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

[RainingTacco]

Lod generated by XLODGEN - First Image called tiling.jpg

Lod from "A quality world map"[cant believe you heavent heard about the mod, so here's the link] https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/5804 - second image called notiling.jpg

Tiling not always exist only on places where LOD objects are to be expected like after you run Dyndolod with object lod in 32 lod, it sometimes affect ground too in some places. 

 

 

 

Xlodgen even with vanilla textures consistently produce darker textures than the aforementioned mod with a little warm hint to its whitepoint. How to fix this, the gamma, contrast and brightness stuff doesn't correct for color warming[well, they shouldnt obviously duh]

Edited March 5, 2023 by RainingTacco

[RainingTacco]

Another example, here's ground without place for objects. This is other run of xlodgen with different parameters, producing same tile effect vs the texture from the aforementioned mod. 

 

 

[sheson]

51 minutes ago, RainingTacco said:

Lod generated by XLODGEN - First Image called tiling.jpg

Lod from "A quality world map"[cant believe you heavent heard about the mod, so here's the link] https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/5804 - second image called notiling.jpg

Tiling not always exist only on places where LOD objects are to be expected like after you run Dyndolod with object lod in 32 lod, it sometimes affect ground too in some places. 

 

 

 

Xlodgen even with vanilla textures consistently produce darker textures than the aforementioned mod with a little warm hint to its whitepoint. How to fix this, the gamma, contrast and brightness stuff doesn't correct for color warming[well, they shouldnt obviously duh]

The screenshots seem to show that the textures have different resolution. For example, the zoom is 704% and 1150%. Compare textures of the same resolution.
You did not mention which of the available downloads of the mod you are using.

xLODGen uses the full textures 1:1 to generate the terrain LOD textures exactly like it is done in the active cells.
xLODgen uses the layer data and vertex color data from the landscape record just as it is done in the active cells. Landscape textures automatically repeat 24x24 times per cell. Objects or object LOD does not affect full terrain or terrain LOD.
I suggest to take a full landscape texture and resize it in your favorite image program, then repeat/tile it to see how it looks when it retains some of its details. I suggest to go into CK (disable lighting and everything that covers terrain in the working cells) or into the game, disable grass and then zoom out to see how the full terrain actually looks.

xLODgen does not brighten or darken the landscape textures if the brighness, gamma and contrast are left default.
It is not a issue of xLODGen if CK/Oscape/mods include terrain LOD textures that are not matching the full terrain in the active cells and use a skewed noise texture to change their brightness. Use a neutral noise texture as explain in the first post.

If you want perfect terrain LOD textures without any compression artifacts, do not compress them. Use a high resolution.

If you want terrain LOD textures to be lacking detail, use low resolution. If you want to use a noise.dds so that terrain LOD brightness does not properly matches the full terrain in the active cells, use the brightness, gamma, contrast settings.

[RainingTacco]

26 minutes ago, sheson said:

The screenshots seem to show that the textures have different resolution. For example, the zoom is 704% and 1150%. Compare textures of the same resolution.
You did not mention which of the available downloads of the mod you are using.

Quality World Map has only 1K option, whereas i generate my lod32 at 2048 resolution. I've compared them at relative same size of geographic stuff like you can see that snow drift/mountain at the bottom.

27 minutes ago, sheson said:

xLODGen uses the full textures 1:1 to generate the terrain LOD textures exactly like it is done in the active cells.
xLODgen uses the layer data and vertex color data from the landscape record just as it is done in the active cells. Landscape textures automatically repeat 24x24 times per cell. Objects or object LOD does not affect full terrain or terrain LOD.
I suggest to take a full landscape texture and resize it in your favorite image program, then repeat/tile it to see how it looks when it retains some of its details. I suggest to go into CK (disable lighting and everything that covers terrain in the working cells) or into the game, disable grass and then zoom out to see how the full terrain actually looks.

So the tiling is inevitable in some cases?

28 minutes ago, sheson said:

xLODgen does not brighten or darken the landscape textures if the brighness, gamma and contrast are left default.
It is not a issue of xLODGen if CK/Oscape/mods include terrain LOD textures that are not matching the full terrain in the active cells and use a skewed noise texture to change their brightness. Use a neutral noise texture as explain in the first post.

Ok, it must be the fault of cathedral landscapes that their snow doesn't provide a colder whitepoint then. Though i've tried to run xlodgen on vanilla textures and still get a sightly different hue of snow than default lod that came with game.

32 minutes ago, sheson said:

If you want perfect terrain LOD textures without any compression artifacts, do not compress them. Use a high resolution.

I use settings recommended by step guide.

33 minutes ago, sheson said:

If you want terrain LOD textures to be lacking detail, use low resolution. If you want to use a noise.dds so that terrain LOD brightness does not properly matches the full terrain in the active cells, use the brightness, gamma, contrast settings.

I don't understand the statement. I thought that we shouldn't touch brighteness, contrast and gamma and use noise.dds? 

[RainingTacco]

Definitely xLodgen darkens the vanilla textures. I've ran xlodgen on vanilla textures, using STEP recommended settings 0 brightness, 0 contrast and 1.0 gamma

Here a are the results

Vanilla first, xlodgen second

How is this possible?

 

 

[z929669]

51 minutes ago, RainingTacco said:

Ok, it must be the fault of cathedral landscapes that their snow doesn't provide a colder whitepoint then. Though i've tried to run xlodgen on vanilla textures and still get a sightly different hue of snow than default lod that came with game.

I'll mention it again here:

Be certain the Cathedral Landscapes Temp mod was deactivated before you ran TexGen/DynDOLOD. That piece of CL is only enabled when generating terrain LOD. If you didn't disable the CL terrain LOD add-on, then you r map will have greenish snow with ACMoS.

If you left it enabled, you will need to rerun TexGen/DynDOLOD after disabling it.

[RainingTacco]

See my earlier post, i specifically unpacked vanilla lod textures to compare what i got from running xlodgen on this setup, and xlodgen produce darker lods than what vanilla come with. Therefore either the author of xlodgen designed it to be specifically used with lighter colored noise.dds or its unintentional, but he doesn't know about it? This is pretty misleading because someone could run xlodgen on vanilla game with vanilla noise.dds and get darker terrain, without knowing he has to download "neutral" noise dds[i assume midpoint between 0 and 255?], its especially annoying because some mods, even weather ones come with their own noise.dds like SOLAS Weathers.

 

 

 

19 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I'll mention it again here:

Be certain the Cathedral Landscapes Temp mod was deactivated before you ran TexGen/DynDOLOD. That piece of CL is only enabled when generating terrain LOD. If you didn't disable the CL terrain LOD add-on, then you r map will have greenish snow with ACMoS.

If you left it enabled, you will need to rerun TexGen/DynDOLOD after disabling it.

 

I know about it, ive mentioned it that ive ran specifically with lod textures for CL and then disabled it. It still looks bad.

Edited March 5, 2023 by RainingTacco

[z929669]

13 minutes ago, RainingTacco said:

See my earlier post, i specifically unpacked vanilla lod textures to compare what i got from running xlodgen on this setup, and xlodgen produce darker lods than what vanilla come with. Therefore either the author of xlodgen designed it to be specifically used with lighter colored noise.dds or its unintentional, but he doesn't know about it?

 

 

 

 

I know about it, ive mentioned it that ive ran specifically with lod textures for CL and then disabled it. It still looks bad.

Then you have something else going on and either didn't follow the 2.2.0 guide exactly or have added other mods.

Also, the snow and terrain of CL requires a slight boost to gamma (1.25), since it uses a custom approach for landscape (and why it requires the temp terrain mod for xLODGen). This is indicated in the 2.2.0 guide. If you aren't following the Step guide, you haven't said so yet.

Use the standard vanilla or SRO noise map with CL.

As sheson mentioned in his last post, xLODGen isn't the issue here.

[RainingTacco]

I havent used CL in this test for christ sake! Latest XLODGEN, run from MO2, these are not mods one is address library for SKSE and the other is a mod so the game doesn't go bonkers at higher FPS when i test it. No influence on textures at all. 

Settings are basically the same as STEP guide without mip-maps, ive compared mip-mapped or not and still the same darker picture. I don't use noise map here in comparison, just raw texture from vanilla game and what xlodgen have created. 

[RainingTacco]

Even with completely white noise.dds, generated lod from vanilla textures by xlodgen will yield darker lod ingame when checking world map. 

Edit, removed whole xlodgen folder, unpacked again, ran it again with default settings[funnily enough similar to step ones, does xlodgen save somewhere its settings even after i delete whole folder?]. Is there a way to make sure i run default settings? I dont see reset to default anywhere, i thought removing whole xlodgen folder and unpacking new would load default settings, but it seems it loads my settings from somewhere? Where is that "somewhere"? appdata?

Edi2: Ok it's appdata, i prefer to have my settings in the same folder as the program executable, but i guess this is easier when upgrading to new version.

edit3: Same thing happening after removal of setting files from appdata, the DXT1 textures produced have the same exact issue of being darker than vanilla lods, while using same base textures/terrain/vanilla game for generating.

So i repeat again - what is happening? I have RTX 3060 ti with latest drivers.

Edited March 5, 2023 by RainingTacco

[z929669]

20 minutes ago, RainingTacco said:

Even with completely white noise.dds, generated lod from vanilla textures by xlodgen will yield darker lod ingame when checking world map. 

Edit, removed whole xlodgen folder, unpacked again, ran it again with default settings[funnily enough similar to step ones, does xlodgen save somewhere its settings even after i delete whole folder?]. Is there a way to make sure i run default settings? I dont see reset to default anywhere, i thought removing whole xlodgen folder and unpacking new would load default settings, but it seems it loads my settings from somewhere? Where is that "somewhere"? appdata?

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Skyrim Special Edition\Plugins.sseviewsettings

This post explains what to do to prove that xLODGen produces LOD versions of the textures that are not darker/lighter than the source. If you map looks off, it's due to game INI settings or something related to ACMoS mesh rules or settings.

Your response here doesn't mention the testing mod list. I understand the first image is vanilla, but the second is xLODGen with CL for all we know, since that's what you were testing with in your previous post. CL LOD textures will be different from vanilla.

Also, the Step guide settings instruct xLODGen gamma to be 1.25, but in that post you said we instruct 1.0.

[RainingTacco]

Removed both mods, ran completely vanilla, same issue. Im not talking about comparing textures ingame, im talking about comparing them in photoshop, albeit in game they are also darker, even when i apply the fully white noise.dds the textures are similar to vanilla or slightly darker, and you can't go whiter than white, so even with white noise.dds you still get slightly darker textures at least in lod 32 in game from my tests.

IM NOT TESTING WITH CL, HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE TO REPEAT THAT LOL? Ive tested with CL earlier, since the last three posts im talking purely about vanilla stuff, because this xlodgen thing started to annoy me and i want to get into bottom of this, since my lods were being produced consistently dark[they are not so dark in lod 4/8/16 ingame, at least thats my feeling after playing, which might be due to not seeing lods as often because of grass LODs extending to horizon, but its best visible in lod 32], so i embarked into setting vanilla profile, and unpacking vanilla lod for comparison. 

Edited March 5, 2023 by RainingTacco

[sheson]

2 hours ago, RainingTacco said:

So the tiling is inevitable in some cases?

Install different full terrain landscapoe textures that do not have obvious tiling.

2 hours ago, RainingTacco said:

Ok, it must be the fault of cathedral landscapes that their snow doesn't provide a colder whitepoint then. Though i've tried to run xlodgen on vanilla textures and still get a sightly different hue of snow than default lod that came with game.

xLODGen does not change brightness or colors of textures if brightens, gamma or contrast are left default.

Cathedral landscape ship with special textures only to be used for terrain LOD generation. They match better with changed brightness, gamma or contrast AFAIK. Check the STEP guide.

2 hours ago, RainingTacco said:

I use settings recommended by step guide.

If you have questions or problems with third party guides, then you need to ask on their forum/section.

2 hours ago, RainingTacco said:

I don't understand the statement. I thought that we shouldn't touch brighteness, contrast and gamma and use noise.dds? 

Correct. When generating terrain LOD textures from full landscape textures (no special textures are installed for terrain LOD generation only), leave brightness, gamma contrast alone and install a neutral noise.dds instead.

1 hour ago, RainingTacco said:

Definitely xLodgen darkens the vanilla textures. I've ran xlodgen on vanilla textures, using STEP recommended settings 0 brightness, 0 contrast and 1.0 gamma

Here a are the results

Vanilla first, xlodgen second

How is this possible?

 

 

TexGen doers not change brightness of textures when brightness, gamma and contrast settings are left default.
The terrain LOD textures generated by TexGen are a 100% match to the terrain full textures in brightness and quality.

The vanilla terrain LOD textures are too bright and do not match the full vanilla terrain textures. This is offset by a non neutral vanilla noise.dds.
Read the first post.

[sheson]

1 hour ago, RainingTacco said:

See my earlier post, i specifically unpacked vanilla lod textures to compare what i got from running xlodgen on this setup, and xlodgen produce darker lods than what vanilla come with. Therefore either the author of xlodgen designed it to be specifically used with lighter colored noise.dds or its unintentional, but he doesn't know about it? This is pretty misleading because someone could run xlodgen on vanilla game with vanilla noise.dds and get darker terrain, without knowing he has to download "neutral" noise dds[i assume midpoint between 0 and 255?], its especially annoying because some mods, even weather ones come with their own noise.dds like SOLAS Weathers.

xLODGen does not change the brightness or colors  so that the terrain LOD actually matches the full textures in the actives cells, thus finally getting rid of the wrong terrain LOD textures that do not match made by CK/Oscape.

This is explained on the first post. This is well documented and well known. That is why the first post has the download links to neutral noise.dds. Since years.

The issue of a non neutral vanilla noise.dds does not exist in any of the Fallout games. 

1 hour ago, RainingTacco said:

Even with completely white noise.dds, generated lod from vanilla textures by xlodgen will yield darker lod ingame when checking world map. 

Edit, removed whole xlodgen folder, unpacked again, ran it again with default settings[funnily enough similar to step ones, does xlodgen save somewhere its settings even after i delete whole folder?]. Is there a way to make sure i run default settings? I dont see reset to default anywhere, i thought removing whole xlodgen folder and unpacking new would load default settings, but it seems it loads my settings from somewhere? Where is that "somewhere"? appdata?

Edi2: Ok it's appdata, i prefer to have my settings in the same folder as the program executable, but i guess this is easier when upgrading to new version.

edit3: Same thing happening after removal of setting files from appdata, the DXT1 textures produced have the same exact issue of being darker than vanilla lods, while using same base textures/terrain/vanilla game for generating.

So i repeat again - what is happening? I have RTX 3060 ti with latest drivers.

The noise.dds is applied by the game in the game and does not affect terrain LOD textures generation as explained in the first post.

Let me repeat this one more time: xLODGen terrain LOD textures are not too dark. They are left alone. This is the brightness of the source textures.

[RainingTacco]

Ok thanks for explanation, so it is an intended effect. I thought that that the noise textures presented were a suggestion and not something that is mandatory to have a similar color of lod brightness ingame as in the vanilla game when using xlodgen. Is there any setting in xlodgen, or planned feature to introduce things like brighter snow LOD, without brightening the overall LOD? I would for example want to leave the lod generated by xlodgen as it is, except for snow, which i would like to make brighter. I know that i can always use photoshop and do it by hand, but its very time consuming, and the process could be better off automated. Right now its impossible to do that, if you use brighter noise.dds every part of terrain gets brighter, not only snow. Similarly if i use brightness setting while generating LOD it will brighten WHOLE texture and not just snow. So an option to make snow brighter without brightening the rest of terrain would be most welcome in new xlodgen versions if possible! And no, you can't use contrast for that without messing other stuff, even if you decrease brightness it still is off.

Also, the very knowledgeable user of yausd in reddit claimed that lod 8/16/32 dont use mip-maps and its a waste to genereate them. Is that true?

Edited March 5, 2023 by RainingTacco