Generic title so I can update as I come up with alternatives to my issue...

I'm looking for ideas/ways to solve this problem: I am loading a follower on to a carriage using SetVehicle. I then play the idle to have them sit down. Both of these work fine. The problem is, the colliision mesh doesn't seem to move to the seated position, but instead stays at the 0,0,0 position of the vehicle, which happens to be half-way embeded in the ground. Even more confusing (to me anyway) is that after a few seconds, the collision mesh "seems" to move as the carriage stops bumping along and the follower stops complaining "oh gods, no". Then, randomly, the collision mesh will move back to the 0,0 position and the follower will start acting like their taking damage again as the carriage bumps along. On a long journey, it only happens once or twice. If I get off the carriage and back on, it always happens at the start.

Things I've tried:

I've looked at the carriage model in Nifskope and I don't see any nodes to indicate the seated position, so I am guessing the positioning is in the idle. (I thought about editing the idle, but I don't think that's the problem as the seat placement is fine.)

Is there a way to disable an actor's collision mesh?

Is there a way to change an actor's skeleton? (I was thinking to replace the skeleton with one without a collision mesh, if that's even possible.)

If I can't change an actors collision mesh/skeleton, I was thinking I could make a "dummy" clone of the actor with one that starts with no collision mesh. Is this at all possible?

Any other ideas that I haven't thought about? Help/ideas appreciated!

99% of this is too hard for me (hopefully, one of the experienced modellers can help you out)

What I will say is that the Wagon used in the opening "Ride to Helgen" Scene MUST have seating positions, because PC and NPCs sit in it. Are you using a copy of that wagon?

Or are you trying to use the default Travel Wagons in the vanilla game? If you are, the PC never sits in those (you just fast travel as it appears to "climb in back") ... So it is likely that the seating positions are wrong/not present in those Wagons.

Thanks for the reply h4vent!

I am using the PrisonerCarriage object, rather than the static CartPassenger, if that is what you mean. So the follower does "appear" to sit properly, and I can choose which seat to put them in based on the animation, the problem is that their collision doesn't seem to move with them, at least not initially. BTW, here is a link to my mod:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=72443228

After reading http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1360086, I've had a little bit of success with
http://www.creationkit.com/SendAnimationEvent_-_Debug as the bumping problem doesn't last very long, only a few seconds now.

I edited the mass of the cart in NifSkope, which seems to lower the amount of bumping, but that could just be wishful thinking.

I too edited the mass, but I had a bit better response with the gravity. The best effect I found was by editing the Angual Dampening. It reduced the rocky/boat feeling substantially and I've had good feedback on it. Not perfect, but better.

The problem I'm experiencing though isn't from the cart, it's because the follower is literally positioned right in front of the cart. When I move her, she looks to be sitting correclty, but she still takes damage and the carriage still bumps on her, though I've reduced that to just a few seconds. (If anyone is curious, I just posted a beta with the follower support on my Nexus page, looking for feedback.)

The idles only make her look like she's sitting in the cart. In actuality she's still positioned at the front, clipping through the driver's seat. I don't know of any way to provide a work around.

Yeah, when I look in the carriage nif, I see she is at the 0,0,0 position. Anyone have any clues if you can change the reference point? I've tried changing the translation so it moves that center point higher, but it didn't affect where the follower was placed.

When you use http://www.creationkit.com/SetVehicle_-_Actor on an actor, the actor is moved to one of the target's nodes. I'm not sure which one, but this node is the one that happens to be at the object's local origin. Translating the whole carriage would mean that you translated the target node as well, which is why you don't see any difference.

Okay, that makes sense... so I just went back to look at the carriage nif, but I don't see any node at that intersection. Should it be a specific node name that I can look for? I only know enough about the nifs to be dangerous!

And thanks RandomNoob for the help!

Like you, I only know enough about nifs to be dangerous.

Instead of messing around with the nifs, how about setting the NPCs to be essential and unconscious while in the carriage?

EDIT: I suggested essential and unconscious so the NPCs wouldn't cry in pain. But I just remembered that Skyrim has the "Invulnerable" status as well. I think that it prevents any damage at all, so maybe you could try that instead.

I guess that would be an option, just to shut her up "Gods, no..."

But mainly because her collision mesh causes the carriage to bump along. After a bit, her collision mess seems to "do something" as the carriage stops colliding with it. I really have no idea why it ever stops. If I don't play the seating idle (or animation event), I see her standing below the driver - and she never moves. So I'm not sure why the collision issue would ever stop, seems like it should last the whole trip, but it doesn't. With the animation event, she only collides for a few seconds, if I play the idle instead, she collids for easily double, maybe 10 seconds.