Problem: Disappearing Object(s)

[Athelbras]

I have instances where an object (Misc Item) will vanish in variously-sized areas within an internal cell. When the object is moved outside of that area (which can be small to rather large) it becomes visible again. In addition, while seemingly invisible, if the camera view is rotated around the object it potentially becomes visible while viewed from a particular angle.

 

The object is actually present and fully functional, with no disruption in audio or script processing, as it enters / remains inside / exits the zone of disappearance.

 

In various places the invisibility seems to be localized around a specific light source, such as a lantern or ceiling light - but that is not always the case.

 

This occurs for vanilla models as well as specialized mod-specific models. It happens regardless of use of an object from PlaceAtMe, or use of a Permanent / Temporary defined object for a Cell or World Space.

 

Efforts to force redisplay via Disable/Enable pairs, temporary size alteration via SetScale, having a scripted light appear just above the object in hopes of having a positive effect, etcetera, are only infrequently effective as workarounds.

 

Note: the above also holds true for a "Light" object with a specified model.

 

My conjecture is that there is a rendering engine bug that causes this issue, depending on the specific focused lighting and/or ambient lighting at a given location within a cell. Is this known to be so? If yes, is there any way to counter that problem; some sort of workaround? I have tried many things, across countless experiments, but none are 100% successful in all cases.

 

Good examples of test locations are: the Power Plant at Helios One (the entry way and heading along the corridor to the right), the Repcon Facility building at the Repcon Test Site (go left from the entry way), and Vault 3 (the corridors just beyond the entry chamber).

 

Insights? Advice? Ideas? The problem is crippling one of my mods ...

 

Athelbras

 

 

 

[RoyBatterian]

Did you try update3d? Sounds like an issue with Roombounds and portals maybe, which you can only see in GECK. If stuff is outside the bounds it will disappear. Could be a bug with the rendering chain when using placeatme. Placeatme has a plethora of bugs and issues, so it's use should be sparing especially when the objects cannot be cleaned up.

 

If the objects are placed in the cell via GECK and they disappear, it could be multibounds issues in that cell too. If the cell uses multibounds the associated object may need to be linked to the multibounds in order for them to display. Let me take a look at those cells, and let me see what I see.

 

:EDIT:

 

Looking at the entryway of Helios one, it's got a roombound and portals setup for the space that you mention. This problem is probably due to Obsidian's bad optimizing because they didn't understand how the system works or how to multibounds link rooms. Objects must be fully inside the roombound to display, if they have too much of the object outside of the roombound it will disappear unless it's multibounds is associated with the room bound.

 

The other areas you mentioned are mostly roombounds and portaled correctly, so I'm not sure why you would have issues there. Maybe you can pass me your mod and I can take a look.

[Athelbras]

Hiya Roy!

 

I was not aware of Update3d - likely because I avoid using NVSE (or similar libraries) in order to not impose them on players when not really required by my mods.

 

So I used Console commands, instead of scripting, to test as you suggested ...

 

Yep! Upon entering a new cell and issuing Update3D the model no longer disappears at the places it did before - which were readily identifiable light sources. It can be issued immediately upon a cell transition, regardless of current visibility, and it works as desired at those locations.

 

However ... it then causes the model to disappear in areas where it did *not* do so before. For example: after entering Helios One, go through the door on right and follow that corridor until you reach a corner with a Basket Ball and Cinder Block on the ground, plus a door on the left. The model now vanishes in that corner area.

 

Issuing Update3d again at that point, whether the model is visible or not, has no effect. The disappearance happens regardless of whether an Update3d was issued upon originally entering the cell or is instead executed only when reaching that corner.

 

However, by forcing a redisplay of the model via SetScale (as in set the model's scaling to something smaller and then back to the desired size) the model becomes visible. Note that the SetScale trick was something I was aware of but found to work inconsistently - and it does not in fact work for the light sources that the Update3d fixes.

 

The next thing I tried was this: upon entering a new cell, immediately issue Update3d, followed by a SetScale for smaller resizing, then SetScale back to normal size. Now *that* sequence seemingly fixes all visibility issues within Helios One!!!

 

Of course these test results are just preliminary, and need to be rigorously verified using updated scripting.

 

But in the meantime there is indication of a viable solution (even though it may require NVSE).

 

Thanks Roy! Your help with this is greatly appreciated.

 

Much Regard,

 

Athelbras

[Deleted1205226User]

If the direction Roy is offering doesn't seem to help, maybe we can look inside the nif; is there any NiAlphaProperty in the mentioned object?

Edited April 11, 2016 by Guest

[Athelbras]

Yes, there are multiple instances of NiAlphaProperty.

 

The mod is called Whirly. Resources are packaged in a BSA file, with the model located at \meshes\whirly\whirly.nif.

 

Note that collision data has been removed from that particular variant of the model, but similar troubles exist for the original as well; that one might only exhibit the corner problem or perhaps at the lights as well.

 

Whirly can be readily found in Goodsprings Saloon - just activate the Vertibird. At which point nothing else need be done other than travel around to places for testing.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Athelbras

[Deleted1205226User]

I can't test it, unfortunately.

Your description of the problem made me think of the NiAlphaProperty flag set to 4844, when it should be 4845 with 100 threshold.

[Athelbras]

The UFO variant of my mod has an NiAlphaProperty record containing a flag field set to 4844 with a Threshold of 90. The other of the two is 4845 with 0.

 

So should those be changed?

[Deleted1205226User]

Try all the flags to 4844 with a threshold 80 -100. (The Threshold can get rid of the black outlines, higher numbers will reduce it.)

 

If nothing, try them all 4845.

 

If nothing, I was wrong on cause, sorry.

[RoyBatterian]

Thanks for that info pixelhate. What exactly are those flags and values?

[mindboggles]

If you click on the little flag next to those values Nifskope will bring up a small window menu, you should get an idea what they do from it.