Looking for Adhesives to Repair a Broken Mask

[VIitS]

Yeah, that's just patently false, there's no way around it. The precombined system doesn't work that way. If you look on the Creation Club wiki at the page about precombind references, it mentions at the bottom (under "Development Notes") that precombineds are calculated in the CK and not at runtime because doing otherwise "was not feasible due to memory restrictions and load time/streaming concerns". Pretty much the entirety of that page was quoted from a Bethesda Dev response on the old version of beth.net. Sadly, they decided it didn't need to be archived when they changed to the new forum software, so I can't actually prove any of that. And that's completely ignoring the items large enough to have occlusion associated with them. The previs (Bethesda's new occlusion culling system) is a single file for every 9 cells (3x3 grid), and the only way to change any of the occlusion is by regenerating the previs for that whole 3x3 grid (which is why scrap mods have to also selectively disable previs when they disable precombineds). If a mod somehow made it so you could dynamically disable precombineds, it would also have to check if something has an associated occlusion mesh every time you scrapped or moved something, and if it did it would have to recalculate previs for that area. Since occlusion info stored in the previs is stored using coordinates rather than reference IDs, this would result in a very noticeable hitch each time you scrapped something, that would be larger whenever you scrapped something that did actually have an associated occlusion plane.

 

But yeah, I had a conversation with the author of the mod you are talking about. He (or his co-author) personally admitted to every single indicator of a broken precombined that has been discovered so far (then later denied admitting that those things affected their mod in the same thread), but claim that their mod still doesn't break precombineds until you try to scrap. If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, sounds like a duck, tastes like a duck, and was born to a duck mother and a duck father, it's a duck.

 

For evidence that is readily available: as anyone who plays on PC can see, when you try to select an object (with the console) that is part of a precombined you get a "Picked Non Ref AV Object" message, and you are unable to manipulate it in any way. Changing that just isn't possible. Even F4SE only adds functions to the game that mods can make use of, it wouldn't allow a complete change to one of the core optimization methods. Claiming that it can be done using an esp plugin is just silly.

 

Their mod might actually be nicer performance-wise than other mods, but if it is it is either due to the other mods not being as careful with what cells they disable precombineds/previs for, or they make use of the old manually placed occlusion that gets re-enabled when the previs system is disabled (something you can see most easily in interior cells, with the glimpses into the Void). These occlusion planes would be defined by the esp plugin, so it could be done on PS4. If you link the occlusion plane to the object it is in (something that Scrap Everything uses to let you scrap the robot idle animations in Graygarden by linking them to the Mutfruit trees supposedly being tended), you could functionally allow previs to be disabled on a per-object basis. Disabling Previs is the real performance killer in most cases, precombineds provide a relatively small performance boost in comparison. It just requires a lot more work than most people want to do (particularly if you are doing it for every cell, though most Settlements will have a negligible impact from outright disabling them even on consoles, so it would only be necessary for ones in "busier" areas like Bunker Hill and Hangman's Alley, or either interior settlement). Of note, that would actually fit with their claimed time spent on making the mod, but it would also mean it is impossible for them to not know that their mod does indeed break precombineds.

 

So to sum up, neither previs nor precombineds can be dynamically disabled in-game, but you can functionally have previs be dynamically disabled by using the older occlusion system that Bethesda never bothered to remove. It just takes time as you have to place the occlusion planes yourself.

[yakalrad]

Quack! Quack! ;P I don’t use any scrapping mods in my game anymore but when I first started modding my Xbox game, I used Scrap Fallout, which does disable pre-combineds across the map, but I never noticed any performance issues with it really. I only ditched Scrap Fallout because it became incompatible with Beantown Interiors, regardless of load order, after Chucksteel regenerated the pre-combineds in Nahant in order to bypass a water glitch that happens there. My rule is, if it messes with Beantown, it’s gone.

 

I then switched to a scrapping mod that only disables the pre-combineds in the settlement cells themselves. While this particular mod claims to not break them at all, the evidence says otherwise because of the simple fact that upon loading the mod, the houses in a few settlement cells change colors and any static paintings included in the cell, outside the build area, regain their alpha channels. This is most easily seen in Jamaica Plain where a house right outside the build area changes color when the mod is loaded, and the paintings included in the Jamaica Plain settlement cell but outside the build area, regain their alpha channels. As soon as you move out of the settlement cells, the other paintings in the area are all as you see them in vanilla, having lost their alpha channels. In addition, I know that this particular mod only breaks the pre-combines in the settlement cells themselves because none of the other texture changes are seen anywhere else in the game, outside of the settlement cells, in the places I know where to look, unlike with the old Scrap Fallout mod I used to use. Even though it denies doing so, the fact that the mod is only breaking the pre-combineds in the settlement cells only, means that it is already way ahead of any other scrapping mod available on console, and by default most definitely has better performance. Bear in mind, I tried the Automatron addon for this particular mod but had to quit using it because the frame rate inside the Mechanist Lair was too unbearable for me. That was the only place I noticed a severe impact on game performance with that mod installed. I only used it to scrap things like the leaves inside houses, the pre-placed dead bodies and the occasional shrub, but I would still recommend the use of that mod to anyone on console. It seems to me that the fact it only disables pre-combineds in the few settlement cells would be an extremely good selling point so I am not sure why there is such emphatic denial that it does so.

 

I have only once tried using the scrapping mod that lets you scrap the entire game as long as you can put down a workbench and enter workshop mode. The main reason I wanted to use it was so I could clean up the Fizztop Grille, because dang, that raider boss was a messy slob. This mod also supposedly does not break pre-combineds, however, upon loading this mod, I noticed a few issues that eventually were bothersome enough that I ended up removing it. First, I noticed the tell tale signs of broken pre-combineds by seeing the texture changes on non-destructible paintings and on some houses and buildings across the whole map, in areas not even closely associated with settlement cells. Second, a lot of interior cells were missing ceilings and walls so that you could see into the void. Third, there were culling issues in a couple of exterior locations, most notably near Custom House Tower. Fourth, I noticed a drop in frame rate in a few of the more crowded locations. And Fifth, the Nuka-World addon to this mod caused the NW bottle glitch, where the bottles in NW would become gigantic and block your view. Just to be sure these things weren’t being caused by any other mods I was using, I also tested this mod by itself on my vanilla PS4 game and got the same results. Can you explain why some of the interiors might be missing walls or ceilings and why there might be culling in some exterior locations? I assume those two issues are related to previs somehow? Could you also explain a little about the NW bottle glitch and what causes it?

[VIitS]

If other console scrap mods disable precombineds globally rather than on a cell-by-cell basis, that right there would explain significant performance difference claims, as (with the exception of "busy" ones like Bunker HIll and Hangman's Alley, and ESPECIALLY the Mechanist's Lair*) few settlements have a significant performance impact from disabling precombineds/previs. It's primarily places like in the city, where there is a ton of stuff, where you see more than a few FPS difference.

 

The "scrap anywhere" mod you mentioned definitely breaks both precombineds and previs globally (as it would have to in order to let you scrap more than a few things in non-settlement locations. The missing walls/ceilings/etc.. in interior cells is a sign of broken previs, and if Bethesda did anything weird with the old occlusion systems in exterior locations you'll get the same thing. The reason for the missing walls/ceilings/culling issues is that Bethesda left the old occlusion systems in the game, simply disabling them when previs is enabled, and enabling them in any cell where previs is disabled. Since they won't be visible without a mod doing something, they did a really sloppy job of it, as most people won't see anything and those who do will blame the mod.

 

As for the bottle glitch, barring some really weird scaling (like 50 instead of 0.50) being applied to the placed references that wasn't there when precombineds were generated (unlikely), I don't have a clue. And if it's just visual (i.e. you can walk through where the massive bottles are), it's definitely something else as scaling applied on a placed reference will actually scale the collision (whereas scaling using nifskope or using the in-game console will visually scale it, but won't affect the collision).

 

*that cell has over 27,000 references, it's insane. That performance hit is one of two reasons I regenerated precombineds/previs in The Mechanist's Lair and Vault 88. The other reason is "Glimpses of the Void" where it doesn't render an outer piece and you see the default skybox (a white glowing abyss I like to call the Void, that causes a "hall of mirrors" effect when looking in its direction). Vault 88 was particularly painful to do, probably spent 30+ hours on that cell.

[yakalrad]

@VlitS By the way, I wanted to thank you for looking into IOR earlier. Chucksteel and I have had conversations about that mod, in which he looked at it too and told me the exact same thing you did. So thanks for the confirmation. :)

[yakalrad]

The NW bottle glitch is definitely weird because you can walk thru them, there is no collision. There is a fix mod for it, available on both beth.net and here on Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/17853

I have had to use this fix mod when I tried the NW addon to the mod that allowed me to scrap everywhere. Am just really curious why this glitch happens.

[VIitS]

Looking at the bottle fix mod makes me even more confused. I just took a look, he disabled the existing placed reference and put a new reference in the exact same place, with the exact same base object, and usually double the scale (or more). I guess the reason for the bug boils down to "because Bethesda" :D.

[yakalrad]

Well, VlitS, I gotta admit, it seems I was wrong when I stated that Scrap Fallout disables precombineds globally, even though that is what I have always heard over on Beth. I have not used Scrap Fallout since December of 2016 after it became incompatible with Beantown Interiors, and that was well before I knew anything about precombineds. Out of curiosity and second guessing myself, I ran a few tests today with the old Scrap Fallout mod. The only evidence of broken precombineds that I could find anywhere were the texture swaps that happen on the houses in 4 settlements: Jamaica Plain, the house to the south right outside the build zone, turns from blue to green, and then in Somerville Place, County Crossing and Tenpines Bluff where the houses turn from gray to red. I went to all the other locations on the map that I know about, completely outside of settlements, where I can easily detect broken global precombineds by seeing the texture swaps on certain houses, and not a single one of them had changed from how they are in vanilla. Unfortunately, Scrap Fallout was abandoned long ago, and as far as I know, is only on beth.net and only on Xbox, so there is no way that anyone can look into it, but after my tests today, I feel pretty confident in saying that this mod appears to break precombineds only in settlement cells and does NOT actually break them across the whole map as it has been claimed that it does.

[yakalrad]

This is not a cult or religion, unlike some would have you believe. These are facts, and if you refuse to see them when they are right in front of your face, then you might need to re-evaluate your vision.https://bethesda.net/community/topic/197663/detecting-broken-pre-combinds-on-console Edited April 21, 2018 by yakalrad