LE Navmesh Exterior: Edge Portals

[wizardmirth]

Hi there, gals and gents! I am currently finishing up my first house mod for Skyrim and noticed some problems when I went to rework some of the vanilla navmesh around the house.

 

http://i57.tinypic.com/2q1av5x.png

 

As you can see I'm smack dab in the middle of fault line central here and had to clear a bit of navmesh from underneath my newly placed house. When I did this I inadvertently "unjoined" some of the vanilla green boxes that indicate the meshes are joined at the cell borders. Only when I went to rejoin them as well as my own, I get tall purple boxes (tall on one side, but both purple) which I'm guessing are not good.

 

Since I couldn't seem to find the info through various searches I'm hoping someone knows or has a link to share that would help me fix this topic. I would prefer not to reset the entire navmesh cells if possible, though a more targeted approach would be welcome if someone can link or show me how.

 

 

 

 

Also are there any major mods that mod the first area up above Evergreen Cove? I probably should have checked this first but after extensive location research this was really the best spot for what and how I wanted to do.

[Di0nysys]

Revert all the edits u did to vanilla navmesh. Then manually select all the triangles u want removed, and drag them all the way down under the terrain.
Then create new triangles connected to the main navmesh around ur house area. Never delete vanilla navmesh.

[wizardmirth]

Thanks for the quick reply but I was hoping for a bit more detail. The way I have it edited works in-game, I just wanted to know what the purple boxes mean and how I can get them to look like the normal green ones. Also, what are the immutable consequences of deleting some vanilla navmesh and trying to build around it? Any more detailed answer or detailed link info who be greatly appreciated.

[Arthmoor]

Revert all the edits u did to vanilla navmesh. Then manually select all the triangles u want removed, and drag them all the way down under the terrain.

Then create new triangles connected to the main navmesh around ur house area. Never delete vanilla navmesh.

This isn't necessary. It's perfectly safe to delete selected triangles from the vanilla navmesh. It only becomes an issue when you delete the ENTIRE vanilla navmesh in a cell. Case in point: Every mod I've ever released that needed navmesh work both adds and deletes triangles from vanilla navmeshes. They work just fine.

 

@wizardsmith: Do the edits you need to do. Be careful NOT to remove the navmeshes entirely. When you're satisfied, you need to go into the two cells you edited and use the functions to find "cover edges" and "finalize". This will properly restore the borders between cells and they should light back up in green as expected.

 

You should then check it for ITMs and deleted references in TES5Edit to make sure nothing went wrong in the process.

[Di0nysys]

Interesting, so the game considers a navmesh as deleted only if the entire navmesh record is deleted? Editing the record doesn't count as a deleted navmesh? Thanks for the tip man

[wizardmirth]

Hi, and thanks for your reply! Find cover edges and finalize did not work.... well not until I removed my manual joining of navmesh at the cell edges and THEN did "find" and "finalize". It appears that "finalize" does the joining portion for you automatically and does not seem to do anything to manually joined portions.

 

(So if you are new to exterior navmeshes like I was then keep this in mind: You only need to bring your cell edges close together and the "finalize" action will take care of the rest.)

 

 

Revert all the edits u did to vanilla navmesh. Then manually select all the triangles u want removed, and drag them all the way down under the terrain.
Then create new triangles connected to the main navmesh around ur house area. Never delete vanilla navmesh.

This isn't necessary. It's perfectly safe to delete selected triangles from the vanilla navmesh. It only becomes an issue when you delete the ENTIRE vanilla navmesh in a cell. Case in point: Every mod I've ever released that needed navmesh work both adds and deletes triangles from vanilla navmeshes. They work just fine.

 

@wizardsmith: Do the edits you need to do. Be careful NOT to remove the navmeshes entirely. When you're satisfied, you need to go into the two cells you edited and use the functions to find "cover edges" and "finalize". This will properly restore the borders between cells and they should light back up in green as expected.

 

You should then check it for ITMs and deleted references in TES5Edit to make sure nothing went wrong in the process.

 

 

There are so many tuts on interiors. It would be nice if someone could do an advanced exterior navmeshing and show how to best do some trickier navmeshing around new areas in vanilla cells with various land features. So far I'm ok, but there are a couple of spots in my mesh I wouldn't mind getting some help with to see if I can make it better.

[Arthmoor]

Interesting, so the game considers a navmesh as deleted only if the entire navmesh record is deleted? Editing the record doesn't count as a deleted navmesh? Thanks for the tip man

Correct. Only if the navmesh is deleted in its entirety. Otherwise it's just edited and won't become a source of CTDs.

[wizardmirth]

Thanks for the righteous replies, boys. I would do the same and try to pay it forward but I'm afraid that I like to know what I'm talking about before I try to speak. Either that or I ask for help, but that was why I was here in the first place. Please keep up the fine standard, me gents. Of course if any new modders need some basic help, please just PM me and I'll try my best. Little consultation I know, but this is something I've grown accustomed to. And certifiable experts can't be everywhere, I'm sure.

[FlintStryker]

Revert all the edits u did to vanilla navmesh. Then manually select all the triangles u want removed, and drag them all the way down under the terrain.

Then create new triangles connected to the main navmesh around ur house area. Never delete vanilla navmesh.

 

Sorry to necro an old thread, but I'm curious: would this even work? Because I can see some advantages to doing this if it would work, but I've never seen an edge "fork" into multiple triangles, one above another. I'll have to try this out when I get home.

 

IF this can be done, I think it would solve a lot of problems that I've had with deleted triangles causing edge triangles to get renumbered, thus forcing all adjacent navmeshes to change their portal data, thus creating dirty navmeshes that break mod compatibility unnecessarily.