What Is Wrong with My Step-By-Step, creating a LOD for custom Worldspace?

[Dustmo7e]

I am trying very hard to delve deeper into the further complexities of modding, which is difficult, because I have no prior knowledge of any kind of coding or scripting or working "under the hood" so to speak. I have even asked about this same topic before, but still find it confusing.  Therefore I am trying to write simple instructions for myself by doing a kind of "transcription" of the tutorial videos I watch.

I tried to learn how to create LODs for custom worldspaces. I watched a tutorial by the creator of Falskaar The tutorial video on Youtube to help teach me and I did manage to create trees but nothing else. This is apparently because Skyrim SE uses different settings. I don't know what that means, but someone in the video comments said so. That is why I'm posting my "transcription" here on the off chance that someone who knows what's wrong with it sees it and leaves a comment.  

 

Creating Custom Worldspace LOD -Alexander JVelicky

PART ONE

1.Folder: Skyrim->data (BSA models unpacked Nexus Modmanager has a utility for unpacking)
Opening Skyrim meshes - LOD settings -Tamriel LOD -extract- save to desktop (You can now close the meshes bsa folder)

2. Rename the folder to match your worldspace. The needs to match exactly. (For example FALSKAAR.LOD ).

3. Go back to your data folder and create a new folder. Name it: lodsettings . Place your renamed file into that folder. (You may run into issues if your worldspace is larger than Tamriel.)

4.Open your BSA textures -landscape -mountains -choose mountainslab02.dds and mountainslab02_n.dds Extract and save these textures to your desktop.

5. Drag this texture file  to your Skyrim data folder and click "overwrite" to everything in order to merge the file.

6. In data/textures you should now see Actors and landscape files. In landscape folder you should have mountains folder and in that folder you should have the mountainslab02 and mountainslab02_n files.

7.Open your plugin in Creation Kit.

8. Go to World-> world spaces -> select your custom worldspace. Pick HD LOD Diffuse and find your data/textures/landscape/mountains/mountainslab02. Then pick HD LOD Normal and choose the mountainslab02_n file. You now have file paths to these textures. Click OK and save.

9. Next extract textures/terrain/tamriel/tamrieltreelod.dds to your desktop. Rename the "tamriel" part of this tree lod to match your worldspace. For example: falskaartreelod.dds

10. Go to your skyrim/data/textures and create a new folder: terrain. (It might already exist. If not, create it.)

11. Create a new folder into the terrain folder and name it your worldspace. For example terrain/falskaar.Create another folder into your worldspace folder and name it trees. For example: terrain/falskaar/trees

12. Take the yourworldspacetreelod folder you made earlier and put it in this "trees" folder. For example: terrain/falskaar/trees/falskaartreelod.dds


PART TWO

1. Extract Skyrim LOD meshes. Find them in meshes.bsa (Whether you are using NNM or you have already extracted the files somewhere, type LOD in the search bar to bring up every lod.nif file. Pick them all. (Pick the top one, hold "shift" and press N.) Exctract them to your desktop to find them easily. If the LOD settings folder is extracted, delete it. You don't need it.

2. Take the meshes folder you just created and  put it in skyrim/data. Allow overwrite, if the program asks.  You now have 6 new folders needed for LOD generation.

3. Next extract LOD textures. Go to skyrim/textures and type LOD again like you did with the "meshes" file. Pick them all and extract them to your desktop. Now you should have a file called "textures" on your desktop.

4. Get a programme called Nconvert. https://www.xnview.com/en/nconvert/  

5. Extract the programme  (ncovert.exe)

6. Download Notepad++ if you don't have it already https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

7. Open Notepad and the save as: nconvertbatch.bat  You can call the file whatever you like, but it must end with  .bat . Save.  Make sure the file you created has a "gears" icon, because that means it is a batch file. Your new .bat file should be in the nconvert file.

8. Open the file you just created by clicking "edit". Write: nconvert -out tga *dds

9. Open the textures file that you just created on your desktop. You can remove the "Actors" file, because it contain alduin and dragon LODs. also delete the "terrain" that you find within. You should be left with architexture and lod files.

10. Now, let's start converting. Go to archetecture/farmhouse and copy nconvert.exe and nconvertBatch.bat files and paste them into the farmhouse folder. The nconverter only converts files in its folder (not from another folder).

11. Double-click on the nconvertbatch.bat file. This should generate files ending with .tga

12. Cut the batch and nconvert.exe files and paste them into the whiterun file. Run the batch.bat file again. Now you have files ending .tga here as well. Repeat this process one last time in the lod file where the textures are.

13. Cut and copy the nconvert.exe adn the batch.bat files back to the nconvert file where you took them from, because you don't need them anymore.

14. Search in the textures file .dds files and delete them, because you don't need them anymore. You only need the .tga (targa) files now.

15. Now go to steam/steamapps/common/source. If the "source" file does not exist, you need to create it. In the "source" file you need to create a file called: TGATextures. Now open the textures folder on your desktop and place the architecture and lod files into the TGATextures file.

16. You can delete the textures file from your desktop now.

17. Open your mod in CK again. Click "world" and then "world LOD".

18. Select your own worldspace from the list on the left. (Alexander picks "Falskaar".) CK may crash if you try to do all of the LODs in one go but you can try it. To avoid crashes, you can do them one at a time. (Also, if you have your worldspace open in the background, CK can crash. So, empty render window is best.)

19. Let's do "static objects" first. Check the box and click "generate". This will not take long. If you get any "missing textures" warnings, it means you made a mistake when converting them into TGA. You will get too high vertex count -warnings, but this simply means that there is no LOD for that object.

20. Close the window when it is done. Uncheck "static objects" and check "trees" next. Click "generate" and wait. This takes a little bit longer than the static objects.

21. Now go to the steamapps/common/source file. You have a new folder called DDSTextures. This contains tecture atlases that your game needs but they are in the wrong place. Cut or copy the TERRAIN file in the DDSTextures file.

22. Go to skyrim/data/textures and paste the terrain file here. Allow to overwrite. (These two files are regenerated every time you make object LOD, so every time you make these, you ned to copy these two files into the terrain folder. )



All that is left now is to generate land. It requires Oscape.


1. Get Oscape https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4727

2. Extract everything to be sure. Open Oscape.exe (32 or 64, which ever fits your computer version system).

3.Click "game" and pick "Skyrim". Now make sure that the file to your worldspace is selected. For Alexander this is Falskaar.esm. For you it could be MyLand.esp.

4. Go down and click "Fill". Check the boxes "feature-map" and "surface-map".

5. Click "Browse". You can extract everything to your desktop to find it easily.

6. Your file name should be your worldspace name, and it should be exactly the same, so that the LOD will load. For Alexander this mean Falskaar. Click save. Now click EXCTRACT.

7. Now you are in the preview window.  You will notice that the water is missing (at least if you made an island). You will see under config "sealevel" that reads 0. Type here your water level for your worldspace. Hit "Enter" and now you should see your island surrounded by blue water.

8. Next, click on "generator".

9. Set the "Target of max resolution to 25600 (1/1 of 1000 per tile). This is the maximum detail of the land. If picking this number crashed Oscape, pick a lower resolution.

10. Make sure "meshes" are checked. Within Lods, make sure that 1/1 1/2 1/4 1/8 and optimize for overdraw and formats: NIF are checked.

11. In "Normals"  make sure that the "normals" box is checked. LODS all should be checked like they were in the meshes box.  You only need one resolution. Alexander recommends picking 1024x1024  so check that. Also check DirectX. You don't need PNG images, so uncheck that.

12. Check "colours", becayse you want your LODs to have colours. All the lods should be checked here too. Just pick one resolution (Alexander recommends 1024x1024) and in formats you only need to have DirectX checked.

13. You can choose your desktop to find the Oscape file easily. Click GENERATE. How long this generating takes, depends on your computer. (Generating land in CK takes far longer, because it only uses one core and your file must be a master file. So OScape is needed. This generation takes about 5 minutes for land half the size of Skyrim. If your worldspace is smaller, it takes less time.

14. When your lods are created, OScape moves you to the installer tab. You can use OScape to generate the LOD file that we created at the very beginning. But if you already have it, it is enough. You only need to create it once. Click on "install" on all levels. Leave everything else on defaults and check that Oscape installs to your skyrim/data folder.

15. If your LOD works, you can delete all of the files you made on your desktop.

16. When releasing your mod, you need to include all custom files.
skyrim/data/lodsettings. Meshes (architecture, effects, landscape,lod, magic,mps), terrain, your worldspace. textures/terrain/Yourworldspace