best way to go about doing that would probably be to ask some of the guys and gals who have taken on the HUGE modding projects, i.e. MMM, FOOK, FO3E, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leadpipe Posted November 6, 2009 Author Share Posted November 6, 2009 Just thought I'd post up an update and a question. If you're interested in what's going on in my mod, read on. If you're the sort of smarty-pants person who is keen to answer a question or point me in the right direction, skip to the end. I'm still filling out the worldspace, and if I had to do it over again, there's a lot I'd have done differently. I'll include some pictures below. http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot129.jpghttp://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot122.jpghttp://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot127.jpgIf you've been following this thread, that hat might look familiar. As well, Randy there might have a change of wardrobe unless I can figure out how to make his left arm as African American as his head.http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot132.jpghttp://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot130.jpg Not much to say about it. It's just filling up the world with places that might be interesting while playing with the tools I've got. Let me know if you've got any questions. A problem I see on the horizon and something I've noticed a number of mods overlook is water reflection. I'm not asking for advice on it yet, as I haven't started trying to solve it (though if you have any gotchas that you've seen I wouldn't ignore them). What I mean is this: http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot119.jpg In vanilla, they took great care to make sure that the water reflects nearby objects. It's something people take for granted and I've seen a lot of water that looks like this:http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot121.jpg with no reflections, the water looks flat. Something I'll have to be mindful of that going forward. Resume reading here: I've begun integrating some elements from other peoples' mods because I'm getting tired of the same few items and I'm looking for some variety and individualization. I've contacted a first round of people, and I'm about to set out on a second round here later tonight, but if you've done something and you'd like to see it integrated into a mod, let me know! (PM please) Apart from that, I'm starting to run into a problem with those items that show up in the inventory. Here's what I mean: http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac59/LeadpipeStudios/ScreenShot133.jpg I had to murder poor Willy for that screenshot, so I hope you appreciate it. In any case, I took as an example keys from in the game and used the texture path Interface\Icons\PipboyImages\Items\item_key.dds in the Inventory Image field, but I get that problem you see above. I've done some searching and I found some nice tuturials about how to make the image itself, which is not the problem (I'm trying to use a vanilla image in this case, and for the record, I've extracted that file from the textures .bsa). Maybe I'm just bad at separating the wheat from the chaff, but I couldn't find any promising leads in my search results. The only thing I can think might be causing the problem is the hex editing that I had to do in order to extract it in the first place. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know, as I've run to a level of frustration with this. I've even got a whiskey variant that causes a CTD. In any case, if anyone's got anything to say, please let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leadpipe Posted November 7, 2009 Author Share Posted November 7, 2009 doing some more digging about the icon problem, it would seem that if I turn archive invalidation off, some modified items' icons show up fine while others show up with PipOS Error -26 [File Not Found]. For further information, I have selected a texture for these items. The problem with turning off archive invalidation is that it screws up the textures on other objects. I'm not sure I'm making progress... Edit: I've sorted it out. Evidently, extracting the textures using BSA commander requires changing hex of the .bsa (as it was designed for Oblivion - or so I understand). I've found a more recent utility and have since sorted out the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sti3ld3rby69 Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Whole thing looks sweet man. Can't wait to play it when finished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leadpipe Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 Just popping in to apologize for the hiatus. I'd like to say I was busy and have been working diligently, but the honest truth is that Dragon Age: Origins turned out a bit more immersive (and longer) than I had expected and I lost a lot of time there. I've only recently gotten back over the hump of twaddling around in the GECK and can now get back to actual work. The upside is that I've lost that sense of having bit off more than I can chew - that sort of nightmare hallway experience where the further you go down, the longer the hallway gets. In any case, I'm hoping my time off in BioWare territory will be constructive as playing around in the GECK totally broke the FO3 experience for me. (It's still a beautiful game, but once you know how the sausage is made...) It's given me a bit to think about in terms of depth of character interaction and variation. Anyway, I hope to have something to show in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callighan Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 www.takeyourtime.org :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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