Problem generating precombines/visibility for adjacent cells

[adb3nj]

I'm trying to modify one of the stands in Diamond City, which requires me to break the precombines/visibility of three cells arranged in an L shape. Precombining the geometry of one cell then generating visibility works fine, but when I do it on a second or third cell, visibility isn't generated correctly. Is there some trick to it that I'm missing? I've not tried precombining the geometry of all the loaded cells simultaneously, but that seems like a bad idea given I only need three of 12 or so.

 

I'm currently doing precombine geometry for current cell --> generate visibility for all loaded cells --> generate precombined visibility for all loaded cells.

 

Edit: Looking through the mod on FO4Edit, it looks like some of the precombines cross the cell boundaries, i.e. there are references to the same precombine in cell 1 and cell 2. That must be what's breaking it. So I guess if I can just load those two cells, I should precombine the geometry for them simultaneously? Is that the solution?

 

Edit 2: I loaded the four cells containing the three I needed and combined the geometry from all of them; visibility was better but still not perfect. It also, I think, meant some stuff was missed that didn't load because the render area was too small. Sigh.

Edited April 19, 2021 by adb3nj

[aurreth]

On an exterior cell you don't want "precombine for current cell", you want "precombine for loaded area". The "current cell" is for interior cells, where altering the cell has no impact on neighboring cells, because there aren't any neighboring cells.

 

"Loaded area" does not just the cell you are changing, but all adjacent cells too, just in case something crosses the border. And believe me, lots of stuff crosses the border, or flat out is in your cell but belongs to a neighboring one. I run into interior debris piles that are on the first floor, but were created in the layer for the 3rd floor, making deleting them impossible without breaking things and requiring new precombines.

 

Also, I'm not sure it makes a difference, but make sure all layers of the cells you changed are visible. I mean logically it shouldn't matter, but the CK is hardly logical.

[adb3nj]

Thanks! Hypothetically though, if you're doing something out in the Commonwealth, does that not mean you're going to have to load and precombine the whole Commonwealth?

[aurreth]

The default is a 3x3 grid, which works out to the cell and the 8 cells surrounding it. And no, the whole world is broken up into cells, which explains the huge number of cells just named "Wilderness".

 

Of course there is a precombine menu item for the entire world, and one for all interior cells. I hate to think how long that would take, or how many times you'd CTD and have to start over.

[adb3nj]

Ooh okay, I think I see. So in my case, I should be able to load a 4x4 grid, which would be the three cells I've edited plus all the cells surrounding them, and precombine across the whole thing? By default, my Creation Kit actually loads a 5x5 grid, which I've tried precombining across and it seems to have done the job. I don't want to create any unnecessary files though.

[aurreth]

Give it a shot. I think you could probably just double click on the cell you edited, let it load, then pick Precombine Geometry Loaded Area. The CK will have already loaded the adjacent cells, unless of course it's an interior cell where there aren't any adjacent cells.

[adb3nj]

Okay, cool. Thanks for your help :)

[aurreth]

Hope I got it right and it works. If your computer starts displaying "Launch Sequence Initiated" just remember I was never here.