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Morroblivion static collision meshes and Havok materials.

Submitted by Valtallan on

Over the course of five or six hours, I've learned how to create static collision for meshes, of all the models I've edited for Morroblivion so far, the collision is far more accurate no slowdowns have been experienced, and best of all, I haven't crashed the game! I'll be continuing to work on this project whenever I have the time (Which, in between school and helping my family, should be a good four to six hours a day.), but I'm not foolish enough to make guarantees (That way if I spontaneously drop dead, no ones disappointed.). I will of course be testing them to the best of my abilities, and if anyone is interested in testing the tilesets as I release them, I'd be very thankful (Free imaginary cookies!). For those interested in testing, I'd like at least one person with a below average rig for Oblivion (I know we have a few of you guys around.) to make absolutely sure there is no difference in frame rates.

When testing:

Keep in mind that I am creating this using the complete installation option by Thermador. It may or may not work correctly for a self-done custom installation.

Please bring arrows, use these to ensure that materials behave appropriately. (As in arrows stick in them if they should and they make appropriate sounds when stepped on and\or struck with a melee weapon.)

Please bring physics enabled objects (Or simply kill an enemy in the appropriate area.) to judge whether the collision is improperly aligned in an area, this is simply done by dropping (Or killing an enemy.) in the area you wish to check and watching to see if it floats above or sinks below the ground. If neither happens then the collision is properly aligned. You may wish to move your chosen object (Or corpse.) around afterwards by holding the X key to drag it around.

What this will mean if I am successful:

  • No more losing loot/corpses through the floor.
  • No more sinking ankle-deep in a rock.
  • No more getting stuck on an object three inches away from you.
  • Corrected havok materials on meshes. ( I've even managed to achieve separate havok materials on multiple-part meshes, something that is apparently fairly difficult with collision meshes.)

Tileset in progress: On hold.

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Last edited by Valtallan on 9 May 2013 - 13:45.

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Start with the Oblivion rocks used in Morroblivion

there are replacment rocks for the in game Morroblivion 1s there is 3 ifnot 4 lots

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XD, thanks for jumping on board so quickly, I'd estimate the first tileset will be done sometime tomorrow. Although its possible that I'll have to postpone it till after the weekend.

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Take a look at the cave floor near Seyda Neen if you're going to do any collision meshing for cell spaces. The gold and some enchanted ring fall through the floor every time I go there after I disrupt them and their havok kicks in (though this could just be a placement issue).

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No, that's definitely the collision on the moldy cave tileset, and its also the first tileset I've chosen, lucky for you.

EDIT: Roxon, I'll be glad to check these rocks over, if you know their locations in the CS I'd appreciate you posting the name and directory of the mesh used by them.

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Thanks for working on this. What program do you use for editing nifs?

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After looking over the process for creating collision meshes in blender, NIFskope, and an older free program called Gmax (Made by the same people as 3Ds max.). I found that the simplest and least time-consuming process could be done with a combination of Gmax and NIFskope. This method takes roughly a minute to do on any mesh and produces collision that is much more accurate than the originals.

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I'm just curious, in which format do you save collision meshes? Most of the current Morroblivion meshes use bhkNiTriStripsShape blocks. I think I read somewhere that MOPP shapes are better for performance on statics (but can't find the link now).

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Well, I found that one of the peculiarities of getting multiple havok materials on a single mesh required that I start with bhkNiTriStripsShape blocks, then, once exported from Gmax, use NIFSkope to turn those blocks into bhkPackedNiTriStripsShape blocks. Exporting a mesh using bhkPackedNiTriStripsShape blocks causes Gmax to crash, so NIFSkope is necessary. Everything I've found so far insists that MOPP shapes cannot be assigned multiple havok materials.

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Ok, as far as those rocks go Roxon, after I unpacked them from the oblivion meshes .BSA, I opened them up and their collision seemed moderately accurate, I'm not seeing anything that should cause the problems you are seeing. Do you have versions of these meshes that did not come from the default oblivion meshes .BSA? If so please attach them to a file and link them to me.

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No nothing extra all standard Oblivion and Morroblivion Files

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Well, I'll run them through my process and see if it changes anything for you.

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Everything I've found so far insists that MOPP shapes cannot be assigned multiple havok materials.

Yeah, I think that's true. Are there a lot of meshes that require multiple materials?

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There are a fair amount. Cave exits for example, have a wooden doorway and the stone part of the mesh that surrounds it.

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Could streching out the rocks as far as they have been streched cause Problems

CHRock390 in CSE Size 285 in Morroblivion 01853822 XSCL-Scale 5.8

OBTalonrocklg04 in CSE Size 749 in Morroblivion 0184451A XSCL-Scale 3.

colud be why the textures looked Streched on most of the Oblivion rocks

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Oh, well if the mesh gets enlarged to much then a small dip in the collision can become a four foot pit.

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Why are there Oblivion rocks anyway? We've got more than enough Morrowind rocks.

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I don't know,  its possible that some rocks were corrupted in conversion and someone made placeholders.

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Apologies for the delays, I took some time to survey my workload (Somewhere around four thousand meshes so far.) yesterday and prioritized. I'll be releasing containers alongside the moldy cave tileset so this may take longer than I estimated. I'm also pausing here and there to learn the different types of collision, such as physics-enabled collision.

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I am making good progress on this project, however, it occurs to me that I may have to put off testing until summer. I will not release these without testing them myself, as they could potentially be game-breaking. I will be working on these any chance I get, but odds are I won't be releasing them until Summer or somewhere around that time. This time will also allow me a chance to go over everything again and make sure I've properly added collision on the completed meshes, as well as a chance to learn forms of collision other than static. Please be patient with me  in this time.

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Just letting you guys know I should be able to resume working on this in a week or two. Thanks for being patient. Hopefully nobody put me in the makes-big promises-and-leaves category.

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