Frozzyman Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 (edited) Thank you for responding RedRocketTV. I am not very advanced with these tools as I'm fairly new with them. My level of "expertise" is simply drag and drop and modifying values in Xedit. I must have watched Trossky's video 5 times in it's entirety to get this far with the little bit of understanding I have. I've located this so far from what you were talking about, but creating the new material swap under the Misc. section and then applying it to that reference is where I am getting lost. (Photo below) Is there any chance you would be willing to provide a more detailed account of how to complete the steps your mentioned? I know it's a lot but again I appreciate any help just to get me in the right direction. I just read the wiki and watched a video about material swaps but it doesn't seem to apply to what you are mentioning to do. So I am quite lost... Edited June 6, 2018 by Frozzyman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissingMeshTV Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 I got your PM, but for the benefit of anyone else looking for the same info, I'll put my response here: The CK wiki has a pretty bare bones entry on material swaps and doesn't really tell you how to use them. I highly recommend this video tutorial on them by Seddon4494. It does a far better job of explaining them than I could in a forum post. Actually, I suggest looking over all of Seddon4494's tutorials. They are probably the best ones available for the FO4 CK and have a great range of subject matter. Once you get creating the new material swap sorted, I suggest removing the custom material swap that is applied to the base object of the items you're having trouble with. That's just to eliminate any potential of causing problems they might cause when you regenerate your precombines. It might not cause any problems to leave them, but the process is fragile enough as it is...no reason to provide more things to potentially break it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissingMeshTV Posted June 23, 2018 Share Posted June 23, 2018 TIL: If adding new items to a cell, you can avoid making unwanted edits/object selections by locking (freezing in CK-speak...why can't the CK just use "lock" like any other application with layers) the vanilla layer(s) of the cell and creating a new layer in which to add your new items and making it the active layer. Then on your new layer you can edit to your heart's content without worrying about nudging anything to break precombines. To freeze the layer(s) just select the box in the F column in the Layer window for the layer you want to freeze. This may already be common knowledge, but it was an A-HA moment for me. Be advised that if you refresh or reload the cell, the locked (frozen) layers become unlocked and you will need to relock/refreeze them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucksteel Posted June 23, 2018 Share Posted June 23, 2018 Ya that’s why I create layers for all my edits to a cell. Added bonus you can turn aff everything but your edits to see exactly what you’ve done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissingMeshTV Posted June 23, 2018 Share Posted June 23, 2018 Yeah...it was one of those "why the frack didn't I think of this sooner" moments. :facepalm: I make layers for markers, lights and FX, but for some reason never thought of this until this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucksteel Posted June 23, 2018 Share Posted June 23, 2018 It’s nice to make ones for light boxes too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissingMeshTV Posted June 29, 2018 Share Posted June 29, 2018 I was regenerating some preccombines and previs for Tales from the Commonwealth a couple of nights ago and got the urge to record a tutorial on the process. It was uploaded to the YouTubes overnight. Let me know what y’all think. Here 'tis. It’s not the “Precombines for dummies” video I mentioned doing a while back but rather an impromptu and unscripted walkthorugh of the process and the performance improvements gained in the two TftC cells I use as examples. My goal was to show how to “repair” a mod that breaks precombines and previs by regenerating. I don’t really delve into anything technical and pretty much stick to the process itself. Since this was unplanned with no real prep work, there is likely some info I left out. With that in mind, I give a plug to Trosski’s tutorial, provide the link to it and encourage people to watch it. He covers far more on the technical side than I do and mentions things I don’t. Plus, I want people to know there are other info sources available. I also plug this thread and provide a link to it, encouraging people to come here and be enlightened. I had intended it to be a quick, short video but it ended up coming in at just under 30 minutes. I sort of got off track by showing how to detect broken precombines in xEdit and how to pack the newly generated data into a new archive alongside the TftC files. I considered editing those bits out but I thought it was better to include that stuff for completeness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
payl0ad Posted June 29, 2018 Share Posted June 29, 2018 (edited) I considered editing those bits out but I thought it was better to include that stuff for completeness. Actually I think it's good to show that process too because it suggests using archives to the user, which might make more modders adopt archives. It's pretty relevant for precombine data, lots of small files that cause lots of I/O load. And it makes things easier to manage and less likely to cause weird file-related issues for the user. Edited June 29, 2018 by payl0ad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucksteel Posted June 29, 2018 Share Posted June 29, 2018 RedRocketTV you should also do a video showing how to use the xEdit Pre-Combined cleaning scripts but other then that your video was very informative and well done. If you don't mind I would like to post a link of this on my Detecting Broken Pre-Combined meshes thread on Beth.net. The Console players just need to see the process. (In my opinion that is.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissingMeshTV Posted June 29, 2018 Share Posted June 29, 2018 I considered editing those bits out but I thought it was better to include that stuff for completeness. Actually I think it's good to show that process too because it suggests using archives to the user, which might make more modders adopt archives. It's pretty relevant for precombine data, lots of small files that cause lots of I/O load. And it makes things easier to manage and less likely to cause weird file-related issues for the user. Thanks. Yeah, I'm glad I left it in. In retrospect maybe I should have mentioned using the archiver in the CK for mods that don't already have archives but I never though of it until today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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