A Strange Thing

[Nutabreton]

I have a problem while working with height editor. I am changing some landscapes near the Lake Rumare. There is one thing which I do not quite understand the nature of. I flattened some pieces of land there making some flat space and now I have a pretty steep hill. On the flank of that hill I see a kind of green shelter or blanket covering some space there when I approach. I can go through it and when I do so and come to the real slope of the hill this green cover disappears, when I return it appears again and can see it again. BUT this cover or I do not know how to call it absolutely doesn't show up in CS. When I examine this place in CS I find no anomalies at all. What could it be?

 

Here is my screenshot http://s213.photobucket.com/albums/cc301/N...ScreenShot4.jpg

There you can see that green stuff.

[TheTerminator2004]

Your link doesn't work, so I can't be sure what the problem is, but I can tell you that the CS heightmap editor is buggy as hell- chances are it's just some random happening, which wasn't your fault at all.

 

My advice, if you've only just started your project and have the time, and if the area you're editing isn't too big (I don't see why it would be if you're flattening it), would be to start again, using the landscape editor (In case you don't know, open the cell you're editing in the Render window, then go to edit -> landscapes).

[Sypron]

Thats called LOD. Its the land that loads at a distance when you leave a cell, so you can see all that land around in the distance. Normally, it appears benethe normal land. when normal land disapears, thats what's left. You moved the ground to far down, so the LOD poked out through it. The way to fix this is after you have finished you're hightmapping, recreate the LOD. I'm not sure how to do this part, but I'm sure someone else does.

[TheTerminator2004]

Ah, of course! I'd completely forgotten about LOD :P

 

I believe there's a button in one of the menus (possibly edit?), called generate LOD, but you don't want to touch it until you've completely finished all your exteriors- LOD generation should almost always be the last thing you do.

[Vagrant0]

Ah, of course! I'd completely forgotten about LOD :P

 

I believe there's a button in one of the menus (possibly edit?), called generate LOD, but you don't want to touch it until you've completely finished all your exteriors- LOD generation should almost always be the last thing you do.

Not to mention, since this is part of the tamriel worldspace, will require regenerating the entire worldspace which can take quite a long time, even on a good computer. Then you would need to go through the folder containing all the LOD files you just created, and delete all the files for cells which are not part of what you're changing. LOD generation creates several hundred files, and it has to since it doesn't allow selections of cells, and doesn't generate those cells in any predictable pattern. I've generated LODs, and stopped at around 80% only to find that only some of the cells I had changed were among the list. It has to run all the way through. Then you need to comb through the folder for those LODS you want to change, and delete any others so that they aren't lowering compatability of your mod. This may take quite some time to do.

 

Needless to say, if you have deleted anything on your hard drive that you may want to restore, you should probably do so now. This process will likely make it impossible to restore anything afterwards due to the number of files created. After you've deleted the excess (and after testng) you may even want to clear your cache, empty your recycle bin, and do a defrag before doing anything major. If you don't have atleast 3-4gb free on your hard drive, you probably shouldn't even attempt this. It won't take up that much space, but you never want to have alot of deleted files like that when you are short on space.

[Nutabreton]

Ah, of course! I'd completely forgotten about LOD :P

 

I believe there's a button in one of the menus (possibly edit?), called generate LOD, but you don't want to touch it until you've completely finished all your exteriors- LOD generation should almost always be the last thing you do.

Not to mention, since this is part of the tamriel worldspace, will require regenerating the entire worldspace which can take quite a long time, even on a good computer. Then you would need to go through the folder containing all the LOD files you just created, and delete all the files for cells which are not part of what you're changing. LOD generation creates several hundred files, and it has to since it doesn't allow selections of cells, and doesn't generate those cells in any predictable pattern. I've generated LODs, and stopped at around 80% only to find that only some of the cells I had changed were among the list. It has to run all the way through. Then you need to comb through the folder for those LODS you want to change, and delete any others so that they aren't lowering compatability of your mod. This may take quite some time to do.

 

Needless to say, if you have deleted anything on your hard drive that you may want to restore, you should probably do so now. This process will likely make it impossible to restore anything afterwards due to the number of files created. After you've deleted the excess (and after testng) you may even want to clear your cache, empty your recycle bin, and do a defrag before doing anything major. If you don't have atleast 3-4gb free on your hard drive, you probably shouldn't even attempt this. It won't take up that much space, but you never want to have alot of deleted files like that when you are short on space.

 

So, in general, LOD generation process means that the program will recreate LOD (distant map shapes) automatically based on the changes I've made? Am I right?

[Sypron]

Yes, but it will generate the LOD for all cells in the game, even ones you didn't touch. This takes a long time. After its finished, you can delete the LOD for the cells that your mod doesn't edit, as those LOD's will be already contained in oblivion, and everyone has them.

[Nutabreton]

Yes, but it will generate the LOD for all cells in the game, even ones you didn't touch. This takes a long time. After its finished, you can delete the LOD for the cells that your mod doesn't edit, as those LOD's will be already contained in oblivion, and everyone has them.

 

Thanks for reply. Just some more things I would like to clarify: when I use RMB being clicked on ground, a menu pops up proposing GENERATE LOD LAND TEXTURE and following that it proposes choice of either "This LOD Quad" or "This Cell". Will it do the same thing described above? I mean generation of ALL cells in the game?

And one more issue - when I drop shrubs and trees to Render Window I cannot rotate them like other objects (weapons) with RMB. How can I rotate them?

Thanks for support.

[Sypron]

You can't, but really what difference does it make? Thoese shrubs look the same from all sides.

[Vagrant0]

LOD textures are just low resolution maps which record ground coloring. In most cases, it isn't worth doing. One of the problems with generating these is that they aren't linked properly with the LOD meshes, and they affect the whole quad. While not nearly as time consuming, they can still be a problem when it comes to some of the technical aspects involved with LODs. Essentially, unless you are dramatically changing the ground texturing (like turning a grass hill to lava and ash) you really shouldn't bother with it. The effects of minor things like roads usually don't show up at all.

 

As for shrubs, you can rotate them, but it's rather hard to do since you have to be able to select their base in order to do anything. It's usually easier to just edit their rotation by bringing up their details from the cell view window.