Jedi Trees LODS/Billboards

[GreenyDragon456]

Hello Everyone, I'm currently having an issue where my tree(s) mods wont generate billboards and/or lods. I use a tree mixture of Happy Little Trees (this mod has billboards and thus works) BlubboPines (not too sure if it has billboards and thus lods working) and Jedi Trees (Billboards AND Lod don't work. I have a billboard mod for Jedi Trees but no luck and when generating I create the billboards with TexGen and then run Ultra LOD in DynDOLOD setting LOD8 to Billboard4 in Tree Mesh Rules but alas, no luck. I've generating multiple times with no luck and I'm wondering if I have done something wrong or missed a setp? Any help would be appreciated. Much Thanks

Greeny

[z929669]

'Billboards' are textures of whole trees (or tree trunks), and TexGen 3 (included with DynDOLOD 3) generates these when using the "HD tree" option (4x billboards per tree) and "Tree" option (1x billboard per tree with text file for traditional LOD billboards). "Billboard models" are just flat meshes used to display the billboards --but I don't like calling these 'billboards', as it's confusing. They are still 3D models but very basic, flattened models.

For 'ultra' tree LOD to work, each tree must have a stripped-down LOD model based upon the full tree mesh. The billboards created by TexGen 3 use these models to render the full tree and trunk billboard textures (the latter are for use with hybrid 3D tree LOD) for creation of billboard textures. The LOD models are packaged with Happy Little Trees Add-On, so you must install HLT and the Add-On mod. I don't know if BlubboPines or Jedi have LOD models, but they are required for auto-generation of billboards. If they ship with billboards and the billboards text files (both having the tree FormIDs in their file names), you can only use "Billboard#" in your tree mesh rules for those trees (no hybrid or 'full' tree LOD (Level0/1/2), only mesh 'Billboard#' LOD)

Don't install HLT billboards from the main mod. They will only cause conflicts with TexGen-created billboards when running DynDOLOD. Use DynDOLOD 3 and TexGen 3 to generate the billboards as I described. For this mod, you can use either Level0/1/2 or Billboard# in your mesh rules, depending on the quality of the LOD you want.

Tree mods generally don't work together if they modify the same tree records without plugin patching them so that DynDOLOD can find the correct references to use for each tree.

You should generate LOD using only HLT and the HLT Add-On to confirm that you are properly generating tree LOD. See the HLT mod description for general instructions and links to support and further instructions. Then try each of these other mods if they have proper LOD models or billboards if not. Otherwise, those will need to be created by creating the LOD models and letting DynDOLOD do the rest.

[GreenyDragon456]

This is True. I'll stop using HLT Billboards and just the Addon instead. When combining Trees from HLT, I use just the Aspen models so I delete everything from the meshes folder of HLT except the Aspens. In Jedi Trees Folder I delete all Aspen trees but keep the rest. On Nexus Forums it seems people have gotten the LOD to work but I am not 100% if they've created the LOD models or just use Jedi Trees without any Other Trees. I'll try generating just Jedi Trees alone and see if LOD works and if not, then as you said, they don't have proper LOD models. Thanks z929669

[z929669]

4 minutes ago, GreenyDragon456 said:

This is True. I'll stop using HLT Billboards and just the Addon instead. When combining Trees from HLT, I use just the Aspen models so I delete everything from the meshes folder of HLT except the Aspens. In Jedi Trees Folder I delete all Aspen trees but keep the rest. On Nexus Forums it seems people have gotten the LOD to work but I am not 100% if they've created the LOD models or just use Jedi Trees without any Other Trees. I'll try generating just Jedi Trees alone and see if LOD works and if not, then as you said, they don't have proper LOD models. Thanks z929669

If you delete all but aspens from HLT\meshes\landscape\trees\. then the models from the Add-On can also be deleted (but they won't interfere with anything if left, since they are CRC-matched to the deleted full models). Also, as I mentioned, each of these tree mods has a plugin that probably conflict for some or many of the same tree records or placements, so DynDOLOD cannot construct the LOD properly unless it finds the full/LOD resources for the winning conflicts.

Look for these files in each tree mod to see if they have the models needed for generating billboard textures via TexGen (#2 [flat trunks for hybrids in Level0/1/2] and #3 for hybrid/full LOD models TexGen uses to create tree billboards used by Billboard# and that LODGen uses to stitch these models into *.BTO for Level0/1/2 in the DynDOLOD process). #1 is the full models with CRCs corresponding to the file names of trunk and LOD models in #2 and #3: