Jump to content

[WIPz] TES5LODGen for Trees LOD


zilav

Recommended Posts

  • 11 months later...

I know I'm a bit late for the show, but I have to ask ^^

 

What are the requirements on the atlas to be splited nicely by LODGen ? I ran it on this atlas : http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/24364

(Which doesn't have any billboards available afaik), but the output is awful, with 2 trees for into one billboard and some others cut at half their width.

 

If trying to make them manually, is there any best practice on how to adjust Width/Height/ShiftZ/Scale ? Or is it about trials and errors ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since it is a vanilla atlas replacement, you must have vanilla LST and BTT files for Tamriel worldspace not overridden by anything.

Scale is an easy way to change overall size without altering width and height (SSBT for example).

Width and Height - calculate in NifScope from coordinates of topmost/bottommost/leftmost/rightmost vertices.

ShiftZ is if model extends below Z plane, apply Z translation to root node until the model is at 0, this (negative) value would be ShiftZ obviously.

 

Or forget NifScope and get them by manual tweaking, regenerating lod and going in game until it "works" visually. Purely a matter of visual taste, they don't have to be 100% accurate as you probably  won't spot a difference if Width is 765.4561 or just roughly 750.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, that clear up some things for me :) 

 

Last question on the subject : Is there a way to adjust the lod brightness on a per-tree basis, or it have to be done by editing the billboard's .dds itself ? Those yellow treeLOD in the rift are... too yellow for me ^^

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last question on the subject : Is there a way to adjust the lod brightness on a per-tree basis, or it have to be done by editing the billboard's .dds itself ? Those yellow treeLOD in the rift are... too yellow for me ^^

I can add brightness setting in txt, but for now the only way is to change dds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Anyone know if you need special billboards for Enderal?

 

edit: Nevermind. Just saw that billboards are already available.

 

Can't get LODGen to find itself:

[MQP01Home] Trees LOD Done.
[MQP01Home] Building LOD textures atlas: D:\TES5LODGenOutput\textures\terrain\MQP01Home\Objects\MQP01HomeObjectsLOD.dds
[MQP01Home] Saving LODGen data: D:\projects\bin\FO4Edit\Edit Scripts\LODGen.txt
[MQP01Home] Running D:\projects\bin\FO4Edit\Edit Scripts\LODGen.exe "D:\projects\bin\FO4Edit\Edit Scripts\LODGen.txt" --dontFixTangents --removeUnseenFaces
[MQP01Home] Objects LOD generation error: System Error.  Code: 2.
The system cannot find the file specified
Might be related to MO Beta 3.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

These LODgens works great as long as you are using the vanilla trees, but for an entirely new tree that is not placed by Bethesda i have never gotten it to work, with either Skyrim, FO3 or FO:NV.

I'm guessing where it messes up is the treeformID.. For the vanilla trees i've just looked in the Preview window in the Bethesda editors and it tells me the ID of the static tree. Using this ID will generate the LOD exactly like it should. 

For an entirely new tree that i have imported and placed (obviously saved the .esp) it does not work. I have created "flora overhaul.esp" folder and the required .txt file and .dds. The preview window tells me the new tree ID is "01009474" which i guess translates to 0009474 ? But i've also tried 01009474, 00009474, it will not work either. 
This tree is never listed in the Lodgen, no faults or anything it's like its just ignoring that it is even in the .esp. 

 Any ideas?

ddftp.jpg

udc4h.jpg

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, vurt said:

For an entirely new tree that i have imported and placed (obviously saved the .esp) it does not work. I have created "flora overhaul.esp" folder and the required .txt file and .dds. The preview window tells me the new tree ID is "01009474" which i guess translates to 0009474 ? But i've also tried 01009474, 00009474, it will not work either. 

This tree is never listed in the Lodgen, no faults or anything it's like its just ignoring that it is even in the .esp. 

 

xLODGen picks up only TREE, STAT or ACTI records with "Has Tree LOD" flag set, then it will print out found and not found billboard names, so you can simply copy it from messages log.

However I don't recommend you to use Tree LOD system in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, it is bugged there. Sometimes when approaching a tree it's LOD will disappear and then the full tree reappear a second later. The other bug is when LOD doesn't switch off at all up close for trees placed by plugins. That's why I use it only for smaller objects like bushes where this is not that apparent and distracting in game. New Vegas doesn't use Tree LOD system at all because of those issues, Obsidian guys were clever enough to avoid it.

For real trees I recommend to use Objects LOD and create _lod.nif mesh, check optional FO3LODGen resources for your mods on Nexus. It is a flat mesh (I stole it from New Vegas yucca trees LOD) with billboard image on it and ~15-20% empty border to avoid aliasing issues of LOD atlas texture (black lines at the top of distant objects, you can see them even in vanilla FO3 game sometimes).

Ideally those _lod.nif meshes for trees should be real low poly meshes if you have time to model them for better look and to avoid aliasing bug. They can have any number of shapes using different textures, however all textures must be not tiled with UV values in 0..1 range. Vertex colors are not supported by the game in LOD. Also records which use _lod.nif meshes must have "Visible when distant" flag set.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This tree was never in the message log, i even copied the text and searched for it to make sure i didn't miss it. It has the exact same records as the vanilla trees, "has tree LOD" is ticked.

But it's good to know it is bugged.. i'll try Objects LOD then, thanks! Might have more questions when i get to it ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...