DynDOLOD 3.00 Alpha 182

[Eumeta]

Thank you, the new Textgen.exe ran smoothly with all boxes checked until the end!!

[sheson]

2 hours ago, Tr0u64d1x said:

Thanks, the new version worked for me as well! 

47 minutes ago, Eumeta said:

Thank you, the new Textgen.exe ran smoothly with all boxes checked until the end!!

Thanks for letting us know.

[Phlunder]

On 1/2/2022 at 11:46 AM, sheson said:

BTW TexGen generates a glacierslabreallod.dds from glacierslab.dds since the vanilla glacierslablod.dds is not a direct derivative from glacierslab.dds.

I realized that now too. Unfortunately, the glacierslabreallod.dds is 4x tiled so I can't assign it for the glacier meshes, as I would have to redo/rescale the UVs. I don't wanna create any complications for you of course, or make TexGen generate redundant files. So I understand if its not a priority.

[sheson]

54 minutes ago, Phlunder said:

I realized that now too. Unfortunately, the glacierslabreallod.dds is 4x tiled so I can't assign it for the glacier meshes, as I would have to redo/rescale the UVs. I don't wanna create any complications for you of course, or make TexGen generate redundant files. So I understand if its not a priority.

In that case you could just have the LOD models point to the full texture instead (not sure if that works with the vanilla texture). The full texture typically already loaded into VRAM anyways for the full glaciers in the active cells.

DynDOLOD may automatically add a 1x1  version to the object LOD atlas. It may attempt to auto update the UV to be between 0.0 and 1.0 in that case, too.

You can test if this has acceptable results by using the xEdit script NIF - Batch textures replacement.pas to quickly update the LOD models to use the full texture.

It may work out or not. If it doesn't work out I can add a 1x1 version to TexGen creation.

[MisterMorden]

Sheson, you RULE!  Me and my OCD wanted to say "thank you" for the waterfalls, lol.

[Phlunder]

11 minutes ago, sheson said:

In that case you could just have the LOD models point to the full texture instead (not sure if that works with the vanilla texture). The full texture typically already loaded into VRAM anyways for the full glaciers in the active cells.

DynDOLOD may automatically add a 1x1  version to the object LOD atlas. It may attempt to auto update the UV to be between 0.0 and 1.0 in that case, too.

You can test if this has acceptable results by using the xEdit script NIF - Batch textures replacement.pas to quickly update the LOD models to use the full texture.

It may work out or not. If it doesn't work out I can add a 1x1 version to TexGen creation.

I thought about using full textures too (similar to LOD0 mountain meshes) but it just made the meshes invisible. This may be due to the alpha of the diffuse? I didn't generate with using full textures though, I just swapped out the files with full textures after the fact. I try generating with full textures assigned in the LOD meshes and will report what DynDOLOD does.

Thanks for the hint, I was wondering what is the better choice in terms of performance, it makes sense that its the full texture as its already loaded into VRAM anyway. I'll report back.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Phlunder

[sheson]

16 minutes ago, Phlunder said:

I thought about using full textures too (similar to LOD0 mountain meshes) but it just made the meshes invisible. This may be due to the alpha of the diffuse? I didn't generate with using full textures though, I just swapped out the files with full textures after the fact. I try generating with full textures assigned in the LOD meshes and will report what DynDOLOD does.

Thanks for the hint, I was wondering what is the better choice in terms of performance, it makes sense that its the full texture as its already loaded into VRAM anyway. I'll report back.

LOD only supports transparency with a fixed threshold of 128.

In that case such a full texture is used for LOD models, DynDOLOD is supposed to automatically create a noalpha version, but it may not work in every circumstance, yet. Have an eye on the log messages. It should print a line shortly before created the atlas in that case.

[Phlunder]

42 minutes ago, sheson said:

LOD only supports transparency with a fixed threshold of 128.

In that case such a full texture is used for LOD models, DynDOLOD is supposed to automatically create a noalpha version, but it may not work in every circumstance, yet. Have an eye on the log messages. It should print a line shortly before created the atlas in that case.

It seems it didn't work out, they didn't use the full textures as assigned in the mesh, and the UVs seem to be broken. I didn't see anything before atlas creation regarding glacierslab textures in the log.

Log: https://ufile.io/f/8af5s

Mesh in question is base ID 0401b927, ref ID 0401459b:

Another small question. People are complaining about a slight Z-fighting on LOD transition. I know this is because I didn't change the size/scale of the LOD meshes when creating them, compared to full model. Could I use the scale option of the NiTriShape in NifSkope to just scale them to say 0.95 or 0.9 to fix that?

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by Phlunder

[3fast5you]

10 hours ago, sheson said:

Test with this version of TexGenx64.exe to see if it renders the billboards without issue.

Perfect, worked like a charm.

Also I would like to add that; I recently got back to modding my game, and I remember a few years back I was struggling with using a mod for bigger trees along with Dark Forests of Skyrim. The LoD was just not matching up, and I had trees pop in no matter what I did, and it wasnt even the same model.

I have no doubt that I might have been doing something wrong, but I did a lot of searching and trial and error, so I don't know what the issue was.
So when I got back to modding my game, I faced the same issue again. Been trying everything, ini settings, different mods, different versions etc. etc., and still had trees pop in, and then I read about DynDOLOD 3 and how TexGen generates it's own billboards, thought it might work.

So I would just like to tell you that this seems to work absolutely amazingly. LoD matches up with the trees, the pop in is extremely minimal. I don't think it will be noticeable in a normal playthrough (atm just zooming through in 3000% movement speed).

You may have my firstborn.

[sheson]

7 minutes ago, Phlunder said:

It seems it didn't work out, they didn't use the full textures, and the UVs are broken. I didn't see anything before atlas creation regarding glacierslab textures in the log.

Log: https://ufile.io/f/8af5s

Mesh in question is base ID 0401b927, ref ID 0401459b:

Another small question. People are complaining about a slight Z-fighting on LOD transition. I know this is because I didn't change the size/scale of the LOD meshes when creating them, compared to full model. Could I use the scale option of the NiTriShape in NifSkope to just scale them to say 0.95 or 0.9 to fix that?

That doesn't work ...
See what happens if you use textures\landscape\glacierslabnoalpha.dds generated by TexGen. It is a 1x1 version that is made slightly darker.

Lots of vanilla LOD models have that z-fighting effect as it is inherent to how the engine works. Always weird how sometimes people only notice such things years later.

Yes go can try setting a smaller or larger scale. You need to set such change on the NiTriShape/BSTriHSape, not on the root BSFadeNode.

[Phlunder]

30 minutes ago, sheson said:

That doesn't work ...
See what happens if you use textures\landscape\glacierslabnoalpha.dds generated by TexGen. It is a 1x1 version that is made slightly darker.

Lots of vanilla LOD models have that z-fighting effect as it is inherent to how the engine works. Always weird how sometimes people only notice such things years later.

Yes go can try setting a smaller or larger scale. You need to set such change on the NiTriShape/BSTriHSape, not on the root BSFadeNode.

Your suggestion worked out perfectly. The fact that this texture is slightly darker helps, because of the slight visual difference that is still there due to LOD not supporting parallax. The effect does make the mesh darker - kind of - so that's a perfect match. I will just assign this texture for all of them.

Yes, its funny that people just notice the flickering/Z-fighting on transitions now... I reduced the scale to 0.99 and it fixes it, but of course the mesh "grows" a tiny bit on transition from LOD to full model. I guess this is due to glaciers being such large objects to begin with. I'll see what value works best.

Screen using glacierslabnoalpha.dds/glacierslabnoalpha.dds_n:

Edited January 4, 2022 by Phlunder

[sheson]

1 hour ago, Phlunder said:

Your suggestion worked out perfectly. The fact that this texture is slightly darker helps, because of the slight visual difference that is still there due to LOD not supporting parallax. The effect does make the mesh darker - kind of - so that's a perfect match. I will just assign this texture for all of them.

Yes, its funny that people just notice the flickering/Z-fighting on transitions now... I reduced the scale to 0.99 and it fixes it, but of course the mesh "grows" a tiny bit on transition from LOD to full model. I guess this is due to glaciers being such large objects to begin with. I'll see what value works best.

Screen using glacierslabnoalpha.dds/glacierslabnoalpha.dds_n:

Looks great indeed.

[marcocorico]

I wanted to try DynDolod3.0 . 

How to know which meshes lods will be compatibles with 3.0?

I realise that Texgen crash when creating Billboards (when only trees/grass lod is ticked).

I use PapyrusUtileSE.

I thought It was ok to keep all my mods activated in MO2  before generating TexGen and Dyndolod3.0...

Thank you very much for all you do! You are awsome!

I got textures mods from this guide to help me modding Skyrim AE.

 

[Mousetick]

Is there a way to make DynDOLOD (and related tools) use a custom INI configuration that overrides ..\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\DynDOLOD\DynDOLOD_[GAME MODE].ini?

With the rapid pace of alpha updates, each installation overwrites the INI file with the factory default. It's easy to forget to edit it to re-apply one's custom settings. And even if one remembers to do so, it's a bit of hassle to be honest.

For example, there could be a ..\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\DynDOLOD\DynDOLOD_[GAME MODE]_Custom.ini created by end-users and not shipped as part of the .7z package.

; This is the user-specific DynDOLOD.INI for [GAME MODE] game mode

[DynDOLOD]
; set to 1 for expert LODGen options in advanced mode, disables wizard automatically
Expert=1
  
; set to 1 to generate LOD Level 32 *.bto files (indentical to LOD Level 16 but without billboard trees when generating with TreeLOD=0)
; set [MapMenu] uLockedObjectMapLOD=32 in Skyrim.ini
Level32=1
  
; order to scan for *_lod*.nif files. Indentical filenames (sans path!) found *last* will overwrite win
Folder1=meshes
Folder2=meshes\dlc01\lod
Folder3=meshes\dlc02\lod
Folder4=meshes\lod
Folder5=meshes\dyndolod
Folder6=mymeshes\lod

; set the double_sided shader flag in object LOD *.bto meshes on these lists of meshes / textures masks (partial filename) for mods like Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows
DoubleSidedMeshMask=mountain,mtn

Thank you.

[sheson]

13 minutes ago, marcocorico said:

I wanted to try DynDolod3.0 . 

How to know which meshes lods will be compatibles with 3.0?

I realise that Texgen crash when creating Billboards (when only trees/grass lod is ticked).

I use PapyrusUtileSE.

I thought It was ok to keep all my mods activated in MO2  before generating TexGen and Dyndolod3.0...

Thank you very much for all you do! You are awsome!

I got textures mods from this guide to help me modding Skyrim AE

Read the first post of the DynDOLDO 3 Alpha thread what the DynDOLOD 3 Alpha is, where to find information and where to make posts in case of questions. I moved the post to the thread.

Really read the available information on the https://dyndolod.info website. Also check https://dyndolod.info/Mods

Just use the tools as explained. They typically tell you if something isn't working right at all with warning or error messages as explained https://dyndolod.info/Messages

Generally, if a mod contains/ships with object or 3D tree LOD assets install them according to the install instruction of the mod.
If the object LOD resources mention DynDOLOD use those over xLODGen. If they mention DynDOLOD 3, use them over DynDOLOD 2.

As explained at https://dyndolod.info/Messages, use TexGen to generate all required/desired billboards and do not install any 3rd part billboards.

Always use the latest version.

1 minute ago, Mousetick said:

Is there a way to make DynDOLOD (and related tools) use a custom INI configuration that overrides ..\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\DynDOLOD\DynDOLOD_[GAME MODE].ini?

With the rapid pace of alpha updates, each installation overwrites the INI file with the factory default. It's easy to forget to edit it to re-apply one's custom settings. And even if one remembers to do so, it's a bit of hassle to be honest.

For example, there could be a ..\DynDOLOD\Edit Scripts\DynDOLOD\DynDOLOD_[GAME MODE]_Custom.ini created by end-users and not shipped as part of the .7z package.

; This is the user-specific DynDOLOD.INI for [GAME MODE] game mode

[DynDOLOD]
; set to 1 for expert LODGen options in advanced mode, disables wizard automatically
Expert=1
  
; set to 1 to generate LOD Level 32 *.bto files (indentical to LOD Level 16 but without billboard trees when generating with TreeLOD=0)
; set [MapMenu] uLockedObjectMapLOD=32 in Skyrim.ini
Level32=1
  
; order to scan for *_lod*.nif files. Indentical filenames (sans path!) found *last* will overwrite win
Folder1=meshes
Folder2=meshes\dlc01\lod
Folder3=meshes\dlc02\lod
Folder4=meshes\lod
Folder5=meshes\dyndolod
Folder6=mymeshes\lod

; set the double_sided shader flag in object LOD *.bto meshes on these lists of meshes / textures masks (partial filename) for mods like Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows
DoubleSidedMeshMask=mountain,mtn

Thank you.

Not yet.