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Dynamic Distant Objects LOD - pre 2.xx

sheson

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sheson Akatosh

sheson

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Dynamic Distant Objects LOD - DynDOLOD

 

Finally I can see my house from here

 

You know the price for my mods: blood, sweat and tears. Oh, and your first born.

If you want to help other authors of quality mods then donate to them directly.

For latest information and instructions see the DynDOLOD 2.18 UPDATE POST

What is this?

DynDOLOD is a set of tools based on TES5Edit and TES5LODGen to automatically create a Skyrim mod based on the load order which adds distant LOD for objects to Skyrim. By combining DynDOLOD with TES5LODGen users can create drastically enhanced traditional static LOD plus tree LOD and the new, optional dynamic distant object LOD in a few 'simple' steps.

DynDOLOD is meant for enthusiast modders who are familiar with using TES5Edit. Enthusiast modders have a general knowledge of computers, folders and files, especially Skyrims 'Data' folders and how to install mods safely with a manager or manually.

To fully expand the visual experience and use the additional features offered by TES5LODGen the DynDOLOD package comes with over 1000 new or updated LOD models for objects that were badly missing from the original game like the Skyhaven Temple or landscape features like roads, smaller rocks and dirt cliffs that simply make the distant landscape look much more natural and alive.

What does it do?

It makes Skyrim look like this

59721-1-1427159829.jpg59721-2-1427159829.jpg59721-1-1427289504.jpg59721-4-1427159830.jpg

59721-1-1427419467.jpg59721-2-1427419467.jpg59721-3-1427419468.jpg59721-4-1427419468.jpg

59721-1-1427465578.jpg59721-2-1427465579.jpg59721-3-1427465579.jpg59721-4-1427465579.jpg

59721-1-1427470182.jpg59721-2-1427470183.jpg59721-3-1427470183.jpg59721-4-1427470183.jpg

59721-1-1427470235.jpg59721-2-1427470235.jpg59721-3-1427470235.jpg59721-4-1427470236.jpg

 

Requirements

SKSE

PapyrusUtil 2.8 or higher

DynDOLOD Resources - Make sure to use DynDOLOD Resources version only with matching or higher DynDOLOD Standalone versions but never with older versions.

Vanilla Skyrim LOD Billboards from TES5LODGen or Indistinguishable Vanilla Tree Billboards. If using tree mods that do not include billboards, check TES5LODGen for ready-to-use tree LOD billboards for some tree mods. For STEP users all billboards are included in STEP Texture Compilation.

Download

Download standalone and resources from Nexus or use Mega links from the update post

There are quickstart instruction in the main folder. Also check the folder called 'docs' for additional information. See the update post for latest installation information and guides.

CC BY-NC-SA

=======================================================================

Updating DynDOLOD

=======================================================================

Read the update posts for each new version for version specific information and update instructions.

Also read the manual how to update an existing save game, watch the video or check DynDOLOD SkyUI MCM.

[spoiler=DynDOLOD-Changelog.txt]

=======================================================================

DynDOLOD - Dynamic Distant Objects LOD - Sheson

=======================================================================

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Credits

 

TES5Edit Team in general

 

Ehamloptiran and Zilav for TES5LODGen and LODGen for trees

 

Bethesda for the game, models and textures

 

NifTools

 

DynDOLOD includes LOD assets based on models and/or textures from:

 

Holy Cow I fixed Skyrim - Sheson

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sheson
sheson

Dynamic Distant Objects LOD - DynDOLOD   Finally I can see my house from here   You know the price for my mods: blood, sweat and tears. Oh, and your first born. If you want to

sheson
sheson

fBlockLevel0Distance - the distance when LOD8 starts, so everything before that is LOD4 fBlockLevel1Distance - the distance when LOD16 starts everything before that is LOD8 fBlockMaximumDistance - the

MontyMM
MontyMM

Yes, I think you probably did.   I just wanted to say thanks for the great work on the memory patch, and this mod also looks like another major improvment.   I shall make a blood sacrifice of a troll

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sheson Akatosh

sheson

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  On 3/11/2016 at 10:11 PM, Snakestone said:

Hey im back, sorry I had to take a small nap after trying all night with DyndoLOD. I wanted to ask Sheson, were do I put this beta 6 of LODGen? Cause I downloaded the xEdit that was released today. Also this came back: xWN6ZcQ.png

 

Here is the thing, im not doing anything. Im waiting for the LODs to finish and when it hits Japhet's Folly this always pops up when using version 1.47, is this gonna be harmful? Should I revert back to 1.46 and try that? Still running TES5Edit, hopefully the beta of GenLod can fix this like it did for cybex.

 

But seriously, were do I put the beta of LOD gen, its in two spots do I rename the exe to LODGen? Cause apparently the new xEdit came with one: O2bFQ3I.png

B4XmeRl.png

 

Im really sorry about all these questions.

There can only be one LODGen.exe running at a time. DynDOLOD Worlds.pas has to wait for it finish before starting a new one. This is a normal message as long as LODGen.exe is still working. If it never completes a world then something is wrong.

JaphetsFollyWorld should not take more than a couple minutes normally. If it is the only worldspace (besides Tamriel which easily takes over 10 minutes) that takes a long time to finish you might have mod expanding it?

 

Overwrite the existing ..\TES5Edit\Edit Scripts\LODGen.exe with the new one. That means renaming whatever the downloaded filename is to LODGen.exe.

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Snakestone Citizen

Snakestone

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  On 3/11/2016 at 11:29 PM, sheson said:

There can only be one LODGen.exe running at a time. DynDOLOD Worlds.pas has to wait for it finish before starting a new one. This is a normal message as long as LODGen.exe is still working. If it never completes a world then something is wrong.

JaphetsFollyWorld should not take more than a couple minutes normally. If it is the only worldspace (besides Tamriel which easily takes over 10 minutes) that takes a long time to finish you might have mod expanding it?

 

Overwrite the existing ..\TES5Edit\Edit Scripts\LODGen.exe with the new one. That means renaming whatever the downloaded filename is to LODGen.exe.

JaphetsFollyWorld is only taking this long with version 1.47, when I was using 1.46 I didnt have the pop up. Can I use 1.46 with this new LODGen and hopfully fix the black box issue?

 

Update: For some reason now almost every other world is getting that pop up like JaphetsFollyWorld. Im gonna end it and retry with version 1.46 while using the new beta LODGen, if it worked for 1.47 it should for 1.46

Edited by Snakestone
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FirstChildren Watcher

FirstChildren

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  On 3/11/2016 at 2:27 PM, sheson said:

Use this latest LODGen.exe. It should fix the black spots.

I was doing my first ever installation of DynDOLOD and was having the black spots on the map and on the distant world during gameplay.

I was about to post it. This new file fixed it ::):

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Snakestone Citizen

Snakestone

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Haha! Version 1.46 with the new LODGen worked! No more black boxes on the map or sploches on the lods.

One last question about this though, I nodded off for like 3 hours while running DyndoLOD, when I woke up it stopped and was asking for LODGen to run again, like it did with Follys worldspace, but this time I think it was for Beyond Reach. LODGen was done running, TES5Edit script I guess was just waiting, it should be fine right? The world lod should have loaded? Id hate to run this again after I finally got it to work. Is there away to check my files to see if all the lods loaded? Cause honestly I dont know what worldspace it asked me to proceed with LODGen, TES5Edit was full of the usual messages when doing DyndoLOD and I couldn't scroll up, and it was like 3 hours later since I nodded off. I just know it wasnt Folly this time.

Edited by Snakestone
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sheson Akatosh

sheson

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  On 3/12/2016 at 9:57 AM, Snakestone said:

Haha! Version 1.46 with the new LODGen worked! No more black boxes on the map or sploches on the lods.

 

One last question about this though, I nodded off for like 3 hours while running DyndoLOD, when I woke up it stopped and was asking for LODGen to run again, like it did with Follys worldspace, but this time I think it was for Beyond Reach. LODGen was done running, TES5Edit script I guess was just waiting, it should be fine right? The world lod should have loaded? Id hate to run this again after I finally got it to work. Is there away to check my files to see if all the lods loaded? Cause honestly I dont know what worldspace it asked me to proceed with LODGen, TES5Edit was full of the usual messages when doing DyndoLOD and I couldn't scroll up, and it was like 3 hours later since I nodded off. I just know it wasnt Folly this time.

The black spots are unrelated to the DynDOLOD version. It was the LODGen.exe version included in the March 9 xEdit. Which has now has been updated as well.

 

There can only be one LODGen.exe running at a time. DynDOLOD Worlds.pas has to wait for it finish before starting a new one. This is a normal message as long as LODGen.exe is still working.

If it finishes on its own everything is fine. Clicking OK signals DynDOLOD Worlds.pas is is OK to start  to start generating the next worldspace.

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some_random_guy Noble

some_random_guy

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Posted (edited)
  On 3/10/2016 at 7:04 PM, sheson said:

The UV of a mesh needs to be 0.0 < u, v < 1.0 +/- AtlasTolerance (fixed value for DynDOLOD because I fixed all vanilla meshes that had broken UV) for its texture to be considered for the atlas.

 

Atlas textures can not tile. If 0.0 - tolerance < UV < 1.0 + tolerance, LODGen.exe will limit the UV to the atlas slot so it does not bleed into adjacent textures. If the UV of a shape is beyond that, LODGen.exe will not merge that shape with the other shapes in the atlas and keep it separate.

 

Vanilla LOD intentionally keeps mountainslap02 separated and uses the full texture. It can then also use tiling. That's fine because it used everywhere so you still end up with large merged meshed. It is fine if used here and there. If used a lot for lots of different textures, you will notice increased draw calls.

 

DynDOLOD will never add mountainslab01.dds or mountainslab02.dds to the atlas even if there are meshes that could use it. There are always mountain meshes that tile. There is no gain in having half the mountains use a (likely lowres) atlas texture and the other half use the full texture. So all mountains always use the full single textures.

 

Spent a few hours today going through every mountain mesh and textures, adding new ones, resizing them in gimp to make exact copies of them for lod_1 (512x512) and lod_2 (256x256) and applying these textures to every lod mesh for these mountains, finally even the most distant mountain lods match my actual mesh textures.

 

Saying that i'm happy with the result is quite an understatement !  

 

https://imgur.com/XB00WjX

 

Thank you very much for your hard work Sheson and i appreciate all the support that you provide to your users on here !

Edited by some_random_guy
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sheson Akatosh

sheson

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Posted (edited)
  On 3/12/2016 at 10:55 AM, some_random_guy said:

Spent a few hours today going through every mountain mesh and textures, adding new ones, resizing them in gimp to make exact copies of them for lod_1 (512x512) and lod_2 (256x256) and applying these textures to every lod mesh for these mountains, finally even the most distant mountain lods match my actual mesh textures.

 

Saying that i'm happy with the result is quite an understatement !

 

https://imgur.com/XB00WjX

 

Thank you very much for your hard work Sheson and i appreciate all the support that you provide to your users on here !

Looking good. Is there a mod coming out of this?

 

 

  On 3/12/2016 at 11:23 AM, some_random_guy said:

The only thing i need to do now, is find a mod that removes the snow effect from mountains to enjoy these lods in all their glory !

You can instruct LODGen.exe to ignore material when generating LOD by adding ignoreMaterial=True to the top of the export file before clicking "Excuting LODGen.exe" from expert mode.

That would remove the snow LOD shader from LOD, but then full models with still have the snow shader. Removing the snow material from the base records of these mountains would be the thing to do. Then generate LOD again.

Edited by sheson
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skyless_kingdom Watcher

skyless_kingdom

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Posted (edited)

Hi, is it possible that after the installation of this mod i can get random fps drops down to 7-10?

Load on videocard falls down to 50-60%, and if i turn to the other side, it returnes back to 99%.

I have a pretty heavy setup, but this never happened before DynDoLod.

 

v0hc3yV.jpg

96%

 

OzP3Iwb.jpg49%

Edited by skyless_kingdom
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some_random_guy Noble

some_random_guy

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  Quote
Looking good. Is there a mod coming out of this?

 

 

Would be quite a stretch to call this thing a mod, but i'll happily supply the assets for people who don't mind using my mountain textures after i'm finished with them.

 

 

  On 3/12/2016 at 12:14 PM, sheson said:

Looking good. Is there a mod coming out of this?

 

 

You can instruct LODGen.exe to ignore material when generating LOD by adding ignoreMaterial=True to the top of the export file before clicking "Excuting LODGen.exe" from expert mode.

That would remove the snow LOD shader from LOD, but then full models with still have the snow shader. Removing the snow material from the base records of these mountains would be the thing to do. Then generate LOD again.

 

Thanks for the idea, 

 

What I have also tried to do now, is replace lod_0 meshes with what used to be lod_1 meshes and apply the original fullsize mountainslab01 and mountainslab02 textures to them to quickly make a performance set of lods that still looked decent. And while the generated .bto files can be viewed in NifSkope and seem to be perfect, the game renderer just fully covers them with snow and from what I understand, this is the snow object shader at work, seems like the snow shader that's being applied to lod_0 objects is following the UV-map of the original mesh, so the UV_map of lod_0 must be set exactly as it is on the original mesh, but the UV-map of lod_1 file's that i've set as lod_0's is quite different and doesn't share the pattern.

 

So it looks like removing the snow material from the base records will set everything right, but i'm wondering if there's also a way to make them work with the snow shader ? As far as i can tell there really isn't a way to copy over the UV-map from the lod_o to lod_1, so what options does that leave me with ? I know we are moving slightly away from the DynDoLod topic, but if you have any insight i'd appreciate it.

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sheson Akatosh

sheson

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  On 3/12/2016 at 12:23 PM, skyless_kingdom said:

Hi, is it possible that after the installation of this mod i can get random fps drops down to 7-10?

It is not possible that after the installation of this mod there are random fps drops.

 

  On 3/12/2016 at 2:04 PM, some_random_guy said:

Would be quite a stretch to call this thing a mod, but i'll happily supply the assets for people who don't mind using my mountain textures after i'm finished with them.

 

Thanks for the idea, 

 

What I have also tried to do now, is replace lod_0 meshes with what used to be lod_1 meshes and apply the original fullsize mountainslab01 and mountainslab02 textures to them to quickly make a performance set of lods that still looked decent. And while the generated .bto files can be viewed in NifSkope and seem to be perfect, the game renderer just fully covers them with snow and from what I understand, this is the snow object shader at work, seems like the snow shader that's being applied to lod_0 objects is following the UV-map of the original mesh, so the UV_map of lod_0 must be set exactly as it is on the original mesh, but the UV-map of lod_1 file's that i've set as lod_0's is quite different and doesn't share the pattern.

 

So it looks like removing the snow material from the base records will set everything right, but i'm wondering if there's also a way to make them work with the snow shader ? As far as i can tell there really isn't a way to copy over the UV-map from the lod_o to lod_1, so what options does that leave me with ? I know we are moving slightly away from the DynDoLod topic, but if you have any insight i'd appreciate it.

The snow shaders use the normal map _n.dds. The HD LOD snow shader also uses the vertex color alpha channel for something.

In nifkope you will notice the shapes are named objSnow and objSnowHD. The name containing "snow" activates the snow shader, while the Shader Flag 2 "SLSF2_LOD_Objects" / "SLSF2_HD_LOD_Objects" defines if it is the LOD shader or the HD LOD shader.

 

Which LOD mesh gets the HD flag is a little bit twisted and an essay in itself. You may notice the Is HD LOD flag on base records, with a combination of  "h.nif' in the filename, and the LOD model using a full textures. The export file defines a couple mesh mask in that regard.

Edited by sheson
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champions123 Watcher

champions123

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Posted (edited)

Hi, thank a lot of your mod :D
Unfortunately for me, I ran into some issues with it. I have read FAQs but it seems my issue is not there, it would be great if you can give me some advice :D

I don't know why but Dyndolod seems to remove the fan/sail of the mills... I mean there are LODs of the fan/sail at first, but when I get up close, they disappear. I can't pin point the cause of the issue, I made sure that I followed the instruction... 
Hope that you can give me some advice :D
Thanks a lot!

Edited by champions123
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sheson Akatosh

sheson

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  On 3/12/2016 at 2:54 PM, champions123 said:

Hi, thank a lot of your mod :D

Unfortunately for me, I ran into some issues with it. I have read FAQs but it seems my issue is not there, it would be great if you can give me some advice :D

 

I don't know why but Dyndolod seems to remove the fan/sail of the mills... I can't pin point the cause of the issue, I made sure that I followed the instruction... 

Hope that you can give me some advice :D

Thanks a lot!

Verify that DynDOLOD activates successfully.

Edited by sheson
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champions123 Watcher

champions123

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  On 3/12/2016 at 2:58 PM, sheson said:

Verify that DynDOLOD activates successfully.

I made sure it does.

There are LODs of the fans/sails at first, but when I get up close, they disappear.

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sheson Akatosh

sheson

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  On 3/12/2016 at 3:22 PM, champions123 said:

I made sure it does.

There are LODs of the fans/sails at first, but when I get up close, they disappear.

SkyMills / SMIM or any other mod modifying the windmills fans? Check the compatibility list.

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