How to the select the relevant .bto LOD meshes for a modded object

[TommyH]

TL; DR... When I generate object LOD's in xLODGen64 for the Tamriel worldspace it creates a lot of .bto's. How can I now determine which .bto's are actually required to be bundled with my mod in order to make the modded object visible from a distance? It should be only a handful, perhaps up to 10 or so, object meshes I think?

***

So I have a simple mod that changes the shape of the Solitude Arch by adding and arranging more rocks. It now looks differently than it looks in the vanilla game. In order to make the new shape/appearence visible from afar, I want to include pre-generated LOD meshes to give the less demanding mod user a quick option to make the mod work when viewed from a distance.

I generated only object lods in xLODGen using a mininal modlist of only vanilla .ESM's, Unofficial Patch and my mod. I only selected the Tamriel worldspace. Generation ran quick and smooth, and the visual result in-game is quite satisfactory. But I do not want to bundle the whole 120MB+ of generated LOD files together with my mod, and I don't expect this to be even necessary.

In lack of better knowledge, I looked at some other mods that also include their own LOD meshes. Specifically, because they are in the area, I checked Drengin's Blue Palace Terrace and Solitude Docks Updated. These authors included only a few .bto's for their mod and that is apparently sufficient because in-game they look fine.

So how can I narrow down the .bto's that are actually relevant to my mod? I would believe there is a more targeted way than just trial-and-error guessing and looking for the same .bto's names as other mods have in the area? This is what I did and it even almost works but this cannot be right, no?

I would really appreciate some help or guidance or reference document on this. Many thanks for your great tools, sheson!

Edited April 29 by TommyH

[sheson]

22 minutes ago, TommyH said:

TL; DR... When I generate object LOD's in xLODGen64 for the Tamriel worldspace it creates a lot of .bto's. How can I now determine which .bto's are actually required to be bundled with my mod in order to make the modded object visible from a distance? It should be only a handful, perhaps up to 10 or so, object meshes I think?

***

So I have a simple mod that changes the shape of the Solitude arch by adding and arranging more rocks. It now looks differently than it looks in the vanilla game. In order to make the new shape/appearence visible from afar, I want to include pre-generated LOD meshes to give the less demanding mod user a quick option to make the mod work when viewed from a distance.

I generated object lods in xLODGen using a mininal modlist of only vanilla .ESM's, Unofficial Patch and my mod and only select the Tamriel worldspace. Generation ran smooth, and the visual result in-game is quite satisfactory. But I do not want to bundle the whole 120MB+ of generated LOD files together with my mod. That is not necessary.

I compared it to other mods that also include their own LOD meshes. Specifically, because they are in the area, I checked Drengis Blue Palace Terrace and Solitude Docks Updated. These authors included only a few .bto's for their mod and that is apparently sufficient because in-game they look fine.

So how can I narrow down the .bto's that are actually relevant to my mod? I would believe there is a more targeted way than just trial-and-error guessing and looking for the same .bto's names as other mods have in the area? This is what I did and it even almost works but this cannot be right, no?

I would really appreciate some help or guidance or reference document on this. Many thanks for your great tools, sheson!

if you generate DynDOLOD output, you can use the DynDOLOD SkyUI MCM - You Are Here page to see which BTO files cover the current location the player is in. https://dyndolod.info/Help/Mod-Configuration-Menu#You-Are-Here 

Alternatively, you can look up the coordinates for Tamriel on a map like this one https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/106448.

I suggest to not check "Build atlas" in xLODGen, so the generated BTOs use the vanilla atlas if possible and the single texture files if not.
If the "Build atlas" is checked, then there is the risk of conflicts with other mods including a different object atlas texture with their custom BTOs.

If more than one mod includes BTOs for the same area, the BTOs to load last will win and not include the LOD from the overwritten BTOs. Pre-made LOD only looks and works correctly for the same load order it was generated for. Pre-made LOD is only somewhat useful for console users that can not generate it for themselves.

[TommyH]

Thank you Sheson, this is really super helpful!

Yes, I am aware and understand the limitation that last .bto wins, same principle like normally with mods, no problem. But it seems there is still some demand for such simple LOD. I mean despite this limitation, nobody has yet complained that the LODs I provided do not work together with "xxx" mod. Fully understand that Dyndolod is the only good option for good results. In fact I am a long-time devoted user myself. Cheers and all the best!