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Lava Mesh from Dawnguard needs help


Jebbalon

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I am trying to use a certain mesh for my home mod and I discovered in NifSkope that the mesh looks much better than how it appears in-game.
 
It's a column of lava flowing down that appears in the Aetherium Forge a Dawnguard added ruin.
Path to the mesh is...
... \Data\meshes\dlc01\dungeons\dwemer\animated\dwespecialforge01\dwespecialforgelava03.nif
 
(...lava01 and ...lava02 use similar shaders but the one i'm using is 03, the column)
 
Have a look....
7712-4-1485057659.jpg
Now look at the same mesh in NifSkope...
2446084-1484366372.jpg
It is animated, the lava flows down and flares out at the bottom. There is an inner layer that in-game is not visible because the outer layer, for some reason, is not rendering correctly (with the 'holes' as you can see in nifskope)
 

Edit: DweSpecialForgeLava03 [STAT:02014E98] is the Static object and the reference in DG is [REFR:02014EA0] (places DweSpecialForgeLava03 [STAT:02014E98] in GRUP Cell Temporary Children of DLC1Bthalft01 "Aetherium Forge" [CELL:02005734])


I've tried to track down the cause but my skills are limited. If you all could take a look at it that'd be great.
 
Thanks,
-Jebbalon

Edited by Jebbalon
added form IDs
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I'm not advanced enough in the game walkthrough to check by myself, but that may be a bug in the mesh. Can you provide a savegame with your character right in front of the column ?

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If there are several transparent layers on top of each other (this is the case here, both the inner and the outer layer have an alpha property),  there may be rendering issues that require some fiddling with the alpha flags. Just google for 'NiAlphaProperty' and ' flags'. People also report frequently  that the model appears to be fine in Nifskope but fails to render properly in the game. Information on those flags can be found here: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1188259-bslightingshaderproperty-basics/

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@Nico coiN I don't think I have a save for that location, might take a while. The first Image above is from my Room mod where I used that static object of the lava column. I'll try to get a save though if that would be better you probably want to see it in vanilla state.

@Sclerocephalus I'll look into the flags again but what I looked at before is that the 'holes' in the outter layer are from the alpha on the gradient texture .dds file. The alpha properties on the mesh would make that whole surface transparent whereas the texture provides the invisible parts. I think !! obviously there is some difference between the game and nifskope and those flags could very well be the key. I'll read that info you linked and see if I can figure it out.

Thanks all!

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That link talked about BSLightingShaderProperty - this mesh uses EffectsShader

I did find a way to make NifSkope display what is seen in game...
Alpha on outer layer - Enable Testing is checked and looks correct in nifskope...

2446084-1487547496.png

okay and with Enable Testing unchecked it looks like it does in game...

2446084-1487547543.png

So does the game not recognize that Enable Testing flag?

If not, how to change settings to get the other look?

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Well I thought of where to find a quick pic of this in game ... here is image from the UESP 

SR-interior-The_Aetherium_Forge.jpg

That actually looks correct.... Grrrr!!! what is wrong my game.... Could it be a SSE thing?

I'm going to try to go in game and just TGM till I get there - using a vanilla setup with USSEP and Alt Start ... just to make sure it's not my pulling it out and using in my mod... Hmmm

Edit: ok I got to the forge... God mode is fun when you want to just get somewhere! ... Looks as it does in my Room mod, not like in nifskope...

2446084-1487575250.jpg

Save28_6B95A6E2_1_4A656262_DLC1Bthalft01_000323_20170220064905_7_1.ess

Edited by Jebbalon
added pic and save
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20 hours ago, Jebbalon said:

That link talked about BSLightingShaderProperty - this mesh uses EffectsShader

Scroll down. There is a section that deals with the flags in the NiAlphaProperty.

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Used your save, this is what it looks like for me: https://imgur.com/a/ZFrZo

Are you by chance using an AMD card? I've heard before that something in AMD's drivers going back 10+ years doesn't handle multiple transparency layers properly. I'm wondering if this might be due to that.

 

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1 hour ago, Arthmoor said:

Used your save, this is what it looks like for me: https://imgur.com/a/ZFrZo

Are you by chance using an AMD card? I've heard before that something in AMD's drivers going back 10+ years doesn't handle multiple transparency layers properly. I'm wondering if this might be due to that.

 

from the looks of it: you're on an AMD card as well?

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Right, Arthmoor's image is same as my game which is not how it looks in Nifskope (with Alpha enable testing) and that image from UESPwiki is from original skyrim/dawnguard not SSE.

I have a nVidia GTX 770 card.

 

2 hours ago, Sclerocephalus said:

Scroll down. There is a section that deals with the flags in the NiAlphaProperty.

Yeah, section 4 and 4.1 ... It's still unclear to me though... is it the same for the Effect Shaders.

Arthmoor, Also in that same room the lava surfaces, if you look at the bubbles that come up and break at the surface - they use the same effect shader and "look wrong" to me as well. (Different from the mesh in nifskope)

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After making the statement about the lava Bubbles ... I went back and looked at that mesh and noticed that it was correct in game..

And that the NiAlphaProperty has a controller (BSNiAlphaPropertyTestRefController) attached to it that the Lava column does not ... 

2446084-1487633496.png

So, maybe I'll try attaching one in the column mesh alpha ??? - crosses fingers -

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Well that didn't work.

I'm at a loss. I don't know why it would look different in game than what is shown in nifskope.

If anyone wants to look at the lava column in game - you can use player.placeatme 02014E98

That's the static object DweSpecialForgeLava03 [STAT:02014E98] ... It will be at your feet and extend down into the ground so might have to TCL to look at it.

Thanks all for looking at this.
-Jebbalon

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Do you use any custom meshes in your interior cell? Sometimes badly configured shaders in a custom mesh can affect rendering of everything else.

Try to create a new interior cell with that mesh only just in case to test.

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No it's the mesh itself .......... I think I fixed it !!!

Here look... below image is what I did...

2446084-1487670677.jpg

After looking and looking I didn't see any change in the mesh in-game when I did changes in NifSkope trying to figure it out. so I wanted to just make sure the loose file mesh was even overwriting correctly. Decided to try and turn off that outer layer and see if anything changed. If worked so then I tinkered some more and made the following changes to get the look above....

In the blocks of NifSkope

6 BSEffectShaderProperty
- Shader Flags 1 - Removed SLSF1_Vertex_Alpha and SLSF1_Use_Falloff flags

and in the alpha section

10 NiAlphaProperty
- Lowered the Threshold to 50

That's it ! 
Removing the 2 flags makes the flags the same as that of the bubble on the other lava mesh. Mostly it's the falloff I think. The alpha threshold number seems to control the height of the open spaces. Try changing the Greater flag to Lesser and change number up and down to see what I mean. Very hard to explain that one. I was just trying out stuff till it did what I wanted.

Here is mesh if you want to try it out ...... it's in the proper folder

Jebbalon - Lava Column.7z

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12 hours ago, Arthmoor said:

@GruftlordAre you asking me if I ave an AMD card? Cause if so, yes, an RX 480.

Yes. Ok, that explains it. From your post it wasn't quite clear whether you thought you had the problem or not.

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It might be a simple transparency engine issue specific to SSE, such as the one responsible for issues 21754 and 21936. If so, then the solution consists on creating a slight gap between layers.

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There is a huge (relatively) gap between the inside mesh and outside mesh. Wish I knew more about this, I could articulate it better.

It's like the holes in the outer layer are form the gradient texture alpha not the alpha property on the mesh itself. The problem was like the alignment of that texture maybe?

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