Is it possible to create lod for Folkvangr grass mod?

[catchby84]

I am at a point where I have my dream mod list and finally have tinkered with load order, xEdit, patches, and preferences enough to where nothing dies and now...im picky. Of course at the end of the day even LOD can only go so far with great textures so i guess another question would be is there a way to make the noise in the far distance like...brownish.

 

Also curious if you who use Dynalod and a grass mod think "Terrain Lod redone" and "HD lod textures SE" are worth an install. Anyways thanks yall and wondering what mods or settings yall use.

[Deleted135840173User]

Easy.

DynDOLOD 3 allows you to create Billboards via TexGen yourself for every Texture you have such as Architecture including Plants such as Bushes and Grass.

Only thing excluded for now is Mountain - Rock Textures for which you need Mod provided LODs.

 

To create a balanced and optimized quality setup:

 

Install No Grass in Objects. Default settings will extend Grass Distance all the way to where LOD Starts.

In the Description there are instructions how to Precache Grass. This is mandatory for Grass LODs.

In-Game see the density and decide what density is good enough for Grass LOD.

 

Run TexGen once done and select create Grass Billboards. Decide on Texture Size Settings. These should primarily take Vertical Screen resolution into account. Anything more is just a waste of Resources with no visual difference.

Run it and proceed to create LOD with DynDOLOD. Finalize and Done.

 

You can go into NetScriptFramework and find the No Grass in Objects INI and change the setting ''Load Grass from Cache'' to disable it.

Till now you have Grass LOD and Extended Grass Distance all the way to where LOD appears.

 

Perfomance Alternative:

 

Same process without generating Grass LOD but use only Extended Grass Distance and no Grass Cache.

Cathedral Landscapes has the best Terrain Noise.dds that makes the Distant LOD look like Grass and so it will blend with your Extended Grass Distance.

There are other Terrain noise.dds files available. You can even use the one from Cathedral with other Terrain Textures. From Terrain LOD Redone or Perfect Terrain LOD or from xLODGen site.

Test and see what looks better. You can generate Terrain LOD with xLODGen and Install any noise.dds texture on top of it to experiment and replace.

 

Another tip for Mountain Terrain texture uglyness. Cathedral Z-Fight Patch will cover these with Rocks. Works with Majestic Mountains and Noble Skyrim.

 

A Future Wish:

 

I hope one day we can use something like Base Object Swapper to control Grass Distribution directly and create concentrations of Vegetation where we like.

This would eliminate the need for the performance intensive iMinGrassSize setting density.

Instead we could place a chunk of Grasses, more spread out but good looking. Though Landscape might need be tweaked abit to avoid completely open flat places. These Vegetation chunks could be combined with low height field grass and slightly fade between open flat surfaces as well.

 

It will require Meshes (Object) that includes Grass (Textures) designed to do that. Vanilla Skyrim includes them so Base Object Swapper could be capable to control their position.

 

If we combine this with the Cathedral Landscapes method of creating denser/ more widespread Grass with less performance impact all the better. 1 mesh would cover a huge surface this way blend well with the other mesh a few yards away or be more spread out like a stream for example. But there is a lack of community collaboration to produce such results thus they take time or never happen.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Guest