Ok, I'm probably being stupid, but I'm rather stumped by SkyFox's ChunkMerge utility; can anyone who's familiar with this help?

As I understand it

• the Nif-File (Skyrim) entry is the Skyrim-format .nif file that you want collision added to
  
• the Collision-File entry is a Morrowind format .nif file with collision, or a Morrowind OR Skyrim format .nif file with a low-poly NiTriShape representation of your desired collision
  
• the Template (Skyrim) entry is a valid Skyrim format .nif with Skyrim format collision.

Is that right, or have I totally misunderstood?

My problem is that ChunkMerge appears to be completely ignoring my Collision-File entry, and is simply copying the collision data from Template to Nif-File.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? The collision I'm trying to apply is a collection of convex and non-convex polyhedrons - which might be my mistake, but not from what little I've managed to find about ChunkMerge.

I'm using Blender 2.49b, Blender NifScripts 2.5.5, NifSkope 1.1.0-rc7 and ChunkMerge 0.1.53.0045.

A bit more info, I've ensured all my collision shapes are convex, and I've tried making my Collision-File both Morrowind format low-poly and Morrowind format collision.

No joy.

Does Chunk Merge even do anything except a straight copy of collision data from the template file to the Nif-File (Skyrim)?

Does anyone know any way that works of getting new, custom collision data into Skyrim? My flying machine mod is now completely stalled until I can figure this out.

I know it worked at one point in time a few updates ago I gave it a go but I can not say what your doing wrong as I have since just updated my own Personal Exporter to be able to export all types of Skyrim Collisions so I never use it any longer -> but I do remember it being a very convoluted process and took me several tries to get a working file with the proper collision using that program.

Ok, well, thanks for the info. I wouldn't mind if it seemed to even see my collision data. Just getting it wrong might give me some idea of how to get it right .

I assume from its name that your Personal Exporter is... well, personal . And probably for 3DS Max - which there's no way I could afford or justify getting . Oh well, looks like I'll have to try mashing something together with bhkListShape and primitives.

[edit]
Um... does that even work for Skyrim?

Yeah my Exporter is more like a Professional Exporter in that its Filter based similar to the CivIV or HCT Exporters, and its only compiled for 3DSMax 8 and 9 the 2 versions I own and use.

A list shape with multiple Primitives will in ~MOST~ cases perform better then a Mopp anyways even a simple Mopp is still considerably more costly then any combination of multiple primitives combined, so do not feel like its the inferior option, I still use mostly primitives where possible even with mopps available to me.

EDIT:

yeah the bhkListShape still works as does the bhkConvexListShape

Hooray! Thanks .

I've ran into that problem too with the new versions, I went back to the first version linked in the OP of the NifUtils thread, that works perfectly fine for Static collision, not had any luck with havok'd stuff yet.

Havok stuff would just be a matter of tweaking the settings and flags in NifSkope, the geometry data's the same format... I think.

I might try using an old version then .

If you're using Blender you'll also need to use NifConvert before using ChunkMerge. Here's a http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/1920-exporting-static-meshes-for-skyrim-from-blender/ here of how it all works.

Yeah. but not fun when I wanna be lazy

Ok, thanks for the hint - that might be something I messed up.

ChunkMerge is... finicky. I've redone collision (often from scratch) on some very complex objects, such as Windhelm Docks (whdocks1.nif), http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/20896, and less complex objects (http://bugzilla.darkcreations.org/show_bug.cgi?id=205). Only a few times have I experienced ChunkMerge just copying the old collision, and to be honest I can't remember the cause. You should try a different template.

Never again will I try to go the "simple" route with collision. Except when necessary (movable statics and things). Doing it for my http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/20895 was an absolute nightmare. The simple convex shapes tend to scale up wildly and also reposition themselves.

What would be the criteria for choosing templates? Is it a matter of luck and guesswork, or can the template be chosen to be a good fit for the expected output from a given custom collision mesh?

And now box primitives in bhkListShape are crashing CK

:sigh:

Did you export the collision from Max if so you need to go into Unknown 7 Shorts and zero out the 4th and 5th entries to stop the crashing.

Heh, thanks for the tip . From Blender, but there's probably a fair few tweaks to try.

The real problem is tracking down the info. So much seems to be scattered across forum posts, and a lot that gets thrown up by searches is either out of date, fragmentary to the point of incomprehensibility, or a litany of 'seems to work for me'.

Oh well, I'll get there - come too far to give up now.

Many thanks to all for all the help, it really is much appreciated.