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

[Justreg]

texture issues? No. This happened with flickering water, as its additional side effect. Does not require attention (some errors in game engine).

[sheson]

18 minutes ago, Justreg said:

texture issues? No. This happened with flickering water, as its additional side effect. Does not require attention (some errors in game engine).

I suggest to restore default INIs and then test which setting(s) specifically cause your issues with LOD water not unloading and whatever happens to the terrain textures in the active cells in your screenshot. Neither should happen with default INIs and save on fast travel disabled.

[heheloveer]

What could cause the Seasons option be grayed out altogether? A Chinese player encountered this problem and asked me for advice. I myself don't even use Seasons of Skyrim yet I can enable that option no issue.

Also, they encountered another weird problem where they used a green texture for Whiterun terrain but the LOD textures generated by xLODGen were all yellow. What could have cause it?

[sheson]

24 minutes ago, heheloveer said:

What could cause the Seasons option be grayed out altogether? A Chinese player encountered this problem and asked me for advice. I myself don't even use Seasons of Skyrim yet I can enable that option no issue.

Read https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum how to properly report a problem. Most of the generic common sense explanations apply to xLODGen as well. Different log paths obviously.
Report the actual problem, with screenshots, log, load order maybe etc.

Read Seasons-Readme.txt included in the xLODGen download archive.
This feature requires 3rd party mods like Seasons of Skyrim SKSE https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/62861 that takes care of the record swaps and switching between the different LOD files in the game itself.
The feature requires season swap files in Data\Seasons\*[SPR|SUM|AUT|WIN].ini.\

Also see https://dyndolod.info/Help/xLODGen#Seasons and https://dyndolod.info/Help/Seasons

24 minutes ago, heheloveer said:

Also, they encountered another weird problem where they used a green texture for Whiterun terrain but the LOD textures generated by xLODGen were all yellow. What could have cause it?

Whiterun is a child world that uses Tamriel for LOD.  By default there is no such thing as Whiterun terrain LOD that could be generated by xLODGen.
xLODGen uses the winning full landscape textures found in data folder to generate terrain LOD textures.

[heheloveer]

15 minutes ago, sheson said:

Read the first post which log and debug log to upload when making posts. Read this entire page https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum, in particular how to properly report a problem.

https://dyndolod.info/Help/Advanced-Mode#Seasons
Requires season swap data to be loaded.

Read https://dyndolod.info/Help/Seasons to learn how to generate LOD for Seasons.

https://dyndolod.info/Help/Seasons#Technical-Information
The feature requires season swap files in ..\Data\Seasons\*[SPR|SUM|AUT|WIN].ini.

Use the xLODGen terrain LOD beta thread for questions regarding terrain LOD generation. https://stepmodifications.org/forum/topic/13451-xlodgen-terrain-lod-beta-98-for-fnv-fo3-fo4-fo4vr-tes5-sse-tes5vr-enderal-enderalse. Report the actual problem, with screenshots, log, load order maybe etc.

I'm afraid I can't provide much more information right now since, well, it's not I who encountered this problem. Some screenshots they provided, in which the problem they encountered (green terrain textures verse yellow terrain LOD textures) is clear:

Regarding Seasons (and I'll admit I have practically no idea how it works), apparently they had Seasons of Skyrim and Seasonal Landscapes enabled. I asked them whether they had \Data\Seasons\*[SPR|SUM|AUT|WIN].ini, and they said they had an "automatically generated MainFormSwap_WIN.ini" and that they "edited the ini settings so that it's always summer". Still, the fact that I can enable this option myself despite not having any file related to Seasons must mean something's amiss here.

If you need any more information, please specify, and I'll see if I can get them to provide it.

Edit: Sorry for not making it clear earlier, I was talking about the terrain textures of the Whiterun area, not the city itself.

Edited July 15, 2023 by heheloveer

[sheson]

59 minutes ago, heheloveer said:

I'm afraid I can't provide much more information right now since, well, it's not I who encountered this problem. Some screenshots they provided, in which the problem they encountered (green terrain textures verse yellow terrain LOD textures) is clear:

Regarding Seasons (and I'll admit I have practically no idea how it works), apparently they had Seasons of Skyrim and Seasonal Landscapes enabled. I asked them whether they had \Data\Seasons\*[SPR|SUM|AUT|WIN].ini, and they said they had an "automatically generated MainFormSwap_WIN.ini" and that they "edited the ini settings so that it's always summer". Still, the fact that I can enable this option myself despite not having any file related to Seasons must mean something's amiss here.

If you need any more information, please specify, and I'll see if I can get them to provide it.

Edit: Sorry for not making it clear earlier, I was talking about the terrain textures of the Whiterun area, not the city itself.

Logs are required for support / troubleshooting.

[heheloveer]

4 hours ago, sheson said:

Logs are required for support / troubleshooting.

Well, case closed. I asked for the log and the moment they opened the log they realized that xLODGen was somehow generating for another Skyrim setup installed on their PC. Guess that's on me for not realizing how logs can be helpful even to the not-so-knowledgeable people.

Speaking of, if you had the logs, would you be able to find out what went wrong in this case? I mean, they knew where their game data was supposed to be but I don't think other people could realize that the path was wrong just judging from the log itself.

[sheson]

1 hour ago, heheloveer said:

Well, case closed. I asked for the log and the moment they opened the log they realized that xLODGen was somehow generating for another Skyrim setup installed on their PC. Guess that's on me for not realizing how logs can be helpful even to the not-so-knowledgeable people.

Speaking of, if you had the logs, would you be able to find out what went wrong in this case? I mean, they knew where their game data was supposed to be but I don't think other people could realize that the path was wrong just judging from the log itself.

Lets assume the xLODGen log would have shown there are no errors/skipping etc. (which the user would not have noticed either) I can use documented paths to give specific instructions which data folder to check for full landscape textures that were used to create the output.

The thing is, I have no time to waste to speculate/write all possible reasons without logs. Even a successful log already eliminates lots of possible reasons for problems.

[heheloveer]

16 minutes ago, sheson said:

Lets assume the xLODGen log would have shown there are no errors/skipping etc. (which the user would not have noticed either) I can use documented paths to give specific instructions which data folder to check for full landscape textures that were used to create the output.

The thing is, I have no time to waste to speculate/write all possible reasons without logs. Even a successful log already eliminates lots of possible reasons for problems.

If the checking instruction could include the full non virtual path of the folder, then they might realize something’s wrong. Otherwise this would still be something only they could figure out on their own.

Troubleshooting aimlessly is indeed a pain. Most problems can have multiple potential causes, some turned out to be so basic that I couldn’t think of even if I tried, like this one. I generally don’t ask those players asking me for help to provide the logs, because a) I feel like it’s too demanding on a Reddit-like forum that doesn’t support file attachments and b) I’m not good at reading them. In hindsight, logs can make troubleshooting a lot easier, even for us laymen.

In any case they claimed xLODGen was behaving normally after they sorted out the registry problem, and that they would never have thought of checking the log had I not asked for it. Ultimately it’s your advice that helped, so I guess I’ll thank you on their behalf.

[w740su]

screenshot (the distant snow on the ground is darker than the snowy roads and snow piles)

screenshot of map view (on the map the snow is still slightly darker than the rocks, but this is acceptable for me)

I generated all the LODs (xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLODGen) following the guide. I also tried adjusting noise texture which will cause other terrains being too bright. Also I am using Simplicity of Snow, and the projecteddiffuse texture is already patched with the snow texture from the landscape textures mod (Also I just find the screenshot of ProjectedDiffuse Patch Hub mod on nexus shows the same problem). How can I fix this?

Thanks!

 

[z929669]

3 hours ago, w740su said:

screenshot (the distant snow on the ground is darker than the snowy roads and snow piles)

screenshot of map view (on the map the snow is still slightly darker than the rocks, but this is acceptable for me)

I generated all the LODs (xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLODGen) following the guide. I also tried adjusting noise texture which will cause other terrains being too bright. Also I am using Simplicity of Snow, and the projecteddiffuse texture is already patched with the snow texture from the landscape textures mod (Also I just find the screenshot of ProjectedDiffuse Patch Hub mod on nexus shows the same problem). How can I fix this?

Thanks!

 

Both of those screens show good results. I don't see any darker distant snow in the first one. The map differences are expected, but your results look better than most. perhaps SoS is the difference on the map (as opposed to BDS).

The projected Diffuse Patch Hub shot shows much more the problem than your shots. It's different material, meshes, and reflectivity. How to fix in LOD? Maybe increase gamma just a bit in xLODGen UI for LOD4.

[sheson]

9 hours ago, w740su said:

screenshot (the distant snow on the ground is darker than the snowy roads and snow piles)

screenshot of map view (on the map the snow is still slightly darker than the rocks, but this is acceptable for me)

I generated all the LODs (xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLODGen) following the guide. I also tried adjusting noise texture which will cause other terrains being too bright. Also I am using Simplicity of Snow, and the projecteddiffuse texture is already patched with the snow texture from the landscape textures mod (Also I just find the screenshot of ProjectedDiffuse Patch Hub mod on nexus shows the same problem). How can I fix this?

Thanks!

This seems to be about terrain LOD, so this was moved to the xLODGen terrain LOD beta thread.
No logs were uploaded.

It is unclear what guide or settings were used. If you have problems with third party guides or mods, then you need to ask on its forum, comments, discord etc.
How to make close up screenshots of LOD https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#In-Game-Screenshots.

See https://dyndolod.info/Help/xLODGen#Terrain-LOD-Textures-Brightness

If brightness, contrast and gamma settings in xLODGen are left alone, the generated terrain LOD textures match the full terrain textures perfectly before any game post effects. Generation settings and noise overlay are applied equally to everything, regardless what textures depict. The game does not support 

The map uses its own overlays and settings. https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/Guide:Skyrim_INI/MapMenu

If you want a specific texture to look different, then you need to change the full landscape texture before generating terrain LOD.

LOD is supposed to match its fully loaded things in the active cells, so maybe terrain LOD is fine, but the snow LOD shaders applied to object LOD are off. See https://dyndolod.info/Help/Snow-Ash-LOD-Shader

[w740su]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I didn't specify the guide I was following. It was the Step Guide SkyrimSE v2.2.0 here. I can't remember but I think I changed the gamma values to be exact same as listed in the guide. Maybe I shouldn't do this?

I uploaded some more screenshots. It seems that the snow shader from Simplicity of Snow is also a little bit off (the tree LOD snow is much darker, and maybe the snow pile is too bright). I am changing the landscape mods, so I'll also try to see if BDS is better for my list too.

[z929669]

4 hours ago, w740su said:

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I didn't specify the guide I was following. It was the Step Guide SkyrimSE v2.2.0 here. I can't remember but I think I changed the gamma values to be exact same as listed in the guide. Maybe I shouldn't do this?

I uploaded some more screenshots. It seems that the snow shader from Simplicity of Snow is also a little bit off (the tree LOD snow is much darker, and maybe the snow pile is too bright). I am changing the landscape mods, so I'll also try to see if BDS is better for my list too.

No you should do that if you are following the 2.2.0 guide. Cathedral Landscapes needs terrain gamma 1.25 using the TEMP landscape textures for CL ONLY  during terrain LODGen as the instructions specify.

If you are using Simplicity of Snow, you are not following the guide, which uses BDS. When you deviate, things like this can happen. Continue troubleshooting with sheson if you are not following our guide explicitly.

[Shakal]

I have an issue with my setup. After generating terrain lods with xLODgen I have flickering or overlapping maybe, I don't know. It looks like LOD4 starts z-fighting on the border of active cell when I approach it and lead to ugly squares which are flicker. Hope this screen will be ok to describe what I mean.

I also tried to regenerate terrain LOD with different settings. And I have figured out that the setting that actually affect this is a quality of built meshes. On the screen above terrain LOD was generated with quality 0. I tried to generate terrain LOD with mesh quality 8 and there were much less overlapping and flickering, but reducing quality isnt a good solution for me. I want to know why this happening on my setup and why it's not happening on other's setups.

Maybe it's something with my PC not handling unloading lods intime? 

Edit: and this screen not ok, lol, maybe link will help a bit... Here

Edited August 4, 2023 by Shakal