Adjusting meshes for LODs

[Soulmancer]

I am looking to adjust ClefJ's Winterhold meshes, as they lack LOD support.  I am using Nifskope and following this documentation.

https://wiki.beyondskyrim.org/wiki/Arcane_University:LOD_Model_Creation

1.) On each TriShape, should 'alpha property' be set to (None)?

2.) Should any Shader Flags be specifically disabled or does it not really matter? I know LODs don't support specular, so should that flag and any others be disabled manually?

3.) Simplify / Decimate should be the last step?

4.) In the instance where UV is not an appropriate range, what can be done and what are the implications of not 1x1 ranging the UV to be used in the atlas?  Because in the case of these meshes, the UV is often way off the center.  IMG  That would obviously require significant stretching/squishing.   

5.) Should all LODs be in an LOD folder that is contained in the folder of the meshes you are trying to LOD?  like /meshes/clefj/ "contains normal meshes"  the lod meshes should go in /meshes/clefJ/lod/ ?

 

 

 

 

[sheson]

11 hours ago, Soulmancer said:

I am looking to adjust ClefJ's Winterhold meshes, as they lack LOD support.  I am using Nifskope and following this documentation.

https://wiki.beyondskyrim.org/wiki/Arcane_University:LOD_Model_Creation

1.) On each TriShape, should 'alpha property' be set to (None)?

2.) Should any Shader Flags be specifically disabled or does it not really matter? I know LODs don't support specular, so should that flag and any others be disabled manually?

3.) Simplify / Decimate should be the last step?

4.) In the instance where UV is not an appropriate range, what can be done and what are the implications of not 1x1 ranging the UV to be used in the atlas?  Because in the case of these meshes, the UV is often way off the center.  IMG  That would obviously require significant stretching/squishing.   

5.) Should all LODs be in an LOD folder that is contained in the folder of the meshes you are trying to LOD?  like /meshes/clefj/ "contains normal meshes"  the lod meshes should go in /meshes/clefJ/lod/ ?

I suggest to look at  similar LOD models included in DynDOLOD Resources for examples.

1) If a shape has an alpha property typically check Enable Testing, function to Greater, threshold to 128 so the LOD model works properly in editors and if used directly.

2) Typically set the same flags as in the LOD models included in DynDOLOD Resources.

3) If I decimate an existing full model, I typically its optimize UV first as much as possible, then optimize the full model mesh before decimation.

4) https://dyndolod.info/Mod-Authors: Make sure you understand that UV should be able to be atlassed (e.g. use textures from the object LOD texture atlas) by making sure the source UV is inside 0.0 and 1.0 coordinates for rendered object LOD textures and their scaled equivalent for stitched object LOD textures. That means the UV of the actual LOD model can also be inside 0.0 and 2.0 if there is a TexGen config file for the used full texture to create a 2x2 stitched object LOD texture.
If the UV of a LOD model defines full texture for which TexGen configs for stitching exists, their  UV can be greater than 1.0. In any case, it is suggested to always have positive UV coordinates near 0.0 and 1.0 as much as possible. There is no reason to stretch/squish UV instead of editing it properly. Typically, for performance it is more important to make sure UV can be atlassed than having a few more triangles that might be required in order to be able to split the UV for large.

5) https://dyndolod.info/Mod-Authors: When adding new object LOD models, it obviously makes sense to keep adhering to existing file and folder conventions established by Bethesda and sort LOD meshes under meshes\lod\[MOD NAME|OBJECT TYPE] or meshes\[NEW WORLD MOD NAME]\lod\[OBJECT TYPE].

[Soulmancer]

Thank you!  This is good information

I am trying to create LOD meshes for a bunch of ClefJ's skyrim mods (Dawnguard, Dragon Bridge, Karthwasten, and Winterhold) This ones lack lod meshes, but are not the best meshes to work with as many are poorly optimized with excessive vertices counts and UV ranges that are all over the place.  I seem to get more FPS drop issues in his modified locations than anywhere else.