Tips on LOD generation in FO3

[Irontaxi]

Some info I recieved recently from an experienced terrain modder for oblivion. Just thought I'd pass it along to all those who will be making new terrains..

 

 

 

 

Hey there

 

I'm an experienced modder from FPSs that has just moved into Fall out3 for a project.

 

I have alot of terrain editing / generation experince but I'm on a bit of a learning curve in this new editor.

 

There seem to be some wiki gaps regarding terrain and LOD generation. I wonder if you might shine a bit of

light on the process seeing as you have created terrains in oblivion/morrowind.

 

Essentially I'd like to know the process and format of the LOD system in this engine..

 

As far as I can see

 

1.the terrain uses .dds images with mip mapping to reduce the texture load at distance.

 

2.The objects need to have LODs generated and packed to be shipped with any new content

 

Just wondering if you could give me a quick run through on the process so that I can figure it out in FO3

and update our community wiki with the info..

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Irontaxi

 

 

So here's the deal...

 

In the Oblivion CS there is a function in the heightmap editor for generating the LOD (low detail and high detail). There are a few things to keep in mind about this, like making sure there is a textures/landscapeLOD/generated folder so it also saves normal maps for your LOD dds files. In that CS you need to do this 4 quads at a time (a quad being a 32x32 cell chunk of your map). The LOD textures are generated in the render window (the CS basically takes a picture of every cell and sows them all together at the end). There are quite a few things to keep track of and glitches that can easily occur during the process.

 

The reason why I'm not supplying a lot of details is because I took a look at the GECK and Beth seemed to streamline the process. They probably recognized that people liked making their own worldspaces and simplified the process for us. The TESCS can be really quirky and I wish you luck with the GECK; I hope these quirks are smoothed out. They seemed to have taken a bit more time to make sure it was in good order before they released it (I imagine. I actually haven't done anything except for look at the GUI and various options.)

 

It seems that in the GECK they have a window set aside for all your LOD needs. Go to the World menu and click on "World LOD." From there you will be able to generate a) Landscape LOD NIF meshes, cool.gif Landscape LOD DDS textures, C) Distant objects and trees.

 

So to make all that clear (and to answer what you are probably asking):

The distant land you see in the game is a collection of very large NIF meshes that are rendered outside of the loaded terrain (thus giving the illusion of more loaded cells). These meshes need textures (obviously). Another thing that the landscape LOD includes are LOD meshes for all the objects and trees that you want to see from a distance. In Oblivion the trees are sprites to cut down on detail (you can find the sprite textures in the textures/tree/billboard folder) and I imagine FO3 uses similar ones but I haven't looked that closely. So to get these LOD objects and trees to show up you go into the objects properties (in the render window NOT in the object window. If you edit objects in the Object Window it will use whatever changes you make on ALL instances of that object....bad voodoo) and click "View When Distant." If there is a distant LOD mesh that corresponds to that object it will be included when the computer makes a list of all the LOD objects and applies them to your Landscape LOD meshes. It is also important to note that you need your landscape LOD meshes generated before you can generate objects and trees (it needs the meshes to place them correctly).

 

I hope this is informative. If you're still confused or I missed something more specific, just shoot me another PM.

 

Peace,

 

 

PS I was just looking at some trees in the GECK: It seems that trees in general have base properties saying they are Visible When Distant so the "Visible When Distant" check box is grayed out when looking at the object/referance properties.

 

 

2 remaining questions.

 

1. You mentioned the path that needs to be available "textures/landscapeLOD/" Im guessing this needs to be in the root of my mods folder in the root data folder?

 

2.How are these LODs and associated .nif files packed into the mod? Im assuming they need to be compiled in some way...

 

Big thanks.. Greatly appreciated...

 

Irontaxi

 

 

1: The GECK might make the paths for you. Give it a try without manually creating the folders. With the TESCS if you do not have a certain folder available when generating LOD meshes, your normals will be missing. In the GECK they might have fixed that issue as well as have different folder names for where all this goes. So try it without messing with destinations and see if all your files pop up where they should be.

 

2: As your mod grows, if you add content like textures, meshes, etc you will need to put these files into certain folder locations. If you want to know what this will look like, get a BSA unpacker and check out the fallout BSA files. In these archives there are folder trees that mirror location requirements outside of the BSA (the BSA just takes the form of an expansive tree of folders where all the files go).

 

For example: I want to add an object. There are 2 things I need to create: 1) The NIF mesh and 2) Textures. The mesh will have to go somewhere in the Meshes folder (preferably in an organized fashion. Architecture in Meshes/Architecture, Armor in Meshes/Armor, etc...) and texture will have to go somewhere in the textures folder (example: landscape texture OCStreetBrick.dds will go into the Textures/Landscape folder).

 

So as your mod grows there will be a lot of files that will need to be in specific places in your Data folder. There are 2 ways around this potentially messy situation for the consumer. (Keep in mind that these have been developed for Oblivion. There are probably similar options for FO3 already out or are on their way)

 

1. Create a BSA

 

Find a program that will create custom BSAs and gather up all your files into a single archive BSA. This will eliminate the issue of misplaced files or missing/overwriten files.

 

2. Package into some kind of Mod Archive file

 

There is a program Oblivion modders know very well called Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM). This is not only what I use to package BSA files but there is another file that it can package your mod into: OMOD. This archive file is only accessible with OBMM. Once activated in OBMM the OMOD file will be unpacked into the various file structures necessary. When you want to uninstall the mod, simply deactivate the OMOD in OBMM and it will go back and automatically remove all those files that came with your mod, thus making the experience of installing and uninstalling mods relatively painless for the consumer despite having all your files unpacked into a series of folder trees.