Another question heh... Material Swaps, Activators, and Transforms

[JuJooGuppy]

Hello again,

So, I was writing a post about how I was having confusion about Material Swaps, while still looking through FO4Edit. I think I resolved my own question on the mechanics and purpose of them, but, to be sure, I am going to give a quick run down of it, so I know whether I am on the right or wrong track here.

The Material Swaps themselves are designed for objects where the mesh doesn't change at all, but the texture can -- for instance, a retexture of an outfit like Vault suits, or in the case of the object I am looking at to study it, the High Tech TV. In the case of the TV, the model is assigned by default the pre-war 'clean' material & textures.

The Material Swap works by first defining the referrence material "HighTechTV Clean", and then w/ the MODS slot defining the swap texture "Dirty". this way it knows which material to swap if there is more than one shape in the nif.

The actual object entry (In this case, Static) controls whether it uses the default texture (clean), or if it loads a material swap for the 'dirty' textures in this example. First you define the mesh to be used, and if you need the material swap, you define that. Leaving the material swap blank will use whatever is the default material.

 

This saves space for instances where its a single mesh but multiple forms, aka multiple colors, dirty / clean, etc.

 

 

Is all of this seeming correct? AM I missing anything there?



So my original post was about that, but I think I understand it. What I havent quite figured out yet, is the Activator that is designated WorkshopHighTechTelevision01.

Is this LIKE a static / placed object in this example, but since it has unique features (Keyword for being powered, and activator), it is under the Activator section? Or is this something that would be attached to a static...?

I noted that it has a material swap assigned to it, to make a it a dirty variant of its assigned model, so this is where I got the impression this is its own object of sorts. I see other Activators though that seem to be quest updaters / triggers, and I am not sure how they are assigned (Maybe limitations of FO4Edit at this point?

On the note of the Activator though, it also referrences a Transform... looking at the Transform.. all the values are "unknown" and thus I have zero clue what this controls, how to edit / create them (Well, I know HOW but I dont know what I would be doing.)


As a quick note, I was originally setting out to understand how something like a display case opens and closes.. I noted there are 2 models, but didnt seem to see an animation attached to them, so how is it animating between the two states?

 

I hope this still makes sense. I was making connections along the way here, such as the material swap. I feel pretty good that I have that down at least. Please do correct me if I am wrong!. But the Activator I am not 100% on, and the Transform I am completely lost.



Thanks for the patience, and continued help.

[JuJooGuppy]

Its worth noting, if there is one thing I AM certain of... modding via FO4Edit, with all these references, is so very incredibly easy to frustrate you if you make one single typo along the rode, or miss a little reference. It's no wonder there are plenty of bugs and conflicts, its incredibly easy to miss, forget, or otherwise mess up on one tiny detail and have it break everything :)

[TheTalkieToaster]

The transform is almost certainly the texture transform for the animation on the TV at the beginning of the game.

 

The TV is probably an activator because the original hi-tech TV is an activator- IIRC, only Activators and Moveable Statics can have animations played on them, and the TV doesn't need to move.

 

Looking at the display case, it does have an animation? FederalistDisplayBoxWallShortIntactLid01 under doors uses a mesh with a NiController in, which means it's animated. Which other one were you thinking of?

[JuJooGuppy]

Yeah, I found the animation for the display case lid, but what I am not understanding currently is how the two files are attached / linked. I don't see anything in FO4Edit to link the two to eachother, and I am not seeing anything in nifskope explicitely referring to the other file (Though this may simply be due to my lack of experience). I am just trying to understand what is causing the lid and the box objects to load together since the box is its own static.

Does that make sense? Thank you for your reply!

[BlandSauce]

At least part of transform affects the zoom level of the object as it appears in the build menu. I've assumed it also changes the rotation speed and view angle there, but I haven't tested yet. Everything I've done is just copying values of existing build object transforms.

[JuJooGuppy]

Yeah, I noticed menu icons reference to transforms, too, good to know a little of what is going on there. Hate having so many unknown values :P

Thx for the replies. I never take them for granted, I know I have posted quite a few questions the last few days. Just doing a lot of exploring and running into walls here and there, sometimes I get past them myself, others it saves me a headache to get help :). My exporter being bugged is my biggest concern right now though... its driving me insane