CTD when attacked by fire-based weapons

[wyndrax]

Hey there, guys. I've been having this weird problem with a couple of armor mods I've downloaded.

 

You see, when my character is attacked by fire-based weapons (like the Flamer or Heavy Incinerator) the game immediately crashes to desktop. It happens only when I'm wearing the custom armor.

 

Sometimes I've managed to fix (temporarily) this issue by setting myself on fire while wearing a different, vanilla armor, then immediately equipping the custom one. It only works for a while, though.

 

I've seen other people having these problems as well. Any ideas? I heard it may be an issue with nVidia cards, but I don't think it is because some modders seem to have fixed the issue in newer releases.

 

Thanks in advance, and excuse my horribly broken english.

[mechine]

uh open GECK with the armor mod set to active, find the armor then remove the object effects. So that the armor doesn't have any Bonus stuff, like increased damage resistance, small guns skill, and that sort of thing. There are advanced options for picking object effects which can cause crashes like this.

 

The also it could be the settings for fire damage itself, but you said it doesn't do it for other armors so I would look at the armor in GECK first an see what it is doing.

 

 

Then if you find out that it is something like this where the creator used a custom made object effect to give bonus stuff, you could just switch it back to a vanilla (default) object effect. Or you could learn how to edit object effects for stuff like armors.

[wyndrax]

uh open GECK with the armor mod set to active, find the armor then remove the object effects. So that the armor doesn't have any Bonus stuff, like increased damage resistance, small guns skill, and that sort of thing. There are advanced options for picking object effects which can cause crashes like this.

 

The also it could be the settings for fire damage itself, but you said it doesn't do it for other armors so I would look at the armor in GECK first an see what it is doing.

 

 

Then if you find out that it is something like this where the creator used a custom made object effect to give bonus stuff, you could just switch it back to a vanilla (default) object effect. Or you could learn how to edit object effects for stuff like armors.

 

Ok, I see now that the modder used a custom object effect. I'll try and disable it and see if it works. Is it hard to edit object effects?

 

EDIT: Tried switching the object effect for another armor's. Didn't work. Any ideas?

[mechine]

/bump

 

hmm I'd say it were possible that that mesh is missing the nodes it would need to apply the being caught on fire effect. If you view a mesh in something like nifscope for example, there's lots of extra data in there, which deal with placement of things, I know for sure that decals get placed this way, which I think is probably just a vector for the decal then it splashes an conforms to the shape.

 

The fire effect though isn't a decal, but it could be worth looking at the mesh to see how well it was made. You could even try making a new item for the armor in the GECK. I will usually compare two meshes if I think one of them is messy or was poorly made. I"ll open the player made mesh in one window, then open a freshly extracted vanilla mesh which is basicly the same item. Then compare the block lists. If it's messy I will either delete it or try to remake it so that it looks like the vanilla one.

 

Also you could use Nifscope to optimize the mesh. Which you would right click each of the shapes inside nifscope, then batch/update tangent spaces on all the shapes which make it up. You might have to open the mesh in a second window, then delete shapes as you go so that you don't miss any right click block/ remove branch, until in the other window where you are updating tanget spaces you know all them have been updated, then perform the spell stripafiy all nitrishapes, then go to the file tab an check that sanatize at save is checked, save the mesh, an most of the optimize spells will be performed when you save it. Nifscope will only save as, so yeah you would have to overwrite the original.

 

Might look into the actual fire effect too, and how it works. Maybe a setting in the effect or the weapon. But it's probably the armor's fault. Maybe you have a mod which changes the fire effect, or could find one which would change it so that it works. Could also be coruption locked in your save game, try to duplicate it by starting a new game.

 

Open the whole load order with FO3edit, wait for it to finish, then go to the mod which has the armor an look to see if it has any scripts in it. Most times scripts get appied to armors via the Object effects we already checked, but FOSE might allow it to be done another way besides normal means.

 

You could also look in the data folder to see if one of your mods changed the fire effect, in Data/effects or where ever it's located, if it did it would be a replacer model so it would follow the data folder path you would find inside the .BSA's which you would have to look up, in the GECK, or in the .BSA's then try to find it in the data folders. It could be something like Data/meshes/fx/fire/playeronfire.nif it's an animated mesh though, you can't even view fire rendered and animated most times in the GECK.

[wyndrax]

Also you could use Nifscope to optimize the mesh. Which you would right click each of the shapes inside nifscope, then batch/update tangent spaces on all the shapes which make it up. You might have to open the mesh in a second window, then delete shapes as you go so that you don't miss any right click block/ remove branch, until in the other window where you are updating tanget spaces you know all them have been updated, then perform the spell stripafiy all nitrishapes, then go to the file tab an check that sanatize at save is checked, save the mesh, an most of the optimize spells will be performed when you save it. Nifscope will only save as, so yeah you would have to overwrite the original.

 

Might look into the actual fire effect too, and how it works. Maybe a setting in the effect or the weapon. But it's probably the armor's fault. Maybe you have a mod which changes the fire effect, or could find one which would change it so that it works. Could also be coruption locked in your save game, try to duplicate it by starting a new game.

 

Did all of this, nothing worked. Damn.

 

The worst thing is that the original modder (daejones) told us he was gonna look into this, but that was months ago and he hasn't posted anything more since then.

 

I've heard this also happens when being electrified.

[mechine]

Hey do this, unpack a vanilla mesh, then rename it so that it matches what DaeJones did. Then move the DaeJones mesh into a folder named backup at it's location in the data folder, an place the renamed vanilla mesh there, then see if it still does it. That would tell you if it's in the GECK or in the mesh.

[wyndrax]

Hey do this, unpack a vanilla mesh, then rename it so that it matches what DaeJones did. Then move the DaeJones mesh into a folder named backup at it's location in the data folder, an place the renamed vanilla mesh there, then see if it still does it. That would tell you if it's in the GECK or in the mesh.

 

Did that, works perfectly, no crashing whatsoever. Which means it's in the mesh, right?

[mechine]

Yep that's right... Messy mesh. Your best bet to fix it would be to use Nifscope, but in a sort of special way.

 

Normally when we do surgery on a mesh, it's basic copy an paste, on the branches (sub-branches) of the shape.

 

In this case, because there's no way to tell which area of the mesh has the coruption/messyness, there could be hidden data inside the branches. So it gets even more surgical. What you would have to do is. Instead of copying branches, just use copy instead, And on the actual NiTriShapes or NiTriStrips. Which usually is just one part of a branch. (one entry in a branch list of 5-6 or so) This way only the shapes themselfs are put on the clipboard. Then you would use "paste over" on the corisponding shapes in the known good vanilla mesh of the same basic type.

 

Okay so Nifscope needs a little bit of set up before you can actually use it, mostly it's just for textures though. I think it's in Render options. Nifscope will only look for textures in a folder named data. Also it doesn't pay attention to drive, you could have a data folder on D:/ which was your actual data folder, then another data folder on C:/ which is on the actual desktop and is a fake data folder just for projects. Inside the data folders would be Meshes textures, and so on. In the fake data folder for projects you are still working on is just meshes an textures, for the most part.

 

Actually when you are still creating the item you don't even need a meshes folder, you can just put the meshes with the textures, an keep it all together. You still would have to change the settings in nifscope so that it will auto detect resources (which makes it search for fallout) Then in render options check the settings to draw textures, an point it to look in your actual data folder, and also your fake data folder. Then as you move projects out of the fake data folder into the game, you can keep your desktop folders size down by deleting the project files you just moved into the game as a last step.

 

You can find the Nifscope links to installing all the poop it needs in order to run @ http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Creating_A_Custom_Weapon Really you just need anything there that has to do with nifscope though, in order to fix this mesh.

 

 

Now I don't want to scare you, it's not very hard. For one thing you won't have to mess with attaching the mesh to the player skeleton, or even decal placement. So long as it's an armor which looks mostly like a vanilla one. Like if the DaeJones was a power armor, then just unpack the vanilla power armor from the .BSA an use that. Once you have the broken mesh you are going to copy from, an also the vanilla mesh you are going to paste into, on the desktop. Open the one you will paste into first, maximize it, then minimize it. Open the broken mesh, an max, then min, and open the broken one a second time.

 

So you have 3 windows down in the task bar. Open the Second one click on a part of the mesh in the render window. It should show the triangles that make up the shape in white. (you'll want to mess with the view tab an either view in branch or tree depending on what you are doing) But really you only need the block list displayed. Notice that when you clicked the shape in the render window that it highlighted a part of the block list. There are two views for the block list, I think it's called show details in list or tree or something, those are the two settings you switch a lot of time durring using nifscope for various things, the block details gets turnned on an off a lot too. Anyhows, find the view for the block list which shows trees, little + an - signs you use to open that part of the tree. Open which ever one highlighted on the thing that you clicked in the render window, then look for a entry named NiTriShapes or NiTriStrips, something like that. That is the actual shapes themselfs, and where you would right click in the block list to copy. Now since you have done that, open the 3rd window, click the same part of the mesh you copied, right click it, block/remove branch, make sure it's the same shape though from the white triangles it draws. You removed the branch in the 3rd one so you can keep up with which shapes you have copied.

 

Now, go to the first window, click on the same part, look in the block list, find the NiTriStrips or NiTriShapes in that sub-tree which highlighted, right click on it, an use paste over (which I think it's also in block/paste over) BAM it's done, keep doing it until all the shapes have been transplanted into the known good vanilla mesh. After you get good at using nifscope you won't need a 3rd window opened up, you'll just delete shapes an look for hidden ones as you go.

 

 

Now the first window one's shapes, have all been pasted over, and the textures are way screwed up. Yeah more work. It's not that bad though. What you would do now is set the view so you can see the block details, then also change the block list so that the tree's are not there anymore it's just a big long list of everything. In the block list you would go to the top, and adjust the Tab so it changes how much of the text on the different parts you see. If you adjust it right then The BsShaderTextureSet named ones will stick out, the part that says Set, while everything else will end with ... so you end up seeing

 

...

set

....

....

...

...

set

....

....

....

...

set

 

All this does is make it more easy to spot the BsShaderTextureSets, mind you, that you could just look down in the + an - tree view block list an find the same BsShaderTextureSets, but less work means more happy, an I'm all for that. Anyway, in the adjusted tab view I mentioned above all those places you see the word set sticking out would need a texture path typed in. Click on one, an the path will display in the block details at the bottom of the screen, click the + in the Block details, an it opens an you see 5-6 slots for textures, first one is defuse 2nd is normal I think.

 

Nifscope doesn't look at upper caps or lower case, so you can just type it in textures/armor/poweramror.dds or whatever, but the .dds part has to be there, also it should auto refresh as soon as you hit enter after you put it in.

 

All you would really need to do is open up the broken mesh, an then find it's textures, then, copy the path for them an paste them into the newly fixed mesh's texture slots.

 

After you get done it's a good practice to right click all the parts of the mesh then select batch/update all tangent spaces on each of the shapes, then go to spells an stripifiy all nitrishapes, this will optimaize the mesh a bit, then check to see that sanitize upon save is checked in the file tab, save as, yes overwrite, then delete the broken mesh on the desktop, an rename the new one the same, put it in the data folder an go check it.

 

 

You will lose the material properties on the mesh though, like gloss, glow, an all that, which you can just look at what it was set at in the broken version, since you can't copy the branch it would have to be manually changed, but most people don't mess with material properties anyway, so maybe it's the same. Long as it still looks good an doesn't crash the game anymore, right?

[wyndrax]

Holy poo. That sounds like an assload of work. Will get to it, I hope it works.. Thanks a lot, man.

 

EDIT: I'm doing as you say, but when I click "Paste Over", the shape just disappears. Sometimes a new, strange shape appears in a weird place. Am I doing something wrong here? I'm working with the NiTriShapeData thingies.

[apaosha]

Mechine, do you think you could take a look at the Japanese Power Armor set by Brothershogo?

 

This also has issues with crashing when flamed ....