Navmesh Problem

[FutureVisions]

Hi guys.

 

Does anyone know if there's any problem with saving a navmesh with islands (i.e separated navmesh portions inside the same cell) ?

 

I'm trying to make a cell where I need to have a couple of separate rooms which the player is only supposed to access with a moveto command. But I seem to be having problems with this method in-game. In the Geck everything saves just fine.

 

Initially I was having this problem in 2 separate rooms inside the same cell, and the game randomly crashed whenever I adressed one of those rooms in a script,. However the crashes where completly random. Sometimes I would manage to get creatures to spawn inside the rooms.

But when they did spawn, I would sometimes get another odd problem with dead bodies, that would get all stretched and distorted whenever a creature died.

 

Apparently I managed to solve this problem in the first room, by adding a door that teleports the player from the main navmeshed room to the first separate room.

Since then, with the first room I have not had any more random crashes or dead bodies streatching or distorting.

However the problem for the second separate room is still the same. Random crashes when the room is adressed in a script and distorted/streached dead bodies

 

I already linked the second separate room to the first one, with a door, but in the problem is the same.

I'm guessing it might be because in the second room there are several levels, with separate navmeshes, which in this case, are not supposed to link together.

I also tried to trick the game, by linking the navmeshes with vertical triangles but this obviously gave an error in the Geck whenever I tried to save it like that.

 

So my question is, can the problems I described be related to the navmesh islands. And If so, is there anyway to fix it?

 

I'm not sure if my description was clear enough, so If you need more info just ask :biggrin:

 

Thanks.

[Ez0n3]

Is it a duplicate of another cell? If it is, did you remove the old navmesh completely?

 

The cell sounds kinda big, are you sure there's nothing past X,Y,Z 30,000? None of the objects X, Y, or Z positions are greater than 30K?

 

I have linked islands of navmesh in worldspaces with doors, but not interiors yet. There are some vanilla cells that do that (the abandoned BOS cell comes to mind, think that was it). Might double check any differences between how they did it to how you're doing it.

[FutureVisions]

Thanks for the reply.

Yea this is a duplicate cell but the previous navmesh was completly removed.

And yes it is a big cell, and the first room model has been doubled in size. But none of the objects positions go past the 30K coordinates.

 

I guess I will have a look at the abandoned BOS cell thing. I have also read another post that suggested that turning a file to a master might fix some problems with navmeshes so I guess I might try that aswell.

I will post back if any of these things worked

[davidlallen]

I have recently done some investigation about navmeshes and "esm vs esp". See this thread for details. My particular problem was NPC's sometimes getting stuck in walls. What helped a lot was to "finalize" the navmesh. Switching to an esm appeared to help a little, but nobody knows the reason why. As far as I know, there is no relationship between navmeshes and crashes, or navmeshes and bodies which change size. Perhaps there is something else wrong, which is causing those two problems.

[FutureVisions]

All my navmeshes have been drawn from scratch, cover was created and they have all been finalized. But I still get this problem.

 

The only thing that apparently had any effect in my case, was linking one of the islands to the main navmesh with a door.

Right now I'm only having problems with the room that has unlinked navmesh islands.

 

As far as I know, there is no relationship between navmeshes and crashes, or navmeshes and bodies which change size.

 

You tell me, you wouldn't imagine how long it took me to get the first room working :wallbash:

The crashes look to be completly random, they mostly occur when I'm setting script variables. Which I have already checked and shouldn't be causing the game to crash. And if they were, they should probably crash the game everytime, and always at the same step. Plus I have that weird morphing issue when a creature dies inside one of these rooms.

 

I still haven't checked back the Geck for those 2 possible fixes. I'll post back the results later on.

 

Edit: I have checked the 2 solutions above and none of them fixed the issue. Turning the esp into an esm definetly improves npc navigation but didnt fix the random crashes for the 2nd room.

About the bos cell., I've checked it out, but it doesn't have any navmesh islands. So no luck there either :sad:

 

Other thing I've noticed is that npc's don't follow me inside/outside the first room, even though that one is linked with the door. Even though that works for for what I plan for my mod. I haven't made any changes that could be causing it to happen.

Edited January 3, 2011 by FutureVisions

[davidlallen]

I still don't have any thoughts about your distorting bodies. I have never heard of this type of problem. Can you post some screenshots?

 

Crashes when changing variables *might* be due to saves no longer being valid. What I do is keep a save game *without* the mod activated so it is "pure". Then when I test the mod, I load this save game. That way, there cannot be any problem where the save data is for a previous version of the mod, and somehow incompatible with the current data.

 

Companions not following is usually because the navmesh at one side of the door, or the other, does not reach the door or is not finalized. At both sides of the door, check that there is a green triangle displayed in navmesh mode. Without this green triangle, the companions will not use the door.

[FutureVisions]

At both sides of the door, check that there is a green triangle displayed in navmesh mode. Without this green triangle, the companions will not use the door.

 

Yes, all the navmeshes have been finalized and have green triangles for every door.

 

I'll try to get some screenshots of the stretching effect. And btw I've also just noticed that the distorting thing happens with every model. Not just creatures.

Player. Companion or creatures all suffer from same thing when they die on one of the unlinked navmeshes.

 

About the variables, let me explain it a little better.

Basically this portion of my mod is an arena, so a player can set a stage for himself by choosing a room where the fight will take place, then selecting the type of creture to spawn, and finally selecting de amount of creatures that will spawn.

These variables are set through a terminal in-game and take effect on a quest script that sets the stage once the player has chosen all variables.

 

Like I posted above, initially I would get random crashes in both rooms while selecting one of the variables (no specific one triggered the crash - could be the first, the last, or simply clicking on the terminal). However I would sometimes get the creatures to spawn. But then I would sometimes get that stretching bodies effect when the creatures died.

 

So then, I tried placing a single creature inside one of the rooms in the Geck to see how it would behave in-game. And this started causing random crashes when I entered the arena cell. (Im guessing this would happen when the creature was loaded into the cell. And again, this would sometimes happen and sometimes not.

 

Right now, and since I have linked the first room to the main navmesh with a door, I have had no more problems setting up variables that address the first room, and no more random crashes, unless when I try to set the stage to the second room.

And since the variables are exactly the same for both rooms, I can't see no aparent reason for this to be caused by the variable setting.

This is what's making me suspect that it might be caused by the navmeshes.

 

However I can see your point, there should be no reason for the game to crash while seeting the variables, since the quest script should only run after the last variable has been set.

 

Again I will post a screenshot about the stretching effect later on.

[FutureVisions]

Ok so here's a screenshot of the distorting dead bodies:

 

 

This time I've had another problem when I entered the cell.

All my companions and the creature I added through the Geck spawned in the wrong room.

The companions should have teleported inside the cell with me and be placed with me, and the creature is placed inside the first room in the Geck, but they all spawned inside the second room. :wallbash:

 

The Geck is really starting to piss me off!

 

EDIT: Well I ran a couple of other tests and unfortunately the problem is still not gone from the first room either -.- Even though the crashes are much less frequent than with the second room.

 

I tried setting the stage for room 1 a few times, choosing leave at the last step, to reset the changes and start the process again.

I managed to make this only about five times before I got another out of nowhere crash. I'm really running out of ideas about this thing.

Might it be related to the quest script processing delay or something?

The related quest has a processing delay of 0.1 secs and the variables are set through result scripts in a terminal.

 

Re-Edit: Changing the script processing delay for the quest to 0.0 secs didn't change anything either.

Edited January 3, 2011 by FutureVisions

[FutureVisions]

Bump

 

I can load up my mod if someone wants to take a look at it.

[davidlallen]

No guarantees that we'll solve it for you, but if you have a chance you may as well upload it. It sounds like an interesting problem, anyway.