I've seen Bethesda tutorials that praise the wonderous virtues of snapping, yet when I attempt to mod a vanilla cell, nothing seems to be aligned on a grid. I've tried 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 but my new components won't snap nicely into the vanilla pieces. Half the time I can't even get my own pieces to snap together correctly either, which leads me to believe that the snap-to-grid feature might be wonky. Does this seem to be the case for anyone else, or is it just me?

sounds like just you. Has always worked like a charm for me.

If I create a new cell, it seems to work correctly. In a vanilla cell using the same snap settings, nothing wants to line up correctly - even using the exact same kit pieces that work in a new cell. Strange. Ah well, guess I'll just work around it if I can.

I had problems with this, at first. Then I realized how the Shift + Q actually worked. It was snap-on after that.

I didn't know you could also induce snapping in the CK, although I'm not surprised to hear this. I've been experiencing it for years with other software.

This is probably an idiotic question, but I assume you are using the snap to reference feature?

Snap To Reference is indeed the solution.

Some of the vanilla cells are not based on the default grid origin (0, 0, 0).

For example, if you look at the X-coordinate of a vanilla reference, it might be 59.8596, which is obviously not a multiple of 2, so new pieces won't snap to it.

File > Preferences > Select Snap Reference > Select Reference in Render Window, then select any vanilla piece which is precisely aligned (such as a floor tile).

After that, all new pieces will snap to the vanilla grid.

Incidentally, does anyone know a way of forcing the vanilla pieces onto the default grid?

[quote name='Proleric' timestamp='1334500982' post='20632813']
Snap To Reference is indeed the solution.

Some of the vanilla cells are not based on the default grid origin (0, 0, 0).

For example, if you look at the X-coordinate of a vanilla reference, it might be 59.8596, which is obviously not a multiple of 2, so new pieces won't snap to it.

File > Preferences > Select Snap Reference > Select Reference in Render Window, then select any vanilla piece which is precisely aligned (such as a floor tile).

After that, all new pieces will snap to the vanilla grid.

Incidentally, does anyone know a way of forcing the vanilla pieces onto the default grid?
[/quote]

Turn local grid snap off, drag one piece until it snaps, then drag the other pieces to snap to that one.

Snap to Reference seems to have done the trick - thanks!

Strangely, that doesn't seem to work.

When the other pieces are selected and moved as a unit, they won't snap to the reference piece.

That's because they're all off the grid, so their composite is also off the grid. You'll have to do it one piece at a time.

I've noticed that certain tilesets really don't like working on larger grids. I just recently had this problem working with the Imperial tileset from Solitude. I've been working with a snap value of 2 (as opposed to the 32 I usually do) simply because it is composed of so many small, modular pieces. At that point, I basically just add things carefully and eyeball it.