Rebuilding Visibility and Precombined Meshes

[Deleted4363562User]

I'm told that the disappearing meshes in my mod for some users is due to me not rebuilding the Visibility and Precombined Meshes which should generate a uvd file that I need to pack with my mod.

 

I'm having trouble doing this though. I go to Visibility>Generate Visibility for Current Cell/Generate Precombined Visibility for Current Cell, but nothing seems to happen and no files are generated.

 

EDIT: Ok, so I can generate it for other cells, but not mine. It's a duplicate of the original Home Plate. Not sure if that helps anyone diagnose my problem.

[Trosski]

Since this is the type of mod i have made, I will tell you what has worked for me.

1. Open the CK, and Load Fallout4.esm

2. in the Cell View window's world space drop down menu select Commonwealth

3. After the list populates select the cell you wish to edit. *Note: Settlements will often span multiple cells.

4. If you want to remove an object from a settlement, I will use Sanctuary as an example, because it spans multiple cells, then find the central cell(SanctuaryExt) and make the edits you want int that cell(ONLY IN THAT CELL)

You will know if the object you are selecting is in your current cell, because it will move to and highlight that object in the cells object list.

It is best to load the cell, leave it in top down veiw, and zoom out to see the whole cell. I have found that this keeps me from crossing into other cells wit the camera, and I select objects from the list instead of in the render window.

5. Select the item you want to remove. Right click on it and select edit. Check both "Initially disabled" and "Hidden From Local Map", then click "ok".

6. Once all of the edits you want to make are complete in that cell, in the World menu at the top click on "Precombine Geometries for Current Cell".

7. Repeat Steps 4 - 6 for each cell you want to make edits to. It is best to note which cells are loaded when you load that first cell, so that you do not stray from the loaded area.

8. Once all of the cells you wish to edit are complete, Load the first cell you edited... In this example it will be SanctuaryExt.

9. In the Visibility Menu at the top click on "Generate *Precombined* Visibility for Loaded Area" *Note Prcombining geometries for each cell, and generating visibility for the loaded area is what fixes the dreaded Cell reset, Sprinting, and object culling bugs.

10. After Generating visibility ***SAVE YOUR PLUGIN!!!*** I save my plugin after I edit each settlement, and then move a copy of the plugin to a separate folder just in case I screw something up(Which I do... A lot!).

11. After you have made all of the changes you want, save one last time. In the File menu click on "Create Archive", and name the Archives I generally make it "Mod name - Main.ba2" for the main, "Mod name - Textures.ba2", for the textures, and so on.

Then just Upload to Beth.net, or Nexus, or where ever else you would like.

Hope that helps.

Edit: Added *Precombined* to correct a mistake in directions.

[orangedeal]

Can we do it in an easier way?

We change everything we want in the whole world (external), saving and restarting the editor many times. After many numerous edits, we are doing "PreCombine Geometry for World". On a Coffee Lake CPU, this will take 4-5 hours (with all DLCs), and the PreCombined folder will take up to 12 GB and will contain 100,000 files. Then we do "Generate Visibility for All Loaded Cells" and "Generate Precombined Visibility for All Loaded Cells" in the zones where we made the changes.

Then we pack it all into an archive using Archive2, specifying the maximum archive size of 4 GB and the maximum number of files 3.

Will this work? Otherwise, when we have a lot of edits and we are forced to strictly watch the cells, and the editor is very slow when switching between them, editing turns into torture :confused:

[Trosski]

Well, first off... No! If you gen precombines for the whole world, and don't pack the precombines, or gen Previs for the whole world as well, you will just screw your game into the 9th ring of hell.

 

For a more concise explanation:

 

1. when you generate a precombine/previs for a cell, it updates the timestamp for the precombine/previs files in the plugin. When this happens if you don't include the updated precombine/previs file, the game will not be able to find it, and end up causing the culling issue for the whole world.

 

2. If you generate Precombines for the world and don't generate previs for every cell you precombined, the game won't know what to do with that precombine information when you are in an adjacent cell, because the previs files will be looking for a file with the old precombine timestamp. This will cause the dreaded culling issue for any cell that doesn't have updated previs.

 

3. The CK is slow, cumbersome, and it crashes for... reasons. Better get used to it.

[orangedeal]

Thanks for the answer. I decided to give up the idea of clearing the whole world of hanged bodies, debris, etc. I decided to do it selectively and a little, mostly next to some settlements.

But I noticed that if done in this sequence:
World -> PreCombine Geometry for Current Cell
Visibility -> Generate Visibility for All Loaded Cells
Visibility -> Generate Precombined Visibility for All Loaded Cell

Visual glitches may occur (of a dozen of changed places so far only in the Sanctuary Hills). I've even tested and reworked it several times. Apparently, I was wrong somewhere. Then I decided instead of PreCombine Geometry for Current Cell to do for Loaded Area. This increases the size of the PreCombined folder, but bearable. But it's hard to make a mistake. The main thing is that Geometry and Visibility will be created strictly for the same group of cells. I first take a screenshot (see below) and align to it before doing the next operation. Am I right? It seems I've managed to solve the problem.

 

Does PreCombine Geometry Loaded Area have any disadvantages besides the larger folder size? If we need to redo the geometry for more than one cell.

 

In general, can such operations reduce the performance in the game, taking into account that we will then pack everything into an archive? Especially in complicated places like Boston. I read that some users alter almost half of the map

 

http://distlinks.net/img/lnk1/6riyt3ldmm.png