Seeking entry-level modding advice (Navmesh, etc)

[miketheratguy]

Hey everyone. I'm interested in creating a house mod for myself- if it's good enough, I guess I'd consider uploading it, but I don't have such aspirations at the moment. I've never made a structure for an ES game, and just wanted to try creating one for myself due to not being able to find just the right home out of the many great choices. Basically, my goal is just to make a big, spacious single-cell interior for myself that other npcs can traverse, and preferably be able to interact with things such as beds and tables.

 

I had a couple of questions though. For example only today I heard of this "Navmesh bug" and I'm wondering how threatening it is for someone who just wants to create a spacious home for himself and allow pre-existing Skyrim characters to enter and move freely within it (using mods such as Followers Can Relax; Spouses Can Live Anywhere, etc.) as opposed to crafting my own NPCs and populating my house with them, which I feel is beyond my knowledge at this early stage. Or is the bug still enough that I'd need to go beyond the basics and convert an esp into an esm and make them run together or something?

 

I was also wondering if there was kind of an agreed-upon set of tips and guidelines for a first timer who's somewhat familiar with the Oblivion kit but not with the Skyrim one and who, again, has tinkered but never fully crafted his own mod. Lastly, I know that Google is my friend and that there are tutorials and videos out there, but are there any particularly thorough and / or easily-understandable ones that spring to mind which would be especially useful for a beginner like me? Any suggestions of other things to try first, or specific pitfalls to avoid?

 

Thanks for any advice.

[jet4571]

The navmesh bug wont destroy your mod. it is an annoyance. As for tutorials and guidlines, you will have more knowledge of those if you looked for them. i just opened the CK and started creating sfter browsing the wiki.

[miketheratguy]

As I've only just heard of the navmesh bug today, I've been coming across various conflicting comments as to what it actually does and whether it's fixed (or was supposed to be). Could you go into more detail? All I know is that it makes people unable to move in a created home or something to that effect.

[David Brasher]

The bug is not fixed. I suspect they would need to scrap Skyrim and build a new game to fix this deeply ingrained design flaw that was also present in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. The design flaw sometimes freezes the movements of all NPCs in the new area. The player character may still move, but followers can't follow.

 

The workaround that has been found is to build your mod as an .esm and an .esp. The bug only effects new .esps and not now .esms. What you do is put the interior of your house into the .esm. Then you put the door to the outside world in the .esp. (Your .esp could end up being very very small.)

[jet4571]

The navmesh wont work if you enter the cell a second time during the same game session. That's what the bug is.

 

The navmesh has 1 purpose and that is to tell the NPC's where it is OK to walk. no navmesh like under a table and the NPC wont go there, if you navmesh under the table NPC's will try to walk through the table. With the bug it would be no navmesh anywhere in the house the second time you enter it during the same play session.

 

It has not been fixed, but there is the make it an esm workaround. That has some conflicting theories on if the esm with exterior navmesh will cause problems like it would in Oblivion. Some says it will others say that issue was solved. otherwise dont let that bug worry you too much as it is only an annoyance.

 

@David,

 

I think they could fix it by just fixing the CK to export an ESM with the ESP. new cells/navmesh, containers, NPC's, weapons/armor, clutter lists in the esm and world/cell placement of whats in those lists in the ESP.

Edited March 18, 2012 by jet4571

[GomuGomu64]

I'll sum it up in a small post for the OP.

 

Make your house (Interior cell, placement in the outside world, navmesh, w/e), use Fallout Mod Manager (Don't need fallout to use it, just make the general directories it needs) to convert it to an ESM.

 

Make a new esp with your house mod's ESM as a master. Place a teleporting object (Door, for example.) linking the outside cell to your interior cell. Save, and your done.

 

Load up your mod's ESM followed by your ESP.

 

Jackpot.

[eltucu]

Partially related to this. If i have a quest mod that needs the player to go to two cells that arent connected with the exterior (the player would sort of teleport into the locations), how would i go about that?

 

For now im making it in a whole esp, but i cant simply just put the cells into an esm because i need the quest in the middle. I guess i should have the quest in one side (with the esp probably) and both interior cells in the ESM.

 

Could i make an esp and a esm out of my current esp in the future? I'd probably need to set up the whole quest again...

[miketheratguy]

Thanks for the detailed responses. I'm glad I asked.

 

I'm confused though- I've tried out quite a few house mods on the Nexus, and despite the fact that they're esp's, they don't appear to have any problems with my characters moving around in them. Though I suppose I never tried leaving characters there (using, for example, "Followers Can Relax") then leaving and returning. If I did so, is this where I could expect to experience the bug, or does the bug only affect characters that are actually placed inside the location by the mod itself?

 

Either way, I think I understand the situation a bit better. I guess I'll design just the interior cell and not create a door or transport to or from it. I'll save my work as an esp, then try to figure out how to use the Fallout Mod Manager to change it into an esm. After that I'll load the esm in the Skyrim Creation Kit, then create a door to the place, and save that as an esp. Does that sound correct?

[jet4571]

The bug usually affects NPC's that live in the location. when you enter the cell later the NPC's will stay where they are or sometimes they will all spawn in one location. followers can and will go where the navmesh doesn't at times but its glitchy when they do and probably a bug dealing with the follow function like the one where they will decide to run through a table to get to you even though the table has been navmeshed around. I like to think of Bethesda games to be like an entomologist's display case.

 

You can use TesVsnip or wryebash to make an ESM too. But yeah that sounds correct.

 

@eltucu, i didn't quite understand what you meant by you need the quest in the middleand linking the cell to the world without a door is a question for another thread or starting a new one. middle of what? That doesn't make sense. Anyway if you make a quest with the esp and then later convert it to an esm it will probably break the quest. Best thing to do is make the locations, place everything then convert to esm. add whatever for an esp and make the quest in the esp. thats another bug where converting to esm breaks the link to scripts making quests not work.

[miketheratguy]

Okay thanks; I'll go ahead with my plan to start learning how to navmesh then, now that I know it's possible. I suppose that I hadn't prepared to learn how to convert an esp in addition, but it seems like it would probably be worth it if it meant being able to craft a home to my specifications. I'm still confused as to why all my other house mods are esp's, though I guess that they may have gone through the same process we're discussing. I want to throw myself into the CK and am excited to make my home; I'm just concerned about how difficult some of these things sound.

 

Entomologist's office. Lol.