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

[z929669]

6 hours ago, Mousetick said:

Still no update for MM 4.0... I got tired of waiting so I did the double-siding myself with the help of these great xEdit scripts: Nif Batch Processing Scripts. They automate the whole process very nicely, no need to open NifSkope and edit each mesh one by one! It took less than 5 minutes.

Perhaps you could do the same for the guide, and put in a patch or something? Just a suggestion...

As indicated on this mod's page, the folders to double-side are:

/meshes/landscape/mountains
/meshes/landscape/mountains/snow
/meshes/landscape/unique

I will definitely check it out ... so you are basically saying that this mod is uneeded if the MM 4.0 NIFs are modified accordingly and using that script made it fast and easy to do so?

[Mousetick]

6 hours ago, z929669 said:

I will definitely check it out ... so you are basically saying that this mod is uneeded if the MM 4.0 NIFs are modified accordingly and using that script made it fast and easy to do so?

Correct. I was ignorant and clueless before but I've since learned that a so-called double-sided mesh is nothing more than the original mesh with a Double-Sided flag set in the 'Shader Flags 2' field of the mesh's BSLightingShaderProperty(ies). It tells the shader to paint the textures on both sides. If the textures are opaque, it follows that no light can 'enter' or 'exit' the mesh. Sorry if this is all obvious to you.

The MA of this mod went into NifSkope and added the flag to all relevant MM meshes, one by one, which is very tedious. The aforementioned xEdit scripts helps to automate that process on an entire folder at a time (xEdit has some limited built-in capability to edit NIF files), without going into NifSkope.

Furthermore, since the guide is using Majestic Mountains - More Accurate Collision which is double-sided, you'll find that this mod here is almost entirely overwritten. There are only a few remaining meshes (3 or 4 I think) that need to be double-sided in order to complete the MM set.

[z929669]

13 hours ago, Mousetick said:

Correct. I was ignorant and clueless before but I've since learned that a so-called double-sided mesh is nothing more than the original mesh with a Double-Sided flag set in the 'Shader Flags 2' field of the mesh's BSLightingShaderProperty(ies). It tells the shader to paint the textures on both sides. If the textures are opaque, it follows that no light can 'enter' or 'exit' the mesh. Sorry if this is all obvious to you.

The MA of this mod went into NifSkope and added the flag to all relevant MM meshes, one by one, which is very tedious. The aforementioned xEdit scripts helps to automate that process on an entire folder at a time (xEdit has some limited built-in capability to edit NIF files), without going into NifSkope.

Furthermore, since the guide is using Majestic Mountains - More Accurate Collision which is double-sided, you'll find that this mod here is almost entirely overwritten. There are only a few remaining meshes (3 or 4 I think) that need to be double-sided in order to complete the MM set.

Yeah, I have always used Sniff to batch edit NIFs likewise. But if someone has written a script to do so via xEdit and it's easier to instruct how that's done, it would be suitable for the guide. It's all about how easy it is to explain for the layman. This is why we usually opt for a mod like this, since it's just simple. We could always ask T4 to do it or provide the file for him to incorporate into his mod or serve up on the MM page as well, which would probably be simplest.

[Mousetick]

11 hours ago, z929669 said:

Yeah, I have always used Sniff to batch edit NIFs likewise. But if someone has written a script to do so via xEdit and it's easier to instruct how that's done, it would be suitable for the guide. It's all about how easy it is to explain for the layman. This is why we usually opt for a mod like this, since it's just simple. We could always ask T4 to do it or provide the file for him to incorporate into his mod or serve up on the MM page as well, which would probably be simplest.

No I didn't mean for end-users to do it themselves. It should already be done for them and packaged in a ready-to-install mod. But as I realized this is a straightforward operation that only takes a few minutes, it doesn't make sense to me that this mod's MA is taking so much time to update it for MM 4 and it's kind of silly to wait for them. I was thinking the STEP crew could do it, at least as a patch for the guide.

I agree ultimately it would be best and simplest if this were published by T4 on the MM page. Shortly after the release of MM 4, T4 was asked about double-siding in the comments. He replied he didn't want to make the mesh double-sided because of performance concerns. That's fair. A double-sided version could still be offered as an optional download. Maybe you could talk to him about that?

[z929669]

14 hours ago, Mousetick said:

No I didn't mean for end-users to do it themselves. It should already be done for them and packaged in a ready-to-install mod. But as I realized this is a straightforward operation that only takes a few minutes, it doesn't make sense to me that this mod's MA is taking so much time to update it for MM 4 and it's kind of silly to wait for them. I was thinking the STEP crew could do it, at least as a patch for the guide.

I agree ultimately it would be best and simplest if this were published by T4 on the MM page. Shortly after the release of MM 4, T4 was asked about double-siding in the comments. He replied he didn't want to make the mesh double-sided because of performance concerns. That's fair. A double-sided version could still be offered as an optional download. Maybe you could talk to him about that?

Yeah, I can mention it to him. I'm sure he will be fine with it as long as I maintain it. Maybe it will be a separate mod.

[z929669]

Tagged as dropped for 2.2.0. It's uneeded, and we'll likely see a complete double-sided fix of our own or hosted on MM mod page in the near future. As was mentioned, only a few meshes of many are even getting used now, so it's not worth waiting on an update from this mod.

[TerryDarden]

On 12/4/2022 at 2:57 AM, z929669 said:

Tagged as dropped for 2.2.0. It's uneeded, and we'll likely see a complete double-sided fix of our own or hosted on MM mod page in the near future. As was mentioned, only a few meshes of many are even getting used now, so it's not worth waiting on an update from this mod.

Ok, thanks. I was expecting new update.