Creating 3D LOD's for my FO:NV tree mod?

[vurt]

I'd really like to create 3D LOD's for my New Vegas mod (and later on for Skyrim LE/SE when i feel got the hang of it somewhat).

 

Any help of how i should get started would be greatly appreciated. Am i so lucky that there's a specific guide for New Vegas 3D tree LOD generation perhaps?

 

As i understand it they should be created as object LODs and not as normal tree LODS since its so buggy for NV? 

 

Thanks.

Edited April 19, 2019 by vurt

[outdatedTV]

Hey Vurt, recently zDas managed to create 3d tree lods for SkyrimSE and we included it in the tucoguide as "IIIc. Trees Overhaul Option 3": https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/10694/?

 

We use xlodgen for terrain lod and Dyndolod for objects and the trees.

 

You can ping zDas on our discord here: https://discord.gg/tvjWjCr

 

Thanks for all your great work! Currently enjoying your SS2 plants all the way through.

 

Wysłane z mojego F8331 przy użyciu Tapatalka

Edited April 19, 2019 by outdatedTV

[vurt]

Right.. someone (Skibadaa and chadsketch) had already created this, i had a vague memory of it and found the mod here: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/63129?tab=description

 

so i can probably work this out pretty easily now and update the resources for this now outdated mod to the latest ones and perhaps make the ""3D"" meshes at least a little bit more advanced. 

 

 

Hey Vurt, recently zDas managed to create 3d lods for SkyrimSE and we included it in the tucoguide as "IIIc. Trees Overhaul Option 3": https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/10694/?

We use xlodgen for terrain lod and Dyndolod for objects and the trees.

You can ping zDas on our discord here: https://discord.gg/tvjWjCr

Thanks for all your great work! Currently enjoying your SS2 plants all the way through.

Wysłane z mojego F8331 przy użyciu Tapatalka

 

Ah, thanks, will take a look! SS2 is such a great game :)

 

 

Edit: I also now remembered that someone did a Skyrim Flora Overhaul mod for 3D LOD's, and they're pretty well made.

Edited April 19, 2019 by vurt

[sheson]

Technically 3D tree LOD are just object LOD models. So they adhere to the same conventions and limitations.

 

"All" you have to do is create LOD models and name them correctly, for FNV that would be e.g. fullmodel.nif -> fullmodel_lod.nif. For Skyrim/DynDOLOD the naming convention is different of course.

 

The important limitation for FNV object LOD is, that each object LOD NIF that typically covers 16 cells (some smaller worldspaces define 64 cells via the lodsettings file) can only have one shape with 65536 triangles.

So you really need to optimize the LOD models.

 

Another important part is that none of the LOD textures can be tiled. All UV coordinates need to be between 0.0 and 1.0. So for 3D trunks it helps to create specific LOD textures (mini atlas) that repeat the full textur 2x4 for example. Then update the UV with 3D Max/Blender. There is a way to do this with LODGen.exe, too. However, I am assuming you know how to UV with 3D Max/Blender).

 

As you might already know for trees with straight trunks doing the usual 2D X planes works quite well. That is just 8 triangles for a trunk.

Optimizing the leafs can be hard and depends on the trees itself. For some it might work just to have simple planes as well, just a few more of them compared to the trunks.

 

Optimizing leafs manually with 3D Max/Blender is hard to impossible. Have a look at https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/96812

You might want to look into Simplygon, as it can create LOD models - also for flora. However, importing/exporting models and finding good settings will also require quite some work/time. I only played around with it a little bit to know it works, but it is not a once click solution either, yet. You might want to reach out to mathy79 (3D Trees). I pointed him to Simplygon a while ago and he did some work with it.

 

Since in Skyrim/Fallout4 there is no limit to the numbers of shapes/triangles in each combined object LOD *.btr file, dealing with leafs is much easier. As you know, for the vanilla trees I just kept the leafs as they are - with tiny slight optimizations (e.g. remove roots) for some. Only worry about models that have a really high triangle count and the tree is used a lot.

Edited April 19, 2019 by sheson

[vurt]

Ah yes, your models looks great already (sorry for not remembering who it was heh). Since i've made some changes i probably only need to update a few of them, should be pretty easy. For FO:NV i don't know.. it'll be a ton of work for sure.. not really sure i think its worth it. Too bad FO:NV doesnt have the "always visible" thing in the editor, like Skyrim has. While not performance friendly it looks really awesome (had it for a long time for my bent pine).

 

I find that ,for 2D LODs at least, they are rarely in the correct spot, a little more to the left or right than the original tree and the switching can looks quite terrible (almost to the degree that i would prefer to just have the tree fading into view). Is it the same for 3D models or do the location usually fit pretty well with the original tree?

 

Good info, thanks!

 

Edit: and yeah for performance i'll just decimate the hell out of the models, even if the model gets broken in some places it doesnt really matter too much since it's in the far distance.

Edited April 19, 2019 by vurt

[sheson]

I actually do not that spend that much with Fallout, so not sure what would cause the 2D tree LOD to be shifted (sounds like the billboard dds or txt could be improved. It should be solvable).

 

So far Object LOD in FNV is always right where it should be though. I have never seen a structure or rocks be out of place. Any (root?) translations in the LOD source NIF are ignored if I remember correctly, so make sure the models do not rely on that.

[vurt]

Actually i'm having some good results now with the lods showing up in the exact place..

 

The biggest problem is really that it can't render double sided in the distance, it was the same in Morrowind with MGE, you had to copy the leaf planes x 2 and flip the faces for one of the copies. Seems to be the same here, that will become very poly heavy, so its the biggest obstacle really for 3D LOD trees. I'm trying a complete remodel for one of the pines now.. probably not gonna do that for every tree though (100+ trees, it's at least 100h of work, probably a lot more).

Edited April 21, 2019 by vurt

[sheson]

Sadly that is correct. The double sided flag is only supported with Skyim and newer.

 

Just focus on the most important models and best not to track the time you spend :)  

[vurt]

Yeah but i have so many other mods i'm working on as well.. 

you can get 2D LODs to look pretty decent

 

 

its important to really up the colors a lot for the leaves, otherwise it looks really dull. Separating the leaves a lot in the alpha is also important otherwise it looks like a giant green blob..

 

pretty happy with how it is now, gonna upload a new version tomorrow or maybe tonite i think.

[sheson]

Yeah, that is not too bad considering.