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

[sheson]

6 minutes ago, niston said:

I must assume we are looking at the same LOD level.

While that seems logical, it isn't showing vanilla LOD level 32. Object LOD level 32 has merely a dozen high rises and the Zeppelin.

[niston]

That makes kind of sense what you say.
However weird it seems that the Overpass is not shown in LOD Level 32 then? I mean, you could probably see these structures from space...

The question then is, why the discrepancy? What makes it apparently switch to another LOD level when using the generated LOD? Especially when the difference is just mesh and texture files?

Edited May 18, 2021 by niston

[sheson]

6 minutes ago, niston said:

That makes kind of sense what you say.
However weird it seems that the Overpass is not shown in LOD Level 32 then?

The question then is, why the discrepancy? What makes it apparently switch to another LOD level when using the generated LOD?

The distances for the LOD levels are defined the Prefs.INI [TerrainManager]. The content of LOD meshes does not change how they are loaded or their distances in which they are displayed.
You may have a mod that changes LOD distances.

[niston]

1 minute ago, sheson said:

The distances for the LOD levels are defined the Prefs.INI. The content of LOD meshes does not change how they are loaded or their distances in which they are displayed.
You may have a mod that changes LOD distances.

But that ultimately fails to explain the difference we see, doesn't it?
There is absolutely no change to any of those settings and the load order for first and second screenshots is exactly the same. The only difference is the generated LOD files.

 

[sheson]

1 minute ago, niston said:

But that ultimately fails to explain the difference we see, doesn't it?
There is absolutely no change to any of those settings and the load order for first and second screenshots is exactly the same. The only difference is the generated LOD files.

Have you done this yet?
"Check a generated BTO if it includes all the LOD or not, to double check if the issue is in the game or not."

Known issues:
LOD was generated into the data folder instead of a dedicated output folder. It is anyone guess what the mod manager did do the actual generated files and were they really ended up.
Game is installed in a special Windows folder. Access, read/write might be blocked.

[niston]

How do I check a BTO (what is a BTO?) if it includes all the LOD or not?

 

[sheson]

6 minutes ago, niston said:

How do I check a BTO (what is a BTO?) if it includes all the LOD or not?

 

A *.BTO is a object LOD NIF that can be opened with NifSkope. They are in Meshes\Terrain\Commonwealth\Objects\*.BTO

The first number 4/8/16/32 is the LOD Level 0/1/2/3. It is the row/column number of cells a file covers. E.g. 4 x 4 = 16 cells for the nearest LOD level.
The other two numbers are the x, y coordinates of the lower left (SW) cell of the file.

[niston]

Ok, let me regenerate the LOD.

I will then check the 32.* BTO file in nifskope, to see if it looks like what I'm seeing in game with the generated LOD active, yes?

[niston]

So we're looking at the generated 32.0.-32.bto file in Nifskope:

It's what we see in game with the regenerated LOD files present: A few skyscrapers, the Prydwen, and -most notably- the Overpass piece, for which I've created the override with the Level 2 Mesh name, copied into the Level 3 field.

If we look at the vanilla mesh for this:

We can see that it is the same, minus that particular overpass piece.

So we can already conclude that it is like you say: We are not looking at the same LOD level in these screenshots.
But it seems illogical!

What makes it switch the LOD level for Goodneighbor; Apparently depending on loose LOD files being present or not?

Also, does it influence the LOD level elsewhere? Lets investigate...

[niston]

Ok so we've moved to, uh, Fort Strong, I believe?

Looking towards Boston Downtown, it looks like this in vanilla:

After regenerating the LOD and reloading from the same spot:

It appears the LOD is proper. We can even see the changes I've made to the airport in this picture!

So the whole thing appears to be an edge case with Goodneighbor? I will investigate from Diamond City as well.

[niston]

Ok, reporting back from Diamond City!

We can observe the same phenomena at work here. We enter the city, do a TFC and go up, looking towards the Overpass.

In Vanilla:

With regenerated LOD:

One thing we immediately notice is the absence of the Mass Fusion Building in the regenerated LOD. The Overpass is... different as well.
So it appears, here too, another LOD level kicks in, as soon as we supply new LOD files via filesystem.

It remains to be seen if this also happens when using BA2 packed files.

The other oddity is the weirdly out-of-place seemingly floating skyscraper in the background, with the regenerated LOD. But that's probably just the perspective and the fact that the Mass Fusion building isn't there.

Edited May 18, 2021 by niston

[niston]

Also, let me try one more thing. How does it look from a skylit interior cell, with commonwealth LOD? I happen to have one right in Goodneighbor...

 

[niston]

Ok, so we are now *inside* Hotel Rexford.
This is an interior cell that has sky lighting and Commonwealth LOD. Set up as follows:

and

 

Now, I have carefully restored the Hotel to working order and we are using TFC and looking out slightly towards the southwest, located a bit above the 4th floor of the restored Hotel as it exists in said interior cell. You can see a small part of the 4th floor at the bottom edge of the screenshot. I've also carefully propped up the LOD with "real" statics a bit in the near field, as to give a better "immersive experience" when looking out the windows.

With Vanilla LOD:

With regenerated LOD:

Unfortunately, the same thing is going on here. The Overpass is different, not to mention the large swaths of buildings missing entirely.
We are very likely not looking at the same level of LOD either here, once new files have been supplied.
The "real" statics I've placed can be seen in both screenshots.

This is also the reason why I started looking into xLODGen - I wanted to have a bit more detailed LOD when looking out my Hotel

Edited May 18, 2021 by niston

[sheson]

40 minutes ago, niston said:

Ok, so we are now *inside* Hotel Rexford.
This is an interior cell that has sky lighting and Commonwealth LOD. Set up as follows:

and

 

Now, I have carefully restored the Hotel to working order and we are using TFC and looking out slightly towards the southwest, located a bit above the 4th floor of the restored Hotel as it exists in said interior cell. You can see a small part of the 4th floor at the bottom edge of the screenshot. I've also carefully propped up the LOD with "real" statics a bit in the near field, as to give a better "immersive experience" when looking out the windows.

With Vanilla LOD:

With regenerated LOD:

Unfortunately, the same thing is going on here. The Overpass is different, not to mention the large swaths of buildings missing entirely.
We are very likely not looking at the same level of LOD either here, once new files have been supplied.
The "real" statics I've placed can be seen in both screenshots.

This is also the reason why I started looking into xLODGen - I wanted to have a bit more detailed LOD when looking out my Hotel

LOD generation does not care about interior cells and their LOD settings. The interior cells simply use the parent world LOD files as defined on those records.

[niston]

Yes, but the point is, I think, the same thing apparently happens for interiors (as opposed to Worldspaces like DC and Goodneighbor) as well: The Game does not show the same level of Exterior LOD, depending on if there are loose LOD files or not. I will have to pack some BA2 archives to see if that perhaps makes a difference.