Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch

Pictures are needed.

Okay, started new game, USSEP and Alt Start, started as Stormcloak for quick access to area and holes are there. Disabled both and took the vanilla picture with no holes, reenabled USSEP only, holes back.

Attached Files:

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Interesting. I can confirm it, but i can't see what would cause it. The "gaps" are ref 000A853E clipping through the ground, but we haven't edited that part of the mesh, changed how it's positioned, OR changed the landscape in that cell.

That's weird, but good that it's confirmed not just to be me. Not the first random thing that's had me scratching my head at a Bethesda game - I once installed a mod that renovated the Red Rocket in Fallout 4 and the floor of the castle vanished in build mode. Hopefully you can work out a solution.

Since USSEP won't edit landscapes, placing some small snowdrifts there may be the best fix.

Yeah, there's a mod that does it already, but it's a pretty ugly and amateurish fix and isn't compatible with dirt road replacers such as Northern Roads, as it leaves snow piles in the middle of the dirt. Sadly, I can't test the attached esp file as I'm on PS5, so tied to the Bethesda menu.

The changelog does mention some changes to the windhelm bridge and stable nif files, as well as some adjustments to flying stones in the area, but those are the only things in the log that mention the area, and I'm not skilled enough in modding to know whether those could have an unexpected knock-on effect.

I checked those meshes and we didn’t edit the area that’s clipping, so that shouldn’t have any effect. It also seems like this bug predates ussep making any edits to those meshes.

That is the weirdest thing. The fact that the largest is a perfect hexagon is also striking.

Block 34 BSLightingShaderProperty
Compared to the vanilla mesh this block is lacking:
* the 'OwnEmit' Shader Flags 1
* the 'Envmap_Light_Fade' Shader Flags 2
But restoring them doesn't fix anything...
Copying back the vanilla block has no effect...

The whole mesh is a lot lighter than the vanilla one. I'm afraid some crucial information was lost (maybe some bounding data). It's worth starting from the vanilla mesh and re-applying cautiously 'by hand' the USSEP fixes.

EDIT: Done. I cautiously copied USSEP altered blocks back in the vanilla mesh, copied back USSEP altered shaders and whole mesh collision. Looks like it's working.
Only exception: I kept block 26 which apparently contains unused or duplicate geometry. Removing it brings back the OP issue...

Attached Files:

_Fix Issue 37071.7z

There were a lot of other ussep changes to fix a ton of zfighting, a lot of gaps, etc, so just copying those exactly back to the vanilla ones probably isn’t a valid fix. From my notes all changes you listed there are intentional, such as fixing the bounding data. A better fix may be to copy just the vanilla block 26 into the ussep one and keep the “unused” geometry, since clearly it’s not actually unused.

EDIT: Looks like the one you posted is missing a few of the intentional fixes, like clearing out some all-white vertex colors.

Oh and those two shader flags only do stuff if they’re assigned to a glow shader or and environment map shader, if they’re in a “default” shader the game outright ignores them.

DarthVitrial,
As I understand you are the author of all previous fixes concerning this mesh. I don't have in mind and I can't find a listing of all errors you fixed. Thus, you are the best inspector for the fixed mesh I provided... (even if, as I understand from your explanations, all previous modifications were effectively included). The original issue reported in this thread is basically 'the USSEP altered mesh exposes an issue that is visible only because the mesh is protruding through the terrain'. Another valid fix would just be to take the USSEP mesh and lower a bit the few vertices that are too high.

Yeah, the question is why those vertices are too high in the first place when no changes were made to them. I'm trying to identify where that happened, then fix those. Since even directly copy-pasting the original dirt slope mesh from the existing vanilla mesh into ussep's doesn't affect the gaps.

I found the issue, it's nothing to do with the mesh itself. We somehow lost a texture swap in the actual esm.

Fixed for real.
Basically when the invalid "this does nothing except zfight" block was removed, it renumbered the other blocks, which made the texture swap not apply. This fixes.

Attached Files:

bridgeswapfix.esp

On my setup the issue was already there on vanilla. I'm using Cathedral Weathers, which may make the issue much more visible. I fixed it on my side by applying the last process I mentioned: Taking the actual USSEP mesh and lowering 8 vertices by 5 units.

Attached Files:

37071_ VANILLA.jpg
37071_USSEP.jpg
37071_USSEP_Fixed_FINAL.jpg
_Fix Issue 37071 FINAL.7z

In that case the ideal fix would be both the ussep fix with the lowered vertices you have as well as the fixed texture swap in the esp.