VanGohman

Just when I think I'm beginning to understand DynDOLOD, it reveals even more complexity. Truly one of the most ambitious modding tools I've ever come across. Thanks Sheson, I'll take a look at that.

Oh wow, this is happening with a lot of my mods. So I should be hitting one of the quality setting buttons each time I run DynDOLOD with a new load order? I had modified these settings with the Azura full model rule rule and saved off that setting which I kept loading for each new run instead of hitting one of the quality preset buttons, but is that just reloading the rules for the mods I had when I created the saved profile and then not taking into account anything new in my load order?

Okay, that makes sense. I'm definitely having a better time with these tree mods. I may circle back to Dibella down the road and just do the regular flat billboard lod, but for now it doesn't look like I need to brighten up my new 3d hybrid lod, everything just looks good right out of the box. As I was recklessly adding new mods, I came across Enhanced Landscapes, and they talk about how they are using a DynDOLOD ini file to automatically patch things for other mods (such as Routa playerhome outside of Windhelm). Can you point me towards more info on how that works? I got the impression I just install both Enhanced Landscapes and Routa, and somehow DynDOLOD would just make it work together, but for me after all lod generation, Routa is still being messed up by Enhanced Landscapes... Thanks again Sheson.

Oh, so I need to brighten things up before I do the lod generation? So if I'm doing xLodgen, then TexGen, then DynDOLOD, I should be brightening up the billboards before all of that? Or just before DynDOLOD? At what point should I be trying to manually brighten things up? And which dds files should I be trying to brighten up if trying to use full 3D Lod trees? Should I be brightening up the source billboards from the mods I'm using? I just realized there is a doc included about Ultra 3D trees. I think part of my problem is I've been trying to follow third party you tuber instructions. So it looks like DynDOLOD comes with pre made hybrid tree lod support for a handfull of mods, and if I want to use hybrid trees in other mods, those mods need to have pre-made support for hybrid tree lod? Perhaps I should stick to traditional lod for Forrests of Dibella? He is offering an HD and and UHD version, but as I read over his page more, it looks like the Ultra in this case is just referring to higher resolution textures, not Ultra 3D tree lods, he mentioned that he included billboard for DynDOLOD, but I'm now guessing that's only good for traditional flat billboard generation? Since I last posted, I've actually switched over to the trees being used by the youtuber's 3D Ultra Tree Lod guide I was following along with, which would be Enhanced Vanilla Trees SE (Large Custom), the Enhanced Landscapes Oaks SE, Green and Lush Aspen Trees SE, Reach Tree Replacer SSE, alongside various tree placement mods such as the Blubbo's Trees mods, Trees Addon SE, Whiterun Forest Borealis. Going over the doc included in DynDolod, it looks like these may be better candidates for my full Ultra 3D hybrid tree lod dreams?

I've been able to brighten up the dds image, and save it back out, but I don't believe I'm seeing the results in the game when I load it up. I'm trying to edit just the one dds file from this path within the DynDOLOD generated folder after installing it into my mod oganizer2: D:\Modding Tools\MO2\mods\DynDOLOD_Output_High_3DLod - Brighter\Textures\Terrain\Tamriel\Trees\TamrielTreeLod.dds Am I in the wrong place to effect the snow trees I'm looking at by Anga's Mill? I'm not sure if this matters, but in DynDOLOD, I'm trying to generate the full 3D tree lod by setting TreeLOD=0 in the DynDOLOD_SSE.ini file. Maybe this only works for regular lod settings (aka TreeLOD=0)?

Looks like Gimp's latest DDS plugin isn't good enough for the new format, but Paint.net with it's Gimp plugin already included in the latest version worked a treat (at least I was able to open the dds file). Now I'm off to try and brighten them up. Thanks again Sheson!

Looks like I can't just load them up in my ancient version of paint shop pro. I also just tried gimp, but even after downloading it's dds plugin, it's telling me it can't open files with this type of compression. Is Photoshop the majority choice here? Looks like I can get a "cloud" version for a $3 a month subscription, do you know if that will work? I'm also looking into nifscope (per a video I found on creating my own billboards), in which case I've managed to load up and look at nif files, but not sure if this is a good method? Also, the Forests of Dibella mod seems to come with it's own Textures\Terrain\LODgen folder full of dds files and matching txt files inside of Skyrim, Dawnguard, and Dragonborn esm folders. Is this possibly pre-made stuff I can somehow sub in without having to worry about generating my own billboards? I apologize in advance for not being image editing savvy.

I've re-installed my load order from scratch, toned back on the mix and match textures, and just stuck to Noble Skyrim, The HD Lod pack for it, Nordic Snow, Just Ice, and Majestic Mountains, to keep things simple, and now I'm getting some great results. I think part of my problem is I was also trying to use Majestic Mountain's "complimentary textures" pack, which were competing with the ones I wanted. Now that I've taken them out of the mix, things are really starting to click in the terrain. I'm getting great tree lods, the only thing I still have to figure out is how to even out the brightness between the full-size and lod trees. I've started playing around with the brightness settings on DynDOLOD, and it seems I can make the lod brighter, but at the expense of contrast. Is there a known method or setting that is known to work the best?

It's so hard to find other people who use Skyrim VR instead of SE. :D In case anyone else was wondering about this issue, I think it's an engine limitation. I'm able to see the flickering water from that vantage point no matter what I do. But it seems the texture mods I was mixing and matching may have made it much more apparent. My first suspect was Realistic Water Two, which would have been a shame because I love that mod so much, but with just that mod enabled, it didn't seem any worse than vanilla. Ultimately, the one mod that seemed to be causing it (directly or indirectly with other mods), was Majestic Mountains? From my research, it seems as though you are not able to turn off the "improved Shader" they added to the SE version, because the VR version was branched before adding support for turning that off with an INI command: bEnableImprovedSnow=0 This seems to be the reason I can't seem to get my snow textures to match up in the LOD (things often have a blue tint to it in the lod). I'm not sure if this is causing other issues, but I'm wondering how many things about Skyrim VR are different enough to possibly cause issues with mods that otherwise work fine on the SE version. If anyone has any insight about these kinds of differences, I'd love to hear about it.

Hey guys, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, so apologies in advance if this isn't the place. In the riverside waterfalls area near Anga's Mill, (just south of Windhelm), when I'm at the top of the chain of waterfalls, standing on the rock that outcrops over the first waterfall and look down, the river water on the next level down from there has a terrible flicker. I've tried removing all mods and using COC angasmillexterior, and it seems like this flicker is still there (although not as pronounced). I've been doing research for a few days now, and have come across other flickering water surface issues that were related to going higher than 60fps, but so far all the video clips I've seen appear to have a slightly different issue where the whole water will flicker. In my case, it's just the rushing white water effects (which are more prominent when using Reaslistic Water Two, hence why it's more noticeable than vanilla I think). I happen to be using Skyrim VR, and to get a stable framerate, I'm using ASW, which locks the Rift S to 40 fps, and it makes up every other frame to simulate a 90 fps "feel" in the headset. I've tried turning off ASW, and my headset ends up hovering between 80 and 50 fps, and I still see this issue there as well. Has anyone come up against this sort of thing before? It doesn't seem like there are any examples out there (at least on video) that seem to match what I'm seeing Here is a video of what i'm seeing with all mods turned on, but this still happens with vanilla (just not as obvious), so I'm thinking it's some kind of engine limitation or non ideal frame rate situation. Any help here would be hot. :)

Cool, thanks again for everything Sheson, this stuff really makes such a huge difference, especially in VR where every little thing that isn't realistic just stands out like a sore thumb in 3D. :D

Doing some research, it turns out that the ini setting that turns off the SE "improved" snow shader "bEnableImprovedSnow=0" doesn't work with the VR version. In other news, the VR version also doesn't support esl flags, so my quest to go over the 255 plugins I'm using now continues. I guess I should be merging mods with xedit and or using wrye bash, but I'm not sure the latter works with the vr verison just yet. In the end here, I went through and kept the "Noble Skyrim"/"Majestic Mountains" with complimentary textures and LOD pack, along with "Just Ice" on top, which seems to have evened out the blues between the near and distant snow. The "Just Ice" makes the brighter white on the glacier ice areas blend in a little better. No matter what I do, I always have a slight mis-match between the near and far glaciers pattern-wise, but at least the color tones are closer now. Looks like those lod bits turned varying shades of brighter blue when using: "Fluffy Snow", "Nordic Snow (HD Snow)" or "RIS - Real Ice and Snow". The only other thing to mention is I'm using the Majestic Mountains with Better Dynamic Snow and the patch for both of them "Better Majestic Mountains". Along with the "complimentary textures" and "lod pack" for MM. Even after running xLodGEN, TexGen, and DynDOLOD, the patterns on the mountains still pop in as I get closer, similar to the glaciers mismatch I can't seem to get around. Is this texture pop in expected? Also, there is this huge hole in the sea texture (giant rectangle), way off behind Winterhold, is that just how Skyrim is? Or did I do that with one of my mods? Thanks again for walking me through this.

This is another quick snapshot of how things look with all of my mods turned on for posterity... I was reading about people disabling the "improved" snow shader (from SE release), but I think I wasn't able to find the suggested ini tweak in my ini files, so I assumed the VR version must not have had it... Maybe I needed to manually add it in...

Thanks for the direction. I've turned off all (I think) added textures, trying to get my game closer to it's vanilla appearance, and it seems like my near snow better matches the slightly far glaciers grayness that I was seeing before, but the lod seems to be a brighter white. I also remove the lod in this video, which leaves me with mostly matching grey snow. Can you tell me if this is how vanilla is supposed to look? I can't remember anymore. Thanks again.

Oh yeah, and one other thing you can see in this video is how the glacier ice looks greyer than the close up glaciers, which are a light blue. I get the feeling that this is due to most ice overhauls not including their own lod textures? I've seen posts from people who gave up trying to make that stuff match better, which again makes me wonder if there's a best case scenario texture combination for ice and snow when it comes to DynDoLod. One other thing to mention here now that I remember it, is I ended up deleting a snow texture in the HD Texture pack (the one I was missing earlier in this thread that better matches the Noble Skyrim building textures) that was overwriting Majestic Mountains, which was causing the distant glaciers to look even darker, including the snow on top of it.

Hey Sheson, I have gotten the Noble Skyrim textures from the HD Lod pack to show up on the buildings now, but my current battle has to do with snow textures in the distance. As I was saying before, I'm using the Realistic Overhaul textures as a base, the Noble Skyrim textures on top of that, the Majestic Mountains with it's lod and complimentary texture packs, followed by realistic ice and snow, and the cherry on top is the Just Ice textures for the glaciers and ice. The Realistic Snow and Ice is showing up on my near snow underfoot, but in the distance these textures are appearing a bit blue. Not on the mountain tops as I've seen others getting in other threads I've found here, but on the ground in the distance. Please take a look at this video I've uploaded here: I'm just starting to figure out xedit, maybe I just need to figure out what other mods mess with this snow texture? Or perhaps the texture is the right one, but it's got some kind of shader effect? For kicks I've tried removing my vivid weathers/true storms mods, but even then I'm getting a similar blue result on this near-distant snow. Or maybe this is just another limitation of the game engine that can't be worked around? I know I see stuff like this in a lot of other people's streams. But then again I know sometimes people have nice white snow all over. Is there perhaps a recommended snow texture combination that blends better? Maybe I should be using bluer snow in the foreground so it matches up better? Thanks again for all you do Sheson.

Okay, this makes a lot of sense. I think I'm doing it right now, I was just expecting the lod to match perfectly, when it's just a lot closer now than with the vanilla lod. I can see even the vanilla lod is off from the vanilla close range, probably even more off than it is right now with with the Noble Skyrim and HD Lod mods. I can see why they use the decals at a distance, it's nice to know I can call the dogs off of that one. I think it's because of how well Dyndolod does it's thing that I expected perfection, but it's so much better looking overall that I'm just blown away at what it can do. I've always been able to meet the vanilla graphics half way with all of it's shortcomings, and now with DynDolod, it's even easier to suspend my disbelief. Thanks for everything, it's so appreciated.

So using the HD LODs Textures SE, the lod textures on Hunningbrew are darker, and closer to the Noble Skyrim textures, but it's a bit darker overall than when I'm up close, and the big circular window on it is lighter in the lod than up close. Being made with Noble Skyrim in mind, are they supposed to match better? Also, when using the HD LODs Textures SE, the snowy bits in the distance are a dark grey, popping into bright whites and blues as I get close. If I take this mod out of the picture after generating tex gen and DynDOLOD output, the dark greys go away, but now they look blurry, until I get close. I'm also using better dynamic snow and better dynamic snow for Magestic Mountains for what it's worth. I get the impression I should stick closely to the Noble Skyrim and Majestic Mountains base textures, and maybe not use other textures like these snow textures or the Realistic Overhaul textures to match best with the pre-generated HD LODs Textures SE pack?

Now things are looking much less "vanilla" on Hunningbrew, with darker textures that are much closer to what I was seeing close up, maybe just a touch darker than the full sized textures, but a lot closer than before. The only thing now is the detail of the arch over the door of the leftmost building disappears as I back away, is that just how detailed the lod can get, or should I try to further troubleshoot my textures? Maybe get rid of the overhaul I had laid down before Noble Skyrim... Also, I'm using "SMIM Windmills Resized", and when I'm looking at the lod version, the lit window appears to be in front of the blades. When I'm up close it looks right... Was thinking about going back to regular sized windmills...

Thanks for the quick response sheson, I had been messing around with the HD LOD Textures SE before, but perhaps I wasn't using them correctly. I'll give it another go. It's nice to know that it wasn't supposed to just work with the Noble Skyrim texture pack, I really thought it was something I was doing wrong. :D It's also good to know the fallen trees is a hit and miss for what can be added to the lod. Off to test! :)

Whoops, I meant to say Mod Organizer 2, not Mod Manager 2.

I am really new to this (and by "new" I mean I've been trying to figure this out for 3 years now). I'm trying to get all of this to work with Skyrim VR using Mod Manager 2 (portable mode). I believe I have gotten DynDOLOD to "work" partially, in that I managed to get the lod for Azura's statue to match the "Sexy Statues" version I have installed by including a rule at the bottom of the rules list. This seems to show up in game just fine. I think the tree lods have worked for my "3d Trees and Plants", "3d Landscapes", and "Trees Addon SSE" (plus it's cities trees beta), and all seem to be visible in the lod. I also believe that I'm seeing the improved LODS for objects such as houses, because I can now see lod for things like Elysium Estate, which adds a player home just outside of Whiterun, because I now see this player home much sooner than I would have without using DynDOLOD. But for some reason, the LOD textures for all homes all seem to look like "vanilla" textures, while I'm using a combination of "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul" textures with "Noble Skyrim" set to overwrite the former, and then "Majestic Mountains" (including the "complimentary textures" and it's own "Lod pack for Dyndolod" set to overwrite both. When I'm close to Honningbrew Meadery, it has the darker textures that come with Noble Skyrim (I think), which includes additional arch detail on the left building over the door, but as I walk backwards over the bridge that takes me along the whiterun wall it eventually switches to what look like vanilla textures. The other issue I'm wondering about is I have a mod called "Immersive Fallen Trees" that adds "Fallen Trees" all over the place, many spanning rivers etc. And I don't see the tree models it adds in the lod, at least not very far off lod. There is one tree in particular I've been testing with, and it appears on the river just above the bridge you go to with the console command coc Whiterun. Does DynDOLOD create additional lod models for terrain object modes like "Immersive Fallen Trees"? If so, how far would I be able to see them? I've been resisting the urge to post here for weeks now, pouring over the manuals, additional information, guides, and tutorial videos, so if this is a simple thing, I apologize in advance. Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you can help, even more thanks in advance! -VanGohman