my npc's are stuck with a four second cycle

[davidlallen]

I have copied Doc Mitchell's house and I have checked that the navmesh is still OK. Sometimes, NPCs who are in my house get stuck in some kind of four second delay. One NPC is walking towards the bedroom. She freezes for four seconds, then appears four seconds away (say, 15 feet) from where she was. She freezes for four seconds, then appears another 15 feet away, still heading towards the bedroom. Once this starts happening, leaving the interior and re-entering does not always have any effect. Sometimes when I return they are still stuttering like this. This particular NPC only has a single default sandbox package and no custom script at all. She is referred by several other scripts, for example as a conversation target. I can't think of anything that can cause this; any suggestions?

 

One NPC has a travel package which brings him into this interior from the outside. When I walk in with companions, they follow me fine, so there is no reason to suspect the navmesh. But when this NPC arrives, he also enters a four second cycle. He appears partway inside one of the walls (which is outside any navmesh, I triple checked.) He slides out from the wall and freezes. Then after four seconds he appears near the door and freezes. After another four seconds he reappears inside the wall. This repeats, even after I exit the interior, park my companions, and come back. He is stuck, repeatably.

 

Maybe these two problems are related, but I can't think of anything to investigate. Any suggestions?

Edited December 24, 2010 by davidlallen

[rickerhk]

when you copy a cell, you should delete the old navmesh and make your own. If you have linked a door to an exterior, you will probably need to edit the external mesh near the door and finalize it so you get the green triangle nearby.

To delete the old mesh, highlight the cell, go up to 'Navmesh', then 'Remove cell navmeshes'.

The tutorial for making navmeshes is pretty good. http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Bethsoft_Tutorial_Navmesh

[davidlallen]

The whole reason why I copied this house instead of building one is to *avoid* creating navmeshes. If I am keeping the same furniture level clutter, I do not see any reason to delete and redraw. Is the copied data somehow bogus?

 

Finalizing the navmesh, to get the green triangle by the door, is apparently the step I forgot for my traveling NPC. Now he travels better. Thanks for that tip.

 

What could cause the four second freeze/jump on the other NPC? They were not anywhere near the door.

 

I agree the navmesh tut is helpful for interiors. For exteriors, I find it very awkward to maneuver the points in 3D. For example, I raised part of one terrain to get a flat spot for a house, and I redid the navmesh around the house. But all the points are at the wrong Z value, they correspond to the previous terrain shape. Does this matter? Is there a command which just snaps the navmesh Z value to the ground, either up or down? This seems easy to implement.

[llamaRCA]

You say your weird acting NPC has only the one package and its a sandbox package? If that's right then I'll tell you that the sandboxing package has something weird going on with it. I don't know what it is and I know that povuholo, the modder who has released Companion Sandbox Mode, has been trying to figure out what's up with it.

 

With my own NPC I've noticed she seems to do it when I've saved while she is in her sandbox package and my character is not in the same cell with her. When I reload the game and go back into the cell with her is when she seems to wig out (that teleporting thing). However, I haven't done a huge amount of testing with it because I'm concentrating on other parts of my mod right now so that's all I have to tell you about it. She may be doing it at other times as well, but like I said, I haven't done much testing. She definitely doesn't do it all the time and is capable of sandboxing successfully so you may have more than one problem going on.

 

:) llama

 

 

Edit: I forgot about the freezing. I've only seen the freezing by a chair. She will stand by one, not choose it and then teleport. Sounds like a similar issue.

[rickerhk]

The whole reason why I copied this house instead of building one is to *avoid* creating navmeshes. If I am keeping the same furniture level clutter, I do not see any reason to delete and redraw. Is the copied data somehow bogus?

 

Finalizing the navmesh, to get the green triangle by the door, is apparently the step I forgot for my traveling NPC. Now he travels better. Thanks for that tip.

 

What could cause the four second freeze/jump on the other NPC? They were not anywhere near the door.

 

I agree the navmesh tut is helpful for interiors. For exteriors, I find it very awkward to maneuver the points in 3D. For example, I raised part of one terrain to get a flat spot for a house, and I redid the navmesh around the house. But all the points are at the wrong Z value, they correspond to the previous terrain shape. Does this matter? Is there a command which just snaps the navmesh Z value to the ground, either up or down? This seems easy to implement.

 

I don't think the copied mesh is bogus, I guess i'm parroting people that know more about it than me - from FO3 days. If a mesh is bugged, the advice is to delete it. But a mesh is possibly going to be buggy anyway if the esm bit is not set in the plugin. This bug is carried over from FO3.

Did you set the esm bit to see if the freeze/jumping goes away?

I don't know how important it is for the mesh to be right on the ground. You can see many places in exterior cells where parts are below ground too.

[davidlallen]

Did you set the esm bit to see if the freeze/jumping goes away?

Er, what? Any esp may have navmesh problems? Is there someplace I can read more about that? I have not figured out the actual difference between esp and esm; what is the benefit of an esm?

[llamaRCA]

Did you set the esm bit to see if the freeze/jumping goes away?

Er, what? Any esp may have navmesh problems? Is there someplace I can read more about that? I have not figured out the actual difference between esp and esm; what is the benefit of an esm?

 

There have been a lot of discussions about esm v. esp and navmesh in the FO3 Geck Forum over at Beth. If you do a search you'll have lots to read about it.

[davidlallen]

I searched navmesh and also "esmify" at bethsoft. For navmesh, all the references I found are due to problems solved by *finalizing*. There are several bare suggestions to esmify, but no post I read said they did that and then said that it solved anything. In fact there is one reference from sesom, who seems to be pretty knowledgeable, which says that esmifying isn't needed anymore (this post).

 

I found an older tutorial on the TESCS pages which describes about esmifying. I read it briefly and didn't really understand it on the first pass. What I gather is that "masters" can modify other masters and plugins, while "plugins" really can't modify masters. My mod is pretty simple; it adds and modifies a couple of rooms in the main game, without referring to any other mods. I'd rather keep it a simple plugin.

 

I suppose if I see the NPCs stalling, now that I have finalized the navmeshes, I can try setting the esm bit. But this seems like an unlikely solution. Are there other, better references about the advantages of esm and what pathing problems it solves in FNV?

Edited December 24, 2010 by davidlallen