More LOD Trouble

[Triforce1]

Okay, I'm back. Vagrant0 managed to help me some, but I need more. I was having trouble getting some rocks to appear from a distance; Vagrant0 said that I should do this: 1) Generate new LODs for the entire map. 2) They will appear in the Data/Distant LOD folder, delete the ones that don't have to do with the area I'm modifying. 3) Extract the .nif's of the rocks I need to see, put _far at the end of all of them, and then place them in that new Distant LOD folder we talked about earlier. Now, that was supposed to work, but any of you who have become familiar with me will know by now that it didn't. Just to clear things up, this is no fault of anyone's but my own.

 

Now, will anyone tell me what I did wrong? I have the ten or so .lod files, with the original names, and the rock .nifs with _far added to the end. That's it. Thanks.

[dyfed99]

I believe the nifs aren't supposed to go in the distantlod folder, that is! Just try putting them in their correct folder under meshes\rocks. But you might need to regenerate again the distantlod data after putting them there, as well as you might need to run your Archive Invalidation.. This because the distantlod data are already in your Oblivion - meshes.bsa (the nifs of those rocks too, I believe), so you need to invalidate them through the archive alteration utility of OBMM.

 

Edit: I believe there is also a 'Viewable from distant' flag (or a sort of) somewhere you might need to check. This because sometimes, in TES4Edit, I've for objects in the same cell various data types. Temporary, persistent and viewable from distant. And I can set, if I want, the flag 'viewable from distant' or remove it.

[Triforce1]

Thanks. But I am familiar with the "visible when distant" flag, and that has been checked on every single rock under the island.

 

However, this "Archive Invalidation" thing is new to me. I found it in the OBMM window, but how do I use it, and what function does it serve? If you could be patient and please give me a step-by-step, I would be forever greatful.

[Triforce1]

Thanks. But I am familiar with the "visible when distant" flag, and that has been checked on every single rock under the island.

 

However, this "Archive Invalidation" thing is new to me. I found it in the OBMM window, but how do I use it, and what function does it serve? If you could be patient and please give me a step-by-step, I would be forever grateful. All I want to do is get some stupid rocks to show up from a much bigger distance!

[Triforce1]

Thanks. But I am familiar with the "visible when distant" flag, and that has been checked on every single rock under the island.

 

However, this "Archive Invalidation" thing is new to me. I found it in the OBMM window, but how do I use it, and what function does it serve? If you could be patient and please give me a step-by-step, I would be forever grateful. All I want to do is get some stupid rocks to show up from a much bigger distance!

[Triforce1]

Thanks. But I am familiar with the "visible when distant" flag, and that has been checked on every single rock under the island.

 

However, this "Archive Invalidation" thing is new to me. I found it in the OBMM window, but how do I use it, and what function does it serve? If you could be patient and please give me a step-by-step, I would be forever grateful. All I want to do is get some stupid rocks to show up from a much bigger distance!

[Triforce1]

Thanks. But I am familiar with the "visible when distant" flag, and that has been checked on every single rock under the island.

 

However, this "Archive Invalidation" thing is new to me. I found it in the OBMM window, but how do I use it, and what function does it serve? If you could be patient and please give me a step-by-step for all this, I would be forever grateful. All I want to do is get some stupid rocks to show up from a much bigger distance!

[Triforce1]

What the heck?! I type it once and hit enter, and like a million posts show up! Is the forum itself conspiring against me?

[dyfed99]

Thanks. But I am familiar with the "visible when distant" flag, and that has been checked on every single rock under the island.

 

However, this "Archive Invalidation" thing is new to me. I found it in the OBMM window, but how do I use it, and what function does it serve? If you could be patient and please give me a step-by-step for all this, I would be forever grateful. All I want to do is get some stupid rocks to show up from a much bigger distance!

The Archive Invalidation allows you to overwrite the default vanilla content which is packed in the BSA archives you have in your Data folder. If you don't do this after installing any mod which replaces that said content (such are QTP3 and AEVWD for example) the new textures, meshes, distantlod data etc.. will be not displayed in game. This because the game will use the BSA content instead if these are in the DATA folder.

There are several ways to do it, as you can see in the OBMM window. The invalidation method is the most known and (I think) used. But it isn't the most reliable, because you need to write in the Archive Invalidation.txt (located in your Oblivion folder) every path for every mesh, texture, sound, voice, distantlod etc.. you want to alter. If you have mods which alter a lot of those the game will not run even! Time ago I used it, and after the installing of QTP2 and/or AEVWD it stopped running and it stuck while loading..

So it's ways much better the alteration method, although this means you will alter the BSA contents directly. Though the game will run at least!

Here is a picture with the settings:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z87/dyf...ng?t=1209673638

[Triforce1]

So basically, if I set the Invalidation screen to look exactly like that, then choose "Update Now", it will take those new .nifs and .lods still sitting in the Distant LOD folder and make them work? It sounds a little simplified, but I'll try. Thanks.