Support for ENB Complex Grass In LOD

[z929669]

@sheson I am wondering if you have looked at complex grass support in LOD. I don't know if it's even possible, given the ENB requirements vs DynDOLOD atlas-texture requirements, but there is no way I can find to get a good LOD match in all lighting/weather conditions with LOD grass behaving similarly to loaded grass in terms of light sources and observer PoV.

Basically, ENB-CG looks at lower-left pixels of 2:1 (vertical:horizontal) texture atlas with diffuse/normal, opacity/specular in the alpha. I'm not sure if this could work using the DynDOLOD atlas and grass components of the super meshes, but figured you would have some idea of the limitations for LOD.

I created CG for vanilla and Cathedral Landscapes for testing purposes if you ever have appetite for looking into it.

[z929669]

8 minutes ago, RainingTacco said:

Ahhh thanks, that clears it up. One more question -should i leave xLODGEN resource - extended tamriel map turned on when running dyndolod? It's an esm that extends map, i guess it doesn't affect dyndolod at all? Also i can leave all these resources turned on and play the game with them, even though i had generated outputs right?

That's for terrain LODGen only. Enable this mod only when generating terrain and disable when finished with that. Nothing to do with DynDOLOD.

Note that if you use Worldspace Transition Tweaks, the tamriel terrain resource mod is redundant and not needed. WTT remains active during and after terrain LODGen.

PS: I just know some stuff and am not the expert. sheson's advice overrides mine where they conflict.

[RainingTacco]

52 minutes ago, z929669 said:

That's for terrain LODGen only. Enable this mod only when generating terrain and disable when finished with that. Nothing to do with DynDOLOD.

Note that if you use Worldspace Transition Tweaks, the tamriel terrain resource mod is redundant and not needed. WTT remains active during and after terrain LODGen.

PS: I just know some stuff and am not the expert. sheson's advice overrides mine where they conflict.

 

Thanks. It's a sisyphus work to set it. When i find nice settings that match whiterun tundra at a given hour, they dont work at other hour, or in other region. I think this gargantuan work would need a carefully crafted landscapes, grass, lod and ENB settings to match everything 95% of the time. No way im gonna go crazy like that, i will take what i did in these few hours and maybe try to mess with it in the next time.

 

Here's a screenshot, do 3D lods even work here?

https://i.imgur.com/WBdvoEC.png

[sheson]

3 hours ago, RainingTacco said:

Does the direct/ambient values in texgen affect how the different and changing ingame lighting will affect the final look? Im speaking about will it look different under different lighting conditions in the game. Or it's just a static brighteness value and if direct/ambient billboard looks the same, then weather and lighting ingame will affect them in the same way.

TexGen settings affect the textures generated by TexGen. 

They have no effect how the game or ENB works.  DynDOLOD does not change how the game works. DynDOLOD does not change any effects or image spaces, shaders etc.

1 hour ago, RainingTacco said:

Thanks. I dont know what happened but dyndolod is now making 5GB of Lod instead of over 7GB, and the tree lods dont look 3D despite making sure i check hd lod/ultra trees in texgen and dyndolod. Worked fine before, the only change is that i moved the LOD package mods before my output, so they overwrite USSEP and other mods, whereas before my mods were after the lod package[MM lods and dyndolod resources]. Dyndolod picks up Nature of the Wildlands just right, so idk whats happening. How can i check that dyndolod created the 3d lod meshes properly?

The output file size is not a metric to use for anything.  Instead check the logs and reports in the log folder which tell you what is happening and was is being generated.

Refer to the DynDOLOD documentation for example https://dyndolod.info/Help/Load-Overwrite-Orders

Use the DynDOLOD 3 Alpha thread instead of making off topic posts here. Read the first post before posting.

[sheson]

1 hour ago, RainingTacco said:

Ahhh thanks, that clears it up. One more question -should i leave xLODGEN resource - extended tamriel map turned on when running dyndolod? It's an esm that extends map, i guess it doesn't affect dyndolod at all? Also i can leave all these resources turned on and play the game with them, even though i had generated outputs right?

Read the first post of the xLODGen thread:
Only required to be loaded when generating terrain LOD. No harm done when loaded in-game but typically the player can not get close to these areas. There are no effects outside the far away added cells.

Or Nexus description:

Plugin needs to be active only while generating terrain LOD and should be removed or disabled afterwards.

OR:

https://dyndolod.info/Help/xLODGen#Requirements
Remove or disable the plugins after terrain LOD generation. No harm done if loaded in-game. Typically the player can not get close to these areas. There are no effects outside the far away added cells.

In case of questions use the appropriate threads.

[samaelxx46]

Hello,

Is it possible to create a lod hd grass with a mixture of complex and non-complex grass? or should I rather make a lod without complex grass.

Thanks.

Edited May 9, 2023 by samaelxx46

[sheson]

8 hours ago, samaelxx46 said:

Hello,

Is it possible to create a lod hd grass with a mixture of complex and non-complex grass? or should I rather make a lod without complex grass.

Thanks.

https://dyndolod.info/Help/TexGen#Grass-HD-Grass-Tree-HD-Tree-Rendered
HD Grass LOD billboards are for optional grass LOD generation. The option becomes available if grass models using ENB complex grass textures are found in the load order. Typically it is assumed that ApplyToBasicGrass=true is set in enbseries.ini, so HD grass LOD billboards will be generated for all grasses by default. Set ForceComplexGrass=0 in ..\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\DynDOLOD\TexGen_[GAME MODE].ini to generate both types of grass LOD billboards. Set ForceComplexGrass=2 to always force HD Grass LOD billboards.

[samaelxx46]

Hi,
Thank you for your answer, i had not read the manual for the lod well enough, sorry.
I have a mod that adds non-complex grass in another world than skyrim so i will do like you say, i generate the precache grass with the complex grass textures activated and i put Set ForceComplexGrass=0 in dyndolod ini to mix complex and non complex when i do my lod with dyndolod.

For the first test i did last week for my load order with the mixture of complex and non-complex grass and the default settings hd grass, i had no errors about the generation of grass in dyndolod and i had this lod on the screenshot we see that there is no grass lod in the distance is this normal?

https://zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=23/19/o4bt.png

I'll start again tomorrow with your parameters to see if it's better.

 

[sheson]

6 minutes ago, samaelxx46 said:

Hi,
Thank you for your answer, i had not read the manual for the lod well enough, sorry.
I have a mod that adds non-complex grass in another world than skyrim so i will do like you say, i generate the precache grass with the complex grass textures activated and i put Set ForceComplexGrass=0 in dyndolod ini to mix complex and non complex when i do my lod with dyndolod.

For the first test i did last week for my load order with the mixture of complex and non-complex grass and the default settings hd grass, i had no errors about the generation of grass in dyndolod and i had this lod on the screenshot we see that there is no grass lod in the distance is this normal?

https://zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=23/19/o4bt.png

I'll start again tomorrow with your parameters to see if it's better.

I suggest to simply enable ApplyToBasicGrass=true in enbseries.ini instead.

Read https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum 

Read https://dyndolod.info/Help/Grass-LOD#No-Grass-LOD-Check-List