Flickering Lod - Magical College of Winterhold

[Vanders]

Can anyone here help me with a lod related problem? I know it's not about DynDOLOD, but no one else, including the mod author, seems to know what is wrong with a particular mod that causes flickering lod and people here know a lot about lod. 

I've downloaded and installed Magical College of Winterhold alongside NO other mods on a fresh install of Skyrim SE. The problem is that when the lod textures kick in on the College they flicker very annoyingly. When I click on an area of the College to get the ref number and type disable the flickering stops, but when I move closer part of the building has disappeared (could this mean the regular textures and lod textures are conflicting?). I've used SSELODGEN to attempt to sort the issue, but that did nothing. 

 

I spoke with Zilav who suggested turning off Large Object Distance. This mostly fixes the problem, but there is still flicker when the textures transition from lod to default but not the other way around. He believes it must be related to an engine bug with Skyrim SE's Large Reference system and further suggested I convert the file to an esm and generate Large Reference information with xedit, but this didn't work either. So he finally suggested I ask here. 

 

The mod author, Sable, has confirmed that no large references were edited and things were only added. At most, he added a tower on top of the College which has yet to have lods generated for it. 

No one else on the mod page seems to have reported this issue so it seems to be an isolated case. Have anyone got any idea what the problem might be and how I might fix it without abandoning the very good MCoW mod?

[sheson]

Regarding the remaining reference that flickers, that is not the normal 1s transition flicker? It continues until a new cell is loaded? If it is just a brief 1s or so, then this is how the engine works and it happens for all LOD objects being switched out when the cell is loaded. It may be just a bit more prominent for some large structures.

 

What is its form id?

Does it happen with vanilla LOD also or only with LOD generated with SSELODGen?

 

 

Edit: The plugin overwrites these large references:

 

[REFR:0010E31A] (places DragonMarker [sTAT:000138C0] in GRUP Cell Persistent Children of [CELL:00000D74] (in Tamriel "Skyrim" [WRLD:0000003C]) at 28,27)

[REFR:0010F8C5] (places DragonMarker [sTAT:000138C0] in GRUP Cell Persistent Children of [CELL:00000D74] (in Tamriel "Skyrim" [WRLD:0000003C]) at 28,27)

[REFR:00107F53] (places SnowDriftM01 [sTAT:0006021F] in GRUP Cell Temporary Children of WinterholdCollegeExterior [CELL:00008E62] (in Tamriel "Skyrim" [WRLD:0000003C] at 28,27))

[REFR:00107F51] (places SnowDriftM01 [sTAT:0006021F] in GRUP Cell Temporary Children of WinterholdCollegeExterior [CELL:00008E62] (in Tamriel "Skyrim" [WRLD:0000003C] at 28,27))

[REFR:00107F52] (places SnowDriftM02 [sTAT:00060220] in GRUP Cell Temporary Children of WinterholdCollegeExterior [CELL:00008E62] (in Tamriel "Skyrim" [WRLD:0000003C] at 28,27))

 

which causes the large reference flicker.

 

The first two are persistent markers with no visible object (yes, that is how bad Bethesda screwed up). Disabling existing persistent large references always causes the large reference texture flicker regardless of the plugin being an esm/esl/esp. That is why large reference texture flicker still happens after renaming the plugin to esm. The only working solution I have found so far is to "delete" (which is bad) or move them (or not using large references by the already explained settings)

Edited November 24, 2017 by sheson

[Vanders]

Thank you for responding! I'll pass this information on to the mod author and get back to you.

[Vanders]

Ok, Sable has given it a shot and uploaded a new file, but it hasn't fixed the flickering for me. I used a new game.

 

This is what he did quoted from the mod page comments:

 

"So what I did was re-enable all the courtyard-related things I had disabled before, move the dragonmarker to the other ring of the tower (and not on top where the Astronomy tower is), and sink the snowdrifts into the ground a little. 

 

Is just moving the dragonmarkers enough to freak out the engine?". 

Edited November 25, 2017 by Vanders

[sheson]

Compare flickering between or Large Object Distance slider moved to the left (uLargeRefLODGridSize=5) and right (uLargeRefLODGridSize=11)

 

If there is flicker with 5 or Large Object Distance slider moved to the very left, then it is not the bug. If it is a brief 1 second or so flicker, then this is normal as this is how the engine works. It first loads all full models and then unloads the LOD. In that brief overlap textures flicker. With 5 that switch happens much closer to the player than with 11.

 

If there is flicker that continues as long as the player is in the same cell, then get the form id of the objects involved so I know what to look for.

[Vanders]

There is no flicker when set to 5, however the brief second you talk about when it transitions is a lot more vicious than any other lod transition in the game. It's definitely not a regular transition. When set to 11 the flickering is constant outside of the cell until I get close enough that the regular textures appear. The form id of one part of the College is 000ca730 as an example, although I'm not sure if that is what you wanted. 

[sheson]

It will still have large reference flicker because large references (the makers) are edited (moved) by an esp. However, iff you rename the plugin to an esm it might be the same now between 5 and 11 because they are not disabled anymore.

 

The LOD to non LOD transition is usually always the same for all objects with the distance LOD flag. Only the Has Tree LOD flag can change the timing. You could test what happens if you create an overwrite record and remove the Has Distant LOD flag on the base records, for example 00105567 that is used by the reference you mentioned). Then test what happens if you set Has Tree LOD (this should not be set when generating LOD). 

 

It probably takes longer the more objects need to be loaded when the cells attach. You should compare to vanilla game but with the same INI settings.

If renaming the plugin to esm and using a Large Ref distance of 11 works better now, you can push that transition further away and reduce number of objects that need to be loaded when the cells attach, because the large references already loaded ahead of time.

[Vanders]

I converted the new plugin to an esm like you suggested and it's working now! No flicker at 5, 11 or 21. Looks like Sable moving around a few things at your suggestion really did the trick as Zilav previously suggested converting to an esm which originally didn't work. Still, I can't get over how I seem to be the only one that has had this lod issue with this particular mod. 

 

Thanks again sheson, master of lods.  

[sheson]

Great we could solve it. These bugs affect everybody the same, some people are just not that observant or are used or just live with them by now.