Graphical glitch in Oblivion

This has happened to me several times, but I can't get it to happen on queue. I was running a number of mods at the time, but it sometimes happens without them. Since I got OOO 1.3 it happens much more often. Also, one of the mods I used seems to have paralyzed all instances of mud crabs for an indefinite period of time which is why this one was on its back and didn't move when I hit it the first time. It affected some boars and deer as well.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure I know now why this happens. It's not exactly a Havok engine bug. The monster's data contains those chunks (non-moving pieces) individually and the engine has them all attached by "joints" while its alive. When it dies, the muscle constraints moving those parts are severed and the monster/NPC becomes a ragdoll (has joints, but no muscle). When a monster/NPC is paralyzed it becomes a ragdoll for a time until the paralyzing wears off. The game accounts for this and just leaves them as ragdolls if they're killed while paralyzed. BUT, what's happening here is the crab is getting loaded (by stepping into its area) as a paralyzed monster and in the ragdoll state, but the game doesn't think it's really paralyzed (this is what I'm not so sure about). Since the game doesn't think it's actually paralyzed it (the game, not the engine) will try to call whatever function turns it into a ragdoll. Since the engine already thinks it is a ragdoll, it interprets this command as "remove joints" or something like that. But the "graphical joints" are still connected so we get this weird skewing effect you see as they roll down. The only way I think you could possibly force this to happen is if you paralyzed something, were able to leave its overworld area to the point where it would be unloaded (pretty far, and not by quick travel), save, quit, reopen, load, return to it and try killing it. Either that or be able to paralyze it while it's not loaded with a WIDE area effect spell. I don't know, I'm pretty sure one of those might work. Have fun trying. :)

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• oblivion
• video
• game
• mud
• crab
• graphical
• glitches