Dark distant mountains/snow LODs

[Pygmalion42]

Hi all, I seem to be having a problem with my distant lods.

 

https://imgur.com/05YfDnQ

 

As you can see in the screenshot the furthest snowy mountains appear dark grey and do not match the colour of the terrain around them. I am using DynDOLOD, majestic mountains with better dynamic snow and the compatibility patch and have tried to follow the suggested load order precisely. I have tried re-running DynDOLOD with different settings but nothing has worked. I don't think this is a problem with the LODs necessarily but maybe a problem with the game's lighting, though I haven't been able to find anybody with the same problem online. I'm probably being an idiot but I'd be grateful for some help.

[sheson]

Object LOD uses two snow LOD material object shaders. They are applied onto the object LOD in game.

Obviously the shaders do not affect object LOD generation or vice versa object LOD does not change the shaders. Hence, rerunning DynDOLOD is not going to have any effect.

Whatever plugins modify 00050372 SnowLODMaterial or 0006AE38 SnowLODMaterialHD are your culprit

https://dyndolod.info/Help/Snow-Ash-LOD-Shader

[Pygmalion42]

SORTED :)

 

I used SSEEdit to look up those textures and found that HD LODs Textures was providing 00050372 SnowLODMaterial overwriting Majestic Mountains so I just removed that texture from the esp and now everything looks perfect. Thanks for the help.

[kcbaxton]

Hi, so I'm having a very weird problem with my LODs. After a few hours of gameplay, my distant mountain LODs suddenly changed to an ugly gray instead of the usual Majestic Mountain textures. What's weird is that they changed on their own. They were completely fine for the first ~10 hours of my game, and after coming back to Skyrim after a week long break I'm now having this problem.

I've used DynDOLOD for a very long time and never had any issues with it, which is why this problem is so perplexing. Nothing about my mod list was changed. DynDOLOD is still active, dynamic LODs are still there, however they are flickering a little bit now. Trees and everything else look fine. Rerunning DynDOLOD doesn't fix my current game. I had this problem a while back, so I re-ran DynDOLOD and started a new game, which fixed the problem, for a while at least. However the problem is once again persisting on its own, which means it will probably happen again eventually even if I start new game. 

I've moved the DynDOLOD output to the bottom to make sure it's not being overwritten. It could possibly be an .ini problem, I used to z-fighting fix on my Skyrimprefs.ini found on this website, however changing it back did not fix the problem.

Here's a couple screenshots of the issue: https://imgur.com/a/HN6S2Up

I've done everything I can possibly think of at this point, so some help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Edited October 5, 2021 by kcbaxton

[sheson]

Neither LOD textures nor snow LOD shaders change on their own. It should be obvious that any changes happen because of changes in the load order/INIs.

It is most likely the snow shaders, which are not changed by DynDOLOD and also do not affect LOD generation.

https://stepmodifications.org/forum/topic/14577-dark-distant-mountainssnow-lods
https://stepmodifications.org/forum/topic/14930-white-mountain-bug-after-lod-generation

[z929669]

What mod manager are you using?

Sometimes seemingly random changes to mod list or load order can manifest due to the mod manager resetting or losing track of certain key files.

You should validate your current mod list, load order and game INIs (try BethINI)

[kcbaxton]

12 hours ago, z929669 said:

What mod manager are you using?

Sometimes seemingly random changes to mod list or load order can manifest due to the mod manager resetting or losing track of certain key files.

You should validate your current mod list, load order and game INIs (try BethINI)

Hey, thanks for the response.

I'm using MO2. Running BethINI did not help.

[kcbaxton]

19 hours ago, sheson said:

Neither LOD textures nor snow LOD shaders change on their own. It should be obvious that any changes happen because of changes in the load order/INIs.

It is most likely the snow shaders, which are not changed by DynDOLOD and also do not affect LOD generation.

https://stepmodifications.org/forum/topic/14577-dark-distant-mountainssnow-lods
https://stepmodifications.org/forum/topic/14930-white-mountain-bug-after-lod-generation

Thanks for the quick response. I deleted 00050372 from HD LODs Textures.esp (it was overwriting MM) as stated in the first link you posted, and it only made the problem worse. Now All my mountains look gray like in the screenshots until I get up close. The second record (0006ae38) was not being overwritten by anything.

I'm truly at a loss here. I know it sounds dumb and it's probably something obvious I'm overlooking, but like I said nothing about my load order was changed on my break, especially not any core mods like MM or LODs. I'm considering removing BDS and rerunning DynDOLOD.  

[kcbaxton]

Still no luck. Messing with the snow shaders did not do anything. Any other ideas?

[z929669]

28 minutes ago, kcbaxton said:

Still no luck. Messing with the snow shaders did not do anything. Any other ideas?

Look at sheson's first response and the solutions in the links he provided. I really think you need to clean up your mod-list conflicts. Disable everything but your mountain mod if that's what it takes. Ensure your game directory has no mods installed manually. MO2 offers very powerful asset-conflict discovery.

Also, you can enable read of assets in BSAs in settings.

[kcbaxton]

31 minutes ago, z929669 said:

Look at sheson's first response and the solutions in the links he provided. I really think you need to clean up your mod-list conflicts. Disable everything but your mountain mod if that's what it takes. Ensure your game directory has no mods installed manually. MO2 offers very powerful asset-conflict discovery.

Also, you can enable read of assets in BSAs in settings.

I tried the fixes in both links he provided, no luck. I did exactly what was stated in the first, opened up xEdit and searched for 00050372 to see what was conflicting. Exactly as stated in the post, it was HD LOD Texture's snow shader overwriting Majestic Mountains. The user in the post said removing that file from the esp fixed their problem, however it only made mine worse. 

[z929669]

You will need to find the asset conflict causing your issue (if it isn't an INI problem)

Disable all mods but Majestic Mountains. Check using a new game. Generate DynDOLOD on this only. Check LOD using a new game. If mountains look correct, then you have a mod-list conflict issue.

... but that extreme is unnecessary if you use the powerful asset conflict tools available in MO and find what is causing the issue. With all mods enabled, double-click on Majestic Mountains and examine the Conflicts tab (tip: right click on any line for options). Explore the Data tab in right pane to discover what mod provides the asset of interest.

Also, you can enable read of assets in BSAs in settings so that you can also see asset conflicts from mod BSAs using this system.

[sheson]

The linked post mentions two snow LOD shaders. 00050372 SnowLODMaterial and 0006AE38 SnowLODMaterialHD

I suggest to carefully read the descriptions of the mods changing mountains textures and snow shaders. They most likely require a specific overwrite/install order or a patch. They also might require specific INI settings.

[TinyMelon]

For some reason the distant mountain LODs appear darker than the loaded in ones, and my glaciers look way darker than the nearby snow. I'm on Skyrim SE using ERM - Enhanced Rocks & Mountains w/ DynDOLOD add-on, Septentrional Landscapes and Hyperborean Snow along with Simplicity of Snow and ProjectedDiffuse Patch Hub. I didn't notice this before yesterday and I redid the whole works: xLODGen, TexGen, and DynDOLOD twice but no luck. I also checked 00050372 SnowLODMaterial and 0006AE38 SnowLODMaterialHD on SSEEdit, but it says they're only modified by Skyrim.esm and Update.esm. Not sure if it's truly a LOD issue or a lighting issue potentially. Any help appreciated. Thanks.
https://imgur.com/a/dark-lod-3Ey1TnN

[TinyMelon]

Nevermind, found a fix. Apparently, it's an issue with ERM - Enhanced Rocks & Mountains itself. The fix is to use the snow blending mod called: "Paraphernalia - Snow Colour Fixes" with the Simplicity of Snow patch.

[sheson]

If a mod changes the snow textures it typically requires to change the snow full and LOD shaders as well in order to match them. Or rely on a mod to do it.

https://dyndolod.info/Help/Snow-Ash-LOD-Shader