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

[sheson]

On 5/18/2021 at 8:11 PM, niston said:

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.

You should follow the instruction given by NeuraLOD (or probably any other well made modding guide) which packs generated LOD into BA2.

[niston]

I was not going to pack everything for my initial testing. It was expected that the process would not yield satisfying results at first

[OregonPete]

On 5/17/2021 at 10:10 AM, OregonPete said:

Part of the new mod I'm currently working on is set in a custom worldspace that is almost entirely underwater. With Sheson's help, I've already been able to resolve a few issues in regard to mountain LOD (I've surrounded the area the player needs to stay in with mountains as a natural barrier).

But another issue I'm having is that the water tiles aren't displayed in the distance, and they keep popping in when I get closer (independent of whether I'm above or below the water), which is really annoying, especially since you can only see the mountain peaks that are above water through the water tiles when you're underwater, meaning you can't see the peaks in the distance when you're underwater. Has anyone ever had this issue, or does anyone have any suggestions on how to solve it? Any advice is highly appreciated.

 

On 5/17/2021 at 10:33 AM, sheson said:

Are you saying that CELLs which are defined in a plugin do not have water LOD generated for cell water that is above the terrain level? Maybe post a screenshot.

 

Yes, because this worldspace is set underwater, I have the terrain defined at a height of -5000. The water is at 0. This mean all the cells should have water LOD, but they don't. Here are some screenshots. The first two are from underwater, and the last three are seen from above water. In all of them, you can see the sharp cutoff where the visible water tile cuts off. When you move close, the tiles pop in. Any advice or suggestion? I sure would appreciate it!

 

[sheson]

6 minutes ago, OregonPete said:

 

Yes, because this worldspace is set underwater, I have the terrain defined at a height of -5000. The water is at 0. This mean all the cells should have water LOD, but they don't. Here are some screenshots. The first two are from underwater, and the last three are seen from above water. In all of them, you can see the sharp cutoff where the visible water tile cuts off. When you move close, the tiles pop in. Any advice or suggestion? I sure would appreciate it!

 

So the CELL record for the cell that does not have water LOD has the Has Water flag set? The water height is default, -2147483648.000000 (which also means default) or 0.0?
The cell is inside the SW and the SW + stride coordinates  of the lodsettings file?
Have you checked the *.BTR for that area that it is exists?

[niston]

But no, it makes no difference if the new LOD is in BA2 Files or not.

So, IDK. There is no setting to tell an interior with exterior LOD what kind of LOD Level to use, AFAIK.

[OregonPete]

8 minutes ago, sheson said:

So the CELL record for the cell that does not have water LOD has the Has Water flag set? The water height is default, -2147483648.000000 (which also means default) or 0.0?
The cell is inside the SW and the SW + stride coordinates  of the lodsettings file?
Have you checked the *.BTR for that area that it is exists?

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking, but let me attempt to formulate a bit differently. In the Worldspace window of the Creation Kit of my N79MSSunkenRealm worldspace, the Default Water Height is defined as 0.0000 and the Default Land Height at -5000.0000. I have the LOD Water Type defined the same as the Water, which is N79MS_SunkenRealmWater. When I right-click on any of the cells of that worldspace and select Edit, the Has Water box is checked but grayed out, and the Height is at 0.

What are SW or stride coordinates? And how can I look at the lodsettings.lod file? It's binary, and I'm not sure how to view the contents.

[sheson]

1 hour ago, niston said:

But no, it makes no difference if the new LOD is in BA2 Files or not.

So, IDK. There is no setting to tell an interior with exterior LOD what kind of LOD Level to use, AFAIK.

The distances of the different LOD levels are defined in the *Prefs.INI under [TerrainManager]. Typically the launcher sets them so that LOD level 4 is the first starts beyond the loaded cells, then 8, then 16 and then 32. If generated BTOs contain what they should for each LOD level, then there is really nothing else to do or check in regards to xLODGen or the LOD generation process.

1 hour ago, OregonPete said:

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking, but let me attempt to formulate a bit differently. In the Worldspace window of the Creation Kit of my N79MSSunkenRealm worldspace, the Default Water Height is defined as 0.0000 and the Default Land Height at -5000.0000. I have the LOD Water Type defined the same as the Water, which is N79MS_SunkenRealmWater. When I right-click on any of the cells of that worldspace and select Edit, the Has Water box is checked but grayed out, and the Height is at 0.

What are SW or stride coordinates? And how can I look at the lodsettings.lod file? It's binary, and I'm not sure how to view the contents.

Check the CELL record for the coordinates that have no water LOD in xEdit.

The xLODGen log  shows the values SW and Stride values  which were read from the lodsettings file.

[OregonPete]

13 minutes ago, sheson said:

The distances of the different LOD levels are defined in the *Prefs.INI under [TerrainManager]. Typically the launcher sets them so that LOD level 4 is the first starts beyond the loaded cells, then 8, then 16 and then 32.

Check the CELL record for the coordinates that have no water LOD in xEdit.

The xLODGen log  shows the values SW and Stride values  which were read from the lodsettings file.

None of the cells have water LOD when you're distant. They just pop in as you get closer. And when you move away, they disappear again. When I check in SSEEdit, all of the CELL records have "Has Water" flagged.

Here is what I found in the SSELODGen Log:

[00:00] [N79MSSunkenRealm] Land height: -5000, Water height: 0, Scanned: 206 CELL records, Found: 202 LAND records for area [-7,-12] to [6,9]
[00:00] [N79MSSunkenRealm] LODsettings: Level 4 to 32 stride 256 from -96,-96 to 0,0

Is that what you needed?

[niston]

I have these settings in the Pref file:

[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000
fBlockLevel2Distance=110000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=90000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=60000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000
bShowLODInEditor=0

Look ok to me? Probably even ULTRA default or something.

Are these relevant for the LOD generation, or only in-game?

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by niston

[sheson]

6 minutes ago, OregonPete said:

None of the cells have water LOD when you're distant. They just pop in as you get closer. And when you move away, they disappear again. When I check in SSEEdit, all of the CELL records have "Has Water" flagged.

Here is what I found in the SSELODGen Log:

[00:00] [N79MSSunkenRealm] Land height: -5000, Water height: 0, Scanned: 206 CELL records, Found: 202 LAND records for area [-7,-12] to [6,9]
[00:00] [N79MSSunkenRealm] LODsettings: Level 4 to 32 stride 256 from -96,-96 to 0,0

Is that what you needed?

Is it possible that the options file with the setting to ignore water so that underwater faces are not removed from object LOD is also used for terrain LOD generation and there ignore water means to not generate water LOD. So generate object in one session with the options file and then in a new session generate terrain LOD without the options file. 

5 minutes ago, niston said:

I have these settings in the Pref file:

[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000
fBlockLevel2Distance=110000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=90000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=60000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000
bShowLODInEditor=0

Look ok to me? Probably even ULTRA default or something.

Are these relevant for the LOD generation, or only in-game?

 

They look OK. LOD generation does not care about INI settings. As explained earlier, it simply generates the BTOs for the different LOD levels with the LOD models defined on the base records.

[niston]

Well then. I have no idea why the Game behaves differently with the generated LOD than it does with the Vanilla LOD.

Edited May 18, 2021 by niston

[sheson]

18 minutes ago, niston said:

Well then. I have no idea why the Game behaves differently with the generated LOD than it does with the Vanilla LOD.

There is really only two possibilities. There are plugins in the load order that change references/base record etc. so that the generated LOD is different (can be checked by comparing BTOs) or something else changes that has nothing to do with xLODGen and the generated LOD meshes and textures.

Since nobody else ever reported this issues so far, we can assume the LOD generation itself works as it should.

[niston]

But we already checked. I mean I took the exemplary Overpass piece. There are no overrides to it except the BGSM from the LODGen resources.
We also checked the BTO there. It looks as expected for LOD Level 32. When I told the overpass piece that it has a LOD mesh for Level 3, it appeared in the 32 LOD after regenration.
Also I don't use a mod manager, so there are no virtual filesystem tricks involved or anything suchlike, which could be a source for confusion.

It's just that the game does not use 32 with the vanilla LOD, but uses it as soon as there are generated LOD files around.

You have to admit, it makes no sense.

[sheson]

1 minute ago, niston said:

But we already checked. I mean I took the exemplary Overpass piece. There are no overrides to it except the BGSM from the LODGen resources.
We also checked the BTO there. It looks as expected for LOD Level 32. When I told the overpass piece that it has a LOD mesh for Level 3, it appeared in the 32 LOD after regenration.
Also I don't use a mod manager, so there are no virtual filesystem tricks involved or anything suchlike, which could be a source for confusion.

It's just that the game does not use 32 with the vanilla LOD, but uses it as soon as there are generated LOD files around.

You have to admit, it makes no sense.

The game uses LOD level 32. It is the furthest away LOD level. It will be used about starting about 250000 units away from the current center cell.
The nearest LOD level is 4. It starts right beyond the loaded cells.

[niston]

But you said yourself: We're not looking at the same LOD level in the 2nd screenshot.
So the Game must be using a more detailed LOD level for the background scenery when there's only vanilla LOD. But it stops using that more detailed LOD level as soon as there are generated LOD files around. And when the generated Files are deleted, the Game uses the more detailed level again.
For whatever, obscure reason that might be.

Edited May 18, 2021 by niston