I am trying to make a static collection by following the tutorial, but no matter what I put together, even if its two copies of the same static object, once I assign it a name and click okay, my collection of objects disappears to be replaced with a big red diamond with an exclamation point in it. I'm guessing this mean I've done something wrong, but no warning dialogs are popping up telling me WHAT I've done wrong, and when I double click on the exclamation point, nothing in the Reference or Edit Base windows indicates that there's a problem. It just shows the list of base objects, etc. Any ideas?

I just tried this myself with four sections of a clean vault hallway. It worked. Are you getting the red diamond with the exclamation point in the render windows of the GECK or in-game? The Red diamond indicates that the nif file is missing or invalid. This leads me to believe that either the GECK is being prevented from making a new nif of the nif is being made in a sub-directory where the geck isn't looking. My new SCOL was created in \Data\Meshes\SCOL. Do you see you SCOL there? If not, do a search for it and place it there. If you can't find it at all, then I would say that your OS is somehow preventing new files from being created. If this is the case, I'll bet you are running Vista. I don't use Vista myself, but perhaps one of these might solve it for you.

1. Remove the security from your OS.
2. In your \Fallout3\Data\Meshes\SCOL folder, look at the top right. There should be a button called 'Compatibility Files'. Click that to find your SCOL. You can then copy it from there to your SCOL folder.
3. Run the GECK in Administrator mode. Right-click on the icon and select, Run as Administrator.

I cannot attest to the fact that these suggestion will work or not. They are modifications of solutions used for using mods under Vista. But my main focus is the fact that I think your OS security is preventing the SCOL from either being made or being used.

Let me know if any of this stuff worked, or you were able to correct it another way.

Hi pkliess, I am indeed running vista, and when I go to \Fallout3\Data there is no folder for Meshes. There is a "Fallout - Meshes.bsa" file, but no folder. Also, a search of my computer turned up nothing when I typed in SCOL.

It's a bit late in the evening for me to give your suggestions a try, but I'll give it all a shot when I get back to it tomorrow.

Ok then, the first thing I would do prior to trying the other suggestions from my prior post would be to create the needed directory structure - namely make a \Data\Meshes\SCOL folder and see if that allows the creation of the SCOL nif file. If that doesn't work, then try the other suggestions. If you have FOMM you could also try to unpack two vanilla SCOL nifs from the Meshes.BSA and chooe your data directory when the thing prompts you for a directory to unpack to. The FOMM unpacker will keep the folder structure of the nif files intact if you choose 2 or more files to unpack. If you choose one, you have to tell it exactly where to put it. I would be interested to see if the unpacker will create the needed directory structure or not in your case. If it didn't then I would be even more convinced that it is an OS security issue. The GECK appears to not make the needed structure, so it looks like you'll have to do it yourself - when you wake up that is.

pkliess, you are a genius - and my hero. Creating the folders did the trick. Yay! This will make some things a lot easier. Thanks!

Oi all, new guy here. Been Having alot of fun with the geck and I was bummed I couldn't make SCOLs, or so I thought. Thnx for the info, creating that folder made the geck and me very happy, now I don't have to leave my "assemblies" up high so they're out of the way and easy to select, can just drag and drop the SCOL of it.

Yea, SCOLs really are a very neat tool. And pkleiss was very helpful in figuring them out. Unfortunately he seems to have dissapeared shortly after his last post in this thread.