xLODGen - Terrain LOD beta 110 for FNV, FO3, FO4, FO4VR, TES5, SSE, TES5VR, ENDERAL, ENDERALSE

[sheson]

Odd thing about that CRC... I double-checked and I'm running the 1.17B version I downloaded from archive.org.

 

I ran Wyrm by itself and it finished without errors. Odd... Could be that some other I/O process interfered? I was watching youtube while running the program.

 

But thanks, it seems fixed.

It is possible I edited my version of the plugin.

 

If a worldspace works fine by itself that tells us the plugin and the textures that are used are fine.

 

It could be file system or memory troubles (a leak maybe).

Edited November 6, 2018 by sheson

[DarkladyLexy]

hey, Sheson, something I have been wondering about would be better to generate xLOGEN Textures using the DXT1 which is the for xLODGEN default or change to DXT5 for SSE?

[sheson]

hey, Sheson, something I have been wondering about would be better to generate xLOGEN Textures using the DXT1 which is the for xLODGEN default or change to DXT5 for SSE?

As far as I understand it, DXT3/DXT5 use the same color compression as DXT1 without transparency. So if the texture has no alpha/transparency use DXT1.

 

DXT1 with transparency uses one former color bit for transparency, so its compression is a bit worse. However, since LOD in Skyrim does not support alpha, but only transparency, the double file sized DXT5 seems a bad trade off just to have slightly more accurate colors for something that is far away.

 

In case of terrain textures it might be noticeable that a color tone if off - more so with low resolutions textures because they lack the detail.

It is possible to see how the colors are different when comparing textures in an image program side by side, especially when comparing to an 888.

 

Since Skyrim LOD does not support specular, the _n normal texture atlas usually do not need "alpha", so for that DXT1 is fine.

To keep the specular channel use DXT5.

 

I won't be long for BC7 support to be carried over from DynDOLOD though. Seems to be working fine now.

[sheson]

xLODGen beta 33 should fix abnormal long start times that could sometimes happen.

[Tacocat]

Thanks for this great tool and the provided updates.

[Jailhouseblues]

Unfortunately the tool stops working for me while generating terrain LOD for Markarth World. It doesn't throw any errors or warnings, the program simply stops responding and I can see in the task manager that it's not using any CPU at all. I also checked the size of the output folder and it stayed the same for a good 10 mins so I am positive the program simply just stops working. I tried twice and it kept freezing up at the same place. I've attached the log file in case it might be of any help.

LODGen_log.txt

[sheson]

Unfortunately the tool stops working for me while generating terrain LOD for Markarth World. It doesn't throw any errors or warnings, the program simply stops responding and I can see in the task manager that it's not using any CPU at all. I also checked the size of the output folder and it stayed the same for a good 10 mins so I am positive the program simply just stops working. I tried twice and it kept freezing up at the same place. I've attached the log file in case it might be of any help.

The LODGen logs you uploaded show that object LOD was generated completely without error for Tamriel and MarkarthWorld. Twice. If the LODGen prompts are not closed yet you can double click them to open them and watch the log lines being printed to the white on black command prompt window. Once it reached "Log ended at xx:xx:xx" and then Code: 0 it is done. It should close automatically. If it doesn't I could not imagine why. May be the log files can not be closed for some reason - OS/UAC/Antivir whatever.

Edited November 29, 2018 by sheson

[Jailhouseblues]

The LODGen logs you uploaded show that object LOD was generated completely without error for Tamriel and MarkarthWorld. Twice. If the LODGen prompts are not closed yet you can double click them to open them and watch the log lines being printed to the white on black command prompt window. Once it reached "Log ended at xx:xx:xx" and then Code: 0 it is done. It should close automatically. If it doesn't I could not imagine why. May be the log files can not be closed for some reason - OS/UAC/Antivir whatever.

Hmm I did not notice any command prompt windows while the tool was running unlike in DynDOLOD. The LODGen executable is all there is, and it just stops responding and I can't switch to it to take a look at the records so I have to manually terminate the process. I'll try setting the output folder to some place other than the C drive and see how it goes. Is there any likelihood of a plugin file causing this issue?

[Tacocat]

Hmm I did not notice any command prompt windows while the tool was running unlike in DynDOLOD. The LODGen executable is all there is, and it just stops responding and I can't switch to it to take a look at the records so I have to manually terminate the process. I'll try setting the output folder to some place other than the C drive and see how it goes. Is there any likelihood of a plugin file causing this issue?

Did you check taskmanager to see if dyndolod utilizes processor power? for me dyndolod seems to get "stuck" quite often during the process, but its not cause it stopped. Its because it uses 99-100% of processor power. Just saw your post and took a guess :P

[sheson]

Hmm I did not notice any command prompt windows while the tool was running unlike in DynDOLOD. The LODGen executable is all there is, and it just stops responding and I can't switch to it to take a look at the records so I have to manually terminate the process. I'll try setting the output folder to some place other than the C drive and see how it

goes. Is there any likelihood of a plugin file causing this issue?

What do you mean you do not notice command prompt windows? DynDOLOD spawns a LODGen.exe in a command prompt window for every worldspace to generate the object LOD. That is what you uploaded logs from.

 

If it is DynDOLOD.exe that stops responding, then there is no use uploading the logs from LODGen.exe. If DynDOLOD stalls for a long time / forever, post a screenshot of the DynDOLOD message window instead so we at least have a clue at what point it happens.

 

To work around the issue, do not check the problematic worldspace, generate and install as usual. Start DynDOLOD again - this time with the already generated plugins - and generate LOD just for that worldspace left out earlier. It might work just by itself. Then install new output over old output.

Edited November 29, 2018 by sheson

[Jailhouseblues]

What do you mean you do not notice command prompt windows? DynDOLOD spawns a LODGen.exe in a command prompt window for every worldspace to generate the object LOD. That is what you uploaded logs from.

 

If it is DynDOLOD.exe that stops responding, then there is no use uploading the logs from LODGen.exe. If DynDOLOD stalls for a long time / forever, post a screenshot of the DynDOLOD message window instead so we at least have a clue at what point it happens.

 

To work around the issue, do not check the problematic worldspace, generate and install as usual. Start DynDOLOD again - this time with the already generated plugins - and generate LOD just for that worldspace left out earlier. It might work just by itself. Then install new output over old output.

Sorry for the confusion. I may not be making sense but I was talking about xLODGen not DynDOLOD. Just to clarify, you said I could watch the command prompt window as the lines are being printed. I know DynDOLOD spawns a LODGen.exe in a command prompt window but I am not using DynDOLOD right now. I am just trying to generate landscape lod with xLODGen and when I run xLODGen there are no command prompts. It's just the SSEdit interface itself. Nevertheless, I switched the output directory to somewhere other than my C drive and the tool managed to create terrain LOD for Tamriel worldspace as it was the only one I ticked. After that was done I fired it up again and ticked the remaining worldspaces and it seems to be working. At least it got past Markarth and is doing Soul Cairn as we speak. So it might have just been UAC.

[sheson]

Sorry for the confusion. I may not be making sense but I was talking about xLODGen not DynDOLOD. Just to clarify, you said I could watch the command prompt window as the lines are being printed. I know DynDOLOD spawns a LODGen.exe in a command prompt window but I am not using DynDOLOD right now. I am just trying to generate landscape lod with xLODGen and when I run xLODGen there are no command prompts. It's just the SSEdit interface itself. Nevertheless, I switched the output directory to somewhere other than my C drive and the tool managed to create terrain LOD for Tamriel worldspace as it was the only one I ticked. After that was done I fired it up again and ticked the remaining worldspaces and it seems to be working. At least it got past Markarth and is doing Soul Cairn as we speak. So it might have just been UAC.

Ops, sorry about that. I am confused. This is not the DynDOLOD thread.... sooo sorry.

 

xLODGen hides the LODGen.exe command prompt window and instead prints its loglines back to its own message window.

You should see the exact same lines as in the uploaded log no? If xLODGen stops anywhere without being responsive, screenshot it so I have an idea where.

 

Such problems might result from installing xLODGen into Program Files (x86), game folder or steam folder. UAC, antivirus often interfere with writing files there.

 

As you figured out, you can just generate specific worldspaces at a time. Also the 3 types of LOD and the meshes/textures of terrain LOD can be generated separately and then later merged into a single "mod". All the files are distintive and do not overwrite each other.

Edited November 29, 2018 by sheson

[Jailhouseblues]

So I managed to generate some LOD at last but I am not sure if everything is okay with it. I mean it matches perfectly and the transitions are almost unnoticeable but doesn't it look a little blurry? Using the noise texture from the Skyrim LE mod Enhanced Distant Terrain would make my previous textures less blurry but when I use it on xLODGen generated textures, they became quite dark so I used the noise files in the first page of this thread. I mean it mostly looks fine, but I thought I'd double check here anyway. I used the settings listed in a guide on the nexus. So 512 diffuse and 256 normals I believe. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/gMA9yfR

Edited November 29, 2018 by Jailhouseblues

[sheson]

So I managed to generate some LOD at last but I am not sure if everything is okay with it. I mean it matches perfectly and the transitions are almost unnoticeable but doesn't it look a little blurry? Using the noise texture from the Skyrim LE mod Enhanced Distant Terrain would make my previous textures less blurry but when I use it on xLODGen generated textures, they became quite dark so I used the noise files in the first page of this thread. I mean it mostly looks fine, but I thought I'd double check here anyway. I used the settings listed in a guide on the nexus. So 512 diffuse and 256 normals I believe. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/gMA9yfR

xLODGEn does not change how LOD works.

 

If textures seem blurry then try to increase their resolution. If you want to increase resolution of the LOD4 normal texture, check the baking option.

You might also try to not generate mipmaps or change the mipmap bias in case the engine seems to switch to higher mipmaps with lower resolution too early.

 

Noise textures only changes the luminosity, but not the resolution of the textures.

[TheGreatBhan]

Hi there, I noticed when generating terrain in fallout new vegas, the terrain texture for the " none " landscape texture is set to the wrong file which causes white terrain where that texture is used. This has been a problem for working on my arizona project expanding the main map eastwards, we thought using this tool could make generating terrain for the new lands simple but this bug will affect the visual experience people have in the mod. 

 

There is also a bug with the water as you can see where sometimes water will appear cut off or generally have problems.

 

The terrain was generated with the default settings you've set for fallout new vegas in mind.