Snowy Pine billboards look terrible, can't figure out why

[jmeyer73]

https://streamable.com/2nbbds

I'm using happy little trees with the dyndolod addon. Using these mesh settings. I tried changing the billboard brightness setting, but it doesn't help. I'm at a loss at this point so anything helps. I generated on a vanilla setup and I have the same problem there so it isn't a conflict.

[sheson]

47 minutes ago, jmeyer73 said:

https://streamable.com/2nbbds

I'm using happy little trees with the dyndolod addon. Using these mesh settings. I tried changing the billboard brightness setting, but it doesn't help. I'm at a loss at this point so anything helps. I generated on a vanilla setup and I have the same problem there so it isn't a conflict.

Do not post videos of Games Of Thrones Seasons 8 Episode 3 "The Long Night"

Read https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#Post-Logs which TexGen and DynDOLOD log and debug log to upload when making posts.
Also upload ..\DynDOLOD\Logs\DynDOLOD_SSE_Object_Report.txt
Do not post screenshots of the tools, unless it is about visual issues with the user interface. The used settings and options are typically documented in the debug log already.

Provide useful screenshots of the full model and the LOD area as explained in https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#In-Game-Screenshots
When making screenshots in the game, make them in broad daylight. Use console command 'sw 15e' to change to the default weather or 'sw 81a' for sunny weather.

https://dyndolod.info/FAQ#Billboard-tree-LOD-does-not-match-close-up-full-model-trees
Hover, you are presumably generating ultra tree LOD with 3D tree LOD models, so the LOD tree might not be a tree LOD billboard.

[jmeyer73]

https://ufile.io/whomckgr

Here are my logs. I don't know what you mean by Game of Thrones. I'm not sure what you want me to take a screenshot of. Also, I forgot to mention, it looks a lot worse at night. During the day the difference in brightness isn't as noticeable. If I enable my weather mod NAT it becomes more noticeable since there is less distant fog to obscure it.

Thank you for the help, I'm sorry if this is a stupid question.

Edited August 10, 2024 by jmeyer73

[sheson]

3 hours ago, jmeyer73 said:

https://ufile.io/whomckgr

Here are my logs. I don't know what you mean by Game of Thrones. I'm not sure what you want me to take a screenshot of. Also, I forgot to mention, it looks a lot worse at night. During the day the difference in brightness isn't as noticeable. If I enable my weather mod NAT it becomes more noticeable since there is less distant fog to obscure it.

Thank you for the help, I'm sorry if this is a stupid question.

Read this entire section https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#In-Game-Screenshots, in particular:
Do not waste time making videos of things that can be explained in a couple sentences or to provide information that a screenshot provides more easily as explained below. Nobody has time to watch minutes of shaky videos with bad lighting just to find the couple frames that have the required information.
When making screenshots in the game, make them in broad daylight. Use console command 'sw 15e' to change to the default weather or 'sw 81a' for sunny weather.
To get closer to LOD, toggle to the free fly camera with tfc in console. 
If making screenshots of the LOD area, also make screenshots of the close-up object or full model for comparison.
When making screenshots of full models, open console and click the object in question to show its reference form ID. Note that multi pass snow shaders can prevent full models from being selected. Temporarily disable any mod that prevents getting the form ID of full models in case getting the information is not possible otherwise.
Use Mfg Console or More Informative Console to show additional information when opening the console and clicking an object.

There is nothing to see in the video. Useful information like the tree reference and/or base record are needed in order to troubleshoot its LOD. That information is shown when opening console and clicking the full model. That is a useful screenshot.

[z929669]

5 hours ago, jmeyer73 said:

https://streamable.com/2nbbds

I'm using happy little trees with the dyndolod addon. Using these mesh settings. I tried changing the billboard brightness setting, but it doesn't help. I'm at a loss at this point so anything helps. I generated on a vanilla setup and I have the same problem there so it isn't a conflict.

As mentioned, these look like 3D tree LOD, not Billboard# LOD.

There's two versions of the tree LOD in the Add-On: 'Performance' has T4's optimized crowns, and 'Optimal' has the same crowns as the full models. Try the latter if you are using the former.

[jmeyer73]

10 hours ago, z929669 said:

As mentioned, these look like 3D tree LOD, not Billboard# LOD.

There's two versions of the tree LOD in the Add-On: 'Performance' has T4's optimized crowns, and 'Optimal' has the same crowns as the full models. Try the latter if you are using the former.

I switched between them and they still don't match

13 hours ago, sheson said:

Read this entire section https://dyndolod.info/Official-DynDOLOD-Support-Forum#In-Game-Screenshots, in particular:
Do not waste time making videos of things that can be explained in a couple sentences or to provide information that a screenshot provides more easily as explained below. Nobody has time to watch minutes of shaky videos with bad lighting just to find the couple frames that have the required information.
When making screenshots in the game, make them in broad daylight. Use console command 'sw 15e' to change to the default weather or 'sw 81a' for sunny weather.
To get closer to LOD, toggle to the free fly camera with tfc in console. 
If making screenshots of the LOD area, also make screenshots of the close-up object or full model for comparison.
When making screenshots of full models, open console and click the object in question to show its reference form ID. Note that multi pass snow shaders can prevent full models from being selected. Temporarily disable any mod that prevents getting the form ID of full models in case getting the information is not possible otherwise.
Use Mfg Console or More Informative Console to show additional information when opening the console and clicking an object.

There is nothing to see in the video. Useful information like the tree reference and/or base record are needed in order to troubleshoot its LOD. That information is shown when opening console and clicking the full model. That is a useful screenshot.

I can't click on them in the console. I don't have any mod that is preventing me from clicking on them. Is there an ini setting I need to change to be able to do so? 

All I could do it take screenshots during the night and during the day It looks to me like the left is level0 and the right is billboard4. Something is wrong with the contrast I think, but I don't know much about these things. Thank you for your patience.

P.S. I have used your mod for many, many years. I don't see a way to donate to you. Do you take donations?

Edited August 10, 2024 by jmeyer73

[sheson]

8 hours ago, jmeyer73 said:

I switched between them and they still don't match

I can't click on them in the console. I don't have any mod that is preventing me from clicking on them. Is there an ini setting I need to change to be able to do so? 

All I could do it take screenshots during the night and during the day It looks to me like the left is level0 and the right is billboard4. Something is wrong with the contrast I think, but I don't know much about these things. Thank you for your patience.

P.S. I have used your mod for many, many years. I don't see a way to donate to you. Do you take donations?

You can not click on LOD in order to select it.
You need to go close with the player character so the full model shows, and then open console and click it. Then make a screenshot.

See https://ko-fi.com/sheson. Any donation is appreciated.

[jmeyer73]

On 8/10/2024 at 11:45 PM, sheson said:

You can not click on LOD in order to select it.
You need to go close with the player character so the full model shows, and then open console and click it. Then make a screenshot.

See https://ko-fi.com/sheson. Any donation is appreciated.

Sorry about the long wait. I was wrong about it just being the snowy trees, it is actually all of them

But here are screenshots with the console open in case they are helpful:

https://imgur.com/a/eIDWS4s

[z929669]

8 minutes ago, jmeyer73 said:

Sorry about the long wait. I was wrong about it just being the snowy trees, it is actually all of them

But here are screenshots with the console open in case they are helpful:

https://imgur.com/a/eIDWS4s

What exactly is the problem? I don't see anything that "look terrible" here. I see trees in the foreground and in the distance. Both look fine to me, so you will need to indicate examples with arrows or circles where a full-loaded tree looks good and it's LOD-unloaded version looks 'terrible'.

It's unclear where full trees end and LOD trees begin (and that's good, because that's the point of LOD). You can toggle LOD using tll console command and also take a screenshot of that when you get a panoramic screenshot of the so-called problem.

DynDOLOD is finding the LOD model and billboards created by TexGen. Based on your mesh rules, LOD4 trees will look like full trees, whileLOD8/16 trees that should be quite far from the player will be flat projections of billboards that should look fine if your [Terrainmanager] settings are reasonably distant like this:

[TerrainManager]
bShowLODInEditor=1
fBlockLevel0Distance=57344.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=147456.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=327680.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.0000
fTreeLoadDistance=0.0000

Using a program like BethINI will ensure that your game INI settings are reasonable.

 

The LOD crowns of HLT 'Quality' version are the same exact crowns as the full trees, so they DO match, and this can be proven.

The screenshots on the mod page demonstrate this.

[sheson]

3 hours ago, jmeyer73 said:

Sorry about the long wait. I was wrong about it just being the snowy trees, it is actually all of them

But here are screenshots with the console open in case they are helpful:

https://imgur.com/a/eIDWS4s

Can you also post a screenshot of the DynDOLOD SkyUI MCM Settings page? https://dyndolod.info/Help/Mod-Configuration-Menu-NG#Settings

[jmeyer73]

16 hours ago, sheson said:

Can you also post a screenshot of the DynDOLOD SkyUI MCM Settings page? https://dyndolod.info/Help/Mod-Configuration-Menu-NG#Settings

 

18 hours ago, z929669 said:

What exactly is the problem? I don't see anything that "look terrible" here. I see trees in the foreground and in the distance. Both look fine to me, so you will need to indicate examples with arrows or circles where a full-loaded tree looks good and it's LOD-unloaded version looks 'terrible'.

It's unclear where full trees end and LOD trees begin (and that's good, because that's the point of LOD). You can toggle LOD using tll console command and also take a screenshot of that when you get a panoramic screenshot of the so-called problem.

DynDOLOD is finding the LOD model and billboards created by TexGen. Based on your mesh rules, LOD4 trees will look like full trees, whileLOD8/16 trees that should be quite far from the player will be flat projections of billboards that should look fine if your [Terrainmanager] settings are reasonably distant like this:

[TerrainManager]
bShowLODInEditor=1
fBlockLevel0Distance=57344.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=147456.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=327680.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.0000
fTreeLoadDistance=0.0000

Using a program like BethINI will ensure that your game INI settings are reasonable.

 

The LOD crowns of HLT 'Quality' version are the same exact crowns as the full trees, so they DO match, and this can be proven.

The screenshots on the mod page demonstrate this.

The problem should be quite obvious. The trees on the right are significantly darker than the ones on the left. 

[z929669]

59 minutes ago, jmeyer73 said:

The problem should be quite obvious. The trees on the right are significantly darker than the ones on the left. 

That is lighting. Those trees are in a valley. The game lighting at ToD extremes is notoriously wonky. It looks like you took that screen in late ToD rather than at noon.

Post a screen of this location at noon.

You can also increase Ambient for HD tree in TexGen if they are still too dark at around midday.

Lastly, fTreeLoadDistance can be (and probably should be) at zero when using DynDOLOD for trees.

[jmeyer73]

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

That is lighting. Those trees are in a valley. The game lighting at ToD extremes is notoriously wonky. It looks like you took that screen in late ToD rather than at noon.

Post a screen of this location at noon.

You can also increase Ambient for HD tree in TexGen if they are still too dark at around midday.

Lastly, fTreeLoadDistance can be (and probably should be) at zero when using DynDOLOD for trees.

They are still a little bit dark during midday but not really noticeable. They are also noticeably darker at night. If I increase the brightness they become better during night but are horribly bright during the day. 

[z929669]

33 minutes ago, jmeyer73 said:

They are still a little bit dark during midday but not really noticeable. They are also noticeably darker at night. If I increase the brightness they become better during night but are horribly bright during the day. 

If you regenerate TexGen with higher HD tree Ambient, it's not the same as changing the DynDOLOD brightness setting in the GUI. Then regenerate DynDOLOD. It typically takes 3 or more regenerations to zero in on the best values for your build. Weather mods and ENB are added variables, so no one size fits all. For example, these values work well for the Step SSE build (Cathedral Weathers and EVT), and they are different from the vanilla default preset.

It has an impact on the result. Direct is the brightness of direct lighting (like on the trees at left if they are LOD, which we don't know), while Ambient is the overall brightness with diffuse lighting (like the trees in the valley, which are probably LOD, but maybe LOD8 Billboard4). You need brighter trees in shadows during the day, so increasing Ambient will do that.

[sheson]

6 hours ago, jmeyer73 said:

The problem should be quite obvious. The trees on the right are significantly darker than the ones on the left. 

Assuming the red line separates full models from LOD. The darker LOD trees go away with tll in console, while the bright full model trees in the foreground remain. If that is not the case, report that and ignore below.

You seem to be using the Happy Little Trees 3D LOD - Performance version for the first LOD level 4.
The brightness of the crowns can not be increased by any settings in TexGen or DynDOLOD. You would have to edit the NIFs or the diffuse textures as reported by DynDOLOD_SSE_Object_Report.txt for them directly.

For example:
TreePineForest05 [TREE:00051126] Meshes\landscape\trees\treepineforest05.nif [CRC32:187F28FC] using textures\landscape\trees\northern hemispheres\pineatlas.dds, textures\landscape\trees\northern hemispheres\pineatlas_n.dds, textures\landscape\trees\northern hemispheres\pinebark.dds, textures\landscape\trees\northern hemispheres\pinebark_n.dds 
    Level0: meshes\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fcpassthru_lod.nif [CRC32:B6E863C7] using textures\lod\happylittletrees\pineforest05.dds, textures\lod\happylittletrees\pineforest05_n.dds, textures\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fc_trunk_1.dds, textures\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fc_trunk_1_n.dds, textures\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fc_trunk_2.dds, textures\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fc_trunk_2_n.dds
 

Maybe test the Happy Little Trees 3D LOD - Quality version. If they are used, you can change increase the crown brightness via an INI setting https://dyndolod.info/Help/Ultra-Tree-LOD#3D-Tree-LOD-Brightness. This setting can only make be used to make the crowns of the performance version darker.

[z929669]

7 hours ago, sheson said:

Assuming the red line separates full models from LOD. The darker LOD trees go away with tll in console, while the bright full model trees in the foreground remain. If that is not the case, report that and ignore below.

You seem to be using the Happy Little Trees 3D LOD - Performance version for the first LOD level 4.
The brightness of the crowns can not be increased by any settings in TexGen or DynDOLOD. You would have to edit the NIFs or the diffuse textures as reported by DynDOLOD_SSE_Object_Report.txt for them directly.

For example:
TreePineForest05 [TREE:00051126] Meshes\landscape\trees\treepineforest05.nif [CRC32:187F28FC] using textures\landscape\trees\northern hemispheres\pineatlas.dds, textures\landscape\trees\northern hemispheres\pineatlas_n.dds, textures\landscape\trees\northern hemispheres\pinebark.dds, textures\landscape\trees\northern hemispheres\pinebark_n.dds 
    Level0: meshes\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fcpassthru_lod.nif [CRC32:B6E863C7] using textures\lod\happylittletrees\pineforest05.dds, textures\lod\happylittletrees\pineforest05_n.dds, textures\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fc_trunk_1.dds, textures\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fc_trunk_1_n.dds, textures\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fc_trunk_2.dds, textures\dyndolod\lod\trees\treepineforest05_187f28fc_trunk_2_n.dds
 

Maybe test the Happy Little Trees 3D LOD - Quality version. If they are used, you can change increase the crown brightness via an INI setting https://dyndolod.info/Help/Ultra-Tree-LOD#3D-Tree-LOD-Brightness. This setting can only make be used to make the crowns of the performance version darker.

I can confirm [CRC32:B6E863C7] is from the Performance version of HLT treepineforest05, because the Quality version CRC is different. T4 created the Performance crowns directly from the LOD models of the Quality version.

Is the difference in being able to control their brightness by DynDOLOD/TexGen due to the different clamp mode and UV?

We still don't know what LOD is or not, since no screens with/wo tll have been provided.