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

[Shakal]

10 minutes ago, Shakal said:

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

Oh my god this is wrong sub forum, I'm so sorry. Can't figure out how to delete this topic

[TadasTalalas]

Did you disable LOD meshes that were used to generate LOD's? I don't know if that might help, I'm kind of guessing.

[z929669]

Be sure the "Optimized unseen" value is high enough at each LOD level. It should be at least 500 at LOD4.

Moved to DynDOLOD/xLODGen support forum.

Please read the OP for ideas and post logs.

[sheson]

3 hours ago, Shakal said:

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

Moved to the xLODGen terrain LOD beta thread.

See first post https://stepmodifications.org/forum/topic/13451-xlodgen-terrain-lod-beta-98-for-fnv-fo3-fo4-fo4vr-tes5-sse-tes5vr-enderal-enderalse/
In Skyrim Special Edition or Skyrim VR, if you notice terrain briefly flickering when new areas are loading in, set [Display] bEnableLandFade=0 in Skyrim.INI

https://dyndolod.info/Help/xLODGen#Terrain-LOD-Meshes-Fade-Setting

https://stepmodifications.org/forum/topic/13451-xlodgen-terrain-lod-beta-98-for-fnv-fo3-fo4-fo4vr-tes5-sse-tes5vr-enderal-enderalse/page/63/#comment-243445

[RainingTacco]

_{What exactly height map is used for and what does hide quads does? Should these options be enabled? Why is no one discussing this?}

Edited August 23, 2023 by RainingTacco

[sheson]

1 hour ago, RainingTacco said:

_{What exactly height map is used for and what does hide quads does? Should these options be enabled? Why is no one discussing this?}

Hover the mouse over a setting for hints.

Read Terrain-Heightmap-Readme.txt included in the download archive. A terrain heigthmap is a modders resource.

From the Terrain-LOD-Readme.txt included in the download archive:
Hide Quads: do not generate triangles for cell quads (a cell has four quadrants) that are set to hidden on the cell record. Punches a hole in the terrain mesh.

https://ck.uesp.net/wiki/index.php?title=Common_Data

[RainingTacco]

So they should be disabled, right?

[sheson]

2 hours ago, RainingTacco said:

So they should be disabled, right?

Read the readme/explanations and then change the options and settings of xLODGen according to what you want it to do.

[RainingTacco]

Yeah i read it and still dont know if there's any benefit to hiding quads, as for the height map i get that its unusable for now[i dont see any mods for it]

[sheson]

1 hour ago, RainingTacco said:

Yeah i read it and still dont know if there's any benefit to hiding quads, as for the height map i get that its unusable for now[i dont see any mods for it]

You did not ask a question or explained what it is you are doing, what game etc.

If a mod authors uses the flags to hide full terrain quads depends on their needs. Same for terrain LOD level 4 to also have the matching holes.
Typically a mod or guide requiring specific settings for LOD generation explains that in its instructions  Otherwise I would leave settings default.

[RainingTacco]

Ive ticked the hide quads and i dont see change in the game, so i think i will keep the setting. As for height map its just additional megabytes that i dont need so i removed it. Hopefully the height map will be used for something cool in future.

[sheson]

Just now, RainingTacco said:

Ive ticked the hide quads and i dont see change in the game, so i think i will keep the setting. As for height map its just additional megabytes that i dont need so i removed it. Hopefully the height map will be used for something cool in future.

You didn't mention which game, worldspaces and if/what mods are used that might hide quads. There might be no hidden quads or the holes in the terrain are covered by object LOD.

[RainingTacco]

Is there any performance benefit to not render that terrain? 

[sheson]

8 hours ago, RainingTacco said:

Is there any performance benefit to not render that terrain? 

What terrain?
Generally hiding a couple quads does not affect performance either way.

[Mousetick]

On 7/12/2023 at 5:40 PM, sheson said:

It doesn't really make sense to set optimize unseen to 500 for LOD level 4.

On 8/5/2023 at 1:39 AM, z929669 said:

Be sure the "Optimized unseen" value is high enough at each LOD level. It should be at least 500 at LOD4.

I understand what 'Optimize Unseen' does but I'm not knowledgeable/smart enough to determine by myself what is best or why, so I follow others' recommendations in this regard.

Would anyone care to explain the difference of opinion between sheson and Z, specifically for LOD4, and the reasons why they both might be correct under different circumstances or considerations.

I should point out that xLODGen's default 'Optimize Unseen' is OFF for LOD Level 4. xLODGen and DynDOLOD's defaults are usually pretty good for all users in general and balanced for 'good enough' quality with minimal performance impact.

Thanks.