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Distant LOD Issue (I think)


Torian101

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If the land itself is not showing until you get close (looking like you're always walking towards a cliff) then somehow the landscape LOD meshes aren't working. I take it you've checked out the naming bug already?

 

Another thing you can test is copy and rename another worldspace's landscape LOD - it will look completely wrong for your worldspace, but at least it will tell you whether LOD is working or not.

 

I've heard of the naming bug...don't know what it actually is though. Something to do with files not having the right name and the game not using them because of that?

 

About copying another worldspace's LOD, where do I find the LOD files? I probably should have that knowledge already when I went into this whole LOD thing but the truth is this is really the first time I'm making a landscape of my own (other then interior cells).

 

Oh and yeah, it does look like I'm always walking toward a cliff, and then *poof!* a new cell loads. Thats the problem yes.

As I said before though, I have zero LOD issues in the Tamriel or SI worldspaces. So if LOD is indeed saved in a couple of files, then maybe the LOD I'm constantly trying to generate either gets saved in the wrong place (somehow...how?) or in the wrong format.

Edited by Torian101
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The naming bug is a texture bug. Look at all your landscape texture files and make sure they all have 00 double zeros whenever there are zeros in the name. If any of them have a single zero, make them double.

 

I recommend a program called TES4qLOD. It does your LOD texture files outside the CS. Don't use the CS render window method for generating textures. This program is way better. This may be your problem. I believe the land is invisible if there are no textures, or mis-named ones.

 

Now it does have one issue:

 

It does not render the mipmaps, so if you have your texture settings on small or medium, your distant land will be multicolored. Only on High will they look right. I think this can be fixed in GIMP, by opening each of your texture files and saving them with mipmaps checked off. I can't promise that though. Just keep your textures on High.

 

 

Another thing:

 

Don't link to SI through this worldspace. If you exit SI through any means other than the regular portal, you'll get the "I HAVE NO GREETING!" bug, and no NPC will speak to you properly.

Edited by Megatarius
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The naming bug is a texture bug. Look at all your landscape texture files and make sure they all have 00 double zeros whenever there are zeros in the name. If any of them have a single zero, make them double.

 

I recommend a program called TES4qLOD. It does your LOD texture files outside the CS. Don't use the CS render window method for generating textures. This program is way better. This may be your problem. I believe the land is invisible if there are no textures, or mis-named ones.

 

Now it does have one issue:

 

It does not render the mipmaps, so if you have your texture settings on small or medium, your distant land will be multicolored. Only on High will they look right. I think this can be fixed in GIMP, by opening each of your texture files and saving them with mipmaps checked off. I can't promise that though. Just keep your textures on High.

 

 

Another thing:

 

Don't link to SI through this worldspace. If you exit SI through any means other than the regular portal, you'll get the "I HAVE NO GREETING!" bug, and no NPC will speak to you properly.

 

Just checked the 0's in the texture files, they are all roughly like this: 60.00.-32.32_FN.dds

 

Some do not have the two 0's, which I, based on your comment, assume is bad.

 

I'm keeping textures on high at all times, so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

Hmm now that you mention it, that I HAVE NO GREETING thing could be a problem. Well there's always the option of making a portal to the portal to SI :thumbsup:

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Someone gave me some advice I used to generate LOD, and I got somewhere: the trees, rocks and other such things now have distandLOD so they appear in the distance, but the same cannot be said about the landscape itself. Basically I'm looking at trees that seemingly float in midair until I get close enough for the ground under them to pop up.
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Just checked the 0's in the texture files, they are all roughly like this: 60.00.-32.32_FN.dds

 

Some do not have the two 0's, which I, based on your comment, assume is bad.

 

I'm keeping textures on high at all times, so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

Hmm now that you mention it, that I HAVE NO GREETING thing could be a problem. Well there's always the option of making a portal to the portal to SI :thumbsup:

 

The .dds files that have _FN in their names are normal maps. The example you gave has two zeros. Do all the normal maps have two zeros, and just the ones without _FN have only one zero?

 

Try adding the second zeros by hand. Make sure the numbers are always in pairs. Example: If there's a file called 60.0.-32.32.dds, rename it to 60.00.-32.32.dds.

 

At this point, I should clarify something, just in case. Do you know what a "normal map" is? It's not "normal" vs "abnormal" or something like that. In this case, normal refers to something in 3D Modeling. Every polygon has what's called a Normal, a tangent line extending out from its surface. It has to do with how light is rendered. The line always goes out at a perfectly perpendicular angle to the polygon. You can edit this, however, in 3D modeling programs like Blender or Maya. You can make the Normal go any way you want. You can generate a Normal Map which is a texture file that tells the light engine how to render the polygons in question. It's as if the Normals of the model are facing different ways. You can then go a step further and make the Normal Map way more high rez than the model itself and you now have objects rendering way better light-wise.

 

You don't need to worry about this, I'm just telling you, so you know what I'm talking about. Oblivion textures use 3 different files, the color map, the normal map, and sometimes the glow map. Land doesn't have a glow map, though it would be awesome, but it does have a normal map. Those files are the _FN files. They are created in the Heightmap Editor along with the actual models of your distant land. Then the render window method is used to create the color maps. This is so you can make changes and have them show up in the distance too if you redo it each time.

 

Well, the CS is the CS, and the render window makes files with the naming bug. Use TES4qLOD and you will not have this problem.

 

My guess is, all your files that have one 0 are color maps. If you fix it, it should show up. If it doesn't, let us know.

 

Good luck and don't give up. I can promise you, the feeling of seeing your huge mountains all around you in the distance is an amazing feeling and you'll want to make more land.

 

:thumbsup:

 

 

Oh, and as for the Shivering Isles portal thing, you can't make a teleport to the portal either, because at a certain point in the main quest of SI, the Fringe changes. There are actually two worldspaces for the Fringe. You'd have to script that teleporter. If you know how to do that, awesome. I have no clue.

Edited by Megatarius
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