I know this probably won't get answered, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Can you provide us with any sort of ETA on a CK fix to 'dark faces' or 'navmeshes' bugs... be it within a couple of months... six months?

I realize it's difficult to tell how long it will be to solve a problem, but it would be nice to have a vague timeframe to look forward to.

We're definitely looking to resolve as many issues as possible, both for our own sake and to help with modder-specific bugs. For example, the skintone and navmesh bugs are both being addressed in an upcoming patch. Keep checking patch notes on bethBlog for that. We are also looking into other issues, such as large refs disappearing - but those fixes will be a few patches further away. We also just started a test of a potential fix for the grass-doesn't-update bug which many landscape modders are running into.

I'm sure there will be a number of things we just can't change or fix in the long-run, and I know how unbelievably frustrating it can be when a bug that blocks your progress. Our hope is to minimize this as well as possible, and hearing from the community is the best way for us to focus our efforts.

Heh, I like the vibe I get from this guy. "Don't worry guys, it'll be alright =D"

@SmkViper,

I understand what you are saying, heck I even understand if you guys just put the Wiki up and said that's it we're done, we have more important things to do, the community can add anything else to it.

Here's how I see it though. I'd say that 75% of the community doesn't know how to do the scripting and 10% of the remainder that do would not bother sharing or updating the Wiki. It's usually only a few standout individuals that really add anything that's accurate and useful.

What I would love to see is that as Bethesda develops new scripts for the upcoming DLC, they thoroughly document or video capture and explain them as they create them and then once the DLC is released a short time thereafter post those individually documented scripts as examples on the Wiki. That would provide the community accurate usable script examples from the people that know how to do it better than anyone else. We would most likely get a bunch of examples to reference and it wouldn't be a huge effort on Bethesda's part I would think. If you think that's asking to much hey that's fine. I realize all of the pressure you face and work you guys have to do and I do not blame you if what I suggest is not something you would even consider. I just thought I would provide a suggestion of something that I think might help a bunch of us.

Thanks for all of the hard work! Skyrim's an AWESOME game!

Except I've observed variables resetting when they're in a script that is directly on an object, the objects are still in the same cell as I am (I haven't left the cell, so presumably no resets) - the only way to get the variables to stay around is to register the script for updates or have a while True loop to keep the code in a running condition, or the variables, even the ones declared outside functions, reset as soon as none of the code in the script is running.

Its very decent and re-assuring to have direct answers or at least communication. This refreshes faith in Bethesda so thank you for doing this. It matters. I appreciate you cant answer every particular issue or problem directly but would it be possible to please have a definitive answer regarding the 64x64 cell havok/or other issue, clipping bug. Whenever an NPC is placed more than 64 cells east or 64 cells west of the centre world-space the NPC keeps dropping through the ground and popping back up. This issue is being debated and we are desperately looking for a work-around. All we really need to know are:

1. Is this something Bethesda intend to look at and fix (no problem if you cant, we understand you cant fix everything)
2. Is there any possibility of Bethesda giving us a rough idea of what is wrong to save us time in trying to implement a work-around.

Many thanks

This is really an excellent thread so far and I'd like to thank JoelBurgess for getting to it so quickly. Hear that sigh of relief from the community, even though nothing has been actually fixed? That's the effect of timely communication.

Having worked in software for over twenty five years, I've seen this play out again and again. A little bit of communication - a one line "hey guys, just a note saying we've noticed this bug and are working on it" can go such a long way. To that end, I'd very much appreciate if the Bethesda team could set up a bog-standard bugzilla (or similar bug tracking tool) instance somewhere so that two things can happen:

1. Us modders can maintain and use a single source of truth for the outstanding bugs and issues in the CK, rather than finding them individually or discussing them endlessly on the forums.
2. Every now and then, someone from the Bethesda dev team can mark a bug or two as accepted/under review/etc so that we know you've noticed them.

I realize this is mostly thankless work for you - I mean, you're not making a red cent from the CK and manpower budgets are always tight. But speaking for myself it would make me incredibly grateful, and I'm sure the noise-levels and conflicting information in these forums would reduce drastically. And there might be a small benefit to you from using us as somewhat more organized testers for your dev tools as you prioritize tasks for each patch.

Anyhow - I'm nobody important in this community so I apologize if I'm speaking out of turn, but at any rate thanks for reading.

Dude, just came here to say I agree with all your points and more importantly, this is an internet forum about a video game, trust me when I assure you that no one here is important except guys who do this for a living

Heh... it doesn't matter how trivial it may seem from the outside, once you invest hundreds or thousands of hours into a "hobby", the lines can blur a little. Take a look at some open source forums for all the evidence you need.

Then I suggest opening a thread with your issue, full script source, and steps on reproducing the issue.

Would it be possible to know if the CK is the very same tool that was used to landscape the exteriors in Skyrim ? seems impossible to use any tool for worldbuilding right now as no lod is created , crashes and no texture generation etc , was an external tool used for the task ?

Also would it be possible to have a comprehensive tutorial on how to manage worldscape building in exterior cells with the camera and objects? couse so far is all messy , the camera is erratic , things appear and disappear ... if you guys have made this wonderfull world with this tool then ... Kudos to you ... but I honestly think that you must have used something else because the CK is just not working for the exterior landscaping .... I have spend a whole weekend trying to create a landscape but I just wasted time and I am not a newbie to worldbuilding in different editors and game engines.

I miss that in Oblivion's CS, you could click an object and then enter landscape mode. This caused the camera to be centered around that object and the loaded cells around the object were "locked", preventing the CS to load new cells no matter where you moved the camera.

Try this:,

• right-click anywhere in the render window and choose render window properties
  
• Go to the Render Window tab
  
• Make sure "Allow Render Window Cell Loads" is unchecked
  
• Apply

Joel it's great you respond to certain questions or issues, obviously you don't have to, but I'm curious why you haven't responsed to the LOD issues that everyone's having. I know that many people are looking for any kind of response from Bethesda regarding that including my self. I know a lot of people have spent a great deal of time trying to figure the World LOD issues with limited success. Is there a particular reason why? Does Bethesda not want modders to create unique worlds that work? You guys created 10 tutorials which were great , but they only focused on creating interiors. You say that Bethesda is working on patching the Creation Kit which again is great, but will it also address the LOD issues?

Thanks for acknowledging these bugs! It's great to know that you guys know about them and are working to fix them!

I wasn't around for previous games, (I join in about a year after Fo3 was released), but all this support seems so much better than before and I'm loving it.

Mr. Burgess is a level designer, so he knows the inner workings of the CK very well. However, LOD is an engine thing and a separate issue, so he most likely does not have a good enough understanding to feel comfortable to respond to such a thing.

We would need one of the programmers to respond to that, I would think.

They used 3DS Max and their own importer linked directly to the CK. They cant release this bit because it contained things they don't have legal rights to distribute, so we have to make our own. This is where NifSkope comes in as an intermediary between 3d modeling programs and the editor.

Nifskope really has made so much possible. Its hard to think about what the community would do without such an amazing tool.

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Beware of trying to fix bugs that don't belong to you. While I am fairly certain that a range of skintone bugs have been following TESCS and GECK around for a while now, I've seen the YouTube video of that "navmesh bug" (where actors can't find their way once enough cells are loaded and the player returns). There is a similar issue where, if the computer is pressed to the limits of its performance, objects and odd bits of landscape randomly disappear. I have seen this disappearing model problem and I am convinced that it is a performance issue because once the computer is running the game without a heavy load from other programs, the problem seems to go away. This raises a couple of questions I think are worth asking.
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Does this navmesh bug simply occur whenever enough cells are loaded (without having returned to a given cell)?
And is the problem diffused by quitting to desktop and restarting the game (or restarting the operating system)? If it does, then it sounds like a performance issue.
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I saw something similar when working with the GECK for Fallout: New Vegas. Basically, Fallout: New Vegas had been running for quite some time and, simultaneously, so had the GECK. The navmesh was failing in places where it had been previously repaired, tested and verified as functioning correctly. The problem was intermittant rather than persistent, and was temporarily resolved by restarting the game. Again, this points to resource management, which is usually the purview of the operating system (although some high load software has its own resource management because what ships standard with the operating system may prove unreliable). If games like Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas use their own inbuilt resource management routines to free up or reallocate memory occupied by redundant data - then this might be the location of navmesh and other disappearing model/object problems as well as "memory hole" issues.
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The modern .NET Framework has a system for recycling buffered resources (such as memory) - based on manipulation of the Windows API. It is worth noting that dreaded Windows memory hole is owned by Microsoft (and is probably "protected by Copyright Law and International Treaties"). All irreverence aside, you could waste a lot of time chasing other people's bugs if you are outsourcing resource management to an external API like IE, DX, or .NET.
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By the way, based on the typical development time frame and the size of your staff, I've always suspected that Bethesda's game builders have worked with the same tools - before they get debugged. May I suggest that by ironing out those bugs you could cut development costs and delivery timeframes considerably? Some suggestions which come to mind:
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1. Making the external boundary of navmesh bold and in a colour which cannot be missed will highlight navmesh tears - which play havoc with actor navigation and mod debugging alike.
2. If all snap to grid settings are automatically suspended on entering navmesh editing mode, this would streamline workflow.
3. The message box concerning whether or not to view the linked object also needs the option to simply view the object reference properties - for when mouse and gizmos fail.
4. A popout sidebar with the current hotkey list on one tab, functions on another, etc
5. Models with standard dimensions and a high rate of repetition (e.g. walls) could have a paint on-option, like Command & Conquer.
6. The paint-on option can follow terrain if the models concerned are enclosed in the plane on which they join.
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And a bit of advice: Whenever you are writing direct to an interrupt (and bypassing the API), always include a subroutine which consults the registry, on load, to find out which interrupt you are looking for. Both Skyrim and CK sometimes ignore hardware settings in Windows and interrogate the wrong interrupt as a consequence; mouse buttons being a case in point. If the user has left-handed settings, Skyrim consistently confuses the left and right mouse buttons while the Rendering Window in the CK requires both to be pressed when repositioning objects. This needs to be addressed or lefties will have to start resoldering the microswitches on their pointing devices to force the issue. Imagine the warranty implications.
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And now for some more criticism.
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1. I think that adding the "gizmos" to the CK is a fantastic idea because most people with any exposure to graphic modelling are already familiar with the concept. I also like the existing hot keys for manipulating models in the render window because they are fast and efficient when things are correctly set up - it's just a matter of remembering which key to press.
2. Rendering objects one by one instead of hanging the window until every object is rendered allows better control of the rendering window. If you ever do a slide out help sidebar (on the RHS) for hot key lists and other quick help, then including the F5 key in the list might be helpful.
3. I think the OP has a great idea. There is probably some room for "layering" or grouping of render objects - especially those which just get in the way. Last I checked there was an option to turn vegetation rendering on or off from the toolbar. If this were extended to allow subspaces, effects, etc. to be toggled it would make life easier. I would also suggest a menu system for toggling on or off rendering of all models belonging to any given kit - which will allow progressive mods (e.g. pitch a tent, upgrade to a shack, then to a cottage, then to a house, then to a manor, then to a blockhouse, then to a keep, then to a castle, etc.) to be developed or edited with more facility.
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One more thing. If you find your people are having to either "Mcguiver" or hard-code their way around a non-functioning feature in the course of developing the game, then there is a problem with the tool which needs to be addressed before it costs a fortune in lost time. Look at it this way; if your teams spend the first 20 minutes of each day discussing the procedures, pitfalls and tool defects associated with the days work (while the team leader documents the meeting and, separately, procedure modifications), they are better prepared, have less accidents and make less mistakes. This also gives team leaders the opportunity to meet, subsequently, for their 20 minutes to share findings, raise issues which need to be addressed and get the appropriate resources allocated before the horse leaves the barn. I've seen this kind of system more than halve delivery times - which represents more savings and the capacity to deliver on a much larger scale. Moreover, as the procedures become better optimised and require less modification, the time spent in daily start-up meetings dwindles considerably. This kind of approach is well worth the investment.
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Anyway, I hope you find something useful here. Good luck with the bug-hunt.

It's well documented...it occurs with any non-Bethesda-made file (I.E. A Mod file, not a Master File) when you enter it, exit it and go 2 or more zones away, then return to it. It happens every time, regardless of system specs, and does get fixed if you restart the game.

My diagnosis is: There's something that wasn't done with mod files that was done with the master files when a zone is loaded...the NavMesh for mods is apparently only loaded once per game session, and gets dumped when the zone unloads (it stays in memory if you just leave it and return without zoning again, but gets unloaded if you go to two other zones before returning to it), but not read in again. It is flagging the navmesh as already loaded and not UN-Flagging it when the zone unloads, or it is skipping the loading of the Navmesh when a mod cell is loaded the second and subsequent times during a game session.

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Interesting. If you convert the plugin file to a master file, does this make the problem go away (as it does with some of the various skin-tone bugs)...?

Would like to know that too...

Yes please do either talk about the LOD issue or if it isnt in your realm of expertise then please get someone who knows something about the LOD issues to speak to the forum, and address it when patching.

Whenever Joel Burgess posts a reply the company as a whole raises its profile in my estimation. Ok, Bethesda are above my likes or dislikes and I am irrelevant, but I am sure many people here (buyers of the game series not just the game) feel the same way, so thanks for your replies Joel. They are very much appreciated.

This, a thousand times over. Yeah, it has some bugs but, wow... The Creation Kit is frickin' awesome! I wonder if a lot of the younger folks here truly understand what a great gift this is. It's very rare for any company to give something like this away, free of change, with tutorials no less.

Crytek and a lot of other companies do the same releasing the tools and even allow small teams to go from mods to real small games using their tools ... Providing tuts helps people to learn them better so that they stick with it ... Eventually modders could become the future part of the company ... Also providing tools helps the game to extend its longevity and appeal... As for companies not releasing mod tools is usually couse the game is not stryctured to be accessible from beginning and would require too much work for it...

What are we talking about here? This is not some casual game and should not be measured on such crap. TES just like the Crytek stuff should set standards and not be viewed as some freak in the hell of gaming commercialism.
So yes, it's very nice of Bethesda to publish such a tool - but nevertheless, I expect this from them, as I expect from them not to destroy TES by dumbing it down to some Call of Duty level or what ever... so let's stop to view this as such a grace, because we know nothing else than pointless trash, but rather as something, that does the proper justice to TES in its whole depth.

So thanks to Bethesda for confirming to further improve and patch the provided tools.

Well, kind of late to the party, but as a general comment to the original post, people need to remember the CK is a developers' tool, and not end-user software. I am not privy to the exact process and methodology Bethesda follows, but I would imagine it follows something similar to any in-house binary or script created to perform a specific task, with a specific function or functions in mind, within a relatively small time frame: the CK is compiled to satisfy the requirements for building the game Bethesda plans to build, as the game builders (don't know what they are actually called) use it to build the game, bugs come out, if game builder can't find a work-around, ticket is open, developer finds solution or workaround, which may not be best workaround or solution in the long run, but solves the issue at hand.... rinse and repeat.