Need help troubleshooting texture/mesh problem

[exploiteddna]

So as the title says, I need some help troubleshooting texture/mesh problem.  I can see the outline of the mesh responsible for one of those magic blue beams you see on the pathway up to Winterhold College. Here is a screenshot showing you the problem.

 

 

 

My first thought was that one of the textures from a mod is screwing it up. So, Ive found the mesh (mgmagicfirepillarsmall.nif) and loaded it up into nifskope and looked at all of the textures associated with it. However, none of the associated textures have been replaced or modified by any of the mods/texturepacks im using.

 

Also, I am certain that this is the correct mesh because it has the same shape as the in-game outline when i load it into nifskope.

 

So, since it seems that none of the textures being used by the mesh are being altered in any way and are thus still being pulled from the vanilla BSA (no highres DLC installed), it seems that textures arent the culprit.  Ive also checked to see if any of the mods im using have replaced or edited the mesh itself.  However, it is still vanilla as well. The only other thing I can think of is maybe a lighting mod is changing the imagespace in such a way that it reveals the seams??? But I dont know, that is a little out of my league.  I am using the relatively new RLO Weathers module (not the legacy one) that i know modifies the imagespaces a lot, but again, i dont even know if that makes a difference.

 

Any help from anyone who may have experienced this or something similar in the past would be greatly appreciated.

[TechAngel85]

Have you tried disabling RLO Weathers to see if that resolves the problem?

[exploiteddna]

Surprisingly, no. I guess I thought that my idea was so far-fetched I didn't even test it out. I figured if someone on here with a little more experience thought it was plausible they would tell me to go test it out.

 

I will go test now and update

[exploiteddna]

ok yeah, just disabled ELFX and the RLO Weathers module and the outline is still there, just as noticeable as before.

This is so bizarre.. im at a loss. im actually considering removing the branch of nif responsible for that part of the model that's showing the outline.. or i could just disable the references in CK and live without magic fire beams..

[TechAngel85]

Did you run DDSopt on any textures?

[exploiteddna]

Did you run DDSopt on any textures?

ive run DDSopt on most of my main texture packs. I use the exact settings that STEP recommends, except I sometimes use a smaller resolution constraint to cut back on vram and dram usage.

[torminater]

For Mod textures you should deselect the "increase of opacity with higher mip levels, but that's not the cause of your problem. Deinstall all texture mods and optimized textures and See what happens.

[exploiteddna]

For Mod textures you should deselect the "increase of opacity with higher mip levels but that's not the cause of your problem. Deinstall all texture mods and optimized textures and See what happens.

ok ill do that later, maybe tomorrow, as it's a pretty big task.  

you think some other texture thats not even being used by the model could be causing problems??

[torminater]

Sry didn't Look at the pics before. Your seam is a Vanilla issue post-1.6... Its caused by AA artifacting of light emitting structures such As hearths, torches, spells or your beams. Turn off AA and the issue will Be gone. That has Some issues As well though...

[exploiteddna]

Sry didn't Look at the pics before. Your seam is a Vanilla issue post-1.6... Its caused by AA artifacting of light emitting structures such As hearths torches, spells or your beams. Turn off AA and the issue will Be gone. That has Some issues As well though...

thank you very much for the informed response. would it make any difference if i used different AA, like maybe SMAA or something like that? You say its a vanilla issue.. does that mean it's a problem with the vanilla shaders? maybe using different shader(s) could make it go away..

[Aiyen]

It cannot hurt to try out various AA´s. Sometimes you just get strange artifacts from those. Most of the time they are fairly small. Will try to take a look at mine later and see how they look.

[phazer11]

Try it without AA and if that fixes it if your computer can handle the load find an ENB you like. If I'm not playing with an ENB I don't use AA so I never noticed that seam and I still haven't when using MSAA through an ENB.

[exploiteddna]

It cannot hurt to try out various AA´s. Sometimes you just get strange artifacts from those. Most of the time they are fairly small. Will try to take a look at mine later and see how they look.

Try it without AA and if that fixes it if your computer can handle the load find an ENB you like. If I'm not playing with an ENB I don't use AA so I never noticed that seam and I still haven't when using MSAA through an ENB.

ok sounds good.  yeah im currently not using an enb, but im very familiar with it and have used it plenty in the past. I have pretty much every version of binary and many different profiles sitting in my enb manager, so all i would need to do is merely open it and activate.  

When you suggest to me to play without AA, are you talking about disabling AA at the driver level or game level? Also, what kind of quality hit will result from disabling AA?

[Aiyen]

Some people can live with a few jagged egdes... for them SMAA is the best, since performance is a bit better then FXAA.

For those who cannot live with any jagged egdes then you need to set 8x in the control panel and enable super samling as well. This should remove just about ALL.

Performance wise then it depends on your resolution. The higher you go the higher the performance hit and also the higher the VRAM usage.

 

I always think it best to experiment yourself. SweetFX now includes both SMAA and FXAA so it is as easy as setting changing a 0 to a 1 to try it out.

Then you can see what your machine can handle, and what your preference is.

[phazer11]

It cannot hurt to try out various AA´s. Sometimes you just get strange artifacts from those. Most of the time they are fairly small. Will try to take a look at mine later and see how they look.

Try it without AA and if that fixes it if your computer can handle the load find an ENB you like. If I'm not playing with an ENB I don't use AA so I never noticed that seam and I still haven't when using MSAA through an ENB.

ok sounds good.  yeah im currently not using an enb, but im very familiar with it and have used it plenty in the past. I have pretty much every version of binary and many different profiles sitting in my enb manager, so all i would need to do is merely open it and activate.  

When you suggest to me to play without AA, are you talking about disabling AA at the driver level or game level? Also, what kind of quality hit will result from disabling AA?

I mean completely disable AA in the launcher and I think you need to disable it in the driver as well for full effect. As for performance it should increase not decrease if you disable the game's AA.