DROPPED Majestic Mountains - Patch for Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows (by Sakatsuky)

[Mousetick]

Discussion topic:
Majestic Mountains - Patch for Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows by Sakatsuky
Wiki Link

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Insert mod just after MM in Foundation, letting SaME and SLaWF override, respectively.

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Subset of MM meshes (the mountain ones + a few unique city rocks) edited to make them double-sided.

Ignore the title referring to the obsolete DVLaSS. There is no dependency on it. They're just meshes. Intended for use with EVLaS nowadays. If not using EVLaS, they're useless and a waste of resources.

Installation (later overwrites previous):

1. Majestic Mountains.
2. This mod.
3. Skyrim - A Mountainous Experience double-sided version.

Beware of possible performance degradation. Can't say I've noticed it in the ~2 months I've been using it. No other issues to report either. Does it actually make a significant improvement with shadows casted by mountains in loaded cells? I can't tell you either as I'm spending more time playing than rigorously checking these kinds of details these days.

To compensate for the possible performance degradation, you can turn off double-sided mountain LODs because they reportedly don't work, so they're just a waste. Even sheson can't tell if they work because he's never tried it 

[DoubleYou]

I saw your discussion with sheson about this. I would not be surprised if double-sided lods and/or full models are not completely useless. I think we should test without either. Then if we find a spot where it goes through, we can see which one, if any, fixes it. 

[z929669]

26 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

I saw your discussion with sheson about this. I would not be surprised if double-sided lods and/or full models are not completely useless. I think we should test without either. Then if we find a spot where it goes through, we can see which one, if any, fixes it. 

Double negatives are hard to interpret, as they are often accidental. Do you mean you would be surprised if double-sided mesh flag is useless in LOD and/or full models?

I would be surprised if they were found to be useless in full models, since the EVLaS MA and others seem to be promoting these mods.

I am not surprised that they are purportedly not effective in LOD though.

I would be surprised if they cost any measurable performance though, so I would recommend using them in mods that implement them properly (without altering the MM textures in any other way, for example) and in DynDOLOD settings.

I suppose the first step is to measure the performance impact, which should be simple enough, given that we have this mod and double-sided models for "Skyrim - A Mountainous Experience" ... and both the DynDOLOD double-sided settings based on texture or mesh path. I am probably not best suited to test this though. It would likely be most apparent to test on a potato or mid rig.

[z929669]

@DoubleYou @Mousetick Have either of you guys landed on a final position with this one and others like it in terms of LOD?

It seems like a no brainer in loaded cells though, so I'm inclined to vote for this one for that reason alone. I have been running this since this topic was created and have no issues.

[Mousetick]

I've been using the setup described in the OP. I also turned off double-sided mountain LODs in DynDOLOD. It's been working fine for me. No visual or performance issues that I could notice.

[DoubleYou]

I haven't tested this.

[z929669]

Since Mouse is running on a potato, I think we have the performance question answered. Marked accepted.

[TechAngel85]

Changed mod group to patches.

[DoubleYou]

Created wiki page. I suggest moving this to 04-Foundation so we don't have to hide all the conflicting meshes.

[z929669]

38 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

Created wiki page. I suggest moving this to 04-Foundation so we don't have to hide all the conflicting meshes.

I haven't looked at conflicts yet, but I would think that this mods changes are usually wanted over others.

I've had it in patches all this time

[DoubleYou]

39 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I haven't looked at conflicts yet, but I would think that this mods changes are usually wanted over others.

I've had it in patches all this time

Well, you at least want the double-sided ones from Skyrim - A Mountainous Experience to overwrite, so we'll need to at least hide those files.

[z929669]

30 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

Well, you at least want the double-sided ones from Skyrim - A Mountainous Experience to overwrite, so we'll need to at least hide those files.

I forgot about those.

I just looked and am wondering about Skyrim Landscape and Water Fixes now ...

Moving it just after MM in Foundation seems like a winner if that's the case

[DoubleYou]

26 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I forgot about those.

I just looked and am wondering about Skyrim Landscape and Water Fixes now ...

We honestly should probably just hide the Skyrim Landscape and Water Fixes conflicts.

[z929669]

27 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

We honestly should probably just hide the Skyrim Landscape and Water Fixes conflicts.

OK, so you think this one should win over everything but Skyrim - A Mountainous Experience?

.. or keep this in patches and hide both of those mod's conflicts in THIS mod?

[DoubleYou]

47 minutes ago, z929669 said:

OK, so you think this one should win over everything but Skyrim - A Mountainous Experience?

.. or keep this in patches and hide both of those mod's conflicts in THIS mod?

Grrr... solving these mesh conflicts are a real pain. Just hide the Mountainous conflicts and call it a day. I highly doubt Skyrim Landscape and Water Fixes fixes anything important on the mountains.