Distant LOD objects appear blue / textureless?

[trashgarbage666]

Hey there!

 

So, I'm working on a custom worldspace. Whenever I make a decent amount of progress, I use xLODGen to generate LOD for my world and then run around in-game to get a sense of how it's all coming together. Today I generated a new LOD, and now the roads in the distance are light blue, almost like they're textureless.

https://i.imgur.com/9MGqTDY.png

If I revert to yesterday's backup and try generating LOD for that version, the roads are fine. The only thing that's happened between yesterday and today is that I put down more roads and painted the terrain under the roads with a more appropriate texture. This map only uses vanilla assets and textures, and the only mods I have installed are things like xNVSE, Tick Fix, and so on. Basic stability stuff.

 

Hopefully someone here knows the cause behind this. I'm worried that if I continue work from yesterday's backup it's just going to happen again. Any information at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!

[M48A5]

Check the path for the texture for the portion you added. It should be exactly the same as what you did before.

 

It looks like the normal map is being displayed and not the road texture.

Edited May 7, 2021 by M48A5

[trashgarbage666]

I'm a total novice when it comes to LODs, so I'm not going to be able to intuit some of this. By texture path, do you mean the BSA? Since I'm using all vanilla assets, I don't have any of the textures or models unpacked at the moment. And if I click on one of the roads in the GECK, go to Edit > Edit Base, it just shows me the path for the model, not the texture. I'm not really sure where to look.

[dubiousintent]

You will have to unpack any mesh or texture you want to change from the BSA into the same folder path under "Data". Do not attempt to "repack" them into the BSA, as the game uses "ArchiveInvalidation" to determine there are "loose files" it is supposed to use instead. The "texture path" is present in the "mesh/model" NIF file, and can examined using "NifSkope"" (freeware).

 

(For help with NifSkope, please see those entries under "Image Tools" in the "Programs and Tools" section and the "NifSkope Mesh Editor" section in the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article.)

 

Please see the description of the mod "FNVLODGen" for a list of the folders where the LOD files are located.

 

-Dubious-

[trashgarbage666]

I'm still confused. I have no intention to use custom textures, or to make changes to existing vanilla textures. My problem is that textures on LOD objects were working just fine, and after making more progress on my map, they aren't. I don't know what you guys are suggesting.

[dubiousintent]

We are responding on the basis that you:

1. Regenerated LOD files in the GECK.

2. Those files appear now as "textureless" or "blue". This is usually the result of a bad path to the texture file.

3. "Distance" in LOD files is the result of different sized versions of the image within the "mipmap", which is an optional part of the texture file, being displayed in the fore/middle/background.

4. Objects (buildings, towers, etc.) placed in the background are broadly categorized as "VWD" (View While Distant), while the terrain and landscape features are categorized as "LOD" (Level Of Detail). These are stored in different files that get combined in the displayed image, so you can have issues with part of the background (e.g. objects = VWD) and not with another (e.g. terrain = LOD).

 

This leads us to conclude you accidentally messed up your texture file. Of course we might be wrong, but that is our best guess from the description. Note that the GECK is notorious for accidentally introducing "dirty edits" and breaking things. Which is why you are advised to work in small chunks and save frequently to new working copies.

 

M48A5 does asset artwork. I don't, but have learned some things in general in self-defense against the game's peculiarities and in working on the wiki. Where our advice conflicts, please go with his.

 

-Dubious-

[trashgarbage666]

Sorry about the confusion, I was trying to convey that my textures have more or less been left untouched. No loose textures in my Data folder, because I haven't unpacked any, and no texture filepaths have been reassigned. I finally caved and loaded up a backup and redid all the lost progress. And sure enough, the textures on distant objects are as they should be. It's always frustrating when you fix a problem without learning what caused it. Oh well. I guess the lesson here really is to just save often and make frequent backups.