[LE] Editing vanilla Landscape: help sought!

[cumbrianlad]

Hi.

 

This is a re-post of something I put on the SSE forum. I've got no answer there, so hoped to spread the question, since it is just as relevant to Skyrim as it is to my SSE mod... here goes nothing!

 

Generally speaking, I'd say the best way to edit vanilla landscape is not to do it at all. However, there are times when little tweaks are needed. I've hit one such area for my player home. The wilderness cell was chosen carefully so that I did not need to touch the landscape heights around the house, but at the far edge of the estate, in a small area around the 2 stables and an exterior patio with cooking pot, I had to pull the landscape down, on average about 1/4 of the height of an adult NPC (though its more like 1/2 an NPC in some areas). I also tweaked it much less than that in the area where I wanted paths through the house grounds.

 

That's the background. What I've noticed (and I've seen this on other mods) is that when placing objects or putting down navmesh points, they seem to snap to the height that the vanilla terrain was at, rather than my adjusted terrain height.

 

This tells me I'm missing something.

 

In the past, i've just ignored this and tweaked navmesh points etc, either up or down to suit the new landscape. When done, in general I've not seen NPCs having a problem with the tweaked landscape. They certainly aren't bothered by my paths. However, the horses have highlighted that a problem remains.

 

For the first stable, where the tweaks to the landscape were minimal, the horse will stand inside its stable, but can be seen to hover above the ground slightly before settling onto its linked ref x-marker heading. The second horse, where the landscape was lowered more, will not stand on its x-marker heading at all, but rather finds a place in front of the stable and as close as it can get to the marker.

 

To me, this says that both horses are trying to load on a spot above the x-marker headings and on the original landscape. The first horse does this but the second can't because it would clash with the collision of the stable roof.

 

Is there something that can be done to make CK (and the game, I guess) recognize the new heights of the landscape vertices? Does generating LOD sort this issue?

[NexBeth]

Maybe post some pictures in the CK showing this problem. If your terrain is level and you have moved your navmesh to the terrain level, or a bit below it, it should be fine. Have you deleted any navmeshes? Alternatively, when doing exterior navs, you can bring the vanilla nav for the cells you are working on completely down below the void and then re-nav all the terrain to suit for your mod.

Edited February 21, 2020 by NexBeth

[cumbrianlad]

I dragged the entire vanilla navmesh down way below the landscape and navmeshed the cell from scratch, before checking, finding cover edges and finalizing.

 

I should have thought to take a screenshot but I've since got rid of the second stable, added a patio and some unique outside cooking furniture.

 

When doing the navmesh, I'd toggled grass off, used ctrl + T to avoid picking flora and it was very noticeable that the navmesh points landed on the terrain surface where it hadn't been touched but above the surface over the areas I'd tweaked down.

 

When this happens, to place a navmesh node on the new terrain, you have to zoom in below the old terrain level, almost ubtil the camera view goes through the new terrain. then the node is placed correctly.

 

I'm convinced it's to do with altering the terrain. I don't desperately need an answer now, but I'd still like to know. I'll do a little test esp when i get time and take two shots, one of navmesh on unaltered terrain, the second of navmesh on lowered terrain. I'll posyt when I have them.

 

Thanks for answering.

[maxarturo]

" What I've noticed (and I've seen this on other mods) is that when placing objects or putting down navmesh points, they seem to snap to the height that the vanilla terrain was at, rather than my adjusted terrain height. "

NavMesh vertex snaps to the mesh's collision, the actual mesh is invisible to the game's NavMesh & havok system.

[NexBeth]

I've done tons of terrain edits on many cells. When I've had a problem, it wasn't related to the vanilla terrain. Obviously, if there is another mod tweaking the same area, that could cause that. It may be collision interfering. If you have a pic of that sometime, I'd be interested in seeing it. The one problem I've had with stables is that horses don't seem to like standing too close to each other. So, if you place them close, they tend to push away from each other.

Edited February 21, 2020 by NexBeth

[cumbrianlad]

Ignore this. Don't know what happened there. I saved the post and it didn't seem to work. Proper post below

[cumbrianlad]

So is there a way to alter the mesh, Maxarturo?

 

Nexbeth, this problem is occurring in CK on the vanilla cell.

[maxarturo]

I have never experimented or edited the vanilla teren height/depth to see how it behaves and what other things my be attached to it, so i can't help you here, and it would be irresponsible from my side to give advice on something that i know just cause i read it somewhere with no personal 100% checked experience.

What i can tell you for sure is that, as NexBeth pointed out:

- The main reason that you should never edit vanilla teren, is the existence of tens of thousands of mods out there and whatever mod places even a simple model like a fork or has any Ref in that cell / area and loads after your esp, that esp will always win over yours.

So the chances of your mod not working as intended to a large percentage of players is very high and unavoidable.

* As for the placement of the vertexs in a specific height just hold 'Z' with a vertex selected and drag it.

Edited February 22, 2020 by maxarturo

[cumbrianlad]

Hi, Maxarturo

 

You say that "the chances of your mod not working as intended to a large percentage of players is very high and unavoidable."

 

That seems a bit excessive. If a mod makes changes to my cell, they'll conflict to some extent big or small. I realise that. There are however over 3500 exterior cells in Skyrim another 300 or so in Solstheim. Add in the minor worldspaces and interiors and you've got close to 5000 cells to go at. There may be thousands of mods out there but for a large percentage to make mine unworkable means that a large percentage of mod authors have chosen to drastically edit cell Tamriel 32,-21 out of the thousands they had to choose from. Statistically speaking, I'd say there was a far higher chance that no other mod has edited that cell at all.

 

I'll take the chance and advise potential players that mods editing that cell may not be compatible with mine.

 

I was also interested by this comment "and whatever mod places even a simple model like a fork or has any Ref in that cell / area and loads after your esp, that esp will always win over yours."

 

That's interesting because until recently, I thought the exact same thing. Just a few days ago I said more or less the same thing to another modder.

 

I had always thought that if I added one thing to a cell in CK and that if another esp edited the same cell, the changes made by the first esp in the load order would not register. This is most definitely not the case. Every change made by each mod takes effect. I discovered this by chance in a discussion with a modder who will be editing the Ragged Flagon in a mod. My mod adds a trapdoor to the Flagon and I thought one of those two mods would win.. so either i get my trapdoor or the fellow modder gets their alterations. I tested that by adding a pile of barrels to the Ragged Flagon in a test esp, loaded it after my mod and both the barrels and trapdoor were there in-game and both were functional.

 

To check if this is the same for an exterior cell, where terrain has been edited, I've just done a simple test where I made another new esp, added a few pine trees and aspen trees to my exterior cell (32, -21). I then set it to load after my proper mod's esp. the result in-game? The same as with the Ragged Flagon interior cell.

 

My player house was there exactly as before, except with the addition of the trees added by the second esp. Fortunately one small aspen had been placed on the terrain where I'd reduced the height slightly in my proper mod, to give the idea of a well-worn footpath. The little tree was floating about 0.3 metres above the path. That's it. All the doors worked, even one trapdoor that was partly under the roots of a big pine tree. All the furniture functioned correctly.

 

Actually, if the big pine and small aspen had been 1 meter to one side, any player using my mod would just think that I'd put them there. The other thing that would happen is that NPCs would bang into the new trees. of course if someone had put an imperial fort in the cell, not only would my mod be unworkable, but theirs would be, too!

 

I'm not trying to be awkward here. I'm just relating what i've found.

 

I suppose I'm saying that even mods editing the same cell can co-exist. Sometimes the player won't even notice.

[maxarturo]

I do have to admit that i haven't done too much experimentation on this and my conclusion is base on one specific experiment.

- In 1st esp i moved a rock to the left, and the esp was first loaded.

- In the 2nd esp i moved the rock to the right, and the esp loaded after the 1st.

- In game the rock was in the right position.

* The exchange of knowledge between modders is that keeps me trying to help others, if more modders would take the time to do it too, the mods produced would be of a much higher quality !.

Edited February 22, 2020 by maxarturo