Absurb File Size for DnyDOLOD Generation

[Rage]

I was going through the process of generating precache grass, LODs and 3D trees for DynDOLOD, and normally it would have only taken about half an hour, an hour at most, but for some ungodly reason it too 16 hours and 160GB of space to generate... I was following the step modifications guide only.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Rage]

1 minute ago, DoubleYou said:

Oh my. Seasons too. You may have difficulty getting below 50gb. Set LOD32 to only use Billboard6 for trees might give you a chance. Might be better off sticking with using lod16 for the map if file size is a concern. 

Noted, I will give those a try. But yes, file size is generally a concern for my needs. I don't have much space on my computer and only about an extra 200GB, plus I need to upload these.

Once these are finished running, if they do finish, I will definitely try those settings. I'm not really all that concerned anymore about using 3D trees, just because personally I don't notice the difference. My eyes are bad enough, so doesn't mean anything to me. 😅

[sheson]

1 hour ago, Rage said:

So I reset the settings for the DynDOLOD program, ran a test run and it only generated about 1GB of LOD data. Reapplied the settings from the guide on this site and it is now back to taking ages.

Generally, all workspaces process fine and in a reasonable amount of time of course. But, the Tamriel workspace is taking ages and has not passed level 4 LODs in the last hour. I'm suspecting it's because I used Level0 for LOD4, but I am not sure. All settings in the screenshots of the guide are 100% replicated. 

Read https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#Post-Logs which log and debug log to upload when making posts.

https://dyndolod.info/FAQ#Long-running-time-or-output-several-GB-in-file-size
It is normal for ultra tree LOD with 3D tree LOD models to take longer. Especially if the 3D tree LOD models are complex (large file size). Use or create optimized 3D tree LOD models or use tree LOD billboards instead. Do not use complex models for ultra tree LOD.
Check ..\DynDOLOD\Logs\DynDOLOD_[GAME MODE]_ModelsUsed_[WORLDSPACE].txt for a list of meshes and their total contribution to the object LOD meshes file sizes.

[Rage]

6 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

Consider swapping Level0 to Billboard4 then for trees should greatly reduce size. 

Just finished summer and is now processing Winter and Spring. I believe this is the last bit of this process. If it is, I won't worry about processing it again unless I absolutely need to.

But I'm going to save this post for future use. I think I'll go a bit more into detail with settings here after I am finished with this one. 

[Rage]

Low and behold, after 5 and 1/2 hours, it is finished but now it's taken ages to zip up the files... I hope this isn't stuck. 

EDIT

So. Lovely. It just prompted this error, which is false, then proceeded to delete ALL OF THE FILES IT JUST FINISHED DOWNLOADING.

Edited October 21, 2023 by Rage

[DoubleYou]

You have mentioned low drive space. I would recommend not using the zip option in that case. 

[Rage]

3 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

You have mentioned low drive space. I would recommend not using the zip option in that case. 

Too late.... 

Running it through another generation process again. I still had 60GB of headspace on that drive. I should mention that the program deleted it, not me.

I also made a few tweaks and used higher/lower-detailed billboards and kept Level0 for LOD4. Going to see if this makes more of a difference, which it should...

Edited October 21, 2023 by Rage

[sheson]

1 hour ago, Rage said:

Low and behold, after 5 and 1/2 hours, it is finished but now it's taken ages to zip up the files... I hope this isn't stuck. 

EDIT

So. Lovely. It just prompted this error, which is false, then proceeded to delete ALL OF THE FILES IT JUST FINISHED DOWNLOADING.

Read https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#Post-Logs which log and debug log to upload when making posts.

https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#Copy-and-Paste-Text

https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#Read-Log-and-Error-Messages

These is no downloading. Files are being generated. If you copy the message to the clipboard and then paste it into notepad or the forum to  read it, you will know where to find the newly created zip that could not be moved from the export folder to the output folder. Otherwise check the log for the zip creation message to find the file in the zip folder.

1 hour ago, DoubleYou said:

You have mentioned low drive space. I would recommend not using the zip option in that case. 

The messgae says a file is being used by another process.

[Rage]

So I finished that generation process, booted up the game with 120GBs of LOD Data, loaded outside a random place in Markarth and noticed my FPS was idling at 40 while sitting in one spot. Exited the game, disabled the plugins, did the same thing at the same spot and it went way back up to 90-100 FPS. This can't be the only solution to generating LODs... tanking 50-60 FPS just for LODs is absurd.

I did install the performance LODs, and I couldn't tell if it helped much but the LOD generation process did seem a bit faster. But my performance says otherwise.

9 hours ago, z929669 said:

Use the Performance LODs for AA in the FOMOD as mentioned. The result is not really any different for Level# tree LOD, the processing time and output size will be much reduced, and you will gain 10+ FPS in Riften. Those AA LOD do not support seasons though, so if you are running seasons, you may also be using seasonal AA LODs that I cannot speak to. Regardless, using the Performance LODs for the spring/summer/fall will definitely resolve most of it, since winter LOD crowns should not be as complex as the others. You will need to install the AA LODs for spring/summer/fall (and winter) as separate mods and possibly rename those models as seasons requires ... I don't run seasons and have no experience with them. Seasons will probably add to processing time though.

For these, yeah I am concerned for support on SoS. I believe Fabled Forests do have support for them in Seasons as it mentioned SoS support on the mod page using Turn of the Seasons. 

[Rage]

3 hours ago, z929669 said:

The AA Add-On lods mod has all of the performance LODs for all but the winter season, but I think Seasons requires that they be renamed to match expected strings for each season. If your performance is dropping that much, then you have other UN-optimized LODs in your mod list that could be attributed to one or more specific seasons. It's not a DynDOLOD problem or a problem that the AA Add-On should address. It's simply a matter of using mods that offer proper LOD models for use in object LOD. Even one tree that is not optimized can kill your performance if it is common.

Also, Aspens Ablaze has at least two trees that will kill performance in loaded cells irrespective of LOD, especially if you are using the larger trees AA option. The LODs are optimized though (except for winter LODs, which I cannot speak to).

I will have to look more into my LODs then, but I thought I had got all of the performance-based LOD options I could. Not sure what else could be causing it. I will share my full load order after this generation process.

On another note, I generated LODs using specifically the High preset and running just Tamriel with Seasons, and there was no negligible performance difference. This was with the same setup, but just the Tamriel worldspace.

[Rage]

So I just ran the LOD process again real quick, with Happy Little Trees this time, because IMO I think HLT looks better with less density now, but also disabled Grass LOD generation and only selected Tamriel. First process through LOD4 ran super quick. It is easily much faster than it was before. Seems that generating Grass LODs really causes it to bog down, so I am going to avoid grass LODs.