Skyrim Castle MOD WIP

[Vyron43]

Ok,you can count me as the second person who is working on Dar Khuun directly if you want,if you send a pm that includes a link for project files i can start working on navmesh now,i will also try to make a new banner for project using the images that previously posted.

 

Good luck with LOD.

[kane4355]

Started implementing questline, hitting hiccup and requesting support to get it right. created Hjal as the town name. Hjal Hall of dead, Hjal Elevator, Lower and Upper cells. created ancient entrance to Dzulfith. Created basement Catacombs. Navmesh currently being worked on for majority of the interior cells. updated most of the map markers. populated most of Hjal, still not going to have city life (may be implemented in the future as part of questline, if time permits). Edited June 11, 2012 by kane4355

[kane4355]

fixed the hiccup with some of the questing issues i was having and the questline is coming along fine. Vyron43 is working on the navmesh on the interior cells and MrNivellen is currently sick so the work on the Ballast has been slowed down. The catacombs were created which is part of the questline. Most of the exterior is completed, although castle life is not a priority at this moment. Once the questline is completed, the mod will be releasable and hopefully for not long in beta. I will not be worried about mod conflicts during beta, as most of what my mod provides will not interfere with any others unless they are in the cells mine is created in.. and at that point it is your choice to decide what mod u want to keep.

[kane4355]

I figured out my LOD problem with a quick update that they just did or did in the past for the creation kit along with associated programs. It also may have helped with people who figured this out and got TTP's in place to share and posted it on the forums with a cut clear coat way of doing it (so far). Either way I think i have it. Creating LOD for the exterior of the castle may be possible as well as the LOD for the other worlds.

 

HOWEVER, and i mean this in the biggest however - The castle is in the Tamriel worldspace. what does this mean for players? in order to get LOD for my castle to work and have it have no huge impact on the players computer, I have to alter (replace) the tamriel lod files. alter yes, replace, most definitely. that is the only way to make this happen. there are other ways but it causes too much lag on performance on the lowest settings. The biggest problem with replacing these files or even creating the LOD is the size of the LOD files themselves. Just the landscape files for tamriel are 60MB and there is no way of deciphering which textures to include that are only for my alteration because of the way they are created and put together. its complicated really but just know i have to replace and alter the whole tamriel LOD file set. this is not to include the required textures and meshes for the objects, and tree LOD. the final size is undetermined as the process of extracting and generating has taken a toll on my computer and I am still going through the process.

 

I just need to know if it is worth having this done in the first place. I can always make it an optional file to download for those who want it. With how large this castle is it makes a difference to be able to see it in the distance (from whiterun even).

 

Edit01: Tamriel Objects together is 27 MB

Edit02: the level 32 LOD mesh and textures is what effects and adds the castle to be visible on the map.

Edited June 20, 2012 by kane4355

[kane4355]

Here are pictures of the LOD. Keep in mind its a WIP, and there are major issues/concerns to deal with. The temple of divines solitude temple's LOD doesnt seem to be lined up. its actually quite off and doesn't match up with how my castle is put together, hence why one of them looks like its in mid air. I am also having some issues getting certain statics generated. the creation kit will only generate for statics that have distant LOD defined in their base objects. There is a workaround on this by defining a distant LOD and i was going to use their normal nif file for it. However, some things have gotten in the way of that due to the texture files and their placement during generation. I don't know why but it tells me certain ones do not match up in size when their extracted directly from the .bsa. Another workaround was making everything full LOD. unfortunately when you switch over to master files, full LOD sometimes works, but not all the time. Oh and the big kicker - all the files just needed to make this happen for tamriel, combined all together uncompressed is about 350 MB. I wish there was a workaround and all i had to do was include the portion for my castle but unfortunately it is not that easy.

 

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/1853/screenshot536p.png

 

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/4344/screenshot538.png

 

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/4896/screenshot539i.png

 

And here is a look at the WIP for the map. again the 32 mesh and textures are what provide the visibility on the map.

 

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/2903/screenshot541c.png]

Edited June 21, 2012 by kane4355

[kane4355]

So i made some minor alterations and cleaned it up a bit. a lot of stuff had to be set at full LOD, my idea of setting regular NIF's for distant LOD did not work for some reason... there is slight lag on some load up but it may be different on other machines but otherwise the full LOD has played no major role in performance from afar. unfortunately nothing i can do to increase performance unless a willing 3D modeler wants to make some low level models for me. in any case i hope you like what you see and again, this is a large file for LOD. it will be made available for those who wish to have it. be advised, it will look weird without it especially with Full LOD on. If anyone knows a way to shrink the file, IE only include the chages to LOD from the cells I have altered versus a full fledged LOD file, let me know. enjoy the pics!

 

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/1330/screenshot542t.png

 

http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/1821/screenshot546.png

 

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/5647/screenshot547.png

 

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/2133/screenshot548.png

 

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/1576/screenshot549t.png

 

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/8974/screenshot550e.png

 

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2323/screenshot552.png

 

http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/7140/screenshot554c.png

 

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/4098/screenshot555f.png

[kane4355]

more pics:

 

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/9633/screenshot556w.png

 

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/7271/screenshot557.png

 

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/8476/screenshot558.png

 

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/9793/screenshot559j.png

 

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/6123/screenshot561.png

 

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/2108/screenshot562.png

Edited June 21, 2012 by kane4355

[bolt666]

Very, very very beutiful, looks really awasome :)

[stoaty6666]

Great pictures thanks for the update

[Tamb0]

In the following post,

 

a=lod level: x=x coord: y=y coord

You don't have to include all the Tamriel.a.x.y.bto object LOD mesh files, only the ones that have alterations in them.

 

Your lod levels (a) come in four levels -

 

Level 4 - a 16 cell block arranged 4x4. Used ingame

Level 8 - a 64 cell block arranged 8x8. Used ingame

Level 16 - a 256 cell block arranged 16x16. Used ingame

Level 32 - a 1024 cell block arranged 32x32. Not used ingame - for map only.

 

What you have to do is work out what files you need for your mod.

 

For level 4 you need the file that has the coordinates that begin with the divisible by 4 number, below (less than) your cell number.

 

Example 1

 

If your mod is in cell (15,11). From the above method, you only need the level 4 mesh file associated with Tamriel.4.12.8. -

 

Tamriel.4.12.8.bto

 

The mesh for Tamriel.4.12.8 covers the area Tamriel.4.(12 to 15).(8 to 11). As you can see, your coordinates are included in that area.

 

The level 8 files work the same, so you look for the divisible by 8 number below (less than) your cell coordinates. In this case, you would need the file Tamriel.8.8.8 or a better way to look at it is Tamriel.8.(8 to 15).(8 to 15).

 

For level 16, you would need the file Tamriel.16.0.0 or

Tamriel.0.(0 to 15).(0 to 15)

 

I hope this is making sense.

 

Sometimes your mod might pass over a lod level border. In this case, you would include 2 .bto files.

 

Example 2

 

If your mod starts in cell (15,11) and extends into (16,11) From the above method, you would need all the files from example 1, but these only cover the lod in area up to x coord 15.

 

(at this point...no more colours...you get the idea)

 

Using the same method, you would work out that you also need all the files for

 

Tamriel.4.16.8.

Tamriel.8.16.8.

Tamriel.16.16.8.

 

Therefore, your mod only needs 6 files for the object lod for a mod that spanned (15,11) to (16,11).

 

So far so good.

 

For some folk, things get a little can get a little confusing when their mod is in a cell with a negative value. If our example was in (-15,-11) then the numbers change a little.

 

You still use the same method as above, but where folk get confused is working out the mesh numbers that contains the information that they need.

 

We can't just use the same tiles in example 1 and put a minus sign in front, because those tiles have a higher number, not a lower number. (-12 is higher than -15, not lower)

 

The easy way I do it is think of them as a positve cell and go to th next higher number that's divisible by 4, 8 or 16 (depending on lod level you're looking for), then put a minus in front the results.

 

So for in Tamriel (-15,-11) level 4 lod, you would need -

 

Tamriel.4.-16.-12.bto

 

or the other way to look at it is -

 

Tamriel.4.(-16 to -12).(-12 to -8 ).bto

 

 

The other two files needed would be

 

Tamriel.8.-16.-16.bto

Tamriel.16.-16.-16.bto

 

Lastly, work out what level 32 mesh you need (for map) and include it as well

 

Summary

 

Just work out exactly what files you need, and include them with your mod. You definately don't need the whole of Tamriel.

 

[Edit]

My original post here was for terrain files. I forgot that it was object LOD that kane4355 mentioned.

However, the same logic applies if you alter the terrain (.btr) files and those must include the .dds files.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Tamb0