I wasn't originally planning on downloading this mod, mostly because I had already made some considerable changes to the 10mm Pistol and Minigun in my own game, but those designs are just so appealing that I had to give them a try. Since I was going to use them in FO3 first (currently on a heavily-modded FO3 playthrough), I figured I'd experiment some and see what I could do with them.
I also figured I'd do my best to answer the texture error question based on my understanding of what's happening. I ended up finding a bit more than I intended to, so I'm going to put nearly all of this comment in a Spoiler Tag to avoid annihilating the comment thread.
Spoiler:
Show
I think you may have already discovered the issue, but in case someone else isn't clear on why the textures are acting wonky, it's because the Main Masterfile uses "Static Object" entries to create 1st person texture assignments for many of the weapons. The problem occurs when you introduce a mesh replacer that doesn't contain the same number of 3D Parts to match with the 1st person texture assignments. In the case of the 10mm Pistol, the new mesh lacks this particular part.
As a result of not having all of the expected 3D Parts to assign 1st person textures to, the Masterfile, for some incomprehensible reason, ends up shuffling some of the 3D Part ID Numbers around and applies the texture assignment meant for the missing part to whatever is available. In this case, it assigns the "10mm Pistol Texture" to the Clip, even though the Clip is supposed to be left empty because it has no 1st person Texture Set made for it.
The fix is simple, but it does unfortunately require a plugin. You can create a plugin to edit the Static Object entry and remove the texture assignment from the affected part of the weapon (ignore that the Clip is black instead of light grey. That's just my own personal retexture). You could try altering the mesh to add a part that would prevent the issue from occurring in the first place, but because the Masterfile tends to randomly renumber the 3D Part Ids, it's very tedious to get it to all work just right.
Not to mention, trying to fix this issue via xEdit doesn't work very well either. Because the ID numbers get shuffled around, you can't trust the names of the assigned textures. You can see here that the mod that's currently being used to fix the 10mm Pistol texture issue has "##Catch:0" listed twice. This is because one of those is actually the "##Slide:0" part, and the missing "10MMPistol:0" part is actually the "##Clip:0". The only way to reliably fix errors like these is to do it through the GECK because it won't lie to you, and it will update the information you see when using xEdit afterwards.
At its core, the issue occurs because of the devs' insistence on using these Static Object entries. Had they just had the meshes call the 1st person textures to begin with, there would have been no need to waste space creating 3rd person textures, there would have been no need to create 1st person Texture Sets (except for alternate textures for use on different items using the same mesh, like the Weathered 10mm Pistol), and there would have been no need for Static Object entries for weapons, thereby completely preventing this issue in the first place.
All of that aside, there were a few other issues I'd like to bring to light. You may already be aware of them, but I figured I'd mention them in case you weren't.
- The 10mm Pistol Mesh has a segment missing from its clip. This is actually an issue present in FNV's vanilla 10mm Pistol mesh (although oddly not FO3's), and it extends to all of the meshes that don't use the "Extended Magazine" (which is actually just the normal magazine but slightly pulled out of the mag well).
- I also noticed that the mod doesn't include the "MinigunUnique.nif" and "MinigunUniqueGO.nif" meshes meant to be used with the CZ57 Avenger. I don't know if that was an intentional decision or not. For anyone that wants to, they can easily be made by just copying the "MinigunHiSpeedMotor.nif" and "MinigunHiSpeedMotorGO.nif" meshes and changing the assigned textures for the Barrel part to "MinigunUnique.dds", "MinigunUnique_N.dds", and "MinigunUnique_M.dds" in the correct places.
- One of the switches on the Missile Launcher Control Box part is used during the jam animation. This results in the player awkwardly wafting the air without actually interacting with anything. This can be fixed by setting the "Flag 2" option of "No Jam after Reload" for the weapon within a plugin. This is an extremely minor issue though, so unless someone's already using a plugin to fix another of the issues here, it isn't really worth it to make one just for this.
And that's basically everything I've found in regards to potential issues with the meshes. Bear in mind that I encountered these issues while using the meshes in FO3 and using FO3Edit. There's at least a chance that something I mentioned isn't actually present when using these meshes in their intended home of New Vegas, but I personally wouldn't make any assumptions.
Minor issues aside, these meshes are absolutely fantastic, and I especially love the sleeker design of the 10mm Pistols. I honestly can't wait to see the awesome things you might create next.
Very thorough analysis and mostly spot-on. Of note, however, is that I experimented with fixing this by pasting the 3D data from my modded mesh over top of the vanilla 10mmPistolAllMods mesh, which doesn't have that little cylinder under the barrel (replacing it with the laser sight). Theoretically, my modded mesh would have the exact same number of blocks as the vanilla mesh and should therefore work, but the textures still got screwed up in that case, so I have no idea what's happening.
Also, as mentioned on the Description page, I deliberately didn't make a mesh for the unique minigun since canonically, it's supposed to be a different make and model (CZ57 vs the generic CZ53).
Apologies in regards to the meshes for the CZ57. I did read the description, and I distinctly remember reading the line about Annabelle, which is part of why I even noticed that the CZ57 didn't have its own meshes, but I somehow completely missed the line just before specifically mentioning it. That was entirely my mistake, so again sorry about that.
As before, I'll put the rest of my post in a spoiler tag.
Spoiler:
Show
As for the texture errors, I don't know why, but I really want to figure this out, so I gave it another look. This time I decided to actually load the meshes into the proper FNV Data folder (not FO3's) and use the FNV GECK to see if I could find something I missed.
1. The "Alternate Textures" are applied in the exact same order regardless of which mesh is loaded, which means the texture assignment is directly linked to the 3D block ID number (in this case, the numbers going from 0-8).
2. Nearly every one of the blocks from your mesh had its 3D block ID number altered. Nearly all of them were increased by 1 with the "10MMPistol:0" wrapping back down to ID:0. The "LaserSight:1" and "##LaserSightBeam:2" blocks did the same thing, but they swapped IDs first. This meant that "LaserSight:1" moved down to ID:5 before it was increased up to ID:6, and "##LaserSightBeam:2" moved up to ID:6 before being increased to ID:7.
Honestly, I'm with you on this one. I really have no idea why altering meshes sometimes ends up shuffling around the ID numbers for the different blocks. As far as I'm aware, there isn't a way to assign an ID number to a block while editing the mesh, but I could be wrong.
If there is a place to directly assign the ID number, you could match it to that of the vanilla meshes to ensure the textures get applied correctly and avoid having to use a plugin entirely (the missing backpack and goofy jam animations are super minor and not worth fixing unless you already have a plugin going).
I'm sorry if nothing I've mentioned so far has been of any help to you. I like seeing mods working as well as possible, and I'm hoping there's a better solution than just "use a plugin". Failing that, I'm hoping this at least helps someone that might be experiencing similar problems with their own modding, and that what I've said hasn't just been a pointless distraction.
They should. These meshes all use textures included with the base game, so as long as the new textures are mapped the same way as the base game textures, these should work fine with them.
Is it going to be an optional content in your weapon pack mod? It's okay for people who don't use the replacer mod, but otherwise there would be duplicates.
Dumb question, but how do i get the heavy frame on the 10mm pistol in game? Also i'm having some minor texture bugs in the 10mm supressor, but it only happen if i use the silencer together with the laser, or all mods together, also in the minigun with the high speed motor, but only if i use the motor alone, if i put all mods, the texture of the motor is correct.
Oh, according to the wiki article, the heavy frame mod was apparently cut from the game. I wasn't checking for that, I just extracted all the 10mm pistol meshes from the archive and made new versions. I guess I don't have to include those in the mod anymore.
As for the texture errors, I'm not 100% sure why it's happening, but it might be because I used the higher-res first-person textures on the mesh, so the game doesn't know what to do when asked to apply the higher-res textures again on top of them during play. I'll look into it.
I think that you should keep the heavy frame, but as an optional because i kinda like them, that little bit under the barrel looks better in the heavy frame version.
And sorry for not giving more details about the texture bug, the bug is that the silencer loads a different set of textures, and it only happens in third person, in first person the silencer looks normal (i can't say about the minigun because i can't see the motor in first person), i don't know what are the textures that are being loaded by the silencer and the motor.
(edit):I found out that the 10mm pistol silencer is loading the 10mm pistol textures, and the minigun high speed motor is loading the minigun textures, and as i said, it only happens in third person, and with those combinations of mods.
So, the issue is caused by the game system that's responsible for swapping the low-res texture with the first-person texture. What I don't get is why it's doing it. Even when I remake the entire mesh by pasting the pieces over the vanilla mesh, without changing any of the internal part names, the GECK somehow decides to screw up which textures get applied to what piece. I don't think I can fix this without adding a plugin, which totally defeats the purpose of the mod...
It's fine, is just a minor visual bug that doesn't have any impact on gameplay, i'm still gonna use the mod regardless of that. Thanks for the help, keep up the good work.
The "heavy frame" could be included in the model as part of the laser sight mod, thinking about how the USP from MGS2 has that similar bit of frontal heft in its design from its laser/flashlight attachment, makes the mod here in new vegas more visually distinctive.
That's not a bad idea, although I think I'll leave it up to the end user if they want to rename the meshes themselves, since I personally prefer the smaller frame.
I'm actually offended that you've never used heavy weapons in a playthrough D: They're so much fun! I do however very much look forward to using this mod and seeing these slimline models in game :3
19 comments
I also figured I'd do my best to answer the texture error question based on my understanding of what's happening. I ended up finding a bit more than I intended to, so I'm going to put nearly all of this comment in a Spoiler Tag to avoid annihilating the comment thread.
The problem occurs when you introduce a mesh replacer that doesn't contain the same number of 3D Parts to match with the 1st person texture assignments. In the case of the 10mm Pistol, the new mesh lacks this particular part.
As a result of not having all of the expected 3D Parts to assign 1st person textures to, the Masterfile, for some incomprehensible reason, ends up shuffling some of the 3D Part ID Numbers around and applies the texture assignment meant for the missing part to whatever is available. In this case, it assigns the "10mm Pistol Texture" to the Clip, even though the Clip is supposed to be left empty because it has no 1st person Texture Set made for it.
The fix is simple, but it does unfortunately require a plugin. You can create a plugin to edit the Static Object entry and remove the texture assignment from the affected part of the weapon (ignore that the Clip is black instead of light grey. That's just my own personal retexture). You could try altering the mesh to add a part that would prevent the issue from occurring in the first place, but because the Masterfile tends to randomly renumber the 3D Part Ids, it's very tedious to get it to all work just right.
This issue actually extends to some of the other weapons and meshes as well. The Minigun ends up having the Grip part assigned to use the normal Minigun textures (instead of the intended Plasma Caster ones), and the metal bars that hold the ammo in place get assigned with the Minigun Backpack texture.
The Missile Launcher almost gets away, but it also ends up having the front segment of the weapon using the texture meant for the back segment.
Not to mention, trying to fix this issue via xEdit doesn't work very well either. Because the ID numbers get shuffled around, you can't trust the names of the assigned textures.
You can see here that the mod that's currently being used to fix the 10mm Pistol texture issue has "##Catch:0" listed twice. This is because one of those is actually the "##Slide:0" part, and the missing "10MMPistol:0" part is actually the "##Clip:0".
The only way to reliably fix errors like these is to do it through the GECK because it won't lie to you, and it will update the information you see when using xEdit afterwards.
At its core, the issue occurs because of the devs' insistence on using these Static Object entries. Had they just had the meshes call the 1st person textures to begin with, there would have been no need to waste space creating 3rd person textures, there would have been no need to create 1st person Texture Sets (except for alternate textures for use on different items using the same mesh, like the Weathered 10mm Pistol), and there would have been no need for Static Object entries for weapons, thereby completely preventing this issue in the first place.
All of that aside, there were a few other issues I'd like to bring to light. You may already be aware of them, but I figured I'd mention them in case you weren't.
- The 10mm Pistol Mesh has a segment missing from its clip. This is actually an issue present in FNV's vanilla 10mm Pistol mesh (although oddly not FO3's), and it extends to all of the meshes that don't use the "Extended Magazine" (which is actually just the normal magazine but slightly pulled out of the mag well).
- The Minigun mesh doesn't have a Backpack part, but the weapon entry has a flag set to "Hide Backpack", so it ends up making the back of some Power Armor look wacky. This is actually the same issue the affected the Gauss Rifle from FO3's Operation Anchorage. This can be easily fixed by disabling the "Hide Backpack" flag, but this unfortunately 100% requires a plugin to do.
- The metal bars that hold the Minigun Ammo in place move too far and disconnect from the rest of the weapon during both the reload and jam animations. I have no idea why this happens or how to fix it. Your mod doesn't alter the minigun animations, so the issue must lie somewhere within the mesh itself, but I honestly have no idea what it could be.
- I also noticed that the mod doesn't include the "MinigunUnique.nif" and "MinigunUniqueGO.nif" meshes meant to be used with the CZ57 Avenger. I don't know if that was an intentional decision or not.
For anyone that wants to, they can easily be made by just copying the "MinigunHiSpeedMotor.nif" and "MinigunHiSpeedMotorGO.nif" meshes and changing the assigned textures for the Barrel part to "MinigunUnique.dds", "MinigunUnique_N.dds", and "MinigunUnique_M.dds" in the correct places.
- One of the switches on the Missile Launcher Control Box part is used during the jam animation. This results in the player awkwardly wafting the air without actually interacting with anything. This can be fixed by setting the "Flag 2" option of "No Jam after Reload" for the weapon within a plugin. This is an extremely minor issue though, so unless someone's already using a plugin to fix another of the issues here, it isn't really worth it to make one just for this.
And that's basically everything I've found in regards to potential issues with the meshes. Bear in mind that I encountered these issues while using the meshes in FO3 and using FO3Edit.
There's at least a chance that something I mentioned isn't actually present when using these meshes in their intended home of New Vegas, but I personally wouldn't make any assumptions.
Minor issues aside, these meshes are absolutely fantastic, and I especially love the sleeker design of the 10mm Pistols. I honestly can't wait to see the awesome things you might create next.
Also, as mentioned on the Description page, I deliberately didn't make a mesh for the unique minigun since canonically, it's supposed to be a different make and model (CZ57 vs the generic CZ53).
As before, I'll put the rest of my post in a spoiler tag.
When comparing the normal "All Mods" 10mm Pistol to your slimmer one, I noticed a couple things.
1. The "Alternate Textures" are applied in the exact same order regardless of which mesh is loaded, which means the texture assignment is directly linked to the 3D block ID number (in this case, the numbers going from 0-8).
2. Nearly every one of the blocks from your mesh had its 3D block ID number altered. Nearly all of them were increased by 1 with the "10MMPistol:0" wrapping back down to ID:0.
The "LaserSight:1" and "##LaserSightBeam:2" blocks did the same thing, but they swapped IDs first. This meant that "LaserSight:1" moved down to ID:5 before it was increased up to ID:6, and "##LaserSightBeam:2" moved up to ID:6 before being increased to ID:7.
Honestly, I'm with you on this one. I really have no idea why altering meshes sometimes ends up shuffling around the ID numbers for the different blocks. As far as I'm aware, there isn't a way to assign an ID number to a block while editing the mesh, but I could be wrong.
If there is a place to directly assign the ID number, you could match it to that of the vanilla meshes to ensure the textures get applied correctly and avoid having to use a plugin entirely (the missing backpack and goofy jam animations are super minor and not worth fixing unless you already have a plugin going).
I'm sorry if nothing I've mentioned so far has been of any help to you. I like seeing mods working as well as possible, and I'm hoping there's a better solution than just "use a plugin".
Failing that, I'm hoping this at least helps someone that might be experiencing similar problems with their own modding, and that what I've said hasn't just been a pointless distraction.
Also i'm having some minor texture bugs in the 10mm supressor, but it only happen if i use the silencer together with the laser, or all mods together, also in the minigun with the high speed motor, but only if i use the motor alone, if i put all mods, the texture of the motor is correct.
As for the texture errors, I'm not 100% sure why it's happening, but it might be because I used the higher-res first-person textures on the mesh, so the game doesn't know what to do when asked to apply the higher-res textures again on top of them during play. I'll look into it.
And sorry for not giving more details about the texture bug, the bug is that the silencer loads a different set of textures, and it only happens in third person, in first person the silencer looks normal (i can't say about the minigun because i can't see the motor in first person), i don't know what are the textures that are being loaded by the silencer and the motor.
(edit):I found out that the 10mm pistol silencer is loading the 10mm pistol textures, and the minigun high speed motor is loading the minigun textures, and as i said, it only happens in third person, and with those combinations of mods.
Thanks for the help, keep up the good work.