Armor mesh related CTD when activating NPC wearing it

[algaeb]

Hello,

 

I've been trying to figure this one out on my own for several hours and I'm well beyond the limits of my knowledge now, so help would be appreciated.

 

Briefly:

 

I'm getting consistent CTDs when I Activate an NPC while she's wearing a custom armor, before it even zooms in to start dialogue. There's no CTD just from her wearing the armor, though, and it looks fine while she's wearing it. Removing the model from the armor in FO3Edit prevents the CTD. Removing the armor from her (using console) also prevents the CTD.

 

Longer story:

 

I'm using Mothership Zeta Crew (MZC) with rickerhk's Brisa Almodovar companion, and I've outfitted Brisa with a "Thunderfist" armor from MZC.

 

I had been playing with Brisa wearing that armor for several days already without any issues, but in my last play session I started seeing the dreaded "white/flickering textures" issue. I spent some time toggling ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated! using FOMM, or manually, but the texture issue wasn't going away, and after searching for other solutions for an hour or so I gave up and reinstalled the game and my mods from scratch. Speculation: I had a lot of mods active... maybe I had so much data being loaded that I was overflowing some internal buffers? I remember seeing a comment somewhere on these forums about instability if loading more than 2GB of game data.

 

In any case, I reinstalled, taking the opportunity to weed out a handful of mods that I didn't feel were "essential" - and loaded up my game again. Textures were fixed. Brisa was still wearing that MZC armor, and all seemed fine. I played for a bit, shot up some raiders, etc... and then tried to activate (talk to) Brisa... and got a CTD immediately, before it even zoomed in on her or displayed the dialogue menu. I reloaded my save, tried to activate her again, and got another CTD. If I disable the Mothership Zeta Crew ESM, no CTD. I narrowed it down further to the armor she's wearing, by un-equipping it from her (using the console) and then talking to her - no CTD. There doesn't seem to be any issue with the armor when she's wearing it, though... it looks normal... the CTD is just when I activate her while she's wearing it. I even tried deleting the models from the armor in FO3Edit... and if I load the game that way, she looks like a floating head and hands while wearing the armor, but there's no CTD when I talk to her.

 

I have a few more things to try, like putting other armor on her, or putting that armor on another NPC (or my own character), but I'd love to hear any thoughts on what could be happening here.

 

Update: No issues with vanilla armors on her. No issues with wearing the custom armor on my character and talking to her when she's not wearing it. Same crash occurs with Moira if equipped with that armor.

 

Thanks!

Edited September 29, 2011 by algaeb

[rickerhk]

I've had a similar issue with type3-modded leather gloves. When the outfit using them is removed via gamemode script - like when Brisa changes to a utility or labcoat before hacking or lockpicking, there will be a few second delay, then CTD. The occurrence is also environment dependent - it would happen indoors under certain lighting, mostly. There is never an issue when changing outfits in the menumode, or at the console (which is just another menumode).

I had to revert to the vanilla leather glove nifs in my game to make the CTDs go away.

I've had the same issue in Fallout New Vegas with a completely different companion, made from scratch. So it's something with the game engine that doesn't go well with certain Nifs manipulated with nifscope/blender/scripting - take your pick.

 

Crashing on activation is a new one for me and I'm downloading MZC just to see. And to play, probably. That mod looks interesting ;)

[algaeb]

Thanks for your reply, rickerhk. I'm sure you'll enjoy MZC.

 

I've checked other custom armors from MZC - they work fine. I've tried activating Brisa wearing the armor with my pipboy light off in almost total darkness (Fellout night), and it still crashes. I'm very puzzled because this armor worked fine until I reinstalled my game, and now it's consistently causing a CTD when I activate NPCs wearing it... but it's only this armor, and it looks fine when they're wearing it.

 

What exactly happens when I start a conversation with an NPC that would expose some flaw in a mesh that isn't already exposed from simply wearing it? Zooming in?

 

Of note, I put the armor on a raider, made it friendly and activated it, without a CTD. The raider doesn't have any dialogue, though. Does this suggest anything to you?

 

Here's another finding: if I bring up the Pip-boy while looking at Brisa wearing the armor, it also CTDs.

Edited September 29, 2011 by algaeb

[algaeb]

I enabled a few more mods and started getting the same white/flickering textures issue I had before. This time, though, instead of searching for fixes related to that issue, I searched for "mod limits" and found this thread: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/137862-mod-limit/

 

Following the ideas in that thread, I merged some of my smaller patch mods together and reduced my total mod count to 89 (hex) and so far the textures seem to be working properly again. Worth noting that I'm playing in Windows XP 32-bit and without the large-address-enabler because whenever I use it my game slows down to a crawl.

 

Still getting a CTD when I try to talk to NPCs who are wearing the MZC armor or open the Pip-boy while facing Brisa wearing it (facing away from her and opening the Pip-boy works fine).

[rickerhk]

I played around with that armor for awhile. I had quite a bit of lag when looking at her close, but couldn't get it to ctd. Though there was one save that I could not load, where I was looking at Brisa wearing the armor when the save was made - it would ctd during the cell load. Then I took a look at it in Nifscope.

I'm not real knowledgable when it comes to the structure of nif files, but it's not hard to compare between different armors in Nifscope. The Thunderfist.nif has a NiTriShape block 'HeadAnims:0' node with all these morphs (facial expressions) below it. Looking at other armors and vanilla armors, I see nothing like that in them. I'm not saying this is causing the problem, I really have no idea, but removing the 'HeadAnims:0' branch from the nif had no bad effects as far as I could tell, and it seemed like the lag when looking at her was reduced, though that might be subjective.

Though when you activate an NPC to talk to them, that involves all kinds of facial morphs, so In my limited understanding, that looks like a possible connection to the problems you experienced.

I also think some of the ctd issues with nif files are system specific too. I don't think there is just one factor involved. I think there are several factors that come together to make the problem.

[algaeb]

I installed Nifskope and removed that HeadAnims:0 block and tried it on Brisa again, and the CTD is gone. Thanks so much!

[rickerhk]

I installed Nifskope and removed that HeadAnims:0 block and tried it on Brisa again, and the CTD is gone. Thanks so much!

 

Wow. Glad to hear that. Sometimes we just get lucky with these things ;)