GECK Crash when load custom cells

[1BlueRainbow]

Hi everyone i've builded a big mod with lots of interiors and worldspaces... but now i don't know why it crahes while loading... for example...

 

loading references 150 than crash, restart geck loading references 104 than crash... everytime.

[madmongo]

Is your mod larger than 16 MB?

 

All objects in the game (NPCs, clutter items, creatures, statics, etc) are referenced by a two digit hex number that specifies the mod, and an offset into the mod that is specified by a 6 digit hex number. For example, purified water is 000151a3 which is 00 (fallout.esm) and offset 0151a3. The biggest offset you can have is ffffff which is 16 MB (minus 1). Once you exceed 16 MB and add an object, NPC, creature, etc. you break the mod. The GECK gives you no warning, no indication at all of an error, but your mod will crash the GECK and it will crash the game.

 

If you want to make a mod with multiple world spaces using the GECK the way normal folks use the GECK, you are going to have to split up your mod into multiple files, making sure that you never add an object or reference above the 16 MB boundary in any of the files. Terrain painting and navmeshes can go above the 16 MB boundary.

 

I have figured out a way to create multiple world spaces in a single file, but it involves setting up the GECK in a way that normal users don't normally have it set up. The documentation for it on the net is sparse, cryptic, incomplete, and flat out wrong in places. Some time when I have a lot more time I'll document it all properly.

[EPDGaffney]

I...didn't know this, haha. Glad I never intended to make actual worldspaces. That terrain stuff looks like the biggest headache the GECk has to offer.

[madmongo]

Oh, it gets even better. Not only is the terrain stuff the biggest headache in the GECK, it's also one of the buggiest parts of the GECK.

 

The first thing you do is create a new worldspace. Simple enough. Fill in the blanks. Then you go and edit your heightmap. And that crashes the GECK. No, what you need to do is create a new worldspace. Save your mod. Then EXIT THE GECK AND START IT AGAIN because if you don't, it will crash and you'll be starting it again anyway. Now you can edit your heightmap. Stupid GECK.

 

So now you decide to edit your heightmap. You start with the default that the GECK gives you, and you make some mountains and valleys and stuff. Then you save your heightmap. And it crashes the GECK. You see, there's a little secret that the GECK doesn't tell you. You need to have every bit of landscape above a certain level or the GECK just crashes.

 

Now you go to look at your new landscape in the render window, and you see... absolutely nothing. See, there's another bug in the GECK. If there aren't any objects on the landscape, the GECK renders water above the landscape and you can't see anything. So you have to place something in the landscape, then go to some other worldspace or interior or something so that the render window can sort itself out again, then you can finally go back to your new landscape where you placed that object, and NOW it finally renders.

 

So now you've learned all of these tricks, you edit your landscape, you create a bunch of stuff, and you generate LOD for your new worldspace. And lo and behold, all of your distant trees are floating up in the sky. Because that is yet another bug in the GECK. It doesn't generate LOD properly unless your entire landscape is above another particular height (about 14,000 or so), which the GECK doesn't tell you about and never gives you an error about. Except now you have lots and lots of hours in your mod because LOD generation is one of the last things that you do.

 

At some point you try to navmesh your entire new worldspace. It's a really big worldspace with lots of cells, so it's a royal pain to navmesh each cell. Here you find out that the default settings for generating navmeshes will typically navmesh right across a fence, but will block on a piece of road. Hey GECK, isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Arrgghh (as an aside, using heightmap generation mode works a LOT better). Oh, but wait, there's an automatic navmesh generator under the Regions section. Except that it is THE MOST BUGGY THING IN THE ENTIRE GECK. I have had it navmesh the entire area OUTSIDE of the area you want it to navmesh, completely leaving the area you wanted to navmesh untouched. Oh, and by the way, it completely rips out whatever navmeshing you had before in your mod, so hope you saved a backup somewhere because otherwise it's gone. Oh, but don't worry. The auto navmesher doesn't always navmesh outside where you want it to. No, more often it just completely locks up with an infinite "Get Jean" popup error box that you can't get rid of because it just pops up again. Seriously, the error box just says "Get Jean". After some googling I found out that Jean was the pathing coder and this was a debug message that was never removed from the GECK. The auto-navmesher also completely hangs up when it encounters an SCOL. I have had the auto navmesher manage to navmesh a large (and very simple) landscape once. And only once. These days I don't even bother to try and use it. I just navmesh cell by cell. It's quicker and less frustrating.

 

And this is just the stuff that I remember off the top of my head.

 

There's a reason I often say that the GECK is really a secret vault-tec experiment designed to test modder's frustration levels.

[EPDGaffney]

That was a wonderful rant. I was going to place an image of a 'chef kiss' but then I found out by looking for one that everyone already does it, so I didn't.

 

I've read a lot of this before, and it has thoroughly scared me away from bothering. I do have worldspaces, but never anything with the terrain editor; it's all fake exteriors. You can't always get by with those, but I made sure never to bother with anything like that, because I do not want to deal with anything you have delineäted in your post. I will go so far as to model my own terrain pieces and drop them in the dirt or rocks. I can't imagine that's anywhere near the turmoil of using the GECK's standard method.

 

'Get Jean' was new to me. That may be my favourite bad thing in the entire editor. That is so lovely, I do not know how to cope.

[Mktavish]

Actually I've been starting to like the world creation tools. Ya they is a bi@tch though.

 

And my maps are 4x4 6x6 8x8 so far. Campaign maps I guess you could call them.

 

But WheW! ... just those smallish area's ... lots of attention needed to detail .

 

Map makers are at a premium with this engine ... it seems to me ;)

[1BlueRainbow]

@Madmongo i use TTW in my mod... and the thing about the 16mb+ is a little strange. Right now my mod is around 30MB but times ago... when it was already 20MB i didn't have this problem... this thing just happened the last 2-3 times i've used it.... when load my cells it always freeze. What could i do?

[madmongo]

You can make a mod that is larger than 16 MB. Like I said, navmeshing and terrain textures can be above the 16 MB limit and that doesn't cause issues. I don't know if conversations and quests can be above 16 MB but I think they can. It's only when you add objects (anything with a reference ID or object ID) that it breaks.

 

Whenever I have had the problem, I have always gone back to a previous save of my mod to get out of it. The GECK can't load the mod once it is broken so you can't fix it in the GECK. I haven't tried fixing it with FNVEdit but that might give you an option.

 

I have created quite a few mods for TTW. There's nothing inherent in TTW that creates large mods, so from that point of view your mod is no different than any other mod. It can be as large or small as you want. If you are going to make a large mod though, make sure you add all of your objects, NPCs, etc. before the mod exceeds 16 MB. Then do all of your navmeshing and texture painting after that, and once you exceed 16 MB don't add any more objects. If you need to add more objects you can make a second mod that depends on the first one.

[1BlueRainbow]

You can make a mod that is larger than 16 MB. Like I said, navmeshing and terrain textures can be above the 16 MB limit and that doesn't cause issues. I don't know if conversations and quests can be above 16 MB but I think they can. It's only when you add objects (anything with a reference ID or object ID) that it breaks.

Whenever I have had the problem, I have always gone back to a previous save of my mod to get out of it. The GECK can't load the mod once it is broken so you can't fix it in the GECK. I haven't tried fixing it with FNVEdit but that might give you an option.

I have created quite a few mods for TTW. There's nothing inherent in TTW that creates large mods, so from that point of view your mod is no different than any other mod. It can be as large or small as you want. If you are going to make a large mod though, make sure you add all of your objects, NPCs, etc. before the mod exceeds 16 MB. Then do all of your navmeshing and texture painting after that, and once you exceed 16 MB don't add any more objects. If you need to add more objects you can make a second mod that depends on the first one.

 

The GECK load the mod properly it doesn't crash. I can edit weapons npc scripts quest. it only crashes when i load cells, where it freezes while loading references...

Edited September 6, 2018 by 1BlueRainbow

[1BlueRainbow]

Ok i've tried to load the esp without the "active plugin" and it works good. But ingame it doesn't load my objects. Than i converted the mod in ESM and inside the geck when i place an object it freeze...