Crazy idea, what are your thoughts!?

[JaCkBoston]

Soooo....here I was, butthurting at the fact that Skyrim and Fallout 4 have so many loading screens for interiors and I started thinking how different games managed to fight such limitations. Then I remembered GTAIV from 2008 which used extremely aggressive and yet extremely clever system to render only a low-LOD model of a part of the world in front of the door and would only load interiors as the player opened the door, stopping rendering them after the player left. It might be tricky to pull off with all the interactive objects and NPCs, but couldn't we possible make a script which would remember the positions of dynamic objects in that interior? Of course there are problems with letting other characters to go wherever they want, but...here's an idea: we let characters go wherever they want(aka to the old cells) as they please, but as soon as player comes in close proximity to the interior, a script teleports the NPC into precise location within the actual interior where he should be!

 

I do understand that it would mean a lot of compatibility issues with different mods and that it is necessary to re-create all the markers and quest objects, but my logic tells me that it is possible albeit through a lot of work.

 

Is it even possible to apply such an object culling technique in Creation Engine? Can you, for example, create a script which would be executed by distance to a specific plain door where cells are only being loaded when you are in the direct proximity of that object? And is it possible to cull-out all the exterior cells once you entered the interior itself?

 

With all that, I would like for someone who is really into Creation Engine and all of it's intricacies to tell me what are the real engine limitations how such a system can be intelligently created?

[HeyYou]

CS doesn't give any control of cell loading, unfortunately. The scripting and such would be eminently doable, but, there are a LOT of load doors in Skyrim/Fallout 4, and I suspect the sheer number of scripts that would need to be running would be prohibitive.... Now, you could just run one script, tracking the players location, and have that one trigger specific scripts based on where the player was...... or even have the doors scripted, to trigger the 'activation' of the interior, and enable the appropriate stuff.

 

Still, that would be a LOT of work, and would be incompatible with a HOST of mods already out. (and likely a boatload more that get released while it is in the works.)

 

My personal opinion is: Yes, you could do it, would be an interesting project, however, I don't think many folks would use it, simply because of the incompatibility issues it would generate.