I am at a loss. I have functional wall pieces for my mod now. I believe I have reproduced every step consistently... And yet, only my straight wall piece has collision. The gate, corner, 3-Way, 4-Way, Ramp... none of it has collision. The collision objects are there, with proper settings, but not one has collision.

Any thoughts or suggestions to help me figure this one out would be appreciated. Not looking for anyone to fix it, just need learn what I did wrong, and get it right.

Hm, could you upload both the mesh with working collision and one without? Otherwise I could only guess...

Check this video, please.

https://youtu.be/UV3MHOPaRtw

How to making the Collision via Nifscope.

Flag, name, optimisation.

I... don't even need to do collision in Blender?! Good grief! *slaps forehead*

I'll take a look at uploading the working and broken meshes, if you still want to see them Pherim. All I need to know is, how do I attach a file here?

Miktorch... Does it change anything if there are multiple separate objects that need collision? Each of my wall pieces has the wall itself, then it has at least two "battlement" pieces attached. Each was produced independently, as that was the only way I could get them to size properly.

You can't... you have to use dropbox or another file hosting service and post the link.

Here are some pointers that I use for dealing with collision meshes

1. Collision meshes (aka RootCollisionNodes) should be simplified versions of the original mesh

Not every tiny little detail needs to be in the collision mesh.

One exception to this may be landscape terrain. If you remove the detail, then the player or NPCs may bleed into the ground.

2. If the model is already simple, for example 2 triangles for a floor, then a collision mesh is not needed (see Morrowinds I\in_vs_pitfloor_01.nif).

Set the flags of NiNodes and NiTriShapes to Collision Detection "Triangles".

In NifSkope

A. Right Click on NiNode (click on triangles located in the "Block List" area to expand the tree structure or listing)

B. Select Flags

C. Select Collision Detection "Triangles" (be sure Hidden and Skin Influence are unchecked, only check these if needed)

D. Repeat above steps for all the NiNodes, and NiTrishapes.

E. Remove any RootCollisionNodes ( do the following or select the RootCollisionNode and press Ctrl+Del)

E1. Right click on RootCollisionNode

E2. Select Block

E3. Select Remove Branch

F. Save file

Some files use Collision Detection "Bounding Box" in their Flags. This appears to work as well, but "Bounding Boxes" are typically used for Creatures/NPCs.

Let's see how this turns out. This .zip file contains all of my current battlement and street meshes. I reused my battlement meshes for the street objects with very little changes. Inside the folder are three subfolders, with the objects seperated based on whether they worked, did not work, or have not been tried yet.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pqbhg6jtb3v2gwl/_T2k_Meshes.zip?dl=0

Ok, first of all: You can only have one RootCollisionNode! Either Copy all collision NiTriShapes into one or combine them into one in Blender. As it is now, on every mesh (including the one you said was working), only one of the RootCollisionNodes is used in the game. Try it - the base of the "working" mesh has collision, but not the parts on top of it. For the other meshes it is one of the other parts that has collision, but not the base. Make sure you have only one RootCollisionNode, which has all the Collision geometry in it. This should solve your problem.

But the way you are using the RootCollisionNodes now, you don't even need them. Collision geometry is supposed to be simpler than the actual object's geometry, in order to reduce the workload for your pc. Your RootCollisionNodes are exactly the same as the actual geometry, which means you can drop them altogether and let the game use the object's geometry, which it does automatically if there is no RootCollisionNode present. Or replace the Collision Geometry of the upper parts with simple boxes (which is what I would do), to make it work as intended.

Also, you can get rid of the NiStencilProperties and NiSpecularProperties in all NiTriShapes. The first is used for double-sided faces, which is unnecessary in your case because you never see the "inside" of the meshes", and the second does nothing in Morrowind, as far as I know. Also, you might want to delete all parts of the geometry you don't actually see, like the bottom faces of the parts on top and of the bases themselves. As these are not very complex meshes it is not really necessary, but it is good to learn to avoid unnecessary geometry as early as possible.

All of these should be easy to fix by following Pherim's suggestions and my notes.

The only thing I wouldn't do is remove any of the faces that are visible. Too many times while building interiors or cells, I have tried to use pieces in new ways (i.e. creating ruins) and couldn't because someone decided to not put a couple of faces on one area. These pieces look pretty good, and if you are going to allow others to use them, I would not remove any of the visible faces. Now the faces of stuff that can not been seen should be removed. For example, in your model _T2K_R_Street_P01.nif, there are 2 quarter-pillar like objects (T2K_BMT_C.001 & T2K_BMT_C). The bottom faces that butt up against the large rectangular piece (T2K_BMT_W01_3W) should not be there.

A couple of additional comments

1. Be sure to search throughout your models. You have some RootCollisionNodes embedded below the 1st level.(_T2K_R_BMT_C01.nif)

2. Some of the UV maps are not set properly (Bottom of _T2K_R_BMT_Cap.nif)

3. The working model should be fixed too.

What do you mean, visible faces? I didn't say anything about removing those, did I? Do you mean where parts "meet" when they are aligned to one another in the CS? I agree, those can stay.

As I said, it is not "working". As all the others, it has collision working only for one part, and in this case, it is the base, whereas the parts on top also have no collision.

Good info guys. Now, let me see if I am on the same page.

1. Get rid of superfluous faces (bottoms of the quarter angles, and battlements as cited examples).

2. Use a single Collision Object for the entirety of the mesh.

3. Continue refining UV Mapping.

4. Nix superfluous Nodes.

By the sounds of it, my entire collision issue can be solved by Editing the primary collision object, and creating the sub collision objects inside that "mesh". Is this what you guys are stating?

Seneca37, I hadn't even realized i had missed redoing any of the bottom UV mapping. Thanks for pointing that out.

Ok... I made what I believe are several of the suggested changes to the collision objects. That is the first of the issues listed that I wish to address. Please let me know if this addresses the collision, or gets me anywhere closer.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2of8osei6zs6jg2/_T2K_R_BMT_S01.nif?dl=0

Looks alright to me and should work now.

Ok, well it's all working now, and this is how the first iteration looks. You'll probably notice that Bal Isra doesn't look exactly the same terrain wise. I felt the need to make a few modifications.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n3gez9qewm72nxr/ScreenShot%200.bmp?dl=0

Well, not bad for a start. The uv maps could need some work, though and I suppose because you smoothed all edges you can clearly see where the parts meet because of the way they are shaded. To get flat shading you need to split the model in several parts in the edit mode, like this: https://goo.gl/photos/wgqWYN4uCcXS9ZrA9

Don't worry, it will still remain one single object. If you do that, it should look much more like a continuous wall when they are put together, even more so, if you align their uv maps.

I will keep working on these objects. Pretty much the present texturing is a placeholder until I have the time to fix it.

I still can't figure out how to get the textures to look right with the rounded edges on the battlements, and the corner pieces. Any thoughts?

I am sorely tempted to copy the Bal Isra stronghold objects into a "test" cell, and delete them from the in-game cell. That way I can set up my streets, and landscape, then reintroduce them without feeling haphazard about it.

Yeah, uv mapping in Blender can be quite tricky, especially for a beginner. I can't give you any specific tips about that right now, though, besides to look up general uv mapping tutorials. And don't worry, the uv maps of many vanilla Morrowind meshes are a real mess.