Thomas Kaira Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 For those wondering how to generate your own Object LOD for your mods, here's how: 1. Open the Skyrim - Meshes.BSA, find the LOD folder, and extract all the files there to Skyrim/Meshes/LOD 2. Open the Skyrim - Textures.BSA, find the LOD folder, and extract the contents to Steam/SteamApps/Common/Source/TGATextures/LOD 3. The textures are currently in DDS format, and obviously we want them to be in TGA format, so use the program nConvert to convert the textures: 4. Get nConvert here 5. Write up a new Batch script containing the following: "nConvert -out tga *.dds" (minus quotes) 6. Put nConvert and the BAT in the same folder as the textures you wish to convert 7. Run the BAT, and nConvert will do the rest. You can delete the DDS versions when you are done. 8. Once you have the TGA textures and the meshes out of the BSAs, you are ready. Go into the Creation Kit, open the World menu, and select "World LOD." 9. Select the Worldspace you want to generate LOD for, check Static Objects in the Meshes category, and then hit "Generate" 10. If any errors pop up that cause the generator to terminate, re-read the above steps and make sure you did everything exactly right. 11. Upon successful generation, go to Skyrim/Data/Meshes/Terrain/Tamriel/Objects. Your batch of BTO files was dumped there. 12. Find the BTO files that your mod will use, pull them out, and delete the rest. There are three total, prefixed with "Tamriel.4", "Tamriel.8", and "Tamriel.16", respectively. Delete the rest. (This takes some doing, as there isn't much of a reasonable means of figuring out which quad your mod lies in.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmoor Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 And here I thought they couldn't have made a worse process than the Oblivion CS... and then they did. I don't relish the thought of having to go through all that for the missing LOD for the Dawnguard vampire castle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndalayBay Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Yep, as I said on DC, I think it's time to start pestering shadeMe for a CKE. :tongue: Btw, where did all the emotes go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Kaira Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 And here I thought they couldn't have made a worse process than the Oblivion CS... and then they did. I don't relish the thought of having to go through all that for the missing LOD for the Dawnguard vampire castle.Then let me save you the hunt: the meshes are filed in Meshes/DLC01/LOD/Castle in Dawnguard.BSA. :tongue: Oh, and I finally figured out my problem. There was a loose LOD texture compilation that was conflicting with Dawnguard's. Once I got rid of those files, the Castle Volkihar LOD became visible, so that one was mod-related.However, there is the problem of the LOD texture source not existing in the resources, so it's impossible to generate LOD using Dawnguard's assets. It might be possible to extract those from the LOD texture compilation Dawnguard provides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hana Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 You have GOT to be kidding me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Kaira Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 'Fraid not.Now, on the topic of those missing LOD textures, I've managed to hack them together by extracting them from the tamriel.objects.dds LOD texture compilation Dawnguard provides, and after testing, they allowed me to generate LOD using Dawnguard assets. I do not believe those textures are ever used in the game, so I think this can be cleared from the UDGP's to-do list. If there are no problems, I can upload those source textures here for people to grab should they desire to generate LOD using Dawnguard's assets.You will need both the DDS source in the game's data files and the TGAs in the Source directory, otherwise the generator will complain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmoor Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 If the LOD texture source doesn't exist then what was I seeing when I went out to Ice Water Jetty to have a look? I even used TFC to send the camera out and there's definitely a butt ugly LOD texture out there, though it's half covered in that goop they call a snow shader.And yes, if you've got something that will fix it, I'd definitely appreciate it and the UDGP would be the place for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Kaira Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 It's because the LOD meshes receive their textures from the file .objects.dds. The individual textures found in the LOD folder are only needed for LOD generation.And of course it's butt-ugly, the resolution is only 256x.EDIT: Here's the stuff. I've included both the TGAs and the DDSs. I still don't believe there is any point in adding them to the UDGP since the game doesn't ever use them, but they are there as a modder's resource. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmoor Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 I guess I've gotten confused then. Is there or is there not a bug to be fixed here? Is the butt ugly whitewashed piece of crud castle really what we should be seeing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Kaira Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 Yes, that cruddy castle is what you are supposed to be seeing. The whole missing texture stuff was a red herring.And what's worse is that the crummy graphics on the castle can't be fixed. Upscaling the castle's textures would muck with the tamriel.objects.dds texture something awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmoor Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 So. Is this basically what's at issue with Dawnguard? http://host.conseiljedi.com/~nico/Divers/CastleVolkiharLOD.jpg If so it appears the culprit is the official hi-res texture pack: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1408107-relzwipz-unofficial-dawnguard-patch/page__view__findpost__p__21576710 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Kaira Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 Way ahead of you. :tongue: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmoor Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 Yes, so I see. Except I don't think expecting people to register their BSAs is a good plan. As a workaround, sure, but not as a permanent solution.Bethesda's monolithic approach to everything is biting them in the ass on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobbythejobby Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 It's because the LOD meshes receive their textures from the file .objects.dds. The individual textures found in the LOD folder are only needed for LOD generation.And of course it's butt-ugly, the resolution is only 256x.EDIT: Here's the stuff. I've included both the TGAs and the DDSs. I still don't believe there is any point in adding them to the UDGP since the game doesn't ever use them, but they are there as a modder's resource. Hey man can you re upload those files as I cant generate any LOD for my worldspace as the dawnguard LOD textures are missing. Your link is broken just takes u to a 404 not found page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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