Generating LOD one cell at a time

[Shakrall]

Hello. I have recently started making a mod that involves manipulating the shape and terrain of the fallout new Vegas world, but not creating a new worldspace. I understand that generating LOD is usually used when you need an LOD for a new worldspace, however, that is not the case. I want an LOD similar to my terrain, however, I don't want to re-generate the entire LOD of the New Vegas world. So if anyone knows how to generate LOD cell-by-cell, or something along those lines, please tell me. Thanks.

[Quetzlsacatanango]

The problem is not generating LOD for the cell you changed, it's for all the cells that that cell is visible from.

[Deleted2547005User]

Not possible. You would have to have very intimate knowledge of LOD (which I have) and how every single LOD block is set up, what their coordinates mean on the global scale, and understand how those are laid out on the grid. Then you would need to find out where your edits are on that grid, determine what blocks are effected, then delete those blocks (after having extracted all 1360 blocks). Only then can you redo LOD in certain cells.

 

You are better off redoing the entire thing. Do not fear, the process only takes 24 hours. Hint: the higher the LOD detail setting the faster it actually goes on very large worldspace (64x64 to 128x128cells) WastelandNV is 128x128, NVDLC02ZionCanyon is 64x64, and Wasteland from Fallout 3 is 198x198 cells.

 

Even better, the Mojave is very hilly and bumpy, and that actually makes the LOD process go faster. The flatter it is, the slower, by a factor of 5 to 1. A flat slap the size of the Mojave would takes weeks.

 

Water also has an effect. The areas of Lake Mean and the Colorado have landscape under water. For some reason the game doesn't like LOD under water, and when generating LOD the GECK will create an offset mesh node to write out LOD (along the top of the water - LOD doesn't go underwater) for the water and hide it from player view in game. Water slows the LOD process down, but not nearly as much as slap flatness.

 

Some Information you might find comforting:

 

Take Zion Canyon, outside the canyon the landscape is dead flat. It took 3 hours to generate 1 16xblock, 4 8xblocks, and 16x4blocks (21 out of 336). In contrast the Mojave is hilly and it will take about 1 hour 30 minutes to produce 1 32xblock, 4 16xblocks, 16x8blocks and 64 4xblocks (85 out of 1360). To sum it up, you can redo the entire LOD for the Mojave twice as fast as Zion Canyon.

 

Computer specs if you're wondering: Processor 3.22GHz i3, 1333MHz 8GB GSkill memory

 

If you think you can handle all this information, you can try the following to do the LOD in only the parts you have modified. Be fore warned, I've never done this, and have no reason to do so either, so all of this is best guess based on all of the information I have acquired on my own.

 

Firstly, you'll need to extract the LOD assets from the meshes BSA under meshes/landscape/lod/wastelandNV. Make sure it is all extracted into that file path or the GECK will not see it and assume there is no lod for the wasteland.

 

Second, find all of your edits, and make note of the cells' coordinates. You'll need those for the next step. To make things easy, you can use FNVEdit and find their coordinates as it is harder to see them in the GECK.

 

Next, select a certain location, let's say cells 0,3 1,3 and 0,2. You'll need to understand the following to match up your cells to the LOD grid:

 

LOD is done in blocks, 32x, 16x, 8x, and 4x. They follow the same grid as the worldspace, but their coordinates are harder to read. Their pivot point is the southwestern (-#,-#) most part of that block. So their coordinates go kind of like this; 32xBlocks: -64,-64; -64,-32; -32,-64; -32,-32 (This encompasses everything south and west of the Repconn headquarters). Then the 16x Blocks for the 32x -64,-64 block go like this: -64,-64; -64,-48; -48,-64; -48,-48, Then the 8x Blocks in the 16x Block -64,-64 go like this: -64,-64; -64,-56; -56,-64; -56,-56. Then the 4xBlocks for the 8x -64,-64 Block goes: -64,-64; -64,-60; -60,-64; -60,-60.

 

That's the long, but hopefully informative explanation. You see a pattern. 32x Blocks are 32x32 cells. And so on and so forth. So you now see you need to find the Blocks that your cells reside in. You must keep in mind that the cells exists in 1 32x, 1 16x, 1 8x, and 1 4x Block. To make it easy for you for my example, The Blocks that pivot at 0,0 are the blocks you are looking for. So for the example, you'll need to delete the wastelandnv.level32.x0.y0, wastelandnv.level16.x0.y0, wastelandnv.level8.x0.y0, and wastelandnv.level4.x0.y0 nif files. Then run the LOD for the Mojave, the GECK will find all the 1360 blocks except those four, and then does the LOD for just those four. This method doesn't leave gaps in the LOD already in the game and with the new blocks. DO NOT change the LOD setting past 1.0, that would cause gaps in the LOD.

 

I hope you understand the concept and what I've tried - in my dyslexic, hyperactive self - to explain. My suggestion is do all of your changes, no matter how big the impact is, then simply rerun (without extracting the LOD) the LOD for the Mojave on the highest setting - 2.0. If your computer is as good as mine you'll have full LOD in 24 or less hours. Just keep checking up on it (even though it looks like it has crashed, it never does) to take care of error boxes.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Kuroitsune

[Shakrall]

Not possible. You would have to have very intimate knowledge of LOD (which I have) and how every single LOD block is set up, what their coordinates mean on the global scale, and understand how those are laid out on the grid. Then you would need to find out where your edits are on that grid, determine what blocks are effected, then delete those blocks (after having extracted all 1360 blocks). Only then can you redo LOD in certain cells.

 

You are better off redoing the entire thing. Do not fear, the process only takes 24 hours. Hint: the higher the LOD detail setting the faster it actually goes on very large worldspace (64x64 to 128x128cells) WastelandNV is 128x128, NVDLC02ZionCanyon is 64x64, and Wasteland from Fallout 3 is 198x198 cells.

 

Even better, the Mojave is very hilly and bumpy, and that actually makes the LOD process go faster. The flatter it is, the slower, by a factor of 5 to 1. A flat slap the size of the Mojave would takes weeks.

 

Water also has an effect. The areas of Lake Mean and the Colorado have landscape under water. For some reason the game doesn't like LOD under water, and when generating LOD the GECK will create an offset mesh node to write out LOD (along the top of the water - LOD doesn't go underwater) for the water and hide it from player view in game. Water slows the LOD process down, but not nearly as much as slap flatness.

 

Some Information you might find comforting:

 

Take Zion Canyon, outside the canyon the landscape is dead flat. It took 3 hours to generate 1 16xblock, 4 8xblocks, and 16x4blocks (21 out of 336). In contrast the Mojave is hilly and it will take about 1 hour 30 minutes to produce 1 32xblock, 4 16xblocks, 16x8blocks and 64 4xblocks (85 out of 1360). To sum it up, you can redo the entire LOD for the Mojave twice as fast as Zion Canyon.

 

Computer specs if you're wondering: Processor 3.22GHz i3, 1333MHz 8GB GSkill memory

 

If you think you can handle all this information, you can try the following to do the LOD in only the parts you have modified. Be fore warned, I've never done this, and have no reason to do so either, so all of this is best guess based on all of the information I have acquired on my own.

 

Firstly, you'll need to extract the LOD assets from the meshes BSA under meshes/landscape/lod/wastelandNV. Make sure it is all extracted into that file path or the GECK will not see it and assume there is no lod for the wasteland.

 

Second, find all of your edits, and make note of the cells' coordinates. You'll need those for the next step. To make things easy, you can use FNVEdit and find their coordinates as it is harder to see them in the GECK.

 

Next, select a certain location, let's say cells 0,3 1,3 and 0,2. You'll need to understand the following to match up your cells to the LOD grid:

 

LOD is done in blocks, 32x, 16x, 8x, and 4x. They follow the same grid as the worldspace, but their coordinates are harder to read. Their pivot point is the southwestern (-#,-#) most part of that block. So their coordinates go kind of like this; 32xBlocks: -64,-64; -64,-32; -32,-64; -32,-32 (This encompasses everything south and west of the Repconn headquarters). Then the 16x Blocks for the 32x -64,-64 block go like this: -64,-64; -64,-48; -48,-64; -48,-48, Then the 8x Blocks in the 16x Block -64,-64 go like this: -64,-64; -64,-56; -56,-64; -56,-56. Then the 4xBlocks for the 8x -64,-64 Block goes: -64,-64; -64,-60; -60,-64; -60,-60.

 

That's the long, but hopefully informative explanation. You see a pattern. 32x Blocks are 32x32 cells. And so on and so forth. So you now see you need to find the Blocks that your cells reside in. You must keep in mind that the cells exists in 1 32x, 1 16x, 1 8x, and 1 4x Block. To make it easy for you for my example, The Blocks that pivot at 0,0 are the blocks you are looking for. So for the example, you'll need to delete the wastelandnv.level32.x0.y0, wastelandnv.level16.x0.y0, wastelandnv.level8.x0.y0, and wastelandnv.level4.x0.y0 nif files. Then run the LOD for the Mojave, the GECK will find all the 1360 blocks except those four, and then does the LOD for just those four. This method doesn't leave gaps in the LOD already in the game and with the new blocks. DO NOT change the LOD setting past 1.0, that would cause gaps in the LOD.

 

I hope you understand the concept and what I've tried - in my dyslexic, hyperactive self - to explain. My suggestion is do all of your changes, no matter how big the impact is, then simply rerun (without extracting the LOD) the LOD for the Mojave on the highest setting - 2.0. If your computer is as good as mine you'll have full LOD in 24 or less hours. Just keep checking up on it (even though it looks like it has crashed, it never does) to take care of error boxes.

Wow, you gave a lot of instruction. I'm blown away. Thanks! I'm sure this will help a lot of people.

[SayinNuthin]

Pardon me dusting off this old but excellent thread. So I wish to generate LOD for around 275 to 300 cells, here.

 

It's desert and has little in it except land textures and some statics and I've only done some minor modifications to the Base mesh. Anyone have any advice? I attack the .bsa, delete all the LOD data for these cells and tell the GECK to remake it?... that sounds suspiciously simple...

 

And I'm less than clear about whats going to happen where my new LOD meets the old. Most of the border is the western mountains but if the player was on top one of those mountains looking south he's be seeing the original space on the left and my new one on the right, simultaneously. That's all just going to fit together is it? And using sandstorms full of Deathclaws and Cazadors instead of invisible barriers, Sandstorms are kinda statics, aren't they, or could that cause problems.

 

Trying to get a feel for what I'm going to learn how to do next and prevent time consuming errors barking up wrong trees, wild goose chases after unfeasible objectives etc. So basically Same question as the OP here, except I want to generate 300 cells and yes, I know where they all are (the SW corner of the map from 0,0)

Edited July 23, 2014 by SayinNuthin