SSE Nifskope mash-ups: collision and optimization.

[cumbrianlad]

Hi.

 

I'm wanting to make several new dwemer bridges, complete with hitch-posts (without silly broken rings) and railings.

 

I've got my meshes and altered textures where necessary, plus I've removed the hitch-post rings since I don't want them. All of these are static items with collision.

 

My method:

 

Open up, say the hitch-post nif. Select the post in the window. Right click and Block: Copy branch.

Open up the bridge nif. In 0BSFadeNode, Block: Paste branch.

Rename the newly created BStriShape to a unique name.

Select the new shape in the render window.

Used Transform\edit, re-size and move into position.

I then select the new tri shape in the bridge nif, right click and Block: Copy Branch then paste it into 0BSfadeNode.

Rinse and repeat until the bridge is complete with a hand rail on either side... looks cool!

 

Collision question...

 

In game, the bridges look fine but neither the posts nor rails have any collision... the player can walk right through them and fall off!

How do I go about adding collision in Nifscope? Or did my copy/paste method miss something? I could always put a collision barrier around them set to L_static but surely that's not necessary and just gives the game more to load.

 

Optimization question.

 

Even if I sort the collision, the nif made by this method has 20 separate tri shapes being 8 posts and 12 railings. To my mind, this can't be good for the game to render, can it?

 

I'd rather the 8 posts were all in one block (so that clicking on any one of them in the render window selects them all). They all share the same textures(DwemerStoneFloor04). The same goes for the railings. They are all identical (except for a slight scale difference between lower and upper rails) and also share the same textures (DweMetalTiles03 and bronze cube map). I can't see how to paste in one post/railing and make the rest of the posts/railings children of the first.

 

For reference, these are the nifs I'm working with:

 

Dungeons\Dwemer\Platforms|HitchPost01.nif

Dungeons\Imperial\Jail\ImpJailPole01

Dungeons\Dwemer\Façade\DweFacadeBridge01 etc (I need a few of the bridges)

 

 

[thumbincubation]

I don't know if this is the "right" way to do it, but when I'm combining statics, I just copy the entire smaller mesh over, rather than just the one branch. That takes its collision with it. Then I will run the optimize and sanitize spells before I save. I've never messed with any animated pieces, though.

[cumbrianlad]

thanks thumbincubation.

 

I was following Elianora's tutorial for mashups. She did it as I outlined above. I guess it was alright for what she was doing, ie adding bottles and tankards to a table top... collision hardly matters for that, since the player will bang into the table which still has its collision blocks. My players would fall off the edge into pools of boiling water and lose stacks of health or die if they don't get out fast enough.

 

I guess you're meaning copy the 0BSfadeNode for the smaller item, so that it takes over the BHK collision object?

 

If this works fine for you it should be OK for me since I'm just using statics.

 

I'd still like to know how to have a nif with just 6 tri shapes, ie the original 4 for the bridge plus 'posts' and 'railings'... or do the spells you mention sort that out? Which sanitise and optimise spells should I be using?

[thumbincubation]

I'm not super skilled with it, so I just run all the sanitizing and a few of the optimizing, but that's what seems to work for me, copying the branch of the 0 BS fade node from the hitching post directly into the 0 BS fade node of the bridge. Hit show collision and they should both have collision then.

 

Then I do Spells > optimize

 

- Combine properties

- Remove bogus nodes, and

- Remove unused strings

 

After that, I use Spells > sanitize, and just go through them in order. (I believe you can just do file > auto sanitize before save, but I'm not 100% sure it does all the same things.)

 

That should bring the nodes under control for you. This may not be the "right way" to do it, but it has worked for me in the past. I was using the other method, trying to add cabins and superstructures to the nord longboats, and when I got in game, I was able to walk through the walls. Fiddled with different things, until I found this to work, and it seems to function well in game.

[thumbincubation]

Also, I don't know if you're aware, but Oldrim statics allow you a little more freedom in shaping. If you right click on the NiTriShapes > transform > scale vertices, you can shrink or enlarge in one direction, without changing the other dimensions like scaling does. If I want to change things with statics, I will often try to use them, then just run them through the optimizer when I'm ready to use.

[cumbrianlad]

Thanks a bundle for that, thumbincubation. I'll tinker around with them.

 

The point about the Oldrim nifs is one I wasn't aware of and would have been really useful for the spiral hand-rails where I wanted some longer rails with the same cross-section. It took me 3 hours to get one spiral ramp to look right, moving, scaling and rotating all the fence posts and railings around the spirals! Most of that was down to constantly having to resize each set of railings! If I could just have got the position and angles right and stretched or shrunk the railings to suit it would have been far quicker.

 

Edit: just a comment for anyone reading this with similar issues. Thumbincubation's method works fine but when using 'transform : edit ' on the new blocks, use it on the new BSfadeNode, not the tri shape, otherwise it leaves the collision behind at the point the BSfadeNode was inserted into the nif! Also be careful of moving any tri shapes in a mash up that have collision associated with them. Edit the fade node, not the tri shape!

 

For me, this meant I could run through my fence posts but 'bang into' them half-way across the cell!

 

This also explains a fault that was driving me scatty in one of my cells where I'd made a mash-up and translated the original object (a dwemer fire-pillar) as part of my mash up. I placed the new item on a table top in the cell but in-game, both the player and NPCs banged into the collision for the pillar somewhere in the middle of the floor! I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong.

 

I've got a bit of work to do... doh!

[thumbincubation]

Ouch, that invisible roadblock. I once shrunk one of those nord dragon statues down to shelf size, the wrong way, and basically walled off 3/4 of breezehome. >.<