Invisible from Afar...

[Triforce1]

I am making a floating island city, and I know that most of the meshes are see-through from underneath. So, I put a bunch of rocks underneath so that it would not only not be see-through, but it would look like there was floating dirt underneath. Problem is, the rocks turn invisible when you get too far away (in this case, a measly fifty in-game feet). I checked "visible from a distance" on every rock. What can I do to make all of these rocks visible from the same distances as the buildings that are sitting on top of them? Will the right-click, Generate LOD, This Cell Only thing work?

[Vagrant0]

I am making a floating island city, and I know that most of the meshes are see-through from underneath. So, I put a bunch of rocks underneath so that it would not only not be see-through, but it would look like there was floating dirt underneath. Problem is, the rocks turn invisible when you get too far away (in this case, a measly fifty in-game feet). I checked "visible from a distance" on every rock. What can I do to make all of these rocks visible from the same distances as the buildings that are sitting on top of them? Will the right-click, Generate LOD, This Cell Only thing work?

It's LOD related, namely Update LOD data. It should be mentioned that using this within a vanilla worldspace may cause conflicts with other mods which happen to change the same cell, or change LOD data for that cell.

[Triforce1]

Okay, update LOD data. Not surprisingly, I have no idea how to go about this. Is there a button somewhere? And I don't mind the conflict; the city is insanely high and really far out on the border. Aside from that, how exactly do I update the LOD data?

[Triforce1]

Please? Take pity on an LOD noob!

[Vagrant0]

Please? Take pity on an LOD noob!

World > World Testing > Update Distant LOD data.

The rocks also need a nif for the far mesh. This can be done just by making a duplicate nif, and changing it's name to <whatever>_far.nif. These files will need to be in the same folder as the rocks, and will need to be distributed with your mod.

 

It seems to be the whole worldspace that gets generated... But IIRC you can delete all the entries other than your cells to avoid conflicts. However it will take awhile to generate, and you'll have ALOT of files you'd need to delete afterward. You should also backup any files for that worldspace you may already have. (DistantLOD folder)

[Triforce1]

:thanks: :thanks: :thanks: ! And when you say: "delete", why would I need to do that? The was nothing in the space the city now occupies before, just empty sky. Is there yet another thing I don't quite get yet?

[Vagrant0]

:thanks: :thanks: :thanks: ! And when you say: "delete", why would I need to do that? The was nothing in the space the city now occupies before, just empty sky. Is there yet another thing I don't quite get yet?

Delete meaning the thousands of other files it generated in addition to the cells you wanted. All those extra files aren't needed, and can accidently overwrite LOD data changed by other mods.

[Triforce1]

Thanks again. I think I have it now. I did the generate thing, so now i have the LODs. One final question; do I delete all but the cells I need, put those in the .bsa file with the original LODs, and delete the originals (back up the originals, of course!)?

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the rock nifs. How exactly do I do that? It wasn't clear to me. Sorry to be annoying, but you have provided so much help over the course of this!

[Vagrant0]

Thanks again. I think I have it now. I did the generate thing, so now i have the LODs. One final question; do I delete all but the cells I need, put those in the .bsa file with the original LODs, and delete the originals (back up the originals, of course!)?

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the rock nifs. How exactly do I do that? It wasn't clear to me. Sorry to be annoying, but you have provided so much help over the course of this!

You don't need to do anything with the .bsas, just leave those files in the data folder. But yeah, you can delete all but the cells you need.

 

As for the far nifs, you do just what was said. Make a copy of all the rock.nifs, rename them to include _far (CHROCK01_Far.Nif) in their filename, and then move them into the folder containing the rocks. The meshes need _far.nif files to display something when no longer in the active cell.

 

Ideally, these _far.nifs should be optimized to increase performance (since you don't need all that detail), but that requires additional steps that you may not know how to take. Also, since these are rocks, chances are that the textures being used by the _far.nifs are also being used by rocks within the active cell, so using a smaller, less detailed texture on the _far.nifs may end up requiring more resources. If these were buildings however, you might want to use both simplified models as well as textures. But as I said, it really isn't needed in this case, and was only mentioned incase someone actually uses the search feature.

[Triforce1]

I really appreciate all the help you've given me. Thanks a ton! :D