xLODGen & DynDOLOD Combined Worldspaces for LOD - Sample Configurations

[Mousetick]

I wanted to share some Combined Worldspaces for LOD configurations I made for my Skyrim SE game, as a kind of showcase for this wonderful new feature in xLODGen and DynDOLOD. I hope it's useful and instructive.

Changelog:

Spoiler

• 2023-10-13: Added Installation, Limitations and Useful Resources sections. Minor edits for clarification or correction here and there. The configurations themselves are not changed.
• 2023-10-12: Added map location to Wyrmstooth in Skyrim. Added Purpose and Usage section.
• 2023-10-11: Added puzzle map to Skyrim in Solstheim. Corrected some minor errors in the text descriptions and the configuration comments. The configurations themselves are not changed.
• 2023-10-10: Initial post.

Preliminary Remarks

• There are no restrictions on the use, modification or sharing of the provided configurations.
• All credit goes to sheson & co. for developing and providing such amazing tools for free. I merely leveraged their capabilities.
• All screenshots were taken at noon o'clock with Skyrim Clear weather for best visibility. Actual results in-game will vary depending on weather, time of day, lighting & weather mods.
• I don't know how the combined worldspaces look on the game's 3D map, as I use flat paper maps. They should look ok but may not be visible depending on how much the 3D map can be zoomed or panned.

Purpose and Usage

Spoiler

• As explained in the Combine Worldspaces for LOD documentation, no cell, land or reference records are being copied. The terrain/tree/object LOD of the cell, land and reference records in the source worldspace is merged into the terrain/tree/object LOD of the destination worldspace. The resulting LOD in the destination worldspace exists without the underlying source data "physically" existing in that worldspace.
• In effect, the LOD of the source worldspace combined into the destination worldspace is like an optical illusion. It is visible from a distance, but disappears when the player gets close. The real terrain, trees and objects "physically" defined in the destination worldspace appear instead, owing to the game's active cell and LOD loading/unloading mechanism based on uGridsToLoad.
• Therefore this feature is suitable for displaying lands/worlds that are normally not visible on the overworld, are placed sufficiently away from any playable area, and are not meant to be accessed/approached by the player.
• Aside from the manual process of setting up a configuration, the worldspace LOD combining process is completely automated and is extremely efficient. As it is derived from the current load order at the time of LOD generation, the resulting combined LOD accurately reflects the load order. It doesn't require any additional patching.

Example 1: Wyrmstooth in Skyrim

As seen from: Solitude Lighthouse | Coast near Broken Oar Grotto | Fort Hraggstad Tower

• Analysis:

Spoiler

• To determine the bounds of the Wyrmstooth island and the small stuff around it, I don't quite remember what I did. I think I just looked at the list of LOD4 BTR meshes generated by xLODGen for WyrmstoothWorld and took the min/max X and Y.
• In effect, all the cells of WyrmstoothWorld with LAND records in them have been selected for combining into Tamriel. In total, it's a pretty large area, 36x40 cells, but it's going to be placed very far.
• The island of Wyrmstooth is supposed to be located somewhere North of Solitude in the Sea of Ghosts. There is no more specific information available about its location AFAIK, so I picked somewhere North of Solitude in the Sea of Ghosts. Pretty far to the North, beyond any cell that contains anything, and a bit out of the way to the West of Solitude. The journey by boat between Solitude and Wyrmstooth takes 12 hours or more if I remember correctly, so it makes sense to place the island far away.

• Implementation:

Spoiler

• The bounds of the source area in WyrmstoothWorld are -16,-16 to 20,24.
• The South-East corner of the area is placed at -14,47 in Tamriel.
• WyrmstoothWorld Default Water Height is 0 (while Tamriel is -14000).
• Overall this is a pretty straightforward example.

• Configuration:

Spoiler

; Add the following [WyrmstoothWorld] section to LODSettings\LODGen\Tamriel_Combine.ini
; Tamriel_Combine.ini must begin with this section:
;
; [Tamriel]
; LimitWest=-96
; LimitSouth=-96
; LimitEast=127
; LimitNorth=127
;
; Refer to xLODGen\Combine-Worldspaces-Readme.txt for more information.

[WyrmstoothWorld]

CellX=-34
CellY=61
; Tamriel Default Water Height: -14000
; WyrmstoothWorld Default Water Height: 0
HeightZ=-14000

LimitWest=-16
LimitSouth=-16
LimitEast=20
LimitNorth=24

ForceWest=-96
ForceSouth=-96
ForceEast=127
ForceNorth=127

Example 2: Solstheim in Skyrim

As seen from: College of Winterhold Upper Walkway | Snow Veil Sanctum | Near the border with Morrowind

The Vvardenfell island and the Red Mountain volcano seen above are not part of the combined worldspaces. They're something else.

• Implementation:

Spoiler

• This is a modified version of the example provided with xLODGen in xLODGen\Edit Scripts\Tamriel_Combine.ini.
• I simply moved the island further to the East and closer to the Morrowind coastline, which I find more appropriate geographically, and for consistency with Skyrim in Solstheim (see next example).

• Configuration:

Spoiler

; Add the following [DLC2SolstheimWorld] section to LODSettings\LODGen\Tamriel_Combine.ini
; Tamriel_Combine.ini must begin with this section:
;
; [Tamriel]
; LimitWest=-96
; LimitSouth=-96
; LimitEast=127
; LimitNorth=127
;
; Refer to xLODGen\Combine-Worldspaces-Readme.txt for more information.

[DLC2SolstheimWorld]

CellX=58
CellY=22
; Tamriel Default Water Height: -14000
; DLC2SolstheimWorld Default Water Height: 256
HeightZ=-14256

LimitWest=0
LimitSouth=2
LimitEast=26
LimitNorth=28

ForceWest=-96
ForceSouth=-96
ForceEast=127
ForceNorth=127

Example 3: Skyrim in Solstheim

As seen from: Near Fahlbtharz | Atop an unnamed Broken Tower | On the Isle of Basalt

• Analysis:

Spoiler

• This has been a huge headache and time-sink. This is due to tackling the problem without experience or methodology, and Besthesda's very poor vanilla job.
• In vanilla DLC2SolstheimWorld, the Skyrim mainland and coast is represented by some terribad terrain with no landmark or recognizable feature, it's all covered in dirt texture except a few mountain snowy peaks. There are no rivers.
• Also the Skyrim coastline doesn't have the same shape, scale or orientation between DLC2SolstheimWorld and Tamriel.
• After scrutinizing the coastline, I managed to find what looked vaguely like the mouth of the White River. This would be the starting point from where to build.
• In vanilla Tamriel, the terrain doesn't extend very far East of the Velothi Mountains and the border with Morrowind. When combining Tamriel into DLC2SolstheimWorld, this would result in ugly noticeable abrupt terrain breaks at the juncture between the two, when looking at Morrowind.
• To remedy this, we can use xLODGen Resource - SSE Terrain Tamriel for generating Tamriel terrain LOD. The full version adds terrain for Morrowind among other things.
• Unlike the two previous examples combining an island into the sea, where the source worldspace can just be plopped into the destination worldspace, here we have to build around the Solstheim island, being careful not to replace LOD in cells in as large an area as possible around the island. This requires combining multiple chunks of the source worldspace in various dimensions and positions.

• Implementation:

Spoiler

• The cell chosen as the starting/reference point (mouth of the White River) is 43,16 in Tamriel and -11,-4 in DLC2SolstheimWorld. This gives us an horizontal offset of 55 and a vertical offset of 21 when transposing cells from worldspace to another. These offsets were later adjusted to 58 and 22 respectively in order to make the terrain Eastward of the river fit into the vanilla space without breaking the geography.
• The Tamriel source worldspace is broken up into 4 chunks like pieces of a puzzle.
• The main piece covers the Skyrim mainland and coastline. And much of the Sea of Ghosts too, to completely "overwrite" the vanilla terrain which extends northward into the sea (due to the mismatch between DLC2SolstheimWorld and Tamriel).
• The others are small pieces to cover the area East of Windhelm and the North-West corner of Morrowind, along the coastline. They don't extend as much or at all into the sea in order to preserve the original DLC2SolstheimWorld terrain.

• Configuration:

Spoiler

; Add the following [Tamriel/1/2/3] sections to LODSettings\LODGen\DLC2SolstheimWorld_Combine.ini
; DLC2SolstheimWorld_Combine.ini must begin with this section:
;
; [DLC2SolstheimWorld]
; LimitWest=-64
; LimitSouth=-64
; LimitEast=127
; LimitNorth=127
;
; Refer to xLODGen\Combine-Worldspaces-Readme.txt for more information.

; ***********************************************************
; IMPORTANT: Requires 'SSE Terrain Tamriel Full Extend' from
; 'xLODGen Resource - SSE Terrain Tamriel' at
; <https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54680>
; ***********************************************************

[Tamriel]

; Part 1: Skyrim coast and Sea of Ghosts, roughly between Dawnstar and
;           Morrowind border, and mainland all the way down to
;           Throat of the World.

CellX=-58
CellY=-22
; Tamriel Default Water Height: -14000
; DLC2SolstheimWorld Default Water Height: 256
HeightZ=14256

LimitWest=8
LimitSouth=-15
LimitEast=46
LimitNorth=49

ForceWest=-64
ForceSouth=-64
ForceEast=127
ForceNorth=127

[Tamriel1]

; Part 2: Small slice of land and sea, roughly along the Velothi Mountains.
;         Covers just enough Sea of Ghosts to grab a couple of icebergs, but
;           doesn't go as far North as Part 1 to leave room for water around
;           Solstheim.

CellX=-58
CellY=-22
HeightZ=14256

LimitWest=47
LimitSouth=-15
LimitEast=51
LimitNorth=30

ForceWest=-64
ForceSouth=-64
ForceEast=127
ForceNorth=127

[Tamriel2]

; Part 3: Another slice of land further East covering Morrowind's West side.
;         Doesn't cover any water except the coastline.
;         Goes less far to the South because it's unnecessary/unseen.

CellX=-58
CellY=-22
HeightZ=14256

LimitWest=52
LimitSouth=-7
LimitEast=61
LimitNorth=17

ForceWest=-64
ForceSouth=-64
ForceEast=127
ForceNorth=127

[Tamriel3]

; Part 4: Final slice of land and coastline further East,
;           covering Morrowind's North-West corner.
;         Extends just enough West and South to provide continuity with
;           the terrain to the East, but stops before the transplanted
;           terrain conflicts with the vanilla terrain.
;         There is a seam/break but it's practically unseen.

CellX=-58
CellY=-22
HeightZ=14256

LimitWest=62
LimitSouth=0
LimitEast=68
LimitNorth=12

ForceWest=-64
ForceSouth=-64
ForceEast=127
ForceNorth=127

Installation

Spoiler

• Create a new empty mod in the mod manager. Give it any desired name, for instance: Combined Worldspaces for LOD.
• Inside this new mod, create two nested folders: LODSettings > LODGen.
• For each destination worldspace DestinationWorldspaceEditorID into which one or more source worldspace(s) is to be combined:
  • Create a text file named DestinationWorldspaceEditorID_Combine.ini substituting DestinationWorldspaceEditorID with the actual Editor ID of the destination worldspace. For instance, DLC2SolstheimWorld_Combine.ini for combining worldspace(s) into Solstheim.
  • Edit the INI file with a text editor. Put a header section at the top of the file, using the same DestinationWorldspaceEditorID as in the INI file name:

[DestinationWorldspaceEditorID]
LimitWest=-128
LimitSouth=128
LimitEast=127
LimitNorth=127

• For each source worldspace to be combined into DestinationWorldspaceEditorID, copy and paste the sample configuration into the INI file, below the header section. Or write your own configuration (refer to xLODGen\Combine-Worldspaces-Readme.txt for more information).
• Enable the mod in the mod manager. The configurations are only used during LOD and occlusion generation but the mod can stay enabled at all times as they have no side-effect in-game at runtime.

 

• Generate terrain LOD with xLODGen for DestinationWorldspaceEditorID as usual. You may want to check in-game that the combined terrain LOD looks ok before moving on to the next step.
• Generate tree/object/dynamic LOD with DynDOLOD for DestinationWorldspaceEditorID as usual. Make sure to generate occlusion as well for optimized performance, as combined LOD can add a lot of meshes/triangles from the source worldspaces that are actually never seen from the player's perspective in-game.
• Beware the total disk space usage of DestinationWorldspaceEditorID LOD meshes and textures will be higher after combining, more or less depending on the dimensions, contents and number of source worldspaces.

Limitations

Spoiler

• Dynamic LOD is not carried over to the destination worldspace. Only terrain, tree and static object LODs are supported.
• Neverfade objects, so-called because their full model is visible from any distance, such as clouds, are not carried over to the destination worldspace since by definition they don't have LOD.

Although not limitations of the Combine Worldspace feature per se, there are limitations on what kind of source worldspace or how it can be combined. In some cases it may be difficult or impossible to fit a source worldspace, or the results may be visually inconsistent.

• Some worldspaces may use a different scale or orientation than the destination. For example the main Beyond Reach worldspace is completely upside down (North is in the South and vice-versa).
• Some worldspaces may contain their own terrain/objects at the border with other regions, that don't match at all with the geography/topography of the destination worldspace. For example, the Skyrim coast with the Sea of Ghosts doesn't have the same shape in Tamriel and Solstheim worldspaces. As shown in this screenshot, where the vanilla terrain in DLC2SolstheimWorld extends far more to the North than in Tamriel:

 

Useful Resources

Spoiler

• Modmapper provides a detailed map of the entire vanilla Tamriel cell grid, showing cell coordinates and cell usage by mods published on Nexus. Unfortunately it only covers Tamriel worldspace.
• UESP Game Maps provide detailed maps of Tamriel and Solstheim worldspaces, but don't extend to the actual worldspace cell bounds, and their cell grid is coarse.
• The Imperial Library's Tamriel map shows the entire Tamriel continent, based on various official sources. The artist who made this map described her sources and process in this post.
• xLODGen Resource - SSE Terrain Tamriel adds cells and terrain that don't exist in vanilla Tamriel.

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Mousetick

[leostevano]

Thanks for the guide! I have a few questions : 

1. Is there any difference between generating the combined worldspace using tamriel_combine settings vs the mod Worldspace Transition Tweaks?

2. Isn't there suppose to be another directory above LODSettings?

    "<worldspace>_Combine.ini files need to be in ..\Data\LODSettings\LODGen\ folder" 

[Mousetick]

7 minutes ago, leostevano said:

1. Is there any difference between generating the combined worldspace using tamriel_combine settings vs the mod Worldspace Transition Tweaks?

Yes,  there are big differences. I'll address the comparison with WTT in more details later in the OP.

In a nutshell, to take an analogy with movie filming, Combined Worldspaces are fake cardboard movie sets, while WTT is a real location. The former can only be used for display, viewed from a distance.

There are pros and cons to each approach. If you're currently using WTT for Solstheim/Skyrim you probably wouldn't want/need to switch to Combined Worldspaces. It all depends on your needs/usage in-game. TBD.

12 minutes ago, leostevano said:

2. Isn't there suppose to be another directory above LODSettings?

    "<worldspace>_Combine.ini files need to be in ..\Data\LODSettings\LODGen\ folder"

If you're using a mod manager, and you should be, the top Data directory is implied.

Create a new empty mod in mod manager, name it e.g. "Combined Worldspaces for LOD". Within its folder, create the LODSettings folder, and the LODGen folder underneath. Put the <worldspace>_Combine.ini files in there.

[leostevano]

Thank you for clarifying. I thought "\Data\LODSettings\LODGen\ folder" was supposed to be created inside SSELodgen directory.

That explain why I failed to do it before I switched to Worldspace Transition Tweaks.

 

[Mousetick]

On 10/11/2023 at 7:34 AM, leostevano said:

1. Is there any difference between generating the combined worldspace using tamriel_combine settings vs the mod Worldspace Transition Tweaks?

I'm replying here as the OP is already too long. Let's abbreviate Combine Worldspaces for LOD as CWL for the sake of convenience and brevity.

Big disclaimer: I've never used WTT. I'm just going by the information provided by the mod author on the mod page, and by examining the mod's plugin in xEdit.

Differences:

• WTT contains a duplicate of most of the Tamriel terrain and trees/objects placed into Solstheim, and vice-versa. It's probably based on the vanilla masters. It's a static, frozen mirror image of Tamriel in Solstheim and vice-versa.
• CWL on the other hand doesn't duplicate any real/physical terrain or tree/object into the destination worldspace. It only copies the LOD, which is an exact reflection of the load order, including any modification to the terrain or trees/objects made by mods, at the time of LOD generation.
• WTT provides a feature whereby the player can teleport from the source to the destination worldspace when hitting certain trigger boxes. It's unclear from the mod's description where those trigger boxes are, and where the teleport destination points are exactly.
• CWL on the other hand can't provide such feature as it is plugin- and script-free. In-game, CWL relies only on LOD meshes and textures. But it doesn't preclude making this functionality available as an add-on. Conceivably for example, the WTT plugin could be stripped out of everything it contains except the trigger boxes and teleport markers, then used alongside CWL.
• WTT doesn't have the limitations of CWL regarding dynamic LOD and neverfades. WTT has clouds over Skyrim in its plugin but they don't seem to be visible on the mod's screenshots.
• WTT changes the properties of each worldspace, specifically their cell X/Y bounds, because it extends them by adding a lot of cells that don't exist in vanilla. This requires patches for compatibility with map mods, which also change (other) properties of worldspace.
• CWL doesn't require any patch, since it's based on the entire load order, which is supposed to be already correctly patched - whether CWL is used or not.
• With WTT, it's unclear if the player can walk on Skyrim while in Solstheim worldspace, or if this area is off-limit and the player gets teleported before reaching there. In theory, since there are real/physical terrain, tree and objects placed in that worldspace, it should be possible. But the usefulness and interaction would be very limited: there are no NPCs, there is no life.
• CWL doesn't prevent the player from getting close to the source worldspace LOD in the destination worldspace, but doing so should be avoided, lest the LOD of the source worldspace disappears and the illusion shatters.
• WTT is (for now) limited to Solstheim and Skyrim. Supporting other source or destination worldspaces would take a lot of tedious manual work.
• CWL on the other hand is a generic automated solution that works with any configuration, as long as one can be made for specific source/destination worldspaces.
• WTT puts some easter eggs at the bottom of the sea, and optionally adds the Red Mountain volcano plume to the Tamriel worldspace.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Mousetick