Review Guide

Navmesh/Optimization Review refers to a check/test of the navmesh by a second person.

For both Interiors and Exteriors

1. Look at navmesh in Navmesh Only View mode (Control-E to view navmesh, press W twice)

a. Zoom back to see entire navmesh, rotate to look for floating verts and delete if found.

b. Look at navmesh from the side to look for navmesh floating above the ground or sunk below ground and fix where appropriate. Better for navmesh to be slightly below ground vs above. Cycle through W if needed.

 c. Click a triangle, open navmesh menu, Select Triangle By Index, Check for errors. Fix any errors found. 

Tip: While in Navmesh mode, press Control-F to open this dialogue box.

d. Optimize triangle geometry where needed by flipping edges or adding/merging verts

e. Check for non-traversible navmesh (yellow line somewhere other than the outside border) and fix.

f. Check for navmesh islands. Decide if appropriate or if islands can be joined.

g. Look for steep navmesh and test if an NPC can traverse it.

2. Look at navmesh in Standard View mode.

a. Ensure complete coverage for the level, moving verts or adding tris as needed.

b. Ensure no clipping of navmesh through statics.

c. Press M to see markers, ensure navmesh underneath every furniture marker, idle marker and door marker.

d. Verify any required preferred pathing/water.

e. Look for narrow appearing paths and test with CK (Fargoth or similar NPC) and in game with Gary to confirm if needed.

f. If the cell is an Egg Mine, check pathing with a Kwama Warrior since they are larger than a standard NPC.

3. Generate cover and finalize the cell

a. After cover generation check geometry again and fix if needed

b. Finalize cell, ensuring door tris are recognized.

c. Save

d. Finalize cell a **second** time and save again (On the second save, the CK fixes any incorrect edge links)

e. Check navmesh for errors again.

f. Check CK log for pathfinding issues and resolve any errors found.

Exterior/Worldspace specific checks (do all the above along with this)

1. a. Press N to isolate navmesh to the current cell

2. b. Ensure all vertices are snapped to landscape as opposed things like flora/trees.

3. c. Roads should have preferred pathing

4. d. Water deep enough for the player to swim should be flagged as water

5. e. Navmesh should not be sitting on the surface of the water

6. f. Add drop downs where appropriate

7. g. Press N to view all navmesh

8. h. Ensure the navmesh matches the bordering tris and adjust vertices where appropriate. Snap to landscape on both sides where appropriate.

9. i. After finalization, ensure every border tri has a correctly joined green edge link

10. j. If an edge link is blue/white (has associated cover), remove the cover from that specific edge link.

Optimization checks

1. Click View, Show/Hide window, ensure that occlusion planes and roombounds are checked

2. Press M to view markers.

3. Use roombounds when rooms and all statics can be clearly contained in a single bound. Caves/organic levels should generally use occlusion planes.

4. Ensure roombounds touch and don't overlap.

5. Ensure portal present and fit well to doorway.

6. In game, walk through every portal sideways to ensure you don't see a flash of void (indicates the roombounds don't actually line up and you are between roombounds)

7. Ensure you can't look through more than two portals at any time. Remake any roombounds or switch to occlusion planes if needed

8. In game, open an fps counter to identify problem areas that might benefit from occlusion

9. Ensure all objects are correctly visible and add multibounds if needed.

Tips for testing

1. From the main menu teleport to an interior using 'coc cellname'. 

2. From the main menu teleport to a worldspace cell using 'cow worldspacename x,y.' For example, 'cow wrldmorrowind 4,-6'

3. Toggle God Mode using 'tgm' to easily fight NPCs in the cell. Don't be afraid to get them stuck, that's why we are testing it!

4. Summon Gary using Pathing Test Summon Dremora. You can then cast Place Path Test Marker at a location and he will try to run there. If he gets stuck, fix the problem in the CK.

5. Use the Numpad * key to display the exterior cell you are in.