The problem with 3DLOD pines of veidogolt trees

[Moogetsu]

Hello everyone. After generating 3DLODs for Veydogolt trees, the pines look very strange - the edges of the branches are very bright, and the branches closer to the trunk are almost black, while other trees from this mod do not have anything like this, only (as I managed to notice) almost all pines. Here is an example of what it looks like.
I tried changing the parameters for the trees in TexGen, I tried changing the brightness value with the parameters "CrownBrightness, TrunkBrightness and FlatTrunkBrightness". As a result, nothing has changed.
I am also attaching a report DynDOLOD_SSE_Tree_Export.txt and it seems like pine trees use textures that come with the mod (for 3D LOD trees). I will take this opportunity to say that I am using the latest version of DynDolod 3.0 v167. Can you recommend something else?

[sheson]

11 minutes ago, Moogetsu said:

Hello everyone. After generating 3DLODs for Veydogolt trees, the pines look very strange - the edges of the branches are very bright, and the branches closer to the trunk are almost black, while other trees from this mod do not have anything like this, only (as I managed to notice) almost all pines. Here is an example of what it looks like.
I tried changing the parameters for the trees in TexGen, I tried changing the brightness value with the parameters "CrownBrightness, TrunkBrightness and FlatTrunkBrightness". As a result, nothing has changed.
I am also attaching a report DynDOLOD_SSE_Tree_Export.txt and it seems like pine trees use textures that come with the mod (for 3D LOD trees). I will take this opportunity to say that I am using the latest version of DynDolod 3.0 v167. Can you recommend something else?

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

Read https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#In-Game-Screenshots how to make useful screenshots of LOD and the corresponding full model with more informative console.

Provide links to mod and the third party 3D LOD assets.

[Moogetsu]

14 hours ago, sheson said:

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

Read https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#In-Game-Screenshots how to make useful screenshots of LOD and the corresponding full model with more informative console.

Provide links to mod and the third party 3D LOD assets.

Sorry for the delay.

Veydogolt trees (LOD files are already included in it)

Logs from Dyndolod

Screenshots from the game

Edited February 24 by Moogetsu

[sheson]

On 2/24/2024 at 5:01 AM, Moogetsu said:

Sorry for the delay.

Veydogolt trees (LOD files are already included in it)

Logs from Dyndolod

Screenshots from the game

The difference happens because the normal map ..\textures\SpruceMedium02\sprucebranchcomp02_N.dds has no mipmaps. If you update the texture to have mipmaps, the full model will have similar lighting to the 3D LOD model.

I am testing some other solutions that keep the darker lighting between full and LOD model. But that will take some more time.

The 3D LOD model for this tree and some others are huge and should probably be replaced with ones made with Simplygon.

[Moogetsu]

On 2/27/2024 at 3:57 PM, sheson said:

The difference happens because the normal map ..\textures\SpruceMedium02\sprucebranchcomp02_N.dds has no mipmaps. If you update the texture to have mipmaps, the full model will have similar lighting to the 3D LOD model.

I am testing some other solutions that keep the darker lighting between full and LOD model. But that will take some more time.

The 3D LOD model for this tree and some others are huge and should probably be replaced with ones made with Simplygon.

Veydogolt released a Hotfix, but after generating the LOD, the result remained the same.

[sheson]

21 hours ago, Moogetsu said:

Veydogolt released a Hotfix, but after generating the LOD, the result remained the same.

The full textures having mipmaps added does not change the LOD, but the full model.

I am testing some other solutions that keep the darker lighting between full and LOD model. But that will take some more time.

[Moogetsu]

Can it be in inverted normals? (example)

[sheson]

42 minutes ago, Moogetsu said:

Can it be in inverted normals? (example)

It is not inverted normal map vectors.

I am testing some other solutions that keep the darker lighting between full and LOD model. But that will take some more time.

[Moogetsu]

Tell me, have you managed to recreate this higher brightness of the pine tree crowns?

[sheson]

On 3/21/2024 at 2:32 PM, Moogetsu said:

Tell me, have you managed to recreate this higher brightness of the pine tree crowns?

To have the full model and 3D tree LOD model match better, get DynDOLOD Alpha-168 and replace treepineforest05_6396FA85passthru_lod.nif in meshes\DynDOLOD\lod\trees\landscape\ of the Veydogolt mod. Then generate ultra tree LOD as usual.

[z929669]

1 hour ago, sheson said:

To have the full model and 3D tree LOD model match better, get DynDOLOD Alpha-168 and replace treepineforest05_6396FA85passthru_lod.nif in meshes\DynDOLOD\lod\trees\landscape\ of the Veydogolt mod. Then generate ultra tree LOD as usual.

So it appears you added a new 'NoAtlas' keyword to the object string. What's this tall DynDOLOD to (or not to) do?

So you were able to reproduce the brightness issue in your setup?

[sheson]

39 minutes ago, z929669 said:

So it appears you added a new 'NoAtlas' keyword to the object string. What's this tall DynDOLOD to (or not to) do?

https://dyndolod.info/Help/3D-Tree-LOD-Model#Shape-Names

[z929669]

4 hours ago, sheson said:

https://dyndolod.info/Help/3D-Tree-LOD-Model#Shape-Names

Thanks. Can you share what properties of the existing texture cause the need for this workaround? Is it due to the texture atlas proportions, mips or something else?

[DoubleYou]

2 hours ago, z929669 said:

Thanks. Can you share what properties of the existing texture cause the need for this workaround? Is it due to the texture atlas proportions, mips or something else?

Probably the most likely reason would be if you wanted to customize the texture in a special manner. Definitely wouldn't be something you would ever typically want to do, as you are defeating the largest reason why we use LOD versus full models: the draw call reduction. One reason I have practiced (outside of the DynDOLOD environment) is to allow a single pregenerated LOD file work for multiple different texture variants of the same model (e.g., green vs red) without having to force the user to regenerate LOD.

[z929669]

There's nothing special about the texture on it's face. It's a 4k atlas.

Another tree, treepineforestdead04 uses the same normal and a variant of the same diffuse. I wonder if this tree has the same problem as treepineforest03 and treepineforest05. It wasn't reported but possibly just never noticed.

I just want to know if the difference in LOD brightness is due to the texture or the model and what to do to fix it at the source rather than require a DynDOLOD shape flag and a taxing workaround. I cannot reproduce it, because my modding environment isn't situated for testing Veydogolt/DynDOLOD.

This is why I asked sheson if he was able to reproduce. I must assume so, but the question remains.

Solving the brightness issue is of interest in the short term, producing better optimized LOD models is of interest in the longer term, but beside the point.

[sheson]

11 hours ago, z929669 said:

Thanks. Can you share what properties of the existing texture cause the need for this workaround? Is it due to the texture atlas proportions, mips or something else?

It is the textures and their mipmaps with the max size on atlas being typically a couple steps smaller in this case causing a discrepancy "gap", that also happens with the original mipmaps being used on the atlas.

Since the 3D tree LOD model has a extremely high triangle count, like only 3 trees fit into a supershape, this simple solution should not change the amount of shapes/draw calls per LOD quad in this case.