Custom Jetpack Mod - Crashing and Nif problems

[Nexussfire]

Hey there LoversLab people!  

 So I've been working on adding a jetpack to Fallout 4 for two weeks now.. and I've had a real frustrating time of it so far.  I've gotten as far as getting what I thought was a working nif all the way into Creation Kit with the material showing up correctly and everything, created the Armor Mod info  and it shows up in the armor crafting station list just fine.

 But as soon as I try to create it, the game crashes.  I've dug around the internet as much as I can to try and find out what is going on, and have sought out help on the NexusMods forums and reddit, and never got any response.  But as far as I can tell, there's either a problem with my NIF*  or something else is just fracked on this whole thing.

 

*Note: The version of nifskope I'm using (2.0.0 Pre-Alpha 5)  crashes as soon as I assign my material info to the mesh in the BSLightingShaderProperty field. If I mispell part of the path and the change it to the correct path  (I.E: Incorrect- Materias\Actors\JetpackMod\mymaterial.bgsm to the Correct- Materials\Actors\JetpackMod\MyMaterial.Bgsm )  then save the nif, it works and I can get it to show up in Creation Kit without any crashes from Nifskope or the aforementioned CK.

 

 Basically my process has been : Build mesh in 3DS Max + Create UV Template > Paint Mesh in Substance Painter > Create base texture data > create material and apply custom texture info>  export from 3DS Max as OBJ > Open Outfit Studio with Default FO4 jetpack > import my OBJ > align and scale it weight paint for the bone then export it as a nif > Remove BSLightingShaderProperty from my new nif, import same property from default jetpack (T60 version) > Setup materials / texture paths > Save > move saved nif to correct game Directory > Do CK stuff to make it available in game.

Let me know if I've missed something crucial. I've tried watching a couple tutorial videos and see people messing with the header on NIFs but it's never 100% clear what they're trying to change and are working with an older version of Nifskope. But as far as I understand, I've done everything the "right way".
 

[Vioxsis]

Would be easier to help if you post the .nif (and .bgsm)

 

But to take a few guesses, does the BSLightingShaderProperty have shader flags set that the BSSubIndexTriShape does not (on its VF entry).

If it crashes when you first try to attach your material file correct, how did you make it? what flags are set in it, do they align with the VF?

You have in the BSLightingShaderProperty it pointing to a wet material?

 

If you have done the stuff above and all looks as you think it should you should try your nif with a vanilla material and your material with a vanilla nif, that way you can narrow it down to one or the other.

[Nexussfire]

There are no conflicting flag changes that I've been able to find. I will add the nif and materials after I make a new file.  The problem I am encountering also is that after I do correct the material path, the nif becomes unopenable by Nifskope.  So I'll include a clean nif without the material applied.   As far as what I am doing with the material creation itself, I have simply copied the default jet pack material and applied my textures to it and then saved it as its own file.  Creation Kit has no issue loading it up, as far as I've experienced, which is some progress on my part as before CK was throwing a missing material error.  I honestly don't know why this is giving me so much trouble. -.-;  

Thanks for your response too, I appreciate it.

 

 

 

EDIT: So I looked into the material problem and there was definitely a problem with the one I had made off the default jet pack mat. So I went and copied the Painted Metal Armor material and adapted the necessary texture info to it it with success, no more crashes from Nifskope.  That being said though... getting into the game and selecting the mod in the armor creation list still elicits a crash. 1 Problem down.. 99 more to go.   

[Nexussfire]

 

Ok here is the nif, textures / materials / ESP for the mod.. it's the whole thing.. I can't seem to discover what is causing the crash when loading it in game. It's working with Nifskope and creation kit without crashing. But as mentioned above it's crashing as soon as the new jet pack is accessed through the armor station.

 

EDIT: It's worth noting, it doesn't seem to be any issue with the materials in game.. as it seems to want to load the default Jetpack mesh instead of mine.

EDIT #2: Looking at an older jet pack mod from the nexus mods site, it doesn't seem like I've done anything different at all, my nifs are actually almost exactly similarly structured, except I don't have as many material nodes setup in the header. I'm very perplexed.  It looks like I've done everything else the right way in Creation Kit as well.  

[Vioxsis]

I have no idea why it does not work, i tried everything i could think of and nothing worked.

But after all the testing i did i came to the conclusion that it was the mesh itself and not the nif that was the problem.

 

So i split it up by its elements and exported them in the hope of further narrowing down the fault on the mesh.

After the nif was prepared for game i tested it with all parts present to confirm it crashes the game and..

 

 

 

 

It never crashed..

 

Here's the nif http://www.mediafire.com/download/3w5wqwi42qc6r7k/Eagle_Jetpack_T60A.nif

I have no idea why the others crashed and this one doesn't, but splitting it to multiple BSSubIndexTriShape has fixed it.

 

Will need more testing though to be sure.

[ousnius]

I'm hoping most people know this, but in case someone doesn't, I'm gonna say it anyway.

In NifSkope, you should only change the flags of the shader block - changing the vertex flags in the BS(SubIndex)TriShapes themselves can potentially lead to invalid data or bit fields.

 

Not directly related to this, just wanted to say it as vertex flags were mentioned.

[Nexussfire]

I have no idea why it does not work, i tried everything i could think of and nothing worked.

But after all the testing i did i came to the conclusion that it was the mesh itself and not the nif that was the problem.

 

So i split it up by its elements and exported them in the hope of further narrowing down the fault on the mesh.

After the nif was prepared for game i tested it with all parts present to confirm it crashes the game and..

 

 

 

 

It never crashed..

 

Here's the nif http://www.mediafire.com/download/3w5wqwi42qc6r7k/Eagle_Jetpack_T60A.nif

I have no idea why the others crashed and this one doesn't, but splitting it to multiple BSSubIndexTriShape has fixed it.

 

Will need more testing though to be sure.

You're a god/goddess. Thank you so much. I was about to start all over from scratched with this project.  That makes me wonder what part of the merged mesh is causing the problem... You didn't mess with the skeleton or anything either I take it?  I have a non-merged model that was also crashing upon load, I'm wondering if the bone/skin data was botched somewhere. 

 

 Thank you again anyway. This has been so frustrating.

[Vioxsis]

I'll list what a did from beginning to end, but i did the exact same thing when it was intact (bar the splitting specific stuff)

 

I used max 2013 with figments plugin (for import) and bethesda's niftools (for exporting).

 

 

 

1, import the T-60 jet pack mesh i unpacked myself with the skeleton option checked (then hiding the mesh).

2, import your jet pack without the skeleton checked (i'm trying to avoid all that i can from your nif)

3, export  your jet pack as an .obj, this can help get rid of any problems that might be hidden and present in the mesh and sort of resets the mesh. and then delete the one in the scene.

4, import the exported .obj, welded it by 0.02 and unified the normals and then fixed smoothing (auto 45° worked well).

5, made sure the model was in the right place and orientation (using the T-60 JP i hidden) and its pivot was at 0,0,0.

6, reset its xform (quite a few times...) then started splitting it by elements.

7, selected all objects and added a skin modifier and then added the tank bone (automatic giving it 100% weight to it)

8, 1 by 1... (couldn't do this as a group) added the part select modifier and set all polys to group 3 (like the T-60 JP has) and topped of the stack with a rigged body (needed for the part select)

9, in material editor made a BSLightingFX with all the settings filled out to match the T-60 JP with it pointing to your material and applied it to all the meshes.

10, exported using the default skinned mesh option.

11, opened it in nifskope changed the flags to match the ones in the T-60 JP and copied the connect points across.

12, saved the nif and renamed and placed it in the folder to test.

 

The thing is, i had done all that while keeping it as 1 object multiple times and it did nothing but change where it would crash..

(on load, on hover, 3 seconds after selecting, after selecting and hitting tab, after equipping and leaving the PA workstation)

 

 

 

Though there are quite a few places on the mesh that stuck out as bad when i gave it the once over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is down the main thruster, happens on all intersections and has folded polys and tiny pointless ones.

 

 

 

 

 

Bottom corner of the back pack has a cluster of folded over polys,also the edging there is overly done for where it is.

 

 

 

 

 

The capping areas where they where ngons or quads have triangulated poorly, the others are found in the thrusters.

 

There are also quite a few places that you can remove polys with little effort (when it was/is in quads) that won't change the shape/silhouette.

 

 

 

Though whether it is worth doing any of that is another question, given it might not work once exported, for whatever reason all the others never.

 

[Nexussfire]

Wow.. yeah I was noticing a lot of the bad geometry on my exported mesh, there's a few other bad corners I noticed that need cleaning up, but thank you for pointing all of that out. I'll probably go about creating a cleaner set to use. And actually getting to look at it in game I don't like the side profile as much. So I've got some work to do to clean it up a bit.  I think from the sound of it, the joined mesh wasn't having anything to do with the rigging for what ever unknown reason.. the days when a debugged crash log would be helpful. 

 I will post back here with progress and or if I'm lucky a mod link!

[Vioxsis]

The only thing of note about your nif was when imported in to max its position when skinned was x2 its original position from 0,0,0, when the skinning was disabled (this being the same place vanilla T-60 was).

 

Though that should not have caused any problem (and if it did it would be the mesh sitting to high) plus i rigged it myself about half a dozen times without this issue and it still crashed.

Also adding to it is that you model works in the CK preview, if it was bad it should have crashed it (though it does also show the double spacing like in max).

 

*Edit*

I tried exporting the mesh once again to see if it was just luck that it worked, and no it works every time.

so i tried reducing the number of parts by reattaching them back together.

first from 14 to 8 and it worked in game, then 8 to 4 that worked to, and then from 4 to 2 and that also worked.

It was only when the 2 pieces where made 1 that it crashed.

 

The game just does not like the mesh being one trishape for some odd reason.

[Nexussfire]

I bet that has something to do with the tri / poly count being into the double digits and perhaps the manner how it handles such objects loading into memory. Which for most static objects it uses Level of Detail meshes before it fully loads it in to keep the games performance optimized.  Thanks for doing all the troubleshooting Vioxsis, I really do appreciate it. You'll get your name down in the credits when I post this up as a mod.