Tes4LOD Gen reverts to native landscape?!

[NexusKnight]

Could someone please tell me why Tes4LOD Gen would revert landscape changes, a mod like Glenvar Castle makes, back to vanilla?

 

This is what happened...

 

After loading Valenwood Unleashed mod (a Valenwood province replacer) I used Tes4LOD Gen and went back to play and found that mod-modified land around Shadowcrest Vineyard and Glenvar Castle was missing (big land tears and hovering buildings). Around Glenvar Castle it looks like the vanilla landscape with the winding hill that was there initially. There are also minor land tears visible here and there where there weren't any before. Why would this utility do this? I've used it without issue before and everything worked fine! I don't understand.

 

I've got a feeling that I may have done something wrong but I don't know what. As usual, any help or advice would be very appreciated - Rick

Edited May 14, 2013 by NexusKnight

[Hickory]

Tes4LODGen is a distant LOD (not land LOD) generator that works by creating (re-creating really) viewable objects in \Data\DistantLOD\ for the mods loaded, based on every *_far.nif file it finds. This makes it *extremely* load order critical. In other words, you must run it after you have performed all other operations. Unfortunately, if a mod supplies Distant LOD files (*.lod) itself, Tes4LODGen will break that mod, in effect, when it re-creates those objects if the appropriate _far.nif files are not found.

[Foina]

Interesting.

 

Unfortunately, if a mod supplies Distant LOD files (*.lod) itself, Tes4LODGen will break that mod, in effect, when it re-creates those objects if the appropriate _far.nif files are not found.

 

In which case I wonder, would the problem disappear if _after_ the Lod generator has created its distant lod files, the OP reinstates the mod-supplied (Valenwood Unleashed's) original distant lod files?

 

Thanks

[Hickory]

Interesting.

 

Unfortunately, if a mod supplies Distant LOD files (*.lod) itself, Tes4LODGen will break that mod, in effect, when it re-creates those objects if the appropriate _far.nif files are not found.

 

In which case I wonder, would the problem disappear if _after_ the Lod generator has created its distant lod files, the OP reinstates the mod-supplied (Valenwood Unleashed's) original distant lod files?

 

Thanks

 

Yes and no. The problem is that some mods are going to conflict no matter what. If you restore Valenwood's LOD files, they may (probably will) overwrite LOD files created/installed for/by other mods. This is (was) a common issue with the Elsweyr Anequina mod, for example. There is no one simple answer, unfortunately. The ideal answer, of course, would be for mods like Elsweyr and Valenwood to supply appropriate _far.nif files, then it would be a case (as in normal mods) of last loaded wins. Again, unfortunately mods of that sale rarely (if ever) supply all of the _far.nif files, preferring to supply the .lod files directly.

[NexusKnight]

Well, from what you said Hickory, I decided to scrap the Valenwood mod and return my game back to the previous state from my backup files. Now everything seems to be as it was. Thanks for the input again, you're a life saver.