xLODGen - Terrain LOD beta 129 for FNV, FO3, FO4, FO4VR, TES5, SSE, TES5VR, ENDERAL, ENDERALSE

[sheson]

So I have run xLODGen using the initial settings suggested and this is the result I get: My custom sand textures are not showing up on the LOD (the sand should be continuing up around the shore) and the general LOD seems to not be using the actual cell textures properly (the grass/dirt patches always LOD as a darker mossy patched green grass) The only things that seem to be showing properly are DirtPath01 as my road base and the ocean floor textures. They seem to be rendering just fine in most places. As things load into view the LOD fades out and the texture blending just seems odd to me. Are there specific sizes or compression settings that have to be put on the custom textures to make them show up? And what about the vanilla textures that just seem to be off, any suggestions?

 

I will say this program has been amazing to use. It is so much faster than the CK or Oscape, and despite the hiccups I'm having (probably something I'm missing) the quality is nice.

 

 

No error messages about missing textures or anything else?

 

If you like you can send me the plugin and the landscape textures so I can test myself to fix the problem.

[icecreamassassin]

So picky tells me you already had a chance to look at it and it seems fine on your end?

 

And no, I don't notice any errors when running it

 

This is what he showed me that he (apparently?) got from you?

[icecreamassassin]

So here's an updated picture. I cleared all meshes/terrain/balfiera and textures/terrain/balfiera files from my /data folder and my MO test install, re-ran xLODGen and it IS looking better but it all still obviously is either low rez or maybe too dark? I'm not certain.

 

I am not using any custom settings in an ini or anything (as I always seem to forget where that file even is lol)

[sheson]

So here's an updated picture. I cleared all meshes/terrain/balfiera and textures/terrain/balfiera files from my /data folder and my MO test install, re-ran xLODGen and it IS looking better but it all still obviously is either low rez or maybe too dark? I'm not certain.

 

I am not using any custom settings in an ini or anything (as I always seem to forget where that file even is lol)

Since you mentioned MO, always make sure to set a dedicated output folder with the -o:"c:\output" command line.

 

The default Skyrim/Skyim SE noise.dds texture darkens the terrain LOD textures overall. You can either try to use the brightness/contrast/gamma setting to offset or adjust the noise.dds texture (which affects all worldspaces though).

 

For my screenshots I used a single color texture with #C0C0C0 for noise.dds, hence the good color tone match but also the zero noise effect.

Edited April 16, 2018 by sheson

[icecreamassassin]

I'm not actually running xLODGen from MO though, I am running it from my desktop on my core Skyrim installation and like I mentioned, I delete the outputted folders before I re-run it. I manually drag all the outputted files to the MO folder after so I wouldn't think that a dedicate doutput folder would matter would it? Doesn't it just output files to the /meshes and /textures /terrain/Balfiera folder? or are there other output folders?

 

I'll check out the noise file. So I could backup the vanilla one, run xLodGen on my worldspace and then put the old noise file back and it would only affect the new worldspace right?

[icecreamassassin]

I also wanted to ask, how adverse of an effect would utilizing the same mesh for LOD as the base object uses? I know you mention the potential for ILS and the fact that it makes outputted files larger, how extensive are these things? I know in the vanilla worldspace it sounds like it would cause a big problem, but in a smaller space with collective island land masses a bit bigger than Solsthiem for instance, would it be as considerable?

 

Also something that may or may not be related but I notice that some of my rock objects have textures which literally will jump up and down on the face of the object when you turn and view them at certain angles and some will even scroll. I've seen this happen a few times even in vanilla. Any idea what the cause of that is?

 

Thanks again.

[icecreamassassin]

Ok, looks like noise.dds is just universally applies in runtime... that is really lame lol. So would it be recommended to pack a more appropriate noise.dds file with the mod because frankly the noise file makes everything look like trash. Even the one packed with vivid landscapes (which was the cultprit in my case I had forgotten to turn it off) leaves things looking muddled at best.

 

Success! Also incidentally, the weird texture anomaly of jumping and scrolling went away this last time I ran xLODGen for some reason. Must have been a hiccup.

Edited April 16, 2018 by icecreamassassin

[sheson]

I'm not actually running xLODGen from MO though, I am running it from my desktop on my core Skyrim installation and like I mentioned, I delete the outputted folders before I re-run it. I manually drag all the outputted files to the MO folder after so I wouldn't think that a dedicate doutput folder would matter would it? Doesn't it just output files to the /meshes and /textures /terrain/Balfiera folder? or are there other output folders?

 

I'll check out the noise file. So I could backup the vanilla one, run xLodGen on my worldspace and then put the old noise file back and it would only affect the new worldspace right?

xLODGen will not overwrite existing terrain textures in the output path, may it be dedicated or the default data folder. If MO virtual fs is running and has control over data all kind of things can happen when trying to write to folders/files in its active paths.

 

The noise.dds is applied equally to all terrain LOD textures in the game, as you found out.

 

 

I also wanted to ask, how adverse of an effect would utilizing the same mesh for LOD as the base object uses? I know you mention the potential for ILS and the fact that it makes outputted files larger, how extensive are these things? I know in the vanilla worldspace it sounds like it would cause a big problem, but in a smaller space with collective island land masses a bit bigger than Solsthiem for instance, would it be as considerable?

 

Also something that may or may not be related but I notice that some of my rock objects have textures which literally will jump up and down on the face of the object when you turn and view them at certain angles and some will even scroll. I've seen this happen a few times even in vanilla. Any idea what the cause of that is?

 

Thanks again.

Using full models works fine in small worldspaces. Especially for things that use a couple textures for large surfaces, like roofs, walls. You can't use it well for models that depend on alpha channel in textures, windows typically go invisible. Everything below 128 threshold is transparent and everything above is opaque. In that case you could prepare a "special" LOD model from the full model, even without decimating vertices/triangles, but with adjusted LOD textures that have proper transparency.

 

Check DynDOLOD Resources if a LOD model for something vanilla and acouple 3rd party assets already exists. The LOD filename will be always similar to the full model filename.

 

Success! Also incidentally, the weird texture anomaly of jumping and scrolling went away this last time I ran xLODGen for some reason. Must have been a hiccup.

That sounds weird, no idea how that could happen with terrain LOD.

[recreation]

OMG! Thank you so much for this beta sheson.

I'm working on a mod for SSE with a biiiiiig new worldspace and, for at least 2 years, I was never able to get the terrain lod right. Strips here, black meshes there... several 1000 .dds files to edit in photoshop.

This BETA got it right the first try!

Thanks a lot. Really!

[recreation]

Okay my worldspace looks nice now, but ugh... I forgot to untick the tamriel worldspace and generated lod for it too. And here the trouble begins.

Now I have some weird object lod. The main problems are the lvl3 lod of all the MountainCliffSlope variants, some Mountainpeaks's and the major citys:

(screenshots too big to attach)

https://mega.nz/#F!cwAinRCT!-Cd8_P_5WdhvzAp6J1SxmA

 

I also have some weird artefacts on the map, but that could be the result of using a different (dontaskmeforthenameofthis).nif (no clouds on the map) in combination with xLODGen

 

Actually I have to say aside from the mentionend, the skyrim lod looks by far better than before now.

[sheson]

Okay my worldspace looks nice now, but ugh... I forgot to untick the tamriel worldspace and generated lod for it too. And here the trouble begins.

Now I have some weird object lod. The main problems are the lvl3 lod of all the MountainCliffSlope variants, some Mountainpeaks's and the major citys:

(screenshots too big to attach)

https://mega.nz/#F!cwAinRCT!-Cd8_P_5WdhvzAp6J1SxmA

 

I also have some weird artefacts on the map, but that could be the result of using a different (dontaskmeforthenameofthis).nif (no clouds on the map) in combination with xLODGen

 

Actually I have to say aside from the mentionend, the skyrim lod looks by far better than before now.

 

xLODGen generates CK like vanilla object LOD. If things looks that buggy it is probably because of mods changing vanilla LOD assets or parts of the generated LOD is overwritten.

 

Just use DynDOLOD to generate drastically improved tree and object LOD. It comes with thousands of updated and fixed LOD models and can update some LOD textures to match the load order.

 

Most of the artefacts look like the object LOD texture atlas might not be from the same LOD generation as the object LOD meshes or maybe some single vanilla LOD textures are replaced by damaged version from a mod.

 

MissingWindmillAndHouse.jpg, looks like the area where the silo is missing is still loaded cells. The object LOD super meshes are only loaded past the loaded cells and they can not change data in plugins / objects in loaded cells.

 

Water.jpg, that green reflection has nothing to with LOD, but is just one of may bugs Bethesdas added when they made Skyrim SE. I do not remember if there was a decent fix or not. I would think it would be part of unofficial patches by now if possible.

Edited April 19, 2018 by sheson

[recreation]

Hmm... I always used SSELODGen for object lod. The last time I generated it is just a few weeks ago and I never had such bugs.

I didn't install any texture mods aside from Realistic Aspen Trees, Enhanced Vanilla Trees and Realistic Snow HD (which might be the cause for the mountains). Aside from the snow stuff none of them alters object lod (the mountaincliffs on the screens are ..pineforrest3 and ..tundra). I'll try again this weekend and test some stuff, also with SSELODGen and post the results. Maybe I find a fishy mod.

 

Oups, MissingWindmillAndHouse.jpg and Water.jpg are not related. The first one is to remember me to genereate LOD for a small mod that alters rorikstead and the water.jpg... I dont remember anymore, but I had that before using xLODGen^^" (but good to know that its a game bug)

[sheson]

Hmm... I always used SSELODGen for object lod. The last time I generated it is just a few weeks ago and I never had such bugs.

I didn't install any texture mods aside from Realistic Aspen Trees, Enhanced Vanilla Trees and Realistic Snow HD (which might be the cause for the mountains). Aside from the snow stuff none of them alters object lod (the mountaincliffs on the screens are ..pineforrest3 and ..tundra). I'll try again this weekend and test some stuff, also with SSELODGen and post the results. Maybe I find a fishy mod.

 

Oups, MissingWindmillAndHouse.jpg and Water.jpg are not related. The first one is to remember me to genereate LOD for a small mod that alters rorikstead and the water.jpg... I dont remember anymore, but I had that before using xLODGen^^" (but good to know that its a game bug)

If no mod changed LOD assets, then it is most likely that the LOD texture atlas in textures\terrain\Tamriel\Objects\TamrielObjectsLOD.dds is wrong / from an older generation. xLODGen beta object/tree LOD generation did not really change since its older version SSELODGen in regards to object and tree LOD.

 

In any case, it makes more sense to use the DynDOLOD version for the additional and better matching object LODs.

[icecreamassassin]

Thanks Sheson, I appreciate all the help.

[Seldwin]

Thanks to all your hard work, I was able to generate some VR agreeable Tamriel terrain and redo the object meshes.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/16609