xLODGen - Terrain LOD beta 130 for FNV, FO3, FO4, FO4VR, TES5, SSE, TES5VR, ENDERAL, ENDERALSE

[z929669]

You will get z fighting in certain areas no matter what you do, but there are ways to minimize.

 

If you are not using CL, then you shouldn't need any gamma correction ... that's for the STEP build using CL and MM. However, from the images in your previous post, the gamma correction yields the best result. Terrain LOD snow matches objects and the landscape in your last image.

 

The vanilla snow in your first image may match pretty well in vanilla, but I assume that your replaces or lighting weathers are making mountains/rocks mismatch terrain, so it looks like fuzzy day-glow snow to me. Terrain LOD in the second image looks like volcanic ash, so you either need a lighter noise map or the xLODGen brightness/gamma correction, because -- for whatever reason, your LOD terrain doesn't match up to the landscape, IMO.

 

... anyway, please follow sheson's advice. I just chimed in here, since you are using xLODGen settings recommended by the STEP guide (which expects that you are using CL/MM).

[HunterZ]

I mention the z-fighting because it's not there with the vanilla LOD. Note that this is not water z-fighting, but rather it seems to be LOD failing to blend with full-quality terrain at cell borders or something.

 

The screenshots are only useful as comparisons with each other, as they are heavily orange-tinted as a result of being at dawn. Both of my flyover videos are recorded at just after midday game time.

[sheson]

Let me repeat this: CL uses specific LOD textures for terrain LOD texture generation only. They do not match the full textures. In this case using brightness/contrast/gamma to make a final adjustment is perfectly fine. It is equivalent to using an image program to create or adjust those special textures to match the full textures better.

 

If the same landscape textures are used for LOD generation and in-game, then using brightness/contrast/gamma means terrain LOD textures will not match full terrain and object LOD. Using the noise texture to adjust brightness the opposite way again to make things match again, means doing two unnecessary things (with different methods) to the terrain LOD textures trying to make them match again.

 

Can't say I have seen such loading flicker as seen in the second video before. Did you generate with mipmaps for diffuse/normal maps? Otherwise I would suspect resource issue, e.g. very large meshes or texture resolutions. My first troubleshooting step would be to only use the new terrain LOD meshes and then only the new terrain LOD textures only, to see which of the two is the reason.

Edited August 24, 2020 by sheson

[HunterZ]

I used the STEP settings, which have mipmaps disabled: https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:0.3.0b#Generation

 

Someone said in another thread that you told them that mipmaps aren't used, so apparently we're all confused about what to do now: https://forum.step-project.com/topic/15184-xlodgen-terrain-settings-compare/page-2?do=findComment&comment=242498

 

To my knowledge, I'm not using any textures that are larger than what come with Skyrim SE - just higher quality versions of some of them.

 

It sounds like I should try the following to diagnose the flickering, until/unless one of them is spotted as the culprit:

1. Generate with mipmaps enabled?
2. Generate only meshes and see what happens.
3. Generate only diffuse/normal maps and see what happens?

 

[HunterZ]

Update - it's definitely the meshes that are involved in the cell edge flickering:

• Everything with mipmaps enabled: Flicker
• Just meshes: Flicker
• Just textures: No flickering

 

Trying some different mesh options:

• Reducing LOD4 mesh quality 1 and 2: Flicker
• Turn off protect borders: Flicker
• Turned off baked normals (don't think this applies but I'm grasping at straws now): Flicker
• Generated without SSE-Terrain-Tamriel.esm and with Bashed patch active: Flicker

 

Went back to vanilla LOD data, and verified no flicker, so I'm at a loss as to what else I can do. Maybe disable various mods before generating meshes?

[sheson]

  On 8/25/2020 at 6:22 AM, HunterZ said:

Update - it's definitely the meshes that are involved in the cell edge flickering:

• Everything with mipmaps enabled: Flicker
• Just meshes: Flicker
• Just textures: No flickering

 

Trying some different mesh options:

• Reducing LOD4 mesh quality 1 and 2: Flicker
• Turn off protect borders: Flicker
• Turned off baked normals (don't think this applies but I'm grasping at straws now): Flicker
• Generated without SSE-Terrain-Tamriel.esm and with Bashed patch active: Flicker

 

Went back to vanilla LOD data, and verified no flicker, so I'm at a loss as to what else I can do. Maybe disable various mods before generating meshes?

Keep only the terrain LOD Meshes for level 4 (tamriel.4.*.*.btr), so we can rule out further away terrain LOD meshes affecting this. Remove tamriel.[8|16|32].*.*.btr, so it will fall back to use the vanilla meshes for those.

 

If still happens then, let me know the generation settings used for LOD level 4.

Edited August 25, 2020 by sheson

[HunterZ]

Confirmed - using just LOD4 meshes still results in flickering.

 

Here are the settings used. Log reports app version SSELODGen 4.1.3b EXTREMELY EXPERIMENTAL Terrain LOD BETA x64 (B97D7181):

Edited August 25, 2020 by HunterZ

[sheson]

  On 8/25/2020 at 7:48 PM, HunterZ said:

Confirmed - using just LOD4 meshes still results in flickering.

 

Here are the settings used. Log reports app version SSELODGen 4.1.3b EXTREMELY EXPERIMENTAL Terrain LOD BETA x64 (B97D7181):

 

It is how the engine works, it first loads all the full textures before it hides the terrain LOD underground. Redo the vanilla test, but only with the new terrain LOD textures and the too dark noise texture which makes the difference so obvious. Or just do it with vanilla LOD in snowy areas. You will see the same thing happening but it is less obvious with the much larger triangles of the vanilla terrain LOD meshes.

 

Consider using a a higher quality maybe like 5, so there is a little more elevation differences. Then adjust the noise texture so there is less difference between the full terrain textures and the LOD textures. 

Edited August 25, 2020 by sheson

[HunterZ]

  On 8/25/2020 at 9:19 PM, sheson said:

It is how the engine works, it first loads all the full textures before it hides the terrain LOD underground. Redo the vanilla test, but only with the new terrain LOD textures and the too dark noise texture which makes the difference so obvious. Or just do it with vanilla LOD in snowy areas. You will see the same thing happening but it is less obvious with the much larger triangles of the vanilla terrain LOD meshes.

 

Consider using a a higher quality maybe like 5, so there is a little more elevation differences. Then adjust the noise texture so there is less difference between the full terrain textures and the LOD textures. 

Using vanilla meshes with xLODGen textures, there is - except for some large non-flickering triangles - a smooth transition between full-quality and LOD textures via a fading pixel-level dithering effect:

 

With xLODGen meshes+textures, there is a highly pronounced pattern of little squares that flicker a bunch and seem to be exempted from the fading pixel-level dithering:

[HunterZ]

Update:

 

Tried generating meshes with various LOD4 quality levels:

 

5: almost no flickering / much closer to vanilla

2: fair amount of flickering, but the pattern is triangles instead of little squares

0: tons of flickering and little squares (this is what I've been using)

-1: fair amount of flickering, game crashed after a minute or so

 

Not sure why STEP recommends LOD4 quality 0 when it flickers so badly.

[z929669]

  On 8/26/2020 at 2:13 AM, HunterZ said:

Update:

 

Tried generating meshes with various LOD4 quality levels:

 

5: almost no flickering / much closer to vanilla

2: fair amount of flickering, but the pattern is triangles instead of little squares

0: tons of flickering and little squares (this is what I've been using)

-1: fair amount of flickering, game crashed after a minute or so

 

Not sure why STEP recommends LOD4 quality 0 when it flickers so badly.

Using STEP recommended xLODGen textures + meshes, I don't get the flicker (or pixellation) you are seeing in that second vid using LOD4 Q=0 at very similar view distance/angle/speed. Landscape transition is smooth. I do get some flicker with water and objects at the 4x4 cell border. I also don't see the sharp line you are seeing at the transition in both vids.

 

I am thinking that some of this may be either hardware, drivers, settings or maybe that I am testing against STEP build and using a different complement of landscape textures and meshes. I am also running with all LOD gen completed if that makes any diff. Really, there could be all kinds of reasons or all may contribute (my specs are in sig).

 

I'd love to hear if anyone running STEP 0.3.0b with current xLODGen settings is seeing what you are seeing. If so, then that would rule out build/game-settings as the fix and would point more to hardware/drivers-settings.

[sheson]

Flicker happens when two 3D objects with occupy the same 3D space. It is more obvious if the textures are different.

 

Quality 0 means that almost every terrain LOD triangle matches matches exactly the same 3D space as the full terrain triangles. 

 

Higher quality values mean less detail, terrain LOD triangles are larger and do not match anymore. Some are lower than full terrain and some are higher. Less flicker, just larger patches of one or the other while both are still showing.

 

Once you have perfectly matching terrain LOD textures with an appropriate noise texture it is less obvious.

 

I never really noticed this before, because this delay of unloading terrain meshes seems to be another new screw up in Skyrim Special Edition. Skryim seems to switch instantly.

 

Edit: Based on that realization, see what happens if you set [Display] bEnableLandFade=0 in SkyrimCustom.ini. The setting is new in Skyrim Special Edition.

Edited August 26, 2020 by sheson

[HunterZ]

[Display] bEnableLandFade=0 seems to be a massive improvement. It's also a misleading name, because the game still does a non-instant change from LOD4 to full detail when a new cell comes into range - it just doesn't try to do the dithering thing.

 

I wonder what would happen if xLODGen had the option to generate meshes that are just slightly lower than they should be, though.

 

 

On the separate subject of noise textures:

 

I've been messing with generating my own, and I'm curious what grey level is considered neutral, such that it wouldn't change the LOD texture brightness at all. Does anyone know?

 

Also, I noticed that lowering opacity (such that the texture is more translucent in the paint program) appears to actually darken the LOD textures, so I've been leaving it at 100% opaque (zero translucency).

[HunterZ]

Looks like even 80% white might be a bit darker than the full quality textures:

 

noise.dds:

 

Over land:

 

Over snow:

 

 

Edit:

 

Here is a noise.dds that I think works pretty well without changing the darkness of the LOD textures: https://mega.nz/file/mtlBXKLL#-AUQTa2l2g4V0aJRCp-davpR1KM5sqYmeq5s794JO3k

 

It has greyscale values between 192 and 255 (basically 75-100%).

Edited August 27, 2020 by HunterZ

[sheson]

  On 8/27/2020 at 3:10 AM, HunterZ said:

[Display] bEnableLandFade=0 seems to be a massive improvement. It's also a misleading name, because the game still does a non-instant change from LOD4 to full detail when a new cell comes into range - it just doesn't try to do the dithering thing.

 

I wonder what would happen if xLODGen had the option to generate meshes that are just slightly lower than they should be, though.

If terrain heights don't match, then the height shift will be noticeable. The setting solves the issue without any negatives effects as far as I can tell. It seems to fade just as it does in Skyrim.

 

  On 8/27/2020 at 3:10 AM, HunterZ said:

On the separate subject of noise textures:

 

I've been messing with generating my own, and I'm curious what grey level is considered neutral, such that it wouldn't change the LOD texture brightness at all. Does anyone know?

 

Also, I noticed that lowering opacity (such that the texture is more translucent in the paint program) appears to actually darken the LOD textures, so I've been leaving it at 100% opaque (zero translucency).

AFAIK, the alpha channel of the noise texture is not used in the game. Is it possible the used image program "flattens" the image when saving.

 

The exact neutral depends a bit on the resolution of diffuse textures and normal maps, if the normal maps of the landscape textures are baked and the artifacts of the used compression.

 

There is also a difference how the noise is applied in Skyrim and Skyrim Special Edition. In the older game version it has less influence on the bright (snowy) parts, while in Skyrim Special Edition it seems to be applied equally.

Edited August 27, 2020 by sheson