Dolly Zoom Bug (Help Wanted)

[Choreese]

Scroll down to my comment on this topic if you just want to help (it's quick and easy) and don't care about the rest

 

Problem Validation:

 

Meshes and parts of meshes that are farther away from the player clip through meshes and parts of meshes that are closer to the player when the player is far away from the object.

They move back into place when the player comes closer.

It doesn’t seem to happen in original Skyrim at first glance.

 

This bug is reproduceable.

 

As of now, this effect is confirmed by 3 different sources.

 

SkyBeRoads structure clips through bridge near Whiterun

 

Vertical structures of Hearth in Fort Greymoor clipping through horizontal structure of Hearth (Left is modded so you can see it better, right is unmodded)

 

Face of Stairwell clips through outermost layer of Rift Watchtower

 

Face of Stairwell clips through outermost layer of the Western Watchtower near Whiterun

 

Other stuff clips through the outermost layer of the Western Watchtower near Whiterun, you can clearly see the stairs clipping through in the first two pictures

 

Extra:

http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim/1/1d/Sky_westtower.jpg

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2077?tab=images&BH=1

Hypothesis:

In the 64-bit version of Skyrim, the position of meshes is somehow in relation with the position of the player but there is something wrong in this relation.

Fixes:

- Bethesda rewrites the engine to fix this bug

- Modders tediously fix every object where this bug happens

- Install already available mods that change the affected meshes (which ones?)

How to help:

- Check for this bug in your game (Both Oldrim and Newrim)

- Improve upon my hypothesis

- Improve upon my fixes

Thank you for reading :smile:

Edited June 8, 2018 by Choreese

[Choreese]

Sorry to necro this post but I really want this problem confirmed in other people's games or confirmed that it isn't there which is really easy to do.

 

I don't think it's a lod issue because the player character is too close to the objects for the lod to kick in (especially with the hearth).
It isn't a mod issue because these things also happen in fresh reinstalled vanilla Skyrim SE.

 

To me it seems that meshes are linked to the player character in the skyrim engine and it really impacts my immersion so I would like to see this adressed or at least acknowledged by Bethesda.

The problem however is that Bethesda is going to ignore this unless there is some substantial evidence that the bug is inherent to the game itself and nothing else.

 

Right now this bug is confirmed by three different sources including myself which isn't enough.

 

How to help? (did I tell you it's very easy to do):

 

- Start up your game and on the menu screen: open up the console, type "coc whiterunexterior01" and hit enter (this won't affect your game stability or corrupt your saves or anything)

- Run towards the western watchtower, normally you should see the seam in the tower if you approach from around the same angle I did (see the first screenshots of the western watchtower for reference in the post above)

- Take a screenshot whether you see the seam or not and post them here (you can upload the screenshots on your nexus profile and use that link to post them here)

- Congratulations, you helped me and I'm very thankful

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

- If you want to help more: run towards Fort Greymoor, go inside, find a hearth and look for squares appearing and disappearing when you move closer (see the screenshots above for reference) and post the screenshots here

- Congratulations, you are awesome!

 

- You want to help even more?: Do the same things as above but after you've disabled your mods

- Congratulations, you are a freaking hero. Thank you very much!

 

- Do you want to go all the way and are in posession of oldrim?: Do all above again but in oldrim

- You massive legend, I couldn't do this myself because I don't have oldrim

[Crosstieger]

I'm going to write that sort of comment. Here we go!

 

Seriously your ocd is triggered by THAT? I never noticed anything like that and had to look twice at some of your screenshots to understand what you mean. Also the last two screenshots look like as if you are running on a low render distance. If this breaks your immersion, than I'm sorry for you. If this would be an actually problem I think the community would have already picked up on this.

[Choreese]

I'm going to write that sort of comment. Here we go!

 

Seriously your ocd is triggered by THAT? I never noticed anything like that and had to look twice at some of your screenshots to understand what you mean. Also the last two screenshots look like as if you are running on a low render distance. If this breaks your immersion, than I'm sorry for you. If this would be an actually problem I think the community would have already picked up on this.

Looks like someone is having a really bad day. By the time you finished writing that comment, you could have actually helped me out so gg mate.

 

You think I didn't notice that no one was helping? I thought maybe they were put off because they didn't know how to help. So I bumped with extra information and you get triggered by THAT?

 

I get that you don't want to help but why do you have to be such a tough guy about it? Do you harass everyone on the forums who posts about things that aren't "an actually problem"?

 

Like what do you expect me to do here? Do you think that next time I have a problem, I won't post it here because someone might somehow get irritated? Do you expect me to also become a sour person and start telling others that their problems aren't real. So tell me what the purpose of your comment was, I'm curious.

 

(btw: Those last screenshots are indeed low render distance because I was trying to see if anything affected this problem at all)

[Crosstieger]

 

I'm going to write that sort of comment. Here we go!

 

Seriously your ocd is triggered by THAT? I never noticed anything like that and had to look twice at some of your screenshots to understand what you mean. Also the last two screenshots look like as if you are running on a low render distance. If this breaks your immersion, than I'm sorry for you. If this would be an actually problem I think the community would have already picked up on this.

Looks like someone is having a really bad day. By the time you finished writing that comment, you could have actually helped me out so gg mate.

 

 

Nope, good day fo far. Thanks for asking.

 

 

 

 

You think I didn't notice that no one was helping? I thought maybe they were put off because they didn't know how to help. So I bumped with extra information and you get triggered by THAT?

 

Aha.. going to some location and taking screenshot definitly needs a good instruction. Nobody could have possible guessed what to do.

 

 

 

 

I get that you don't want to help but why do you have to be such a tough guy about it? Do you harass everyone on the forums who posts about things that aren't "an actually problem"?

 

Like what do you expect me to do here? Do you think that next time I have a problem, I won't post it here because someone might somehow get irritated? Do you expect me to also become a sour person and start telling others that their problems aren't real. So tell me what the purpose of your comment was, I'm curious.

 

It's funny how you think that someone posting a negative comment instantly is only here to "harass" people. But yes we live in 2018 so I should have expected such a reaction shouldn't I?

 

You make this issue up like it is the next big problem that will plaque this game for centuries and nobody will do anything about it. It's the beginning of the end. That's how I read your topic.

 

But I will stop here because this is so much OT. So yea, good luck with your problem.

[xLolzi]

Thanks to mr negative comment over there, I saw your topic and decided to help.

 

The following pictures are on a newly istalled vanilla with the game set to low quality bc my machine is not that strong.

The dark line on the tower only appeard when the distant LOD is replaced by the actual building.

On the fireplace, the left square always appears first when you move back and I also got some smoke flickering

 

Ok, I can't seem to attach the pictures but I uploaded them on my profile

[Choreese]

Thanks to mr negative comment over there, I saw your topic and decided to help.

 

The following pictures are on a newly istalled vanilla with the game set to low quality bc my machine is not that strong.

The dark line on the tower only appeard when the distant LOD is replaced by the actual building.

On the fireplace, the left square always appears first when you move back and I also got some smoke flickering

 

Ok, I can't seem to attach the pictures but I uploaded them on my profile

Thanks man, I might try editing the .nif in blender when I've got some more free time to see if that helps.

[jones177]

Hi

 

To me this is a Monday morning mapping job in 3ds Max.

 

I took a look at them with the game set at ultra at 4k resolution. At those settings they are thin lines that can only be seen at certain angles.

 

Bethesda has always had an issue with quality control. Some works are brilliant & some are below average, all in the same sene. I would not be surprised if they used unsupervised interns to do some of the work.

 

Companies like cd projekt red have really good quality control. Witcher 3 looks like it was created by one artist and that is the way it should be.

 

Sometimes these errors can be fixed in PhotoShop if it was sloppy uvw wrap editing.

 

Later

[Choreese]

I did some more testing and the problem seems to happen when a texture is layered over another "base" texture.

For example:
"impextdecals01.dds" is added to the mesh of the whiterun western watchtower (on top of the base texture I guess) and is causing the dark line you see ingame and in my screeshots.
Deleting this texture removes the dark line from the game and painting it pink makes it's effects more clear. By painting it pink, I saw that there were many more areas affected by this texture and what actually happens.

What happens is that when the player or just the camera (using tfc) moves backwards (or any other direction), those textures (that are on top of other textures), move along with the player which causes them to clip through other meshes and textures.
This was very noticeable when I painted the "impextdecals01.dds" pink, as the whole tower got more and more engulfed by pink when I moved backwards.
Pink textures even clipped through the ground textures when I moved a bit back and stood on a hill, these were coming from a part of the tower below the ground.

This problem seems to affect all textures that are layered on another texture (with vanilla textures in Skyrim SE) because you also see it happening in my SkyBeRoads and hearth screenshots (in post above), and I saw the same thing happening with "wrcitywalltopcap01.dss" clipping through the ground as I moved the camera towards the sky.

Hi

To me this is a Monday morning mapping job in 3ds Max.

I took a look at them with the game set at ultra at 4k resolution. At those settings they are thin lines that can only be seen at certain angles.

Bethesda has always had an issue with quality control. Some works are brilliant & some are below average, all in the same sene. I would not be surprised if they used unsupervised interns to do some of the work.

Companies like cd projekt red have really good quality control. Witcher 3 looks like it was created by one artist and that is the way it should be.

Sometimes these errors can be fixed in PhotoShop if it was sloppy uvw wrap editing.

Later

Thank you very much for the input.

Since I now found out exactly what is happening and which kind of textures are affected, could it still be the result of sloppy uvw wrapping? (as I'm not familiar with what uvw wrapping is)
If it is, do you have any idea about how to fix it in PhotoShop or have a link to resources where I can learn to fix it?

 

Edit: You can see images of a few of my tests on my profile

Edited June 12, 2018 by Choreese

[jones177]

Hi

 

UVW wrapping is the process used in 3Ds Max to add textures in the style that is used in video games. Video game mapping is different form the types of mapping used in other industries & is a much longer & harder process. It is a painstaking process that I quite frankly don't like. I have not used it since 2005. That being the last time I was involved in video game content.

 

On the tower it looks like the map is misaligned. It could be just a pixel width.

After mapping an object, all you have to go by is the OpenGL preview & test renders. You don't really know if the map is a success until you have the object in-game. Than you are a long way from the mapping process. Tweaking the maps/textures in Photoshop takes minutes and can sometime fix minor problems. If I was unable the fix the issue in Photoshop I would have to play with polygons/meshes, remap the area & hope that the animations(if any) didn't disappear in the conversion. They did 50% of the time. Stuff of nightmares.

 

As far as I am concerned the best way to learn the type of 3D used in games is to reskin existing objects(repaints) and at the same time get a student copy of 3ds max(or use Blender) & view some object & mapping tutorials on Youtube. Get simple objects in game & go from there.

 

Later