Landscape Texture Transition Fix (by JmV)

[TehKaoZ]

Post Arthmoor made on the thread

 

 

If this mod is editing landscape that HF is trying to alter, then yes, it would cause a major incompatibility if it's allowed to load after the DLC. You'd end up with the vanilla land height and texture painting underneath all 3 of the houses.

Care is going to need to be taken for any landscape edits Dawnguard may be doing as well.

This kind of thing is why we don't include landscape edits with the unofficial patches. The nature of LAND records in the game is that they're one large single entity. Changing the texture painting also causes the game to override the land height and normals data as well since it's all stored in one giant record instead of broken up into individual chunks. When mods then come along and edit landscape near a cell that's been fixed, you can end up with tearing along the borders which then requires compatibility patching to fix. It's kind of a huge nightmare. Always has been ever since Morrowind.

[TechAngel85]

Sounds like something we might want to stay away from as well. Though I'll admit that I'm not familiar with how the game works in the way Arthmoor is describing.

[TechAngel85]

In light of Arthmoor's quote, I think we should probably not mess with this one for STEP and drop it from Testing. Thoughts?

[hishutup]

I think its fine as long as its loaded early, any mod that modifies the landscape will override it.

A DLC version is probably going to exist in the future

[EssArrBee]

I was using this earlier today and could tell right away all that missing after I removed it. It is sad that there may be a problem with this mod because it really improves the terrain.

[CJ2311]

I think its fine as long as its loaded early, any mod that modifies the landscape will override it.

A DLC version is probably going to exist in the future

Even if it's loaded early, it still can cause problems, for instance it will cause texture mismatches and height inconsistences in the cell border if a quest/player home/location mod affects the terrain in one of the areas modified by this mod.

[TechAngel85]

I was using this earlier today and could tell right away all that missing after I removed it. It is sad that there may be a problem with this mod because it really improves the terrain.

Could you expand upon this?

 

Even if it's loaded early, it still can cause problems, for instance it will cause texture mismatches and height inconsistences in the cell border if a quest/player home/location mod affects the terrain in one of the areas modified by this mod.

This is why I'm voting to drop it. From Arthmoor's description, it will cause a lot of issues unless there are compatibility patches made and being the mod is in its infancy, patches are not going to come anytime soon. I think it best we wait to see how this mod develops.

[EssArrBee]

There are tons of terrain mesh errors where the textures come together. I didn't notice any with the mod installed and I noticed a ton without right away. Just go around Whiterun and look at the errors around the farms.

[TechAngel85]

What's the verdict on this? It still sounds a bit of a scary mod to be adding to STEP.

[hishutup]

I havent found any issues when its loaded before HF and I used various landscape altering mods.

[TechAngel85]

Does it add anything to save files or have you not checked?

[hishutup]

It should only contains LAND records and those are temporary.

There is however, one harmless ITM but the plugin is loaded so early, its not even worth cleaning.

[TechAngel85]

If this doesn't bake anything into the saves, we can install this for a release and seen if any issues arise from it. Mods like this are hard to test until you have a large pool of users actually using the mod. If issues arise, we would be able to drop it without causing issues to users save games.

[EssArrBee]

I didn't notice any issues. The problems that can arise are pretty well documented, but that doesn't mean it will happen. 

[TechAngel85]

There are conflicts for sure with Hearthfire, Cutting Room Floor, and Hearthfire Extended. Not sure what should be forwarded and what shouldn't be.