SKYRIMVR Proper way of ignoring Trees

[osteal]

Hello! 

First of all, thanks for the fantastic tool.

I was originally using skyrimvr without dyndlod. Simply increasing ugridtoload was enough to me. I use Skyrim Flora Overhaul 2.72D 

I then used the tool 2.88 (after reading the manual for normal, se , vr twice + the full video). I imported the billboards, generated everything, added the scripts and everything worked fine, I could see windows glow, candles and other buildings further away than ever. That was great. But I realized, that the trees were much uglier than before as soon as I looked further than my Grid, and that when I got close to them, I was able to see them slowly phase from LOD to real trees (checkerboard  effect).

I first thought I miss configured the billboards. I added the 3d LOD and billboards for 2.72D instead of the indistinguishable vanilla trees, and increased the size form 256 to 1024. The LOD were indeed closer to reality, but I still was able to : see them as fake in the distance + see them phase out as I get closer.

When not using DynDoLOD, trees (even super far away from were terrain is generated, like the other side of start lake or top of mountains) are still full real trees. It's like the base game with SFO is not using LOD for trees. My FPS is super acceptable, so I would like to keep these trees + use DynDoLOD to be able to add distant buildings and co LODs. 
In the advanced options, I set 'full' mesh'  for LOD4, LOD8, LOD16 for '/tree' and both selecting or unselecting 'Generate tree LOD' in the hope that tree would remain 'vanilla SFO', but they keep getting replaced by billboard/low res 3d models in game.

TLDR: What is the correct way to use DynDoLOD for everything BUT trees?

Thanks

Attachements: 

dyndolod_on: you can see billboard next to real tree

dyndolod_off_ok: you can see that even far away trees look perfect (if you can , due to upload limit, resolution is trash)

 

[sheson]

On 8/18/2021 at 8:35 PM, osteal said:

When not using DynDoLOD, trees (even super far away from were terrain is generated, like the other side of start lake or top of mountains) are still full real trees.

LOD always starts beyond the loaded cells. There can not be any full model trees in the LOD area unless they are set with the IsFullLOD flag. Which would destroy FPS.

When not using DynDOLOD to generate LOD, the game uses vanilla LOD or LOD that is included with mods. If LOD is included with mods, it was generated with xLODGen/DynDOLOD and billboards or with 3D tree LOD models / billboards in object LOD for the load order of the mod author.

On 8/18/2021 at 8:35 PM, osteal said:

TLDR: What is the correct way to use DynDoLOD for everything BUT trees?

Obviously this question does not make any sense.

LOD needs to be generated for the current load order to work and look correctly. Install the required resources and billboards and use the available options and settings as explained in the manual to generate a LOD mod as desired.

On 8/18/2021 at 9:51 PM, osteal said:

Solved: Delete the '/tree' line in advanced 

Removing that line means that any tree that is done in object LOD (could be few or all if ultra LOD is enabled) will try to use a tree 3D LOD model or fall back to billboard for all LOD levels as the last / rule will take over. It is like setting Static LOD4 to LOD4, Static LOD 8 to LOD8 and Static LOD16 to LOD16 for the tree mesh rule itself, obviously. Read https://dyndolod.info/Help/Ultra-Tree-LOD how to properly setup and generate ultra tree LOD without unnecessarily wasting resources and performance by assigning billboards instead of 3D tree LOD models to the higher LOD levels. If well made billboards exist, the further distances should look perfectly fine with them.

Setting every LOD level of the tree mesh rule to empty, means no tree LOD will be generated in object LOD, which makes no sense regardless of using the ultra tree LOD option or not.

Never use LOD included in mods. If a mod author can generate LOD for their load order, a user can generate it for their current load order so it looks the same or better and also works and matches correctly. Typically mod authors do not withhold the required LOD resources.

[osteal]

Solved: Delete the '/tree' line in advanced 

[z929669]

Not sure that will do it ... what you should have by deleting the line is that all trees will be treated as the last fallback line (root or '/'), which treats trees as:

LODGen188=\,Level0,Level1,Level2,None,FarLOD,Unchanged,1,C:\Modding\Tools\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\DynDOLOD\Rules\DynDOLOD_SSE_High.ini

... if you used the high setting, fe. No billboards but all 3D object LOD for trees if 'Ultra' is ticked.

Probably better to edit '/tree' mesh rule to have 'None' at all levels and for Grid and don't tick any of the Flags boxes.

[osteal]

1. "if you used the high setting" Not sure what "fe" means, If you mean the "high" checkbox in advanced? yes I did
2. "if 'Ultra' is ticked." > Not sure what you mean. Do you mean Ultra trees and Hybrid trees resources?

3. LODGen188 > My LODGEN stops at "LODGen42=\,Static LOD4,Static LOD8,Static LOD16,Far LOD,Unchanged,1"

4. What are 

   Level0,Level1,Level2 ?

5. So If I understand properly: selecting 'None (empty field)' is actually the highest setting possible?
   1. Is it equivalent to full?
      
      Follow up questions based on this, not related to my issue
6. Ticking the checkbox for "Visible When Distant - only apply if matching LOD exist":
   1. Does it prevent vwd if no LOD exist? So not ticking it would have full model always visible if left unticked?
7. Using neverfade with the gris rule is unclear to me. Either the thing is never fade, or you load something specific for when in grid. How should it be used?
   1. If I select Far LOD, what happens Near?
8. Last question (I have many more)
   1. Isn't the near and far grid settings an overlapp of lod4 > vwd? 

 

[z929669]

53 minutes ago, osteal said:

1. "if you used the high setting" Not sure what "fe" means, If you mean the "high" checkbox in advanced? yes I did
2. "if 'Ultra' is ticked." > Not sure what you mean. Do you mean Ultra trees and Hybrid trees resources?

3. 
   LODGen188 > My LODGEN stops at "LODGen42=\,Static LOD4,Static LOD8,Static LOD16,Far LOD,Unchanged,1"

4. What are 

   
   Level0,Level1,Level2 ?

5. So If I understand properly: selecting 'None (empty field)' is actually the highest setting possible?
   1. Is it equivalent to full?
      
      Follow up questions based on this, not related to my issue
6. Ticking the checkbox for "Visible When Distant - only apply if matching LOD exist":
   1. Does it prevent vwd if no LOD exist? So not ticking it would have full model always visible if left unticked?
7. Using neverfade with the gris rule is unclear to me. Either the thing is never fade, or you load something specific for when in grid. How should it be used?
   1. If I select Far LOD, what happens Near?
8. Last question (I have many more)
   1. Isn't the near and far grid settings an overlapp of lod4 > vwd? 

 

If you configure the '/tree' mesh rule like I have configured '\rocks0', then this would prevent all trees from being assigned to any object LOD (and your trees will pop in when you get close, which is normally what you would NOT want):

Better solution: Discard any pregenerated LOD and billboards from your tree mod. Put back the default '\tree' rule. (fe= "for example). Fe, you can use SFO v2.72H (has only 3D models and no billboards ... it also has pregenerated LOD, which should be discarded). Then use the latest DynDOLOD alpha 39 to generate high quality billboards (via TexGen) and 2D or 3D trees as well as all other object LOD. Then you will have matching LOD for your entire load order.

Your other questions are answered in the DynDOLOD doc inside the install location.