[FO4] FO4Lodgen help!

[Laptoprocker]

Hi all, so I am trying to regenerated my LODs with FO4LodGen and I have the following questions:

 

There is this forum post with a bunch of supplementary .esp files improving LOD generation, however I wonder which ones should/can I use if I already have Tree LODs pregenerated? (I use Boston Natural Surroundings Trees Only with Pine Trees Redone pregenerated LOD).

 

Also there is now a whole new "Terrain LOD" section for FO4Lodgen which is missing from all the guides out there (back then there was only Objects LOD generation possible). How does this work? Are there any prerequisites? How does it work together with FAR - Faraway Area Reform and WET - Water Enhancement Textures?

 

I'd appreciate any help on these!

 

[sheson]

Pre-generated LOD only works for the load order it was generated for. Nobody should be using it and always generate LOD for their personal load order to have LOD match and work as good as it can be.

 

In FO4 the LOD for trees is part of static object LOD. You need to make sure you have the resources for tree LOD generation for the tree LOD mod(s) installed properly as well. So in this case they might be called object LOD resources, meshes and textures. Typically they should overwrite any of the vanilla LOD resources in the same order as the mod(s) overwrite the full models/textures.

 

Terrain LOD meshes are made from height data in the plugins and from landscape full textures. So there aren't any LOD resources required. However, there might terrain mods that might have textures only to be used with terrain LOD generation (not sure about FO4, but this exists in Skyrim for example.

 

AFAIK FAR contains optimized (compression format) vanilla terrain LOD textures and updated detailnormals.dds and noise.dds which are overlayed the terrain LOD textures in the game. If you generate terrain LOD textures with xLODGen they should overwrite the terrain LOD textures from the mod. Keeping the detailnormals.dds and noise.dds from the mod depends on personal preference. They do not affect LOD generation itself.

 

Water LOD generation is not influenced by mods changing the water textures/shaders. LOD water will use whatever water record is defined on the worldspace record.

The only thing that affects water LOD generation is the worldspace or cell waterhight information or if a cell has water at all.

Edited November 24, 2020 by sheson

[Laptoprocker]

Thanks! So I would assume xLODgen would use data from the Tree mods I use to generate Object LOD? If the existing LOD included in the tree mod archives is not loose, and I load the packed generated LOD after it then I'd assume the xLODGen created lods will take precedence. Also if I would want to generate tree LOD specifically I'd need billboards like in Skyrim/SSE right? If your assumption regarding FAR is correct then, I'd think the xLODGen generated terrain LOD would already overwrite it so there'd be no harm keeping it in my load order just in case.

[sheson]

Object LOD requires LOD resources in meshes/lod that typically use textures/lod. So make sure that the mods LOD resources are installed. Existing pre-generated LOD in meshes/terrain/[worldspace] and textures/terrain/[worldspace] do not affect LOD generation.

 

You have to make sure that the generated output completely overwrites pre-generated LOD, so it is actually used. The typical overwrite rules/orders of BSA and loose files applies.