Gone blind......(Fr. McKenzie always said I would)

[labrat]

Odd problem in FO3. Everytime I look at Alicia of Alicia's Cute Shop in it she has black patches over her face/hair and if I don't get out pronto (2-3-seconds) I lose my vision. It doesn't seem to be a missing mesh or texture as I get glimpses of the hair/face/glasses before it all goes black.

 

Still got the sound and pip display and can talk to her, call menus etc. but completely blind. It persists if I do manage to stumble away and if I load a save game from the esc. Menu. I'm still blind. I have to quit and reload, (via Lourdes I presume).

 

It doesn't seem to be the cell. I've managed to explore the whole shop at various times while she was in the shower, or in the basement. If I turn the graphics resolution down low the black splodges are more confined to the ends of her hair and I can get enough time to persuade her to follow me outside before it all goes dark.

 

Anyone else seen this and/or know a quick fix? Scr00gle isn't much help as this isn't the "black screen of death" problem.

 

This is what it looks like (briefly).

 

 

 

Load order until this bug is fixed is

 

Fallout3.esm

...dlc...

Sharing and Caring Companions.esm

EnhancedChildren.esm

AliciasCuteShop.esm

SCC - Talk to Anyone.esp

AliciasCuteShopDoorOverride.esp

 

The esps are mastered.

 

(PS am using latest NVidia GeForce driver)

[Kodiak]

Could be a hardware issue. Maybe there is a lighting/shading effect in the store that you're system config has an issue with. I think there were some cards that did have black screen issues early on, but there should be patches availible for them. Maybe a driver update is in order? The big question is, do you get the screenback if you were to leave the store and back into worldspace?

[gregathit]

You might try reinstalling COTW again and make sure you have the latest patch.

Link: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1903

Note: more armor has been made by the same guys:

Link: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14759

 

If all else fails you might pop over to the main site (link below) and post your question as they can probably hunt things down since they made the mod

Link: http://childrenofcyrodiil.com/forums/index.php

 

Note: you will need to register at the site to get anywhere.

[Mashi]

Have you checked to make sure that your mastered esp's are cleaned and not causing conflicts? FO3 was...a messy POS especially when it came to a lot of esming stuff. I've run across the black texture of doom problem before myself, either a full reinstall, or reinstalling the mod/textures usually fixes it. But I've always found it coming down to a conflict, or a corrupt texture.

 

If it is driver related though like Kodiak mentioned it's easy enough to check, and fast enough to swap them around. So it's always worth it to check that out too.

[labrat]

Ta all.

 

It's definitely a hair related problem.

 

Step one was check .nif and .dds installed and in right places. OK, and GECK displays it fine.

 

Step two was check the drivers - I had only just upped to the latest but it was a beta at that time, now stable version. Reinstalled just to be sure. No change.

 

Step three. Found someone with very very similar problem, also in FO3, on their laptop, they reckoned it was overheating and cleaning out dust did the trick, so I gave the internals a bit of a blow and vacuum. No change.

 

Step four. Change the offending hairstyle to one of the vanillas. Bingo.

 

Step five. Find out that some other non-vanilla hairstyles (i.e. on Raider Kiddies) do the same thing. Change them and bingo again.

 

Looks like some of the exotic hairstyles screw with my graphics. Sigh.

 

EDIT:

 

Step Six. do what Gregathit suggests and look at the original modders website. Several other people have reported the same problem and it turns out that a quick fix is to switch screen effect HDR to None. Bingo! Ta Greg. Now I have to decide whether I want glorious sunsets or fancy hairdos....