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Post by jgf on Mar 23, 2018 12:12:02 GMT
As I scroll around the terrain in Cheydenhall I see red X's scattered around the ground ...what are they? (Just spent a half hour perusing tutorials and threads, finding no mention of these.)
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Post by dogonporch on Mar 23, 2018 14:42:38 GMT
As I scroll around the terrain in Cheydenhall I see red X's scattered around the ground ...what are they? (Just spent a half hour perusing tutorials and threads, finding no mention of these.) They are markers for AI packages. Leave alone.
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Post by jgf on Mar 23, 2018 18:11:05 GMT
Elucidate, please.
I've no need to access them, at least for now, but was curious since I could find no information on them. (Eventually a couple may be in the way of my plans, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.)
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Post by blockhead on Mar 23, 2018 22:00:47 GMT
Eventually a couple may be in the way of my plans, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. This part comes across in a mad scientist voice, followed by rubbing of hands and an evil cackling.
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Post by dogonporch on Mar 24, 2018 18:22:12 GMT
Elucidate, please. I've no need to access them, at least for now, but was curious since I could find no information on them. (Eventually a couple may be in the way of my plans, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.) The Red Xs are found in the CS static folder and are simply markers that reference an NPC's AI package activities. For example....wander 3000 game units around one of those Xs....or use a broom...read a book...etc....usually for a certainly length of time. AI packages are found under the character section of the tool bar. Learning how to make your own is easy enough....but to avoid later confusion, be sure to name/number them logically (and uniquely...don't mess with the ones already there). If you plan on making your own or adding new NPCs, be sure to set your in-game speed to x10 or less...NPCs can take a lot of REAL time to get around to doing things...especially if you have more than 20 in a particular cell. You can set the number of NPCs active in a complex scene...as they put it...to a higher number...say 50 (there's a mod that can do this for you)...but depending on the NPC's internal stats (like energy)....they can still take their sweet time getting around to things. Just like real life, I guess. Some NPCs are lazy. Oblivion AI packages can be insanely detailed if you so-desire...it's a year long block of time and you can set it anyway you like. Change things as days or months progress...etc. Or do the same thing day-in day-out...depending. They read from the top down. I set mine-up like a day...accounting for each hour. But you ALWAYS put a universal wander package (those aaa packages...current or editor depending) at the bottom...just in case they get confused (they do).
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Post by Sniffles on Mar 24, 2018 21:24:47 GMT
dogonporch, I was experimenting with those AI packages in FO4 yesterday and made a number of discoveries.
My test cell was a settlement with 22 NPCs. Initially I was trying to get a certain set of dialogues from one NPC to trigger. The NPCs each have their own AI, then collectively certain AI to execute, then random game generated AI and so on. It all stacks up and exceeding a certain point it appears that none of them will execute their scripts.
Test. They were supposed to execute the eating AI then the sleep AI. They also had random dialogue when the PC gets near them. They also had jobs, farming AI and an over ride AI if the settlement was attacked. Grab weapons, defend, then return to what they were doing.
So I walked the PC past each NPC, triggered dialogue then walked away from them. In a few moments I had 22 NPCs all milling around doing nothing. Total script log jamb. The game would check the timer and call for a collective change in the AI packages but as you can imagine, it was very random. A complete mess. This would get inserted into a saved game if I saved during the log jamb. I suspect it would stack up and reach several saved games deep. No sleep, go farming, execute individual AI packages, and other game functions were in error like counts of stacks of items. In other words, stacked up unexecuted AI packages could eventually bring your game to a dead halt and the major packages like quests wouldn't trigger.
The question was how to unload pending AI. I fast traveled to the same location. Things started working but not completely. So I had a bright idea. Fast traveled to the same location about 5 or 6 times, left the cell, saved, closed the game, restarted with that save, fast traveled again about 5 times. Then I used a FO4 feature of manually assigning NPCs to certain tasks. Slowly, their AI packages kicked in. At random and not all at once. Assigned sleep stations, beds, and kept returning and advancing the in game clock with waiting and fast traveling.
As the AI packages un-log jammed more and more AI was executed but it took a serious concerted effort. Around 20 fast travels and avoiding triggering dialogue AI. A total of arounhd a half hour of unravelling stuck AI packages. What was more interesting was the follower of the PC had random script dialogues that were waiting for this log jamb to get cleared!! I'm guessing due to the save while in the middle of the jammed up AIs, her AI was put on hold until she was present in the cell and the other AIs had cleared.
Then a lot of new dialogues and other AI started triggering at other cells. More NPC dialogues were triggered. Some side quests were triggered. The game was intentionally made this way to prevent crashes, CTD on load as example. But I suppose the saved games can have huge piles of unexecuted AI scripts that will build up indefinitely, or simply not run at all as the game ignores them to maintain it's overall function.
So if the game by itself does this, imagine stacking up a couple of hundred mods along with it, each with their AI packages and unique scripts. And then somebody adds another mod and wonders why the game crashes or something doesn't execute as it should. Just visualize those 22 farmers. Evening, off work. The restaurant is open, seating available and time for bed, and they all stood around in a tight little group and did absolutely nothing. Just that universal AI wander package.
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Post by Sniffles on Mar 24, 2018 21:32:41 GMT
duplicate post
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Post by jgf on Mar 25, 2018 3:30:33 GMT
The Red Xs are found in the CS static folder and are simply markers that reference an NPC's AI package activities. For example....wander 3000 game units around one of those Xs....or use a broom...read a book...etc....usually for a certainly length of time. .... Ah, thanks. Not something I'll be tweaking much, though I may try my hand at editing a few existing packages. The X's I question at the moment happen to be where I may want to place a building. (Read up a bit more and maybe I can get Ongar to stop standing around outside for hours.)
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Post by dogonporch on Mar 25, 2018 4:55:07 GMT
dogonporch, I was experimenting with those AI packages in FO4 yesterday and made a number of discoveries. My test cell was a settlement with 22 NPCs. Initially I was trying to get a certain set of dialogues from one NPC to trigger. The NPCs each have their own AI, then collectively certain AI to execute, then random game generated AI and so on. It all stacks up and exceeding a certain point it appears that none of them will execute their scripts. Test. They were supposed to execute the eating AI then the sleep AI. They also had random dialogue when the PC gets near them. They also had jobs, farming AI and an over ride AI if the settlement was attacked. Grab weapons, defend, then return to what they were doing. So I walked the PC past each NPC, triggered dialogue then walked away from them. In a few moments I had 22 NPCs all milling around doing nothing. Total script log jamb. The game would check the timer and call for a collective change in the AI packages but as you can imagine, it was very random. A complete mess. This would get inserted into a saved game if I saved during the log jamb. I suspect it would stack up and reach several saved games deep. No sleep, go farming, execute individual AI packages, and other game functions were in error like counts of stacks of items. In other words, stacked up unexecuted AI packages could eventually bring your game to a dead halt and the major packages like quests wouldn't trigger. The question was how to unload pending AI. I fast traveled to the same location. Things started working but not completely. So I had a bright idea. Fast traveled to the same location about 5 or 6 times, left the cell, saved, closed the game, restarted with that save, fast traveled again about 5 times. Then I used a FO4 feature of manually assigning NPCs to certain tasks. Slowly, their AI packages kicked in. At random and not all at once. Assigned sleep stations, beds, and kept returning and advancing the in game clock with waiting and fast traveling. As the AI packages un-log jammed more and more AI was executed but it took a serious concerted effort. Around 20 fast travels and avoiding triggering dialogue AI. A total of arounhd a half hour of unravelling stuck AI packages. What was more interesting was the follower of the PC had random script dialogues that were waiting for this log jamb to get cleared!! I'm guessing due to the save while in the middle of the jammed up AIs, her AI was put on hold until she was present in the cell and the other AIs had cleared. Then a lot of new dialogues and other AI started triggering at other cells. More NPC dialogues were triggered. Some side quests were triggered. The game was intentionally made this way to prevent crashes, CTD on load as example. But I suppose the saved games can have huge piles of unexecuted AI scripts that will build up indefinitely, or simply not run at all as the game ignores them to maintain it's overall function. So if the game by itself does this, imagine stacking up a couple of hundred mods along with it, each with their AI packages and unique scripts. And then somebody adds another mod and wonders why the game crashes or something doesn't execute as it should. Just visualize those 22 farmers. Evening, off work. The restaurant is open, seating available and time for bed, and they all stood around in a tight little group and did absolutely nothing. Just that universal AI wander package. If FO4 is anything like Oblivion, the default number of NPCs available in a complex scene is only 20. This includes creatures as well as NPCs...and in the exterior world, more than one cell generates at a time, quickly eating-up the 20. However, once their AI is going, the game engine seems to go for the next 20...etc...until all get activated. Doing things like going in and out of a door (or fast travel) does force the engine to reload the AI...often unfreezing any log jams. Mods like Mass-AI up this number...but you can do it yourself if you know where it is located in game settings...might need to search a bit. Fifty usually works for this set-up...and we use a lot of NPCs. The biggest jams in our Oblivion comes when dinner ends and everybody hits the street to go home, etc.
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Post by dogonporch on Mar 25, 2018 5:07:38 GMT
The Red Xs are found in the CS static folder and are simply markers that reference an NPC's AI package activities. For example....wander 3000 game units around one of those Xs....or use a broom...read a book...etc....usually for a certainly length of time. .... Ah, thanks. Not something I'll be tweaking much, though I may try my hand at editing a few existing packages. The X's I question at the moment happen to be where I may want to place a building. (Read up a bit more and maybe I can get Ongar to stop standing around outside for hours.) Cheydinhal has that one open area at the bottom of the castle hill where I put-up a building...seems like one should have been there but was forgotten. This tower mod finishes off the other side of the same hill. I've since renovated it into a much larger structure (underground). www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/4491
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Post by dogonporch on Mar 25, 2018 5:14:14 GMT
....and what's with the lack of cattails around Cyrodil even though awesome cattail terrain exists? I added tons more...and lots of missing waterfalls.
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Post by Sniffles on Mar 25, 2018 5:55:14 GMT
FO4 has a limit of 21 NPCs per cell but added a tweak where the ceiling number can be increased according to the PC charisma. It also allows additional NPCs which use a roaming AI. It seems it's the same basic game mechanics but enhanced. The game engine also benefited from a 64 bit OS mandatory. That was probably to deal with a lot of the engine limitations as imposed in Oblivion.
With FO4 the game is less crash prone and more tolerant. That helps in demonstrating the AI limitations as I did with the multiple pending-incompleted scripts test. Instead of a NPC, typically Vilja as example, simply failing to function, execute scripts and all sorts of unpredictable things start to happen like quests never updating and random CTDs, you can pile up those uncompleted scripts and the game goes merrily on it's way in a crippled sort of default mode.
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Post by dogonporch on Mar 25, 2018 6:11:44 GMT
FO4 has a limit of 21 NPCs per cell but added a tweak where the ceiling number can be increased according to the PC charisma. It also allows additional NPCs which use a roaming AI. It seems it's the same basic game mechanics but enhanced. The game engine also benefited from a 64 bit OS mandatory. That was probably to deal with a lot of the engine limitations as imposed in Oblivion. With FO4 the game is less crash prone and more tolerant. That helps in demonstrating the AI limitations as I did with the multiple pending-incompleted scripts test. Instead of a NPC, typically Vilja as example, simply failing to function, execute scripts and all sorts of unpredictable things start to happen like quests never updating and random CTDs, you can pile up those uncompleted scripts and the game goes merrily on it's way in a crippled sort of default mode. The Oblivion Engine Bug Fixes dll has eliminated 99% of Oblivion's crashes for us. Improved graphics, too. www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/47085Our Oblivion runs on 64.
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Post by jgf on Apr 15, 2018 20:17:09 GMT
A couple more questions.
What are the large orange wireframe boxes floating in the air?
Whenever I exit the CS there is a popup message about "ModelLoader still has x NIF files. Continue playing?" (x being a number). I click "Yes to all", the CS shuts down, and all seems well. So what is this message/warning all about?
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Post by dogonporch on Apr 15, 2018 22:09:42 GMT
A couple more questions. What are the large orange wireframe boxes floating in the air? Whenever I exit the CS there is a popup message about "ModelLoader still has x NIF files. Continue playing?" (x being a number). I click "Yes to all", the CS shuts down, and all seems well. So what is this message/warning all about? Nif warning = nothing.....most errors = nothing. Wire frame boxes = Landscape butterflies, moths and fireflies (found in Static under Landscape). It can be other effects, too....smoke...mist...ash weather...etc (Found in Activators and Static). Mods like Natural Habitats adds tons more wildlife via wire frame boxes...like bird formations and such. Wire frames you can't click-on are barriers. They prevent NPCs from moving through, normally. The Anvil Dock region, for example, has a big one.
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