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A modest approach to distant viewable objects, aka VWD. You're all familiar with the various VWD packages, right? Some provide more than others. Some ar geared specifically toward super-high end machines. One isn't even designed to be played and will cripple anything currently on the market today. For the rest of us, myself included, we'd just like to enhance the visual experience without crippling the game. None of the available packages has been fully optimized, usually with large amounts of unnecessary data still attached. In order to address these issues, I've decided to compile into one source as many useful VWD objects as can be reasonably applied to the game from the following sources: AEVWD Large: Enhanced lowres textures. UOMP: Battlehorn Castle (requires the official DLC to be activated). Oblivion: City wall meshes only. Brumbek: VWD illuminated windows, optimized lowres texture pack, optional QTP3 lowres texture pack, as well as several mesh and texture fixes. Me: Machine regenerated all architecture, Ayleid ruin, and Imperial fort meshes for better quality and lower polygon counts. UOP corrected versions were used for the reductions wherever possible. The overall goal is to provide enhanced VWD visuals while also trying to preserve performance as much as possible. This all stems from my realization that even with a high end graphics card, full detail VWD meshes and textures are simply out of the question. The VRAM usage is causing large amounts of stuttering when trying to swap out the memory and not even Streamline 3.1 can keep up. This package has brought the VRAM usage under control and has had a huge impact on overall lag and stuttering. All of the meshes have been checked and had the following done: * Collision data removed. If actual collision grids were still present, the branches have been deleted entirely. It's impossible to collide with a VWD object. * Animation controllers removed. It is impossible to animate a VWD object, so this data is bloat. * Geometry morphers removed. If a mesh had these, they've been removed, as they are only useful in animation. * All NiStringsExtraData blocks removed. These are nearly always associated with collision. * All BSX Flags removed. These are nearly always used for collision and animation. * All NiSpecularProperty blocks removed. Leaving these in place causes visual anomalies, most notably the "every VWD turned yellow" issue. * All NiBinaryExtraData blocks (tangent/normal spaces) removed. This data is not required for VWD meshes and helps tremendously in reducing memory usage. * All parallax flags turned off. The distances involved make this useless anyway. * All meshes have been assigned lowres textures instead of hires ones. * Nearly all NiAlphaProperty blocks removed. If the mesh required it for transparency, it was kept. If this is left on a mesh that does not require it, visual anomalies can result. * All NiVertexColorProperty blocks removed. These lead to some cases of black VWD objects. * Optimization using PyFFI after the above has been done. In addition to mesh work, all VWD normal maps have had their alpha channels removed since it serves no purpose. This will help some with VRAM, and eliminate issues with sparkly objects. The typical VWD mesh comes out the other end of this process losing up to 75% of the data it was carrying with no loss of function. A fully optimized and functional VWD mesh will have only the NiMaterialProperty, NiTexturingProperty, and NiTriShapeData/NiTriStripsData branches left in its NiTriShape/NiTriStrips branches, and will have only NiTriStrips or NiTriShape branches attached to the scene root. Compared with all of the other VWD options available, this is the most optimized, game friendly set of VWD objects there is. My Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/arthmoor Downloads - Vanilla AFK Mods TES Alliance Downloads - Shivering Isles AFK Mods TES Alliance Performance So what's the cost in terms of performance? RAEVWD when installed with all of its options can suck the life out of even the best computer. You may find that your PC cannot handle the strain. That is to be expected, even if you're wielding an ATI 5900 series card with 2GB of memory and a 4GHz CPU. I can only list what I'm currently using and let you be the judge: AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2Ghz 8GB System RAM AMD/ATI Radeon HD4870 w/ 2GB VRAM, Catalyst 10.6 drivers. Set to force 4xAA+16xAF. Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. QTP3 Redimized Brumbek's optional QTP3 lowres textures for VWD objects. Zacharot's 2048x2048 distant land textures. All Natural (weather mod with hires graphics) All meshes optimized with PyFFI. Enhanced Vegetation hi-res distant trees. Other graphics enhancers, such as trees, plants, clothing, etc. Large Address Aware patch applied to Oblivion.exe For the purposes of the test, Oblivion Stutter Remover was disabled to get an unblocked reading of the FPS. Test #1 was done with the uGridsDistantCount and uGridDistantTreeRange set to 25. As you can see, despite having a rig that should slaughter this, it only manages 14fps in a stationary position overlooking the area. Test #2 was done with uGridsDistantCount lowered to 18, and you can see the difference visually - there's not as much on the far edge of the screen to show. Of note, it does no good to set uGridDistantTreeRange higher than uGridsDistantCount since it won't display anyway. With this change, the game pulls a nice steady 30fps while overlooking exactly the same view. Playing under normal conditions, you won't usually be able to see far enough to notice the bald mountains, and with Streamline or another fog manipulation mod, you can have the view distance matched and never even notice. The location of the screenshot is on top of White Gold Tower, directly over the center of the Imperial City. This is an ideal location for VWD testing because there is next to nothing in the near view other than the tower mesh itself. Clear weather was chosen through the console to eliminate skew from All Natural's excellent weather graphics. So what you see is 98% VWD and 2% whatever else. VRAM use may look high, but keep in mind that's including the hi-res tree pack. Typical VRAM usage is much lower. There are also extra VWD objects present due to the addition of several other mods with buildings and such, Verona Bay is visible in the shot in the middle right for instance, as ar farmhouses for UL Imperial Isle, Weye's additions from AFK_Weye, and a large fort off to the left. What I can't account for is why the 18 shot is using more VRAM than the 25 shot, that result was consistent through several tests. Typical game setups will not see as much of a performance hit as mine is taking, unless of course they're as heavily modded as mine. I think on more normalized systems that aren't as completely bogged down by massive amounts of enhancers will do quite a bit better with this VWD package. Requirements TES4LODGen - needed to generate the distant view information. Installation The archive is provied as a BAIN package, which makes for relatively easy installation without the hassles associated with supporting OMODs. Manual installation should be fairly straightforward as each folder is named according to what it contains, but read on for the details anyway, ok? 00 Core - This folder contains meshes that the game normally ships with but have been optimized. The Imperial City and castle walls surrounding other cities. It also contains additional meshes for Cloud Ruler Temple, Frostcrag Spire, Battlehorn Castle, and IC sewer exit tunnels. Also included in this folder are all of the reduced size vanilla textures, which are shared among the other categories and are thus required. If only the core files are used, VWD performance should improve slightly over vanilla. 01 City Plugins - The ESPs used to provide VWD for buildings in the Imperial City and the outlying cities. Both of these are entirely optional. 02 City Architecture - Just what it sounds like. The buildings used primarily within the cities. These are also used in the wilderness by village and town mods, but in vanilla this doesn't happen much. This folder can impose a significant frame rate hit, so if you're on a lower end PC, you may wish to leave these out. 03 Imperial City Architecture - Additional meshes for the Imperial City. Most of this material is not used outside of the IC. The contents of this folder can impose a stiff performance penalty when looking toward the IC. 04 Wilderness Architecture - Contains buildings normally found outside the major cities. Farmhouses, the lower class buildings, priories, docks, and wayshrines. Lower class buildings are also used in Chorrol, but for the most part only show up out in the countryside and on the IC Waterfront. 05 Ayleid Ruins - Contains just what it says, the meshes used for Ayleid ruins. 06 Imperial Forts - Contains just what it says, meshes used for ruins of Imperial forts. 07 Large Rocks - Contains meshes used for the 2080 sized rocks, and all of the large rocks on the Gold Coast around Anvil. 08 Ships - Contains meshes used for ships as well as shipwrecks. 09 Statues - Contains meshes used for various statues of the Nine Divines and Daedric deities. 10 Higher Detail Castles - Meshes for city walls and castle keeps which have higher poly counts than the default Bethesda models. These are visually more accurate and fit the pieces they're meant to support, rather than just being overly generic ultra-low poly blobs. This will have a slight impact on overall performance due to more polygons and more textures being loaded, but they are visually superior. 11 Higher Detail IC Bridges - Meshes for the Imperial City bridges that are seen around the Imperial island. These have a higher polygon count than the models Bethesda used but are visually more accurate. This will have a very slight additional impact on performance but is well worth it for the visual improvement. If you want it all, just enable all of the package options and you're off and running. No DistandLOD folder is provided. In order to actually see the results of what you just did, you need to download TES4LODGen and run it. It's a wicked simple utility that processes VWD information based on _far.nif files provided and will tailor itself to whatever mods you have installed. If you're still using OBMM for whatever reason, TheNiceOne has created an OMOD installer script for RAEVWD. Uninstallation Manually remove the files you installed, or uninstall it through BAIN. Options The 2 ESPs included with the package provide additional placement of VWD information. Each one is entirely optional and can be left out to help improve performance. RAEVWD Cities.esp covers all cities except Kvatch and the Imperial City. It places buildings and trees in their proper locations behind the city walls. This ESP is 100% module compatible with Open Cities (Classic or Reborn). It should not be used in combination with Better Cities (which now includes Open Better Cities) or you will end up with VWD duplication which will severely harm game performance when viewing a city from the distance. RAEVWD Imperial City.esp places buildings and trees behind the walls of the Imperial City. It is fully compatible with Open Cities (Classic or Reborn). It is not compatible with Better Cities. Using it with Better Cities installed will result in a severe drop in game performance when the IC is in view. Cathedrals have not been placed where missing since the Unofficial Oblivion Patch and some other mods address this. If you're not using the UOP, uh.... why not? The cloister in Anvil as well as Benirus Manor have also been left out since the UOP deals with these as well. The UOP places the full detail mesh, so don't worry Dealing With FPS Drain If after installing this you find that FPS is still suffering, you can try the following: 1. uGridDistantCount in the Oblivion.ini file is set to 25 by default. Lowering this to 20 or even 15 will provide a dramatic improvement. 2. Use Oblivion Stutter Remover. It will help reduce the impact of loading the extra resources as you change cells. 3. Install and configure Streamline to manage fog distance. Or if you use All Natural (1.1 and up) set it's fog management to reduce the visible distance. 4. If you run Better Cities, try dropping the Imperial City VWD optional package they provide and re-run TES4LODGen. 5. If you're using any of the optional ESPs from RAEVWD, deactivate them and re-run TES4LODGen. The extra city architecture, especially at the Imperial City, can be harsh. 6. If you used the higher detail city walls and/or IC bridges, drop those. 7. If you used the ships and shipwrecks, drop those. 8. If none of that is enough, you may need to leave out all or part of the architecture folder entirely. Unfortunately if none of that works, this mod may simply be too much for your PC to handle at all. It may be time to consider some hardware upgrades. For RAEVWD, the most effective hardware upgrade will be a new CPU. Compatibility The only thing this will conflict with is another VWD mod that affects the same files this one includes. Otherwise there's no issue. Known Issues Sometimes when viewing the world at odd or extreme angles, the VWD objects will turn bright yellow or completely black and then revert to normal when you move. One known reason for this is another VWD mesh that has specular properties enabled on it. Another known cause are VWD meshes with vertex color properties. Since all of the meshes supplied by RAEVWD have been cleaned of these problems, look to VWD meshes provided by other mods and contact their authors for assistance in getting those fixed as they know their meshes best. Not all causes of this problem have been identified yet, so there may not be anything to fix. Sometimes you will see red, blue, or green reflections in the water where VWD should reflect instead. Possible causes for this are VWD meshes with collision data still attached, BSX flags still attached, or parallax flags which are still set. Since all of the RAEVWD meshes have had these properties removed, another mod which supplies VWD objects is likely to blame. It is also possible that some textures with RAEVWD could be causing this, so if you can identify which reflections are causing this, we can attempt to track down a way to fix it. Occasionally only part of a mesh will go black. If this happens, that part of the mesh is missing a texture assignment. If this happens with an RAEVWD mesh, please report it in the official thread. If it happens with a VWD mesh provided by another mod, you'll need to take that up with its author. When used with bloom lighting, the VWD objects may always show up as black. Provided you are *SURE* the lowres directory is in the right place in your textures directory, the only fix for this is to switch to a different lighting method. I'm not sure if normal lighting works, but switching to HDR will resolve this issue. There is no known way to fix this otherwise. Disclaimer This mod is not made, guaranteed, or supported by Microsoft, Zenimax, Bethesda Game Studios, or any of their affiliates.

LOD: acronym for Level Of Detail. Ingame, around the player, the closer terrain and objects are fully rendered, meaning they are using regular full-poly (and eye-candy) meshes. For short: the more all this stuff is distant from the player, the more it is replaced with simplified meshes in order to save performance. As the distance from the player increases, the LOD goes from 4 (very detailed), then 8 (less detailed), then 16 (even less detailed), and then finally 32 (poorly detailed). LOD files are present in the 'Skyrim - Meshes.bsa' archive. DLCs also bring their own LOD files in their dedicated archives. Once you have extracted the archives, and for the tamriel worldspace, you can find : a bunch of files in meshes/terrain/tamriel with the '.btr' extension type. They are the landscape LOD meshes. a bunch of files in meshes/terrain/tamriel/objects with the '.bto' extension type. They are the objects LOD meshes (mainly rocks and buildings) Both can be opened in Nifskope , but let's have a look at the objects '.bto' files. Their names obey to a kind of logic : they're all named TamrielN.X.Y.bto, where N is the accuracy of the LOD (from 4/very detailed, 8, 16 and 32/poorly detailed), and X and Y are the coordinates on the map. The problem is : is there a way to know in which .bto file I can find a specific building/town ? The answer is YES ! I made custom maps for the level 4, 8, 16, 32 LOD files in order to save a lot of time when looking for the coordinates. All maps for both Skyrim and Solstheim are available at nexus here for Legendary Edition and here for Special Edition. As this is a modder's resource/helper, the files are absolutely identical for both SLE and SSE... I hope this can be useful for modders who are interested about LOD in these worldspaces. If you have suggestions for improvements or conveniency, feel free to express. Please have a look at this topic if you want to learn more about LOD files generation and download fixed vanilla files.

Hello, I was working on a new worldspace. And while working I have generated the terrain and object lod several times through xlod-gen and oscape. But recently I stumbled down on a problem, where after generating lod I couldn't visit the cells (exterior cells). Every time I enter to a cell the game crashes to desktop. Well, I still can go to some cells of the world, but in most cells the game just crashes. Its a new problem I am facing. Although I can visit the cells if I delete the lod meshes and texture. Could anybody please kindly help me?

FO4LODGen by Ehamloptiran, Zilav and Sheson Static objects LOD generator tool for Fallout 4 FO4LODGen is now included in the latest xEdit.exe builds posted to However, the current LOD development happens at over at xLODGen - beta with terrain LOD. To generate static object LOD, either rename xEdit.exe to FO4LODGen.exe or start as FO4Edit.exe (xEdit.exe -fo4) and right click a plugin that adds a worldspace and select Other, Generate LOD. Use the -o:"c:\Output" command line parameter to select another output folder instead of the games Data folder. This will make it easier to create BA2 archives, to avoid blurry textures because of loose texture files. For better results, download FO4LODGen Resources from https://mega.nz/#!NQYg3YoR!IJI0-K2Id94LnScyb2RAW5hcBl0LEVSeXdBb71HlKpQ and install FO4LODGen.esp and FO4LODGen - Main.ba2 The FO4LODGen Resources archive includes a doc folder with a small readme.txt and example screenshots that explains what each plugin and the updated meshes/materials do. Hover over the options of the FO4LODGen window to see hints what each setting does. If a texture atlas is not created it will use the vanilla texture atlas (Commonwealth and SanctuaryHillsWorld are supported atm) if possible and single LOD textures if not. ________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ New features for FO4 no 2D tree LOD - trees are done as object LOD supports all 4 LOD levels 4, 8, 16 and 32 Material swap LOD for references with an enable parent can be enabled/disabled MultiRefLOD - replaces LOD for a group of reference by a single LOD mesh in (higher) LOD levels LOD support for SCOL static collection _________________________________________________________________ Static LOD Levels STAT Static records always had 4 LOD levels but only the first 3 levels were used. Now level 32 bto files actually exist. Export and LODGen.exe have been updated accordingly Material Swap MSWP A reference or base record can link to a MSWP record which is a list of base and swap material *.BGSM file names. Textures definitions and additional shader flags in the material files take precedence of any data/material file defined in a mesh. Material swap linked from a reference is used over material swap linked from static. The material file swap data is exported and used by LODGen.exe. If a material swap file is defined its data takes precedence to determine the LOD textures, flags and values. Enable Parents XESP If a reference has an XESP enable parent marker and its flag bit 8 is set (name currently unknown #8), the form id of the enable parent is used in the bto to enable/disable its object LOD. LODGen.pas can also exports all enable parent form ids regardless of this flag #8, so all object LOD reacts properly to their parents state. Further testing how load order changes affect this is required. Linked References with MultiRefLOD KYWD References linking to a reference marker with the keyword "MultiRefLOD" KYWD:00195411 are groups of objects that have some of their LOD levels replaced by the LOD level data of the base record of the marker. Typically the LOD level 4 is based on the object LOD of each individual reference of the group, while higher LOD levels are replaced by a single LOD object representing the entire group. Static Collections SCOL Static collections are groups of arranged statics. Statics that have LOD defined work just the same as if the static was used by a reference. LODGen.pas exports the additional positional data, while LODGen.exe handles the correct transformation and rotation in 3D space. _________________________________________________________________ Vanilla object LOD Vanilla static object LOD uses only a very limited set of available options like shader flags. In fact there is only two types of LOD, non-transparent LOD and transparent LOD. LOD only supports binary transparency, the threshold is defined as 128 FO4 doesn't seem to support snow/ash LOD shaders like TESV FO4 vanilla LOD does not use vertex colors like TESV _________________________________________________________________ LODGen.exe object LOD The game engine supports some shader flags or values that are not used in vanilla LOD, allowing for additional features. The flags/values are either already set in the LOD source NIF/BGSM or require updated NIF/BGSM. Data in BGSM takes precedence over data in nifs. So setting a flag or value in a single BGSM changes the behaivvior of all NIFs using that BGSM. The use of these additional features is optional. Read older nif formats from other games while exporting BTO in the newer format Use DoubleSided flag - improved LOD for trees and other transparent objects. Use Backlight Power - improved LOD for trees Use Alpha Threshold - set alpha threshold to value of source LOD - useful if LOD textures has true alpha channel Keep entire source LOD shader 1:1 - Passthru. Obviously this can cause game to CTD if using unsupported setting

Here's a pre-built archive containing all ressources files required to build terrains, objects and trees LOD for Skyrim, Dawnguard and Dragonborn from within the CK and Oscape. The included readme file already has all the useful informations about that, so nothing more here. -Terrains LOD : Tested for Skyrim and Solstheim - No issue -Objects LOD : Tested for all worldspaces from Skyrim, Dawnguard and Dragonborn - No issue -Trees LOD : Not tested This archive is meant to make your life easier in these tasks. It contains about 100 fixed meshes, but it may be updated according to your reports if you find an issue or a missing file. Enjoy ! Download from AFK Mods I need your reports to fix the remaining bugs. Actual version : 2.5 Basically, what you have to do to find bugs is : -generating objects LOD for a given worldspace. -having the generated files properly placed in your data folder (this includes your new generated atlas that you have to move from your source folder to your data folder). -going physicaly in the worldspace in game. -waiting for daylight/good weather view conditions (or setting this in the console : fw 81a). -entering the 'tfc' command in console. -taking height and wandering with the camera, looking for oddities.

Bodies of water. They're everywhere in the game. The most obvious of which are Lake Rumare and the Niben Bay. They're both visible in LOD all the time. But what about your big lake in the hills? Or the lake outside of Cheydinhal? Or any other body of water which is raised above sea level? No, those are not visible at all in LOD. There is apparently a limitation in the game engine which will simply not display it regardless of the water height assigned to the cells. This resource is meant to aid you in changing that. Provided in this package are two simple nif files. LODWaterPlane.nif is simply a large square editor object that you use within the CS to add to a cell where you have water. LODWaterPlane_far.nif is the LOD version of the same, which is a basic two triangle water plane with the Lava material added so that the game will treat it as water. It has all of the reflective properties expected, and even displays water ripples when passing over it with the free camera. My Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/arthmoor Downloads AFK Mods TES Alliance How To Use This Resource Copy the two mesh files into a folder of your choice under Data\Meshes. The specifics don't matter. Create a static in the CS using LODWaterPlane.nif. For best results, drag the mesh into the render window and use its upper right corner to place it as precisely as you can on the NE corner of the cell you want. Use the INNER border of the editor marker, not the outer. Do not rotate the piece. It helps if you turn on cell borders while editing, that way you can zoom in close on the border for an exact fit. It should be placed exactly at the Z coordinate of your cell's water level. To string multiple pieces together for larger bodies of water spanning several cells, simply add or subtract 4096 to the X or Y coordinates of the object. That will cause the piece to center into the next cell over. For this to be visible in-game, you will either need to generate LOD files for your mod, or instruct your users to download and run TES4LODGen (recommended). See the screenshots on the Nexus download page for visual aids. The type and coloring of the water will be dependent on whatever water mods the user has installed and what type of water is present in the cell. So it should adapt itself to things like green slimy water vs clear blue water. It is also for this reason that you should avoid overlapping a water plane past a cell boundary. Performance In Game In game performance impact from this should be negligible. I've used it in a fairly large area already an noticed absolutely no change in frame rates. The _far.nif is two triangles, so it's as low as the poly count can possibly get. There is no need to optimize it. I have not noticed any visual anomalies due to leaving the alpha channel in place on the LOD nif. I am fairly certain that is required or the water will not be transparent. How It Works This method works by essentially tricking the game into switching the _far.nif in for the editor object. The editor object and the _far.nif both came from the same source object. The nif was initially blown up to the exact size of one cell in the CS, then split into two parts. An LOD _far.nif file does not have to have the same contents as its close-up counterpart. TES4LODGen does not care, and the CS won't know the difference either. Credits Da Mage and Throttlekitty for the original Real Water Mesh resource. The original water plane resource is quite awesome in and of itself, check it out. You may have use for it too. Disclaimer This mod is not made, guaranteed, or supported by Microsoft, Zenimax, Bethesda Game Studios, or any of their affiliates.

I am by no means an expert, lets make that perfectly clear to start. While thinking up a new solution to get an LOD version of the Gildergreen into the game, without the side effects of disappearing trees or duplicated trees, I tested the method described here under Generating Object LOD. I created a new static tree object, gave it an LOD suffix file name and placed it in the correct folders. I also created an LOD texture file for it. And it worked. Well, at least partially. There's an issue with it not showing the proper textures. It came out as stone, but I'll figure that out later. Point is, the method works. What it's done is re-generated the Meshes\Terrain\Tamriel\Objects bto files. All 678 of them. However, the USKP does not want nor need to impose all the new object LOD's on everyone's game. What we want is just the files specific to this area of Whiterun. That's not easy to figure out with the file naming convention. They appear to be named by quads... example; ----------- Tamriel.4.0.0.bto Tamriel.4.0.4.bto Tamriel.4.0.-4.bto Tamriel4.0.8.bto etc.. In addition, there are already a couple of reports of incorrect LOD in Dragonborn (Miraak's Temple, Skaal Village). The above method will work with new LOD meshes but again we run into the task of figuring out the correct .bto files specific to those areas. (If only we had a TES5LODGen to automate the entire process and where people could do this themselves)