Unsure if this can be changed

[Mephitic]

The demarcation for grass shown in the center of the left image below below is stark and distracting.

The bare areas fill in if I approach, as shown in the second image.

xLODGen, NGIO, TexGen, and DynDOLOD were run with HD settings recommended by S.T.E.P.
https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/SkyrimSE:2.0.0#xLODGen

Is there anything I can do to make the demarcation less drastic?

I've tried changing grass LOD mode in DynDOLOD and NGIO (GrassControl.config.txt) to no avail.

I also tried changing grass density but that didn't help, either.

Changing the mode in NGIO to zero works (sort of), the bare areas fill in with appropriate grasses but that takes DynDOLOD out of the picture and completely tanks performance.

Is there anything I can do with generation settings in any of these tools to improve this situation?
I'm willing to sacrifice some performance if necessary.

Thank you in advance for any information or advice you may offer.

[TechAngel85]

My guess would be something up in the INI settings. If you haven't looked there yet, our BethINI setup is designed to work partly in combo with our LOD section (along with other things). So I would visit there. @DoubleYou would be your man. I've tagged him so he will be along when he is able.

[z929669]

12 hours ago, Mephitic said:

The demarcation for grass shown in the center of the left image below below is stark and distracting.

The bare areas fill in if I approach, as shown in the second image.

xLODGen, NGIO, TexGen, and DynDOLOD were run with HD settings recommended by S.T.E.P.
https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/SkyrimSE:2.0.0#xLODGen

Is there anything I can do to make the demarcation less drastic?

I've tried changing grass LOD mode in DynDOLOD and NGIO (GrassControl.config.txt) to no avail.

I also tried changing grass density but that didn't help, either.

Changing the mode in NGIO to zero works (sort of), the bare areas fill in with appropriate grasses but that takes DynDOLOD out of the picture and completely tanks performance.

Is there anything I can do with generation settings in any of these tools to improve this situation?
I'm willing to sacrifice some performance if necessary.

Thank you in advance for any information or advice you may offer.

Try setting "Mode" in the bottom-middle of the DynDOLOD GUI to '1'.

Either use our BethINI configuration to set your game INI values correctly for LOD distance and grass, or configure as follows:

skyrim.ini

[Grass]
bAllowCreateGrass=1
bAllowLoadGrass=0
bEnableGrassFade=0
fGrassFadeRange=14128

skyrimprefs.ini

[Grass]
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=6144
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0
fGrassStartFadeDistance=6144

NGIO

UseGrassCache = True
ExtendGrassDistance = True
ExtendGrassCount = False 

The following override the two corresponding game INI settings above, so they can be set as follows or commented:

OverwriteGrassDistance = 6144
OverwriteGrassFadeRange = 14128 

 

Use ..\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\DynDOLOD\DynDOLOD_SSE.ini to configure GrassBrightness* values to alter grass LOD tint if defaults don't match your grass.

[Mephitic]

Thank you z929669. All of those settings (DynDOLOD mode, game INIs and NGIO) are exactly what I have currently.

As I noted in my post, I've experimented with other settings for these values with no success.

I guess the only question remaining is draw distance - I haven't changed any of the view distance settings in BethINI yet.

[DoubleYou]

Try changing DynDOLODGrassMode to 0 in NGIO and see if there is a difference. 

[Mephitic]

From my original post:

Quote

Changing the mode in NGIO to zero works (sort of), the bare areas fill in with appropriate grasses but that takes DynDOLOD out of the picture and completely tanks performance.

FPS drops to the twenties everywhere.

Edited March 24, 2022 by Mephitic
Fix typo

[DoubleYou]

If that is the case, your NGIO config cannot be the values recommended above. Type in the console the following to see what they are being set to:

getini "fGrassStartFadeDistance:Grass" 
getini "fGrassMinStartFadeDistance:Grass" 
getini "fGrassFadeRange:Grass" 
getini "iGrassCellRadius:Grass" 
getini "bEnableGrassFade:Grass" 

Also attach your NGIO config. You might have it set wrong somehow. 

[Mephitic]

Here you are, and thank you for your help. (sorry for the image, I don't have a console text capture utility installed)

GrassControl.config.txt

[DoubleYou]

When you generated DynDOLOD, did you set Mode to 1 or 2? You have it set to 2 in NGIO, so if you didn't use mode 2 in DynDOLOD, set it to 1.

When you generated grass cache, did you use SuperDenseGrass of 8?

The console indicates that the grass fade distances are not set high enough in the INI files. Please set fGrassStartFadeDistance to 6144 in SkyrimPrefs.ini and fGrassFadeRange to 14128 in Skyrim.ini. 

[Mephitic]

24 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

When you generated DynDOLOD, did you set Mode to 1 or 2? You have it set to 2 in NGIO, so if you didn't use mode 2 in DynDOLOD, set it to 1.

When you generated grass cache, did you use SuperDenseGrass of 8?

The console indicates that the grass fade distances are not set high enough in the INI files. Please set fGrassStartFadeDistance to 6144 in SkyrimPrefs.ini and fGrassFadeRange to 14128 in Skyrim.ini. 

I had the mode set to 1 when I generated DynDOLOD. Setting it to 1 or 2 in NGIO makes only a marginal difference.

I will, however, set it to 2 in DynDOLOD and re-generate, per your suggestion.

I have the SuperDenseGrass toggle set to False in NGIO. I will set it to True and allow the SuperDenseMode of 8 to take effect.

I have set the SkyrimnPrefs fGrassStartFadeDistance and fGrassFadeRange in Skyrim.ini to the suggested values.

Thank you for your suggestions, and I'll report back after re-running all of the tools.

[z929669]

On 3/24/2022 at 10:13 AM, Mephitic said:

I guess the only question remaining is draw distance - I haven't changed any of the view distance settings in BethINI yet.

BethINI will set your [terrainmanager] LOD distance settings as they should be if you followed that piece of the guide. You can also check these settings in DynDOLOD MCM config to see if they match expected values, which should be as follows for 'Ultra' BethINI and slightly lower (but proportionately similar) for 'High':

[TerrainManager]
fBlockLevel0Distance=57344
fBlockLevel1Distance=147456
fBlockMaximumDistance=327680
fSplitDistanceMult=1.0000

You should NOT need to run Mode 2 to get this working. Something is off in your setup if that's the case.

[Mephitic]

Well, thank you all for your help and advice but I'm throwing in the towel on this one. I'll live with scorched earth, it is better than the 15 fps alternative.

I have heeded and implemented all of your suggestions and re-tun the tools and this is the latest result.

The pic on the left is with NGIO DynDOLODGrassMode set to 0. The pic is what I would expect if DynDOLOD were in the driver's seat but of course it is not and the FPS hovers at less than 20.

The pic in the center is with DynDOLODGrassMode set to 1, and the one on the right is when it is set to 2. There is very little difference between them and FPS is acceptable.

There is, as you say, something wrong in my setup but given the time and effort required to run the processes and probably do the divide-and-conquer thing on my load order, I'm all out of motivation to try to fix it.

I do want to thank you again for your help and advice, you folks are the best.

[z929669]

2 hours ago, Mephitic said:

Well, thank you all for your help and advice but I'm throwing in the towel on this one. I'll live with scorched earth, it is better than the 15 fps alternative.

I have heeded and implemented all of your suggestions and re-tun the tools and this is the latest result.

The pic on the left is with NGIO DynDOLODGrassMode set to 0. The pic is what I would expect if DynDOLOD were in the driver's seat but of course it is not and the FPS hovers at less than 20.

The pic in the center is with DynDOLODGrassMode set to 1, and the one on the right is when it is set to 2. There is very little difference between them and FPS is acceptable.

There is, as you say, something wrong in my setup but given the time and effort required to run the processes and probably do the divide-and-conquer thing on my load order, I'm all out of motivation to try to fix it.

I do want to thank you again for your help and advice, you folks are the best.

Always remember that the NGIO grass mode and DynDOLOD grass mode travel together as described in the doc. You should be setting DynDOLODGrassMode=1 in NGIO and using the terrainmanager settings and grass settings I posted previously. You must run TexGen 3 with grass ticked followed by DynDOLOD 3 using Mode 1 and selecting 'High' preset. You have grass LOD, so that's not the issue.

The only other potential issue is that you have NGIO config settings overriding game INI settings. With the terrainmanager settings I provided, be certain that you have the following either commented out or enabled with these values. This could fix your entire issue without regenerating cache or DynDOLOD:

OverwriteGrassDistance = 6144
OverwriteGrassFadeRange = 14128

If you care to try again at some point in the future, this will work

Otherwise, post on the DynDOLOD topic with your DynDOLOD logs, and sheson will help you find the issue. It will take some doing that route.

I also just updated our Grass LOD guide so that it is now correct for your situation.

[Mephitic]

Those two Overwrite settings have been at those values in my GrassControl.config.txt since before my first post and haven't changed.

The corresponding values in Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini also match those values and also haven't changed.

I'll bring the issue up with Sheson et. al. at some future point.

Again, thank you for all of your advice and help.

[DoubleYou]

On 3/24/2022 at 3:12 PM, Mephitic said:

I had the mode set to 1 when I generated DynDOLOD. Setting it to 1 or 2 in NGIO makes only a marginal difference.

I will, however, set it to 2 in DynDOLOD and re-generate, per your suggestion.

I have the SuperDenseGrass toggle set to False in NGIO. I will set it to True and allow the SuperDenseMode of 8 to take effect.

I have set the SkyrimnPrefs fGrassStartFadeDistance and fGrassFadeRange in Skyrim.ini to the suggested values.

Thank you for your suggestions, and I'll report back after re-running all of the tools.

You have completely misunderstood me 

Do NOT use mode 2 at all. Set NGIO to mode 1. Set DynDOLOD to mode 1. Don't use mode 2. I was asking which mode you had used when generating DynDOLOD, not asking you to switch everything to mode 2.

Do NOT use SuperDenseGrass if you want good performance.

The console screenshot you linked proves that the game is reading the fGrassStartFadeDistance and fGrassFadeRange as 7000 and 1000 respectively. This is likely what is causing the gap in grass draw distance. Since your NGIO config appears to be correct, this doesn't make sense to me as it should be overwriting these values, and may be that there is something conflicting with NGIO causing it not to set these values correctly. At any rate, those settings seem to indicate that you may not be modifying the correct INI files, or perhaps the correct NGIO config file. If you are using Mod Organizer, it uses a separate set of INI files separate from the default in Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition.

23 hours ago, z929669 said:

BethINI will set your [terrainmanager] LOD distance settings as they should be if you followed that piece of the guide. You can also check these settings in DynDOLOD MCM config to see if they match expected values, which should be as follows for 'Ultra' BethINI and slightly lower (but proportionately similar) for 'High':

[TerrainManager]
fBlockLevel0Distance=57344
fBlockLevel1Distance=147456
fBlockMaximumDistance=327680
fSplitDistanceMult=1.0000

You should NOT need to run Mode 2 to get this working. Something is off in your setup if that's the case.

These settings do not affect this. At any rate, these values probably should be removed from the guide, as I have better settings in current BethINI presets.

EDIT (z929669): Corrected terrainmanager values for posterity.