Landscape and other changes not appearing in-game

[amokrun1]

Like the title says, any landscape changes or objects I move around from vanilla don't appear in the game. Actually, not entirely true, there are some changes that stick(like changing cells and loading doors, for example), but landscape in particular doesn't. What do I need to do for the changes to appear?

EDIT: Seems it has to do with whether the changes are in an esm or esp, with the latter representing the changes accurately. So I will modify my question: why do the changes manifest through an esp and not an esm?

Edited June 18 by amokrun1

[UndeadMartyr]

Think it has to do with the terrain LOD.  There's a tool you can use to generate an LoD.

[madmongo]

Depending on how you create your esm, there are certain types of records that get lost in your mod.

Create esp - records are fine, all is good

Use older TESsnip to convert esp to esm - records are lost - new things work but changes to existing things often won't

Use FNVEdit to convert esp to esm - records are fine, all is good

Use Version Control to check in our esp into an esm - records are fine, all is good

Use GECK extender (or older GECK powerup) to edit your esm, regardless of how the esm was created - records are lost - new things work but changes to existing things often won't

Use Version Control to keep making changes and merging each esp into your main esm - - records are fine, all is good

LOD only affects things in the distance. If you change something that you can see from far away and you don't generate new LOD, then the old object or landscape will be displayed in the distance but will "pop in" with your new changes once you get close enough. This happens regardless of whether your mod is an esp or an esm so this probably isn't the issue that amokrun1 is describing.

Depending on what I am doing, I either use version control (for larger mods) or I keep an editable esp where I make all of my changes. After each change, I copy the file, rename the copy to .esm, and use FNVedit to convert it to an actual esm (set the esm flag in the header).

 

 

[amokrun1]

Hmm, this is not good news. I've been working with an esp-flagged esm and always with Geck Extender. I have an esp for this plugin as well, to override the changes at the end so most modifications should be ok but now I am concerned about the ones that aren't in the esp.