xLODGen - Terrain LOD beta 128 for FNV, FO3, FO4, FO4VR, TES5, SSE, TES5VR, ENDERAL, ENDERALSE

[Philou0217]

 

"Jarl" and "Dragon King" are not user names

Oh god   sorry about that.

 

 

I should've specified, when I tried to reinstalled XLODgen and the mod, it was before finding this place and even after uninstalling the mod that I thought was the problem, the error still came back.

 

Like I said, I'm not really good at modding and I'm learning quite alot in the past days so I simply asked because I thought that maybe a new fix could've come up recently. Also, I'm pretty good at screwing up things so I wanted to be sure that the solutions that Astakos tried were "reliable". Sorry to bother.

[akidd]

Can anyone suggest troubleshooting steps to resolve this?

 

Before running XLODgen (using the recommended "first run" settings exactly from the top of this thread)

https://imgur.com/JKqPeEK

 

After running XLODgen (same result with no weather mod, lighting or ENB enabled)

https://imgur.com/86ePN0K

 

It looks like a forest fire hit Skyrim... What am I missing?

Edited July 8, 2019 by akidd

[sheson]

Can anyone suggest troubleshooting steps to resolve this?

 

Before running XLODgen (using the recommended "first run" settings exactly from the top of this thread)

https://imgur.com/JKqPeEK

 

After running XLODgen (same result with no weather mod, lighting or ENB enabled)

https://imgur.com/86ePN0K

 

It looks like a forest fire hit Skyrim... What am I missing?

From first post:

 

It seems that only Skyrim CK and Skyrim SE CK are manipulating the intensity of the textures to adjust for the noise.dds and the god awful "improved" snow shader of Skyrim SE (just turn that thing off, really). If textures seem too dark in the game, brighten the noise.dds instead or vice versa. That way you can get perfectly matching LOD textures that look just like the textures in the loaded cells. For Skyrim a good average color of the noise texture seems to be around #C0. See below for a couple noise texture downloads.

 

You might also want to search this thread (top right) for "noise".

[akidd]

Thank you for your reply.  I realize I am missing something and had read the first post. I have now read every single post here with the word "noise" in it.   I do have the snow shader off bEnableImprovedSnow=0.   In data\textures\terrain I have tried vanilla and both noise.dds files posted here (and HD Detailed Terrain).   After running xLODGen the terrain texture looks dark (above) with no noise.dds.  If I add one it gets even darker.   I edited different noise.dds files and increased brightness incrementally up to 100 - it does make it lighter, but the yellow color of the tundra terrain is almost gone and has to be so bright texture isn't really applying noise when it seems even close to similar brightness. 

 

https://imgur.com/bTZKuK5

 

I've tried recreating the terrain LODs by disabling any mods/files adding anything other than trees and anything to \textures\terrain\tamriel and I've disabled all noise.dds files (although I understand those to be applied only at runtime).  

 

I have double checked that all the settings used in xLODGen are the same as the recommended "First run" that are in the first post.

 

Any other ideas?  I'm sure I'm missing something but I don't know where else to look.

Edited July 9, 2019 by akidd

[sheson]

Thank you for your reply.  I realize I am missing something and had read the first post. I have now read every single post here with the word "noise" in it.   I do have the snow shader off bEnableImprovedSnow=0.   In data\textures\terrain I have tried vanilla and both noise.dds files posted here (and HD Detailed Terrain).   After running xLODGen the terrain texture looks dark (above) with no noise.dds.  If I add one it gets even darker.   I edited different noise.dds files and increased brightness incrementally up to 100 - it does make it lighter, but the yellow color of the tundra terrain is almost gone and has to be so bright texture isn't really applying noise when it seems even close to similar brightness. 

 

https://imgur.com/bTZKuK5

 

I've tried recreating the terrain LODs by disabling any mods/files adding anything other than trees and anything to \textures\terrain\tamriel and I've disabled all noise.dds files (although I understand those to be applied only at runtime).  

 

I have double checked that all the settings used in xLODGen are the same as the recommended "First run" that are in the first post.

 

Any other ideas?  I'm sure I'm missing something but I don't know where else to look.

You can not have no noise.dds, it will use the vanilla noise.dds texture. The noise is applied in-game. It does not matter for LOD generation.

 

If you use one of the noise.dds from the first post to overwrite the vanilla noise.dds the terrain LOD has to be lighter. It certainly can not become darker.

 

Mods adding trees do not affect terrain LOD, so I am not sure what you hope to happen when you start disabling mods. Whatever files (vanilla or mods) exist in textures\terrain\tamriel does not affect LOD generation.

 

Terrain LOD generation simply uses the currently installed landscape textures (textures/landscape/) and their placement and color information set on the LAND records. If you leave Brightness=0, Contrast=0, Gamma=1 the textures are not changed.

 

Any changes happens in the game. With the noise texture. Consider making the INIs default. It is possible there are other settings I am not aware of.

[akidd]

I only tried removing mods or anything I altered to see if anything effected change before posting and wasting someone's time.   You are correct, the original post noise.dds do make it lighter.  Others on Nexus do make it darker. 

 

I still don't understand why the terrain is so much darker than before I run xLODGen.    I will try default INIs.

 

Again, thanks for your time.

[war1ox]

Hello again Sheson.

 

I had asked this before, but I am having the problems with "textures not on atlas" again. I am only able to generate half the LODs without errors.

 

• I am running the x64 version and have it outside of my game folder.
• I tried running as an admin.
• Disabled ALL plugins besides FNV.

 

Like last time, I tried down scaling my textures to 1024 and it generated all LODs with no errors.. I can't remember what I did last time to fix the problem but I was able to generate 4k LODs after the fix. Do you have any idea why this could be happening? It seems related to texture size.

Edited July 10, 2019 by war1ox

[sheson]

Hello again Sheson.

 

I had asked this before, but I am having the problems with "textures not on atlas" again. I am only able to generate half the LODs without errors.

 

• I am running the x64 version and have it outside of my game folder.
• I tried running as an admin.
• Disabled ALL plugins besides FNV.

 

Like last time, I tried down scaling my textures to 1024 and it generated all LODs with no errors.. I can't remember what I did last time to fix the problem but I was able to generate 4k LODs after the fix. Do you have any idea why this could be happening? It seems related to texture size.

This message when generating object LOD for FO3/FNV means that the selected atlas resolution is too small to hold all the object LOD textures. Increase the object LOD atlas resolution and/or shrink some object LOD textures.

[war1ox]

Hello again Sheson.

 

I had asked this before, but I am having the problems with "textures not on atlas" again. I am only able to generate half the LODs without errors.

 

• I am running the x64 version and have it outside of my game folder.
• I tried running as an admin.
• Disabled ALL plugins besides FNV.

 

Like last time, I tried down scaling my textures to 1024 and it generated all LODs with no errors.. I can't remember what I did last time to fix the problem but I was able to generate 4k LODs after the fix. Do you have any idea why this could be happening? It seems related to texture size.

I narrowed it down to my landscape textures. I'm using NMC and it's the oversized nv_rockcanyonblklod_d.dds & nv_rockcanyonlod_d.dds - (Hopefully this helps someone)

 

I forgot to include in original post I tried increasing atlas size to no avail.

 

 

Thanks for the rapid response again!

Edited July 10, 2019 by war1ox

[war1ox]

One more question because it's been something I've always wondered.

 

Would it be less memory for the game engine to leave the LODGen atlas setting on 4k, or would it be better to do smallest atlas possible?

Edited July 10, 2019 by war1ox

[sheson]

One more question because it's been something I've always wondered.

 

Would it be less memory for the game engine to leave the LODGen atlas setting on 4k, or would it be better to do smallest atlas possible?

The smaller the atlas resolution the less memory it uses. The setting is the max value. The atlas will be smaller if possible.

Edited July 10, 2019 by sheson

[war1ox]

The smaller the atlas resolution the less memory it uses. The setting is the max value. The atlas will be smaller if possible.

 

OK thanks Sheson. Good info learned today.

[akidd]

You can not have no noise.dds, it will use the vanilla noise.dds texture. The noise is applied in-game. It does not matter for LOD generation.

 

If you use one of the noise.dds from the first post to overwrite the vanilla noise.dds the terrain LOD has to be lighter. It certainly can not become darker.

 

Mods adding trees do not affect terrain LOD, so I am not sure what you hope to happen when you start disabling mods. Whatever files (vanilla or mods) exist in textures\terrain\tamriel does not affect LOD generation.

 

Terrain LOD generation simply uses the currently installed landscape textures (textures/landscape/) and their placement and color information set on the LAND records. If you leave Brightness=0, Contrast=0, Gamma=1 the textures are not changed.

 

Any changes happens in the game. With the noise texture. Consider making the INIs default. It is possible there are other settings I am not aware of.

 

Sheson,

 

I have tried again with default Skyrim INI files - deleted them both and let SkyrimSE.exe recreate them.   I've removed any mods (textures) adding anything to the textures\landscape directory (Noble, Skyrim 3D Landscape)

 

I have set the gamma to 1.50 during creation and it no longer looks dark - but it looks desaturated - there is no/little color visible.  Given there aren't others describing this, I'm certain it is an issue on my machine but can you think of anything else to try?

[sheson]

Sheson,

 

I have tried again with default Skyrim INI files - deleted them both and let SkyrimSE.exe recreate them.   I've removed any mods (textures) adding anything to the textures\landscape directory (Noble, Skyrim 3D Landscape)

 

I have set the gamma to 1.50 during creation and it no longer looks dark - but it looks desaturated - there is no/little color visible.  Given there aren't others describing this, I'm certain it is an issue on my machine but can you think of anything else to try?

Make sure to generate into an empty dedicated folder outside of MO with -o. Install as mod

Use default DXT1 compression for diffuse and normal map. Open a normal map _n.dds texture in an image viewer and check if its main color is greenish.

Use either the flat or adjusted noise.dds from first post . Make sure nothing is overwritten by other mods or the Overwrite folder.

 

Then in the tundra for example there is no reason for the terrain LOD to have any other color tone than in the screenshots from this post.

Edited July 13, 2019 by sheson

[akidd]

Make sure to generate into an empty dedicated folder outside of MO with -o. Install as mod

Use default DXT1 compression for diffuse and normal map. Open a normal map _n.dds texture in an image viewer and check if its main color is greenish.

Use either the flat or adjusted noise.dds from first post . Make sure nothing is overwritten by other mods or the Overwrite folder.

 

Then in the tundra for example there is no reason for the terrain LOD to have any other color tone than in the screenshots from this post.

Sheson,

 

Thank you.  I already generate exactly as you suggest.  If DXT1 was the default I apologise.  I follow the Yashed guide and it says to use BC7 Quick.   I have always used that.  Switching to DXT1 *almost* resolves the issue.  It is still darker if I use the generated LOD textures than not using them, but using DXT1 it is much closer to correct now.   I am using your noise file and have been since troubleshooting.   FWIW, the noise file I was using previously is also BC7.

 

Without further testing, I am calling this "resolved" - but I can't help wondering why it is still a bit darker.   I am using a Nvidia RTX2080 - I have the latest drivers as of today.  Why are my rendered results different than anyone else using that guide?   I've tried different landscape texture sets.   I've disabled weather, enb, lighting...

 

You deserve a beer for all you do.   I greatly appreciate your patience and help.  I hope the past week running LodGEN a hundred times and posting might help someone else.

 

Christopher