any advice for removing statue LOD at Mojave Outpost?

[bluedingo77]

HI guys I would really appreciate some help,

 

I have been making a mod that removes or moves a lot of places around to make a fresh new vegas map to play on and explore, I have made 2 and a half completely new towns (about 6 months work lol) with no boarded doors and with all kinds of new shops (sporting shop, mining supply shop, corner deli, coffee shop, dress shop, hardware store, gun shop, white goods shop ect) and im planning to use the map other side of the Mojave Outpost (already have the bare bones of a whole new city out there) but im stuck with this LOD problem.

 

Does anyone know how I can remove the object LOD for the statues at the Mojave Outpost? Also I might need to remove the building and roller coaster object LOD for Primm as well. Any ideas or links would be most welcome!

[CaptMitch]

this might help

WORLD LOD

Edited November 3, 2012 by Capt Mitch

[CaptMitch]

you can also read this

Need to change LOD mesh

 

[bluedingo77]

you can also read this

Need to change LOD mesh

ok thats a really handy start, cheers

 

so I have located the meshes.bsa file but now it seems I need an extraction tool to do anything to it (Im new to all this stuff but im keen to learn) so I need to have a search around on how to do that now

[CaptMitch]

you can also read this

Need to change LOD mesh

ok thats a really handy start, cheers

 

so I have located the meshes.bsa file but now it seems I need an extraction tool to do anything to it (Im new to all this stuff but im keen to learn) so I need to have a search around on how to do that now

 

There is a link in my other post for a BSA UNPACKER

Dawnguard missing local string

Edited November 3, 2012 by Capt Mitch

[bluedingo77]

 

There is a link in my other post for a BSA UNPACKER

Dawnguard missing local string

 

Thanks for looking in on my post again, I appreciate it! I got this message when I went to your link though..

 

File hidden

This file has currently been set to hidden by the author of the file. You cannot look at this file page or download any files relating to this file until the author makes the file visible to the public again.

[CaptMitch]

That was just a NEXUS error try again.

[TrickyVein]

bluedingo77, it may seem like a simple fix, right? It turns out it's not. Such is the nature of the beast.

 

If I understand your predicament, you have built in the Mojave wasteland beyond the limits of the playable area, but would like to 'pretend' that you're weren't actually in a place just a few cells Southwest of the Mojave outpost. Because you can still see the giant statues from a distance, this breaks immersion and you would like to get rid of them.

 

There are two ways you might be able to do this:

 

1) Remove the diffuse and normal maps from 'textures\landscape\LOD\mojavewasteland\blocks' and the LOD settings from 'data\LODsettings' named for the worldspace they are attached to (in this case, the Mojave Wasteland), go into the GECK, load the New Vegas .esm, uncheck the 'visible when distant' box for the meshes concerned, (save) and regenerate object LOD under 'worldspaces\world LOD' then move the generated atlas textures from the source folder in 'Bethesda Softworks\source\textures tga\landscape\lod\[name of the esm]\blocks' to the data folder. (But only after extracting all LOD meshes, .dds textures and .tga textures.)

 

As you can probably surmise from the description of how you might do this (I say might, because I don't know of anyone who has) you would also be affecting the LOD for the *rest* of the mojave wasteland. You wouldn't be able to see the giant statues from within the playable area of the Mojave Wasteland, which doesn't seem right. I'm not sure if you were concerned about this or not.

 

If you don't care, then you might also try this (Much, much easier!!!):

 

2) locate the diffuse atlas texture in 'textures\landscape\LOD\wastelandnv\blocks' named 'wastelandnv.buildings' and open it with some image editing software like GIMP or photoshop. It's a .dds, so you may need to search for the necessary plugins. Simply 'black out' or edit the alpha channel for the part of the atlas texture that corresponds to the LOD texture for the mojave outpost statue LOD piece. (I don't know which one it is. You will have to use FOMM or something else to unpack the .nif file and see what texture it references in NifSkope.)

 

It seems to me you're either going to have to 1) deal with the LOD or 2) begin learning about how to build new worldspaces and cut=> paste 6 months of work into a new one if you don't like trying either of these methods, or 3) choose an area of the Mojave wasteland where you can't see anything you don't want and start working there instead.

 

No one tells you how to do these things. It's very easy to jump head-first into a project without the knowledge you should really have to save time and work down the road.

Edited November 4, 2012 by TrickyVein

[bluedingo77]

Thanks for taking an interest TrickyVein,

I appreciate the lengthy reply but im so new to modding I need to look deeply into each of these steps before I can get anywhere, I dont even know what a "diffuse atlas texture" is im afraid! So Im still getting my head around the stuff you told me. A couple of quick questions while I do though if you have the time to answer:

 

Ok so I have the steam version of NV and this is what I have found thats similar to your description

Data\Meshes\Landscape\LOD\WastelandNV\Blocks

if I open that Blocks folder there is nothing inside it. now if I go to the Data\Textures\ folder then there is a choice of armor, clutter, or vehicals and in those are a few .dds files (eg in the vehicals folder is the file nv_firetrucks.dds) but htere is no landscape folder there with .dds so am I missing something basic here?

 

also what programs do you use when doing these things? I have Paint.Net which I hope is going to be ok for editing things of a graphic nature (if not I'll just get .Gimp) im still trying to find out what program to use to edit the .nif files when I get there too because FOMM is no longer any good for that I think I read, and are there any other programs you need to do the things described in your first reply?

 

 

p.s. I might have been unclear so the main concept of this mod is to move the existing towns around, add new towns and also use the map area thats the other side of the Mojave Outpost fence, just continue on with a road there and keep adding towns. The purporse of all this is to make everything feel new and interesting again and have a huge map. I have moved all my work to a new file and will leave the statues there If I have to but I still want to learn how to work with LOD so I know how to fully manipulate everything to make mods.