Need some clarification

[lapinobel]

I suppose an answer to this can be found in several FAQs, and believe me, I've read quite a few but would like to make sure I get this right. So can anyone please confirm this :

 

xLodGen (only terrain selected) 

 

Use: used for generating the 'land' textures/lod's, so there's less visible transition on ground textures etc when moving forward in the world. 

When to re-run: whenever I change a texture mod that handles ground coverage

Note: works completely seperate from texgen/dyndolod (so one does not need the other)

 

Texgen

 

Use: to generate textures that will be applied to the LODs generated by Dyndolod

When to re-run: whenever I change a texture mod that handles moutains, buildings, etc

Note: needs to be ran and installed as a mod before running Dyndolod

 

Dyndolod

 

Use: generates meshes for far-off objects (buildings, trees, mountains etc)

When to re-run: whenever I change/install a mode that changes models itsels (for example new buildings, city rehauls, tree mods etc)

Note: does NOT need to be re-ran after changing/swapping texture mods that do not alter any objects itself > right?

 

 

The reason I ask is because I'm experimenting quite a lot with different texture mods for terrain and/or mountains. It's a pain always having to re-run these three tools, so I want to make sure I only generate new files when effectively NEEDED.

[sheson]

This focuses on textures, only. In that regard the statements are correct.

 

Terrain LOD textures also should be generated again if a mod makes changes to the terrain texture layers on the LAND record.

 

If only textures changed there is no need to re-run all of DynDOLOD after updating the object LOD textures with TexGen. Just updating the texture atlases in expert mode is enough as explained in the TexGen manual.

 

I wouldn't stress myself trying to figure what a mod changes. If a particular LOD type does not match anymore, generate it for the new load order. If it is terrain LOD, then update terrain LOD. If it is object LOD textures, run TexGen and update the object LOD atlas, etc.

Edited May 25, 2020 by sheson