SSE Large Creature Hitbox Scaling

[JosephRussell]

Hi everyone!

I'm relatively new to the technical side of Skyrim modding, and am working on an update for a mod which includes a giant creature. I didn't make the original mod myself, so am figuring out what's what, but I've run into a snag in that while the creature is scaled up (using SSEedit's "Scale" value), and it appears large in game, its hitbox appears to be the original size and I can't for the life of me make it bigger. It uses the vanilla werewolf skeleton and animations (with a new skin and mesh), so I tried making a new copy of the werewolf skeleton and scaling that up with Nifskope, resetting the "Scale" value for the NPC to 1. Once again, it appears the correct size, but its hitbox is still the same size an ordinary werewolf, somewhere between its legs.

I found a post by Trainwiz five months ago suggesting the creature scaling function doesn't work properly in SSE like it did for Oldrim. Has anyone come up with a cunning plan to fix this?

Thanks in advance :)

[Di0nysys]

Creature scaling is broken in all versions of Skyrim. Even in old Skyrim, it doesn't scale their hitbox.

[JosephRussell]

That's disappointing to hear! Thanks, though. Any thoughts as to a possible solution?

[trainwiz]

Creature scaling is broken in all versions of Skyrim. Even in old Skyrim, it doesn't scale their hitbox.

Technically correct. Melee weapons don't scale, but magic-based attacks do hit the larger monster accurately. This is why in Wheels of Lull and Blackreach Railroad the mechanics could work like they did. At least they did in oldrim, newrim... well that doesn't work anymore.

OP, if you're looking to solve this so that the player is able to swing and hit the monster, you're out of luck. For SSE each instance of those larger creatures were puzzle bosses (normally spells would hit them doing damage), I just changed it so that the puzzles directly did scripted damage to the creatures, rather than fired a projectile that would, obviously, miss.

Edited May 2, 2017 by trainwiz

[JosephRussell]

And lo, the mortal spake the name of Trainwiz and summoned him forth from the depths of the Nexus... XD

Thanks for clearing it up though, at least now I know further fiddling isn't going to get me anywhere!

The more I dig into SSE, the more of these 'quirks' turn up. I suppose you could call it endearing :')

[ruddy88]

Bit of a necro but this is the most in depth forum I can find regarding SE's terrible hitbox scaling (or lack of).

 

Thought Id weigh in, maybe get a discussion going.

 

Ive just tried to fix an issue with resizing giants.

 

I found that if you alter the height of them using the RACE record instead of the NPC record, the hitboxes DO scale up... most of the time.

But for whatever bloody reason, there will still be giants (or mammoths) that still use the old hitbox, whereas others have scaled hitboxes.

 

I have literally tried everything:

Scaled using RACE records (best solution so far but will require a custom race if only applying it to one character and doesnt work 100% of the time).

Scaled using NPC recprds: Doesnt seem to scale hitboxes. Also tried modifying the OBND object bounds dimensions.
Scaled in the Skeleton.nif : Doesnt seem to scale hitboxes, even if modifying the bounding box dimensions.
Scaled in the base nifs: Doesnt scale hitboxes.

Aaaand literally every combination of the above that you can think of.
I definitely did apply transformations correctly when using nifskope.

Any bounding box of OBND values were calculated correctly.

 

One thing I have also noticed, is that even in vanilla Skyrim, this bug is present.

 

If you go kill a giant mudcrab you and try to loot it you will notice that the hitbox to get the loot prompt is based off a regular mudcrab.

This is because the giant mudcrabs just use a scale modifier in the NPC record so again, their hitbox does not scale.

 

Interestingly, although hitbox scaling was problematic even in oldrim, it wasnt THIS problematic.

For instance, changing height values in RACE records WOULD work (see Height Adjusted Races), just as looting mudcrabs, im fairly sure, used accurate bounding boxes.
But in newrim, its hit and miss even doing it with race records.

 

My only thought for this scenario is that there may have been a change in how SE processes records where it is not correctly prioritising fields. As such, SOMETIMES the scale is set first and the hitbox is calculated afterwards, and other time the hitbox is being calculated first based off a 1.0 scale before the scale values are being considered.