DynDOLOD 3.00 Alpha 180

[Zahkrii]

Hi, thanks again for consistently replying. I just hope these logs become useful information for you.

LODGenThreadSplit = 1. The first attempt had this error, "item not found".bugreport.txt DynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt

Tried another attempt to see if it happened by chance. This time only Midwood Isle and ArnimaDUPLICATE0003 had lodgen errors. Those two worldspaces seem to consistently fail along with Tamriel but surprisingly, Tamriel did not have errors this time.DynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt

I could just create them separately by using the execute LODgen in expert mode and merge them with the main output, right? The only problem with that is the occlusion esp not being generated. Maybe I could just exclude them altogether.

[sheson]

54 minutes ago, Zahkrii said:

Hi, thanks again for consistently replying. I just hope these logs become useful information for you.

LODGenThreadSplit = 1. The first attempt had this error, "item not found".bugreport.txt DynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt

Tried another attempt to see if it happened by chance. This time only Midwood Isle and ArnimaDUPLICATE0003 had lodgen errors. Those two worldspaces seem to consistently fail along with Tamriel but surprisingly, Tamriel did not have errors this time.DynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt

I could just create them separately by using the execute LODgen in expert mode and merge them with the main output, right? The only problem with that is the occlusion esp not being generated. Maybe I could just exclude them altogether.

Please upload those LODGen logs, too.

Yes, if they run trough one way or the other you can just use that output for now.

Once you have all the output, you can generate Occlusion.esp only with DynDOLOD or xLODGen.

[Zahkrii]

20 minutes ago, sheson said:

Please upload those LODGen logs, too.

Yes, if they run trough one way or the other you can just use that output for now.

Once you have all the output, you can generate Occlusion.esp only with DynDOLOD or xLODGen.

My bad, here it is. Some were too large to upload.

Item not found: https://mega.nz/folder/33RFHLxC#4MNO_PuHQo5wXiBZQPZMIA

arnima and midwood error: https://mega.nz/folder/mjpHFAAa#FRxwRY0OnAq8hxl16M_crQ

[Ralu]

Hi sheson,

I have a bit of an odd one - [Window Title] DynDOLOD [Main Instruction] Access violation at address 000000000041A26F in module 'DynDOLOD x64.exe'. [Content] Read of address 0000000000000000 while processing Skyrim.esm DA07 Display Tapestries "Mythic Dawn Tapestries" [ACTI:00096FEE] 

Sorry if I'm being thick, but any ideas?

[sheson]

23 minutes ago, Ralu said:

Hi sheson,

I have a bit of an odd one - [Window Title] DynDOLOD [Main Instruction] Access violation at address 000000000041A26F in module 'DynDOLOD x64.exe'. [Content] Read of address 0000000000000000 while processing Skyrim.esm DA07 Display Tapestries "Mythic Dawn Tapestries" [ACTI:00096FEE] 

Sorry if I'm being thick, but any ideas?

Read the first post which log, debug log and bugreport.txt if it exists to upload when making posts.

[sheson]

39 minutes ago, Zahkrii said:

My bad, here it is. Some were too large to upload.

Item not found: https://mega.nz/folder/33RFHLxC#4MNO_PuHQo5wXiBZQPZMIA

arnima and midwood error: https://mega.nz/folder/mjpHFAAa#FRxwRY0OnAq8hxl16M_crQ

See what happens with this LODGenx64 version from a month ago https://mega.nz/file/dcgUnQbb#E4I6qz_DiMy3fzCh_JQ0cF4ePdvckNeWAdd3V_VR_cU

[captaingabi]

Hi,

First, thank you doe this great lod generator. I was able to set up everything nicely, went through all the info on https://dyndolod.info/.

My tree and grass lod are awesome.

Now I am trying to make the mountin cliffs/peak good to. Unfortunately, they are popin-popout as I go closer to a mountain on lod transitions. And every transition, not just between fullmodeI-LOD4 but between all LOD transitions too. Is like they use different textures, or same but differnet/wrong uw maps.

"Object LOD uses the single texture in case the UV coordinates of a 3D shape do not allow the use of the object LOD texture atlas. Sometimes this is done on purpose, like for the mountainslab rock textures, so LOD for mountains in the nearest LOD level uses the full textures."

I aslo saw that there aer lods created for Majesit mountains.

"Note that the list of rendered object LOD textures is not covering all vanilla rendered object LOD textures. It can update the rendered object LOD textures for the walled cities and most structures. However, far away mountains, icebergs and glaciers are not yet covered. If a mod makes changes to these relevant full textures, it should also include updated pre-rendered object LOD textures."

Then I checked the differnet lod level nif files added by the DynDoLod: Resources SE 3.00 alpha 24:

https://ibb.co/LvGmZ3r
https://ibb.co/jbYhDG7
https://ibb.co/wR2ZhQK
https://ibb.co/p3BMK9k

So the lod files are a little bit different from each other, and I guess that explains the pop effect. And lod0 have different textures than lod1 and lod2.

Is this how they supposed to look like? Or am I missing something?

About mitigating the problem:
 - AFAIK there is no fade in fade out possiblity for LOD transition, so if they not seem identical, they will pop right?
 - Can I add somehow a mesh mask/reference rule for mountains and use lod_0h for LOD4 and lod_0l for LOD8 and LOD16?
   (and see if my rig can handle it...)
 - I guess I also can use fSplitDistanceMult, but I still will see the pop effect, just further...

[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=327680.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=327680.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=32768.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=16384.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.0000

(low values as the LODs are pretty good, and gets me high fps)

Visual Mods:
Realistic Water Two
SMIM

Regards,
CaptainGabi

Edited April 26, 2022 by captaingabi

[sheson]

1 hour ago, captaingabi said:

So the lod files are a little bit different from each other, and I guess that explains the pop effect. And lod0 have different textures than lod1 and lod2.

Those LOD models are the vanilla LOD models with updated textures. Most mountains directly use the vanilla LOD models as they are.

1 hour ago, captaingabi said:

 - AFAIK there is no fade in fade out possiblity for LOD transition, so if they not seem identical, they will pop right?

https://dyndolod.info/How-LOD-Works
If the player moves around, new rows of cells attach so that the player is always in the center cell. When new cells attach, the game first loads the ground and lowers the terrain LOD meshes by a fixed amount under the ground and disables water LOD for the cells, loads all trees and disables their tree LOD, loads all objects and their full models and then disables object LOD for the cells.
Having to wait for the full models to load before being able to disable the object LOD can take a noticeable time, in which the full models and their object LOD are both rendered for a brief time. In case the full model and the LOD model occupy the same 3D space (which for example can be the case for structures), their different lighting and textures can noticeable z-fight (texture flicker).

Object LOD models have less triangles. E.g. their shape does not exactly match the full model - which is what you want to have less flicker. LOD does not cast or receive shadows and also has different snow shader.

DynDOLOD does not change how the game works. LOD Levels also simply switch between the different BTR/BTO files. 

1 hour ago, captaingabi said:

 - Can I add somehow a mesh mask/reference rule for mountains and use lod_0h for LOD4 and lod_0l for LOD8 and LOD16?

https://dyndolod.info/Help/Mesh-Mask-Reference-Rules
Set Level0 for the desired LOD Level for ""mountains" for example. Check VWD

1 hour ago, captaingabi said:

 - I guess I also can use fSplitDistanceMult, but I still will see the pop effect, just further...

That particular setting is for terrain LOD. https://dyndolod.info/Help/Terrain-LOD#Settings

fBlock* are for object LOD. https://dyndolod.info/Help/Terrain-LOD#Settings and https://dyndolod.info/Help/Mod-Configuration-Menu#Settings

[Zahkrii]

3 hours ago, sheson said:

See what happens with this LODGenx64 version from a month ago https://mega.nz/file/dcgUnQbb#E4I6qz_DiMy3fzCh_JQ0cF4ePdvckNeWAdd3V_VR_cU

Here it is, arnimaDUPLICATE0003, desertisland, midwoodisle, rigmoorcyrodiil, jkislandworld, tamriel failed this time.

Edit: the LODGen logs seem to be incomplete or empty again.

DynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt LODGen_SSE_arnimaDUPLICATE003_log.txt LODGen_SSE_DesertIsland_log.txt LODGen_SSE_MidwoodIsle_log.txt LODGen_SSE_RigmorCyrodiil_log.txt LODGen_SSE_Tamriel_log.txt LODGen_SSE_XJKislandWorld_log.txt

Edited April 26, 2022 by Zahkrii
edit

[sheson]

34 minutes ago, Zahkrii said:

Here it is, arnimaDUPLICATE0003, desertisland, midwoodisle, rigmoorcyrodiil, jkislandworld, tamriel failed this time.

Edit: the LODGen logs seem to be incomplete or empty again.

DynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt 923.15 kB · 0 downloads LODGen_SSE_arnimaDUPLICATE003_log.txt 4 kB · 0 downloads LODGen_SSE_DesertIsland_log.txt 0 B · 0 downloads LODGen_SSE_MidwoodIsle_log.txt 0 B · 0 downloads LODGen_SSE_RigmorCyrodiil_log.txt 4 kB · 0 downloads LODGen_SSE_Tamriel_log.txt 8 kB · 0 downloads LODGen_SSE_XJKislandWorld_log.txt 0 B · 0 downloads

You happen to have a dmp file for one of these?
From the ...\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\Export\ folder, can you upload all files matching one of the worldspaces that failed?  Choose a small one like MidwoodIsle or DesertIsland.

[DarthVitrial]

12 hours ago, sheson said:

Post the trace from Event Log. Also check if you happen to have any c:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\CrashDumps\LODGen.exe.*.dmp with version from https://stepmodifications.org/forum/topic/16796-dyndolod-3-alpha-88/?do=findComment&comment=259239

Did you change something in that version? The crash isn't happening with that one.

[captaingabi]

4 hours ago, sheson said:

Those LOD models are the vanilla LOD models with updated textures. Most mountains directly use the vanilla LOD models as they are.

So I now set up my own rule for vanilla LODs for mountains, and of course, having all level1 or level0 makes the pops disappear. Furthermore, the level0 seems to be good quality lod, as the transition between that and the full model is also very good.

The textures these nif files are using:

elfxmountaincliff02*:
lod0 textures\landscape\mountains\MountainSlab02.dds
lod1 textures\lod\MtnCliff02LOD.dds
lod2 textures\lod\MtnCliff02LOD.dds (even its the same as lod1, it still looks different)

So this is how bad vanilla lod nifs are?

I also went ahead and checked majestic mountains, and the lod created for that by you. Thx for that BTW. Here, lod1 and lod2 actually are very nicely similar to each other, but lod0 is differnet.

https://ibb.co/PFB0Lvh lod0h    textures\landscape\mountains\MountainSlab02.dds (textgen does not touch this one BTW)
https://ibb.co/1bV8sWy lod1     textures\lod\MtnCliff02LOD.dds
https://ibb.co/6t8gqM3  lod2     textures\lod\MtnCliff02LOD.dds

And of course there is the pop between level0 level1 transition because of that.

So why lod0 is different here? Shouldn't that look similar to lod1 and lod2? Or this is expected?
And that is because lod0 uses the full model textures while lod1 and lod2 uses the textures/lod ones?

I also noticed that vertex color is on for lod0 in both vanilla and majestic mountains, but off for lod1 and lod2.

[Zahkrii]

5 hours ago, sheson said:

You happen to have a dmp file for one of these?
From the ...\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\Export\ folder, can you upload all files matching one of the worldspaces that failed?  Choose a small one like MidwoodIsle or DesertIsland.

Sorry, had to generate another. Here is the one for DesertIsland. It appears it has no" Grass Map" and "Tree Atlas Map".LODGen_SSE_DesertIsland_log.txtDynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt

Export Folder:LODGen_SSE_TexturesUsed_DesertIsland.txtLODGen_SSE_Terrain_DesertIsland.binLODGen_SSE_ObjectAtlasMap_DesertIsland.txtLODGen_SSE_ObjectAtlasMap_DesertIsland.lstLODGen_SSE_Export_TerrainUnderside_DesertIsland.txtLODGen_SSE_Export_DesertIsland.txtLODGen_SSE_AltTextures_DesertIsland.txt

Let me know if you require more.

Edit: Dump File - https://mega.nz/file/mzYgBBTI#TSwrlS5dFcGZ_ijswV-uoNQ5ZFZdhEBwKAS70HFWYrQ

Edited April 27, 2022 by Zahkrii
for dmp file

[sheson]

10 hours ago, DarthVitrial said:

Did you change something in that version? The crash isn't happening with that one.

So far all the changes are about adding more try/catch blocks in order to get stuff into the log.

[sheson]

7 hours ago, captaingabi said:

So I now set up my own rule for vanilla LODs for mountains, and of course, having all level1 or level0 makes the pops disappear. Furthermore, the level0 seems to be good quality lod, as the transition between that and the full model is also very good.

The textures these nif files are using:

elfxmountaincliff02*:
lod0 textures\landscape\mountains\MountainSlab02.dds
lod1 textures\lod\MtnCliff02LOD.dds
lod2 textures\lod\MtnCliff02LOD.dds (even its the same as lod1, it still looks different)

So this is how bad vanilla lod nifs are?

I also went ahead and checked majestic mountains, and the lod created for that by you. Thx for that BTW. Here, lod1 and lod2 actually are very nicely similar to each other, but lod0 is differnet.

https://ibb.co/PFB0Lvh lod0h    textures\landscape\mountains\MountainSlab02.dds (textgen does not touch this one BTW)
https://ibb.co/1bV8sWy lod1     textures\lod\MtnCliff02LOD.dds
https://ibb.co/6t8gqM3  lod2     textures\lod\MtnCliff02LOD.dds

And of course there is the pop between level0 level1 transition because of that.

So why lod0 is different here? Shouldn't that look similar to lod1 and lod2? Or this is expected?
And that is because lod0 uses the full model textures while lod1 and lod2 uses the textures/lod ones?

I also noticed that vertex color is on for lod0 in both vanilla and majestic mountains, but off for lod1 and lod2.

LOD models and textures are different to greatly reduce triangle count and resource usage. The Level0 mountain LOD are unique in that they use the full texture and UV outside 0.0 and 1.0. It is needed for the HD snow shader.

I only updated the shader/textures definitions of the Majestic Mountain LOD models from their DynDOLOD 2.x  version for the improved texture replacement methods of DynDOLOD 3.

Removing vertex color from higher LOD levels is another optimization step.

These LOD techniques are decades old to make things work with 256MB  RAM and 256MB VRAM of PS3.