Precombined meshes, what destroys them?

[Zzyxzz]

Hello,

 

precombined meshes are a big thing in Fallout 4 and i haven't digged into that topic for too long and im confused...

 

What actions will disable them/break them?

-When i place an NPC in a specific cell, will it deactivate those for that area?

-When i place an item?

-When i place a tree? (or in general static objects like trash, dirt, structures in general)

-When i move an existing object. (Touching existing objects in general)

 

Or how to avoid destroying precombined meshes / repair them.

 

 

Thanks in advance. :-)

[chucksteel]

Editing any object that is already in a pre-combined mesh will disable the system for the cell you've edited. Example would be if you disable a rock, trash pile or tree then the cells pre-combined is auto disabled.

 

Pre-Combined meshes work on a cell by cell basis where Pre-Vis works on a 3x3 grid.

 

Placing new objects shouldn't disable the system but sometimes does due to the glitchy nature of the ckit. You can fix the issue in xEdit so long as you have not edited anything that is already included in a Pre-Combined mesh by going to the cell and copying the vanilla Pre-Combined info back to your mod. (simple explanation)

 

Adding NPC's or other persistent ref's should not disable the system but again, sometimes does.

 

The pre-combined mesh system is a big pain for mods and modders

[BlahBlahDEEBlahBlah]

I thought I had that whole process down pat and was in full agreement with everything ChuckSteel said, but then I went into Pre-War Sanctuary and disabled a few things (within the main character house and the house itself, for mine own reasons), and...no problems with Pre-Combine in Pre-war Sanctuary.

 

I thought for sure it would break it.

So I think I need Chuck to explain it to me once or twice more, too. =/

Pain in the behind process, either way, that's for sure. =(

[VIitS]

It's really simple, just look in FO4Edit. Any reference that is part of a precombined mesh will say what precombined mesh it is associated with in the "FormID" field at the end.

 

If your mod so much as looks at one of those (i.e. has an ITM record of one of those), it will disable precombined meshes and previs for that cell, assuming you haven't purposefully messed with the precombined (XCRI) or previs (VISI, RVIS, and PCMB) fields for that cell, and aren't using one of the relevant ini edits. If you are using one of the ini edits, you have to actually delete the info from those fields for precombineds/previs to be disabled, as the workaround (for some unknown reason) gets disabled if you have one of those ini edits. This is what caused the LOD flickering bug people experienced (leading to the creation of a mod specifically for disabling previs in vanilla settlements, as all the people using bUseCombinedObjects=0 were having that issue*).

 

I haven't looked at it myself, but since Prewar Sanctuary has it's own worldspace, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't bother with precombineds at all. If they do, any changes made to it will definitely not touch the post-war Sanctuary. To give a definitive explanation of what you are seeing, I'd need to know precisely what records you were messing with, and exactly what you mean by "no problems with pre-combine".

 

Do you mean you could disable them in-game without specifically disabling precombineds for that cell (and without using the ini edit)? Do you mean you didn't notice any performance impact or breaking of precombineds in post-war Sanctuary**?

 

*this was slightly before SE changed how it disabled precombineds and previs in order to deal with that particular issue caused by the using ini edits. There are others, and completely fixing them would require essentially redoing 90% of the vanilla interior cells.

 

**If this is the case, see my above explanation for why that particular location is different

 

 

In any case, I 100% agree with chucksteel's last statement. More than anything, the precombined system is proof of how little Bethesda cares about modders (beyond using it as a selling point***). And when confronted about it on their forums, they wanted mod authors to release compatibility patches to make the system work with all the different mods that might mess with a particular cell. Even if the CK was actually good/consistent with generating new previs/precombineds, the stupidity in that statement is astounding.

 

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely some devs at Bethesda who care, look at the relative quickness with which they fixed the keyword cap bug once they were notified of it (by modders who were able to talk directly to some devs). But the people making most of the decisions don't give a rat's left toenail clippings (even more worthless than a rat's ass) about modders.

 

***sorry PS4 players, even though you eventually got access to some mods you still got screwed hard by Sony's obsession with their proprietary formatting crap that no-one else gives even half a s#*! about

[BlahBlahDEEBlahBlah]

You might just be right, they just may not have bothered with doing precombineds for Pre-war Sanctuary.

Probably just Blah making assumptions again.

Something can't get forcibly disabled if it didn't exist to begin with. ;-)

 

Good job. =)

 

Edit: Although that might suggest this guy needs a different answer - https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5447012-moving-the-van-in-prewar-sanc-kills-house-walls/?fromsearch=1

[Zzyxzz]

Thanks for the answers! Very helpful :-)

[VIitS]

You might just be right, they just may not have bothered with doing precombineds for Pre-war Sanctuary.

Probably just Blah making assumptions again.

Something can't get forcibly disabled if it didn't exist to begin with. ;-)

 

Good job. =)

 

Edit: Although that might suggest this guy needs a different answer - https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5447012-moving-the-van-in-prewar-sanc-kills-house-walls/?fromsearch=1

Having just taken a look in xEdit, it seems they did use precombineds. Something that might be related to you not seeing any problems is that the player's prewar house seems to (mostly) have it's own cell. called (appropriately enough) PrewarPlayerHouse01.

 

That said, while it could definitely be something related to precombineds, it shouldn't cause that particular problem, and the van isn't part of a precombined meh, so it shouldn't disable them. I still won't say that precombineds (or previs) aren't the problem, since they tend to be easily triggered if you so much as look at the wrong thing. I'll post in that thread in a second.

[RetroBabe]

Ok if you have experience in FO 4 Edit, how do i get rid of the Trash in Nahant Oceanic Society Interior?

I removed all Trash etc but its still there?

Wtf, why?

[Citizenbari]

Here is a link how to fix precombined problems within xedit. Helped me a lot to get control of that sh....

 

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/8062503-simple-q-about-identifying-precombined-meshes/

[pra]

What actions will disable them/break them?

-When i place an NPC in a specific cell, will it deactivate those for that area?

-When i place an item?

-When i place a tree? (or in general static objects like trash, dirt, structures in general)

ADDING object doesn't affect the precombines, no matter what you add.

 

-When i move an existing object. (Touching existing objects in general)

Depends on the object. Furnitures, Activators, Items, Actors, Terminals, anything you can interact with is fine.

Statics are usually not. There are some exceptions, like, statics with an EnableParent, or scrappable or scrap-linked objects in settlements. But, in general, if it's a Static or a Static Collection, better don't touch it.

 

Or how to avoid destroying precombined meshes / repair them.

 

 

Thanks in advance. :-)

Use xEdit to remove accidental overrides. Use the cleaning feature(s) to remove ITMs, then, if you edit a cell, make sure you haven't moved anything by accident. And don't move any preexisting statics on purpose.