Vault 1080 failing to precombine geometry

[Purr4me]

It's pretty old software, and I place value in the Theme

[Trosski]

So, My thoughts on your issues is this.

 

First, all mods should be cleaned using xedit to ensure that there are no deleted objects, or identical to master records. I even clean the main Fallout, and DLC masters.

 

Second, You don't have to move objects underground to hide them. Checking initially disabled, and hidden from local map are the only edits you need to make to an object. in fact, you can select a group of objects you want to hide, hit the "-" key, and initially disable them all at the same time. The Precombine, and Previs system ignores these objects when new data is created. This can be seen in my Cleaner settlements mod. I edited the 3d model for the red rocket station to make the pump arms scrappable. I duplicated the model twice, and then hid the original. Then I replaced the duplicates with my new models. if the Precombine system baked the initially disabled objects in, then the collisions for the pump arms would still exist after scrapping them, but this is not the case in my mod. So we can clearly see that the system ignores initially disabled models. It also ignores workshop scrappable objects, which is why you don't get preculling issues after scrapping a vanilla object.

 

Third, Never Precombine the loaded area... that is just way too much work to put on your PC. Only Precombine one cell at a time. If you do decide to Precombine a loaded area(or heaven forbid the entire commonwealth) realize that you CAN NOT USE YOUR COMPUTER AT ALL UNTIL IT HAS FINISHED. Even opening your browser, or switching windows can cause it to lock up, and crash. I actually successfully precombined the entire commonwealth one time just to see if I could. It took 8 hours, and I couldn't use my computer until it finished. the result was 22 GB of precombined data.

 

Fourth, You don't need to flag anything master to make a Precom/Previs compatibility patch. just load the necessary master files (Fallou4.esm, coast.esm, etc.) and the esps you want to make the patch for. Make sure none are set to active. A box will pop up asking if you want to continue even though you don't have an active plug-in set. just hit ok.

 

Fifth, Even if an esp has custom assets it doesn't matter. I made a compatibility patch between my Cleaner Settlements mod, and Elianora's Rockin Red Rocket mod this way. As you can see in the video, there is no preculling, and everything works as intended. The resulting patch esp will only contain Precom and Previs data. all assets will be contained in their respective mod. You will need to load all of the mods into your game with the patch mod loaded last. It doesn't matter what order the other mods are loaded in, as long as the patch is loaded last.

 

So the steps I use when editing the world space is to:

 

first, figure out where I am working, and identify my center cell. I make sure all loaded cells are at the top of the cell view window, and then I write down their names and cell block coordinates(the only way to tell the difference between wilderness cells).

 

Second, I go one cell at a time, and make my edits.

 

Third, once all of the cells I want to edit in the loaded area have been modified, I go back to each cell, and precombine geometries for the current cell. I have never run into any CTD issues precombining one cell at a time.

 

Once I have precombined each cell, I go back to my center cell, and generate Precombine visibility for the loaded area. This usually takes about 10-15 minutes for me, and I can't do anything but let my computer work. I have found that if I try to surf the net while this is going on, the CK has a tendency to pause it's progress. It refuses to work in the background.

 

Once visibility has finished generating, you can save, and create your archive. I also create a folder with the same name as my .esp files in the Meshes/precombine, and vis folders. I put the respective data in each folder, so I have it if I need to make adjustments later. I have multiple versions of my Cleaner settlements mod, so I move data around a lot when I make modifications. Keeping these files straight is a pain, but vital to not messing up your mods. I don't know how many times I have updated a mod only to discover I forgot to change out this data, and users complain that the latest update screwed something up.

 

If you have any questions, just let me know. The system seems pretty complicated, and at first it can be difficult to figure out, but once you get your workflow down, it's a pretty simple system to master. It took me months of trial and error to figure out everything involved in bending the system to my will.

[SMB92]

Thanks very much for all that info, appreciate your time. I have a couple things I want to add based on my findings and experiments. 1 is that when I am working on a mod, I always have my new precull data go to a new esp too. However my CK won't add the mod as a master if I dont flag it temporarily as an ESM, and that causes problems for me with particular mods - which leads me to the second thing - I found that having a mods included new meshes is the only way to get a mod done properly because precombining will bake them in - this was mist notable for the mod Sanctuary Restored Revised. I would have occlusion bugs everywhere without baking the newly fixed meshes. This also applies to flora, if you precombine an area with Summer Overhaul active (just meshes) it will swap the trees for the real models in that file - which are huge. I relate this to the Bethesdas wiki where they mention about swapping an NIF as the game won't actually read it.

The other thing being, I also documented the problem with precombining visibility, precombining meshes takes 10 seconds for the area but then the visibility ages (and theres no option for world) Anyway the CK appeared to be locking up on me too, but after a while I started to examine this. What I found was I was running out of memory even with 6gb of RAM spare because it actually prefers the page file for some reason. I setup a 32GB page file on a rarely used SSD, and I ran 4 different precombined visibility generations in one session, for the mods I mentioned (I did meshes for each area first of course, but not RRR or Drumlin because after examing xedit, the generation was catching them anyway, even though in the case of Drumlin it is outside the 25 grids that are loaded when doing StarlightExt). Each time I went surfing the net and come back, it would freeze initially and return me to the cell view. I checked in xEdit and ran the file in game, and it works great, except that one occlusion bug by that window in Starlight. I tested on both a new and 600 hour save.

This is just what I've found. I am going to fix the navmesh in Vault 1080 and run that in as well on the weekend, but the Starlight one is puzzling.

 

Edit - just some clarifications, I get that one bug in Starlight even when I do the mod by itself, with no custom assets whatsoever (even his own BA2), and I always run precombine meshes, then precombined visibilty - I found that the regular visibility option doesn't give me the whole story, maybe it flags items as dynamic or something, and from all I've done I'm certain the generate precomined visibility option deals only in precombined meshes - which I'd highly prefer it just do those.

[SMB92]

BTW I'll have everyone know, I'm so headfudged by this whole thing I just reinstalled Oblivion on my system and gonna start playing that again between working on this and waiting for SKSE64. This is truly a dark age for me. I hope this Oblivion Reloaded mod is as good as they say it is, it's been 4 years since I stepped foot in Cyrodiil.

[Purr4me]

Load, delete that object, save the file, test in game, see if that object stills shows up?

 

I'm betting it's pulling in a duplicate in game from some place.

 

yeah I said delete it. The purpose is to Identify that object is the source or if it's something else.

 

On an android OS at the moment so I can't load anything game wise.

[SMB92]

I think you're right Purr, it would make perfect sense for such a buggy system (and I'm referring to the game and CK collectively) to occasionally pickup erroneous data like this. And that sincerely turns me off working on downtown areas.

 

BTW did you ever happen to make anything for Oblivion flora wise? I'd like to see your work on that :) Oblivion Reloaded is pretty cool, full model first person cam and everything.

[Purr4me]

Oblivion to me is Mine craftish, block type graphics and animations, I could not wrap my head around the game.

 

I would have to crack open that game and inspect what the engine can run.

 

Basically due to that, It held little interest to me. but no I haven't, I'll look into it.

 

Think Movies, real world graphics. that's where I'm at.

[Purr4me]

 

I think you're right Purr, it would make perfect sense for such a buggy system (and I'm referring to the game and CK collectively) to occasionally pickup erroneous data like this. And that sincerely turns me off working on downtown areas.

The first patch attempt I made for you, held this in regards to erroneous garbage getting picked up.

 

I never edited the cells found in that patch, yet , there it was, big as you please. I did not touch vaults at all.

 

How ever !, it does how a possible game leakage or possibility how things do get shared or even "picked up" and not by mistake.

 

It points to many things due to that alone so no, I doubt there is a mistaken belief that the CK would not do that as it has.

 

there are 2 CK versions for this one game, one used specifically for face gens and it's "32bit" off line? come on, what's up with that?

 

so yeah, a mix of code going on here. BSGM might be the source, materials swap might be dragging in extra data, OR even if the author used a single copy and duped each one and moved them into place, may have passed the limits for a cell?

 

where did the windows come from? "are there lines connecting them? I did not look that closely to them to know.

 

Are they from another section and or cell? shared assets?

 

All we do know is that bug, and it shows up in only that one spot..with or without any other mods involved.

[Purr4me]

Then why is there a DLC involved?

[Trosski]

Okay, so let's talk about the first issue i think i see when reading your post. Are you precombining every cell in the 25 block radius, or just the cells you edited?

 

Edit: Second, Are you trying to precombine the interior cells as well? I only ask, because some times people don't know that precom/previs is only used for exterior cells. room bounds boxes, and portals are used to optimize interior cells.

 

Edit 2: Do you know that you only have to rebuild Precom data if you remove or hide something in the cell? If you are only adding objects new precom data is unnecessary... Unless you are adding a LOT of stuff, then it can improve performance.

 

Edit 3: I don't think the mod author understood how the room bounds boxes work. Here is a tutorial for optimizing interior cells. I know it's for Skyrim, but the process is the same.

 

Edit 4: So I took some time to create some rooms in the vault to show you what it should look like. I know the video does a good job of explaining it, but Here is a picture of how I have sectioned off the lower half of the vault. Keep in mind that anywhere you have two room boxes against each other you will need a portal. This includes windows, other wise you will just see into the void.