Poor Luck the Second Time Around - A Tale of a Novice Modder

[i25Island]

OK, so I'm sure you'll just throw the book at me and tell me to read it, but i've done my fair share of reading up on these mods. It's come to a point now where I just need clarification by the mod author themselves. I had an older load order that included all of noble skyrims architecture and landscape while using majestic mountains. I used XLodGen and used the recommended values according to a youtuber who fallowed an old guide that no longer exists. I also used Dynolod. I set the textures to 1024 and generated everything at high settings. Everything looked wonderful. Even had 3d Trees and Plants billboards working perfectly with pop ins only occurring ridiculously far away in the distance, so i had no issues personally. I've recently had to delete everything and do a clean install on a new drive. I'm using alot of the same textures this time around, but went with majestic landscapes this time for fuller coverage of the landscape textures as noble skyrim doesnt do it all. Now, I find xLodGen to generate very poor quality textures and models for the landscape and Dyndolod just isnt quite doing its job either. I'm using the same exact settings as last time for both mods. Dyndolod gives me pop in for all objects (mainly trees and shrubs) and the textures just arent right for just about anything. Buildings (whiterun mainly) all show vanilla textures in the distance and I have to get pretty close before they change to the textures I'm using. I know it's best to generate terrain with xlodgen first, then generate everythig else with dyndolod second. I've done that, and the last three times I did, i was getting the "DyndoLod needs PapyrusUtill" message. I resolved that and everything says it's working fine. While it is working, it's just working very half assed. I can see VERY far into the distance. But as soon as i start walking, alot of stuff starts popping in, and i did not have that issue with my old load order. Lastly, when I went through the XLodGen process, the file at the end was only 200 and something mbs when it usually comes out to around 700 or 800. So, i'm sure i just missed a step or something there, but as far as Dyndolod, I just don't know what I'm doing wrong this time. There's alot to this situation, so I'm sure there's more I need to tell you/ ask you but, this is all that comes to mind at the moment. I'd very much appreciate your input for I love this game, and I've had it modded to perfection just a month ago. 

Rtx 2080 OC 8gb

Ryzen 9 3950x 

32gb RAM 3600mhz 

 

 

[i25Island]

compressjpeg.zip

Sorry, I'm relearning how to use a computer after 6 years without one. 

Edited June 14, 2021 by i25Island

[z929669]

17 minutes ago, i25Island said:

compressjpeg.zip 500.21 kB · 1 download

Sorry, I'm relearning how to use a computer after 6 years without one. 

In the future, rather than compressing the image(s) into a file archive, simply open up the image in your default image editor, and "Save as" to jpeg/jpg format and/or use said editor to change the image size (resolution) width to 1024 (ticking "maintain aspect ratio"). Alternatively, you can keep the size and adjust the jpeg compression ratio to something like 90%.

Then you can copy/paste directly into the post rather than as a file.

[sheson]

From the first post of the xLODGen thread:

"For now, leave the Brightness, Contrast and Gamma at 0 and 1.0 respectively. It seems that only Skyrim CK and Skyrim SE CK are manipulating the intensity of the textures to adjust for the noise.dds and the god awful "improved" snow shader of Skyrim SE (just turn that thing off, really). If textures seem too dark in the game, brighten the noise.dds instead or vice versa. That way you can get perfectly matching LOD textures that look just like the textures in the loaded cells. For Skyrim a good average color of the noise texture seems to be around #C0. See below for a couple noise texture downloads."

If you check the thread further on this topic, it also mentions to keep this setting bEnableProjecteUVDiffuseNormals=1, which is the default.

[i25Island]

I'll keep that in mind for the future, thank you. And I figured the damn snow shader was the issue, it's just that whenEVER i disable it, pretty much all snow textures I use just don't like. Or at least Better Dynamic Snow doesn't like it and I get that weird Florissant white roads and stuff. And as far as bEnableProjecteUVDiffuseNormals, I've never messed with it so it's always been at 1. 

[i25Island]

This is without BDS so I'm wrong about that. I don't know why it does that. 
 

[i25Island]

Now, I don't know why either of your mods would be responsible, but before I generated, that wasn't happening lol. I'm completely lost now. 

[sheson]

Neither of the two screenshots seem to show anything related to LOD or what could be caused by DynDOLOD.

DynDOLOD does not change full models or textures. DynDOLOD does not change material object shaders. DynDOLOD does not cause missing textures.

[i25Island]

I know. I was just showing you what happens when I disable bethesda's snow shader (because you said to remove it in the thread). I removed no snow under roof because it messes with SMIM, and I got the purple texture even after starting a new save, but kept all the lod textures. So, I made a connection and I'm glad you verified that I'm wrong because that rules something out for me. I know I have to regenerate after removing such a mod, but I'm only testing so it's not even a big deal to me ATM. But, i'm going to regenerate again, without the mod. I tried out those noise textures and they seem to make the snow transition less jarring but that was after generating. Should I regenerate with one of those mods active, then remove it after, like SSE - Tamriel - Terrain? I do apologize if I'm not asking the right questions here, but I'm not great with trying to figure something out like this through text, when I'm not entirely sure on what I'm doing. 

[sheson]

Terrain LOD textures are made from the full landscape textures installed at generation time and the data on the landscape records that define which landscape textures to use for which areas.

Snow shaders, noise texture, INI settings do not affect terrain LOD generation. All these are applied in the game.

[z929669]

@i25Island you should consider posting in our general SE topic to resolve your modding issues rather than piling onto sheson's plate for LOD support. It's clear to me that you need some help with mod compatibility and general setup stuff, and there you will get more support. Once you have resolved all of that, you can rerun LODGen processes and post back here for that support.

[i25Island]

I don't have any real issues other than the snow not matching up. I know how to fix the purple texture. It just didn't come to mind until after I posted it. I've come across greener than I actually am at basic modding. It's only these two mods I don't understand and It's clear I'm not asking the right questions and maybe not using the correct terms lol. I very much appreciate all the help so far though and  don't mean to pile anything on you man, I'm just tired of modding and want to play. Again, thank you both, and I will check out the general SE topic for more info. I will figure this out ( as it is a small matter of colors matching), I always do.