Level of Detail (LOD) procedure?

[pepperman35]

Padawan seeks wisdom from the masters

As you may know I continue to work on my Institute-themed mod based out on Spectacle Island. I have pretty much touched (modded) the entire island and as such have broken all precombines throughout. I realize this needs to be fixed; however, my first attempt at resolution was disastrous and I ending up having to revert to a backup. Life goes on. Hopefully, I can figure it out.

Currently, when I approach the island from distance I see the old island with all of its dead trees and dilapidated structures. What I’d like to see is the new island in all of it splendor and glory.

1. 
   
2. I assume this is LOD related, correct?
   
3. How does one do this? I see stuff in the CK under World/WorldLOD but I only want to do Spectacle Island not the entire Commonwealth.
   
4. Is LOD interconnected with the precombine process? If so, I assume precombine have to be done first?
   
5. Is there a LOD procedure out there?
   

[DieFeM]

When you work on exteriors you need to take in to account that the objects you use need to have LOD meshes (low quality meshes that are configured on each object's record, are used by the LOD generator to create your world's LOD), if the objects that you used to build your mod have no LOD meshes those will not appear in the worldspace LOD that you'll generate.

 

Creating and setting up LOD meshes for each of the objects you used is an option, but there's no automatic generation, you would need to create your own LOD meshes and textures by hand, something that probably you don't want to do, so the last resort for those objects is using "is Full LOD" in the properties of each object's reference or, if you have a lot of static objects that don't have LOD meshes, you can create static collection and apply "is Full LOD" to the collection.

 

On the other hand, afaik you can not build worldspace LOD for specific cells in the CK, but I think you can do that with xLODGen using the "Specific chunk" feature. I didn't tried this feature myself so I can't tell if it needs any special steps.

[Zorkaz]

You can build specific chunks in the CK as well as in F04Edit. It's good to do it in the CK first and let F04Edit do round 2, as they complete each other.

 

In my experience doing precombines is only necessary if the process alters the materials of the object (E.g. making a blue roofed house suddenly blue)

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

When working on my own custom worldspace that has lots of large custom architectural meshes, I always check the "is full LOD" checkbox, just for testing of course ...

(I know, I am lazy ...)

 

I use xLODGen to generate the worldspace LOD.

That is a tool that is based on xEdit.

For it to work you need to try and generate the LOD with the CK first.

That creates a "LOD settings" file.

xLODGen reads this file, if it is not there it won't work.

 

It kind of works for most objects.

Some of them do not have any LOD meshes & textures, so I had to make duplicates of those "static objects" and assign some LOD meshes and textures myself.

 

 

Some objects have two "versions" of them: One with LOD, one without LOD.

 

 

As for "making LOD meshes and textures for an object from scratch":

Exactly the same process as making "regular" custom meshes, just a more "simplified" and "low polygon count" version of the mesh.

(Textures >>>> low resolution)

 

Then, open the "static object" that you want to "give those LOD meshes to" in the CK (right click then edit).

Check the "has distant LOD" checkbox. There is a button next to it called "specify distant LOD meshes". Click that.

Then there is a list for multiple "levels of detail" (LOD = Levels Of Detail), so you can have a very very low resolution mesh if the player is very far away, a low resolution mesh if the player is a bit closer and the "high resolution" mesh if the player is near the object.

Assign the meshes as you like. (If you only have "one" LOD mesh, then assign that to all LOD levels, or I don't know ....)

 

IMPORTANT:

When messing around with this stuff, you need to generate the LOD for the worldspace (or those cells) again or the changes won't show up!

(That makes this very time consuming)

And don't forget to uncheck "is full lod" when trying stuff!

 

 

I hope this helps ...

(i am not the "God of LOD", so some things might be wrong ...)

[pepperman35]

I know this is going to sound like a NOOB but I am not seeing "is Full LOD"

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

I know this is going to sound like a NOOB but I am not seeing "is Full LOD"

That is not a thing when editing the "base object".

 

That is a "reference" thing.

 

So double click on an object in the render window. There it should be!

 

(Yes, this is annoying if you have lots of objects, and the "batch action window" has no option to "set IS FULL LOD" for all selected!)

[pepperman35]

Ok thanks. Appears I should have inquired about LOD before I got the darn settlement built. lol

[pepperman35]

Fortunately, I made decent use of layers when constructing the mod so I was able to select the exterior pieces of a building rather quickly. Still a work in progress but it is coming along nicely. I used DieFeM's suggestion, creating static collections for all of the building's exteriors. Then for those static collections, I assigned the "is Full LOD." Now when I go to say Warwick homestead and look toward Spectacle Island I can see the buildings there. Wonderful! Note: Haven't tried any of the LOD gen tools yet.

Thanks so much for the help, it is much appreciated.

 

Question 1: Now when I use the LOD gen tools referenced above, will that process take care of all the stuff that is set to initially disabled, such as the dead trees and dilapidated structures?

 

Question 2: When using the LOD gen tools referenced above, what part of the Data folder structure are these updates placed into?

 

Question 3: Anyone know what "LOD Respects Enabled State" does or when it should be used?

[steve40]

Tip:

 

You can disable LOD on meshes in Nifskope.

 

Open the mesh in Nifskope. Click on the root node. In the BLOCK LIST window, under FLAGS, click on the Japanese flag icon. In the pop-up window, uncheck "Bit 12: Mesh LOD" and click Accept.

Next, look for any BSMeshLODTrishape blocks. Right-click on each one and select BLOCK->CONVERT->BETHESDA->BSTriShape.

 

Win.