Occlusion Culling on Settlement Objects

[NonameFTW]

Hello people.

I have a question in case there any experienced mod authors out there. I would like to build a big vault ingame as player settlement. The problem is that even before adding any objects the framerate tanks because there are to many corridors and lights build. This is probably because settlement objects do no occlude what is behind them so even though you are standing in a corridor the engine renders the whole vault.
My question is if anyone every attempted to add occlusion planes to settlement objects. I found this question already on reddit but I have yet to find an answer: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3um775/discussion_occlusion_culling_settlements_and_the/

 

I also want to ask if anyone knows a good way to improve the performance for player vaults.

[smirgol]

Sorry for necro, but that's what I'm trying right now as well and there's not much you can find when you search for this topic. :)

 

As far as I can see, an occlusion plane can only be placed within the GECK and there only as a standalone (Plane marker with "somehow" attached occlusion), not being part of a geometry.

That's the first bummer.

Second one is, there is a console command to spawn an ingame occlusion plane, but it insta-crashes the client, no matter if I spawn it on its own or on an object.

As far as I can see there is no way to dynamicaly add occlusion planes to the game, which is super sad.

 

I'm not yet sure if you can reference an already placed occlusion plane ingame with console commands. If you can, there could be a pretty hackish workaround, like pre-placing a couple of planes in a hidden place and then, ingame, move them to where you want them and rescale. I doubt it will work, but I'll try this evening.

"I also want to ask if anyone knows a good way to improve the performance for player vaults."

Other than spreading things out, so not everything is in your view all the time and gets rendered, no. Occlusion planes would help, as not a single workshop item occludes things behind it (theres another console command to show you occluding objects), but you already know that. ;)

[SMB92]

When you think you have finished building your cell, what you have to do is:

 

Under World Menu - Precombine Meshes for Current Cell

 

Then under Visibility Menu - Generate Previs for Current Cell

And when that is done: Generate Precombined Previs for Current Cell

 

Do it in that precise order. Previs will take the longest to generate each time.

 

Now, you will get a big bunch of files appear in your Data/Vis folder, and also your Data/Meshes/Precombined folder, you should seea folder with your ESP name. When you want to update or change anything, best practice is to delete all of that and do it all over again.

 

Regarding placing occlusion planes, I believe you still can if you wish, however I have experienced some bugs with Previs with this, but this may only apply to that particular instance (see my mod called Monsignor Occ Box Disabler).

 

You may also go down the road of setting up portals and roombounds, if you so wish, either on top of this or instead of this.

 

Hopefully that answers this question for you.

[NonameFTW]

You summoned me back here but I ain't really smarter now.

[smirgol]

SMB92: Thank you for this information, I'm sure it will come in handy. What we/I try to archive though, is to either place an occlusion plane ingame, or include an occlusion plane in a static, like a wall.
As far as I can see, this is not possible. I checked some statics (like walls) with NifSkope, but I cannot see any node on them that looks like an occlusion plane.

 

The idea is to be able to strategically place them in your growing settlement, to help improve the framerate. When I stand at the entrance of my settlement and look down the road, the whole settlement is rendered, though I can see only a part of it. The FPS go down the drain to somewhat 15fps, and I optimized a lot already. Occlusion planes were my last hope to improve this. :|
I'll need to spread out the settlement, so it does not need to render everything, but then there are the settlement-bounds. But I can change these, so that should work at least.

 

Another attempt could be to create "rooms" and portals, but again, if these cannot be created on runtime, it won't be of help, since I don't have a static cell but a dynamic settlement.

 

Again, thank you though, that information will come in handy nonetheless. :)

[damanding]

For a little more understanding on the topic: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5522717-fallout-4-optimization-and-performance-systems-explained

[damanding]

I would think that as long is your vault isn't just a single block of space but is instead broken up into chambers that roombounds and portals would still be of use, even though it's a settlement vs just a standard interior cell. If you did design it as a single block of space, I suggest breaking it up much like Bethesda did with the Vault DLC location, then it'll be easier to make it performance friendly.