I have very bad news for the bigger projects.

Turns out the LOD is restricted to an 8x8 quads area, as far as I can see. LOD display is controlled by *.lod files inside the Data/lodsettings folder. Look in the Meshes BSA for the ones for vanilla worldspaces. Simply copying Tamriel.lod and renaming it to your worldspace will show up LOD.

If you open Tamriel.lod in a hex editor, the first 4 values look like this:

A0 FF A0 FF

The first and third values (A0) determine the X and Y starting coordinates of the LOD. Two hexadecimal digits can range from 00 to FF (FF == 255 in decimal numbers). The displayed LOD area seems to be 255 cells in length and width. So if the first and third values are A0 (which is 160 in decimals), LOD will only show up from the coordinates -96,-96 to 160,160. (Btw, these values need to be multiples of 8 or LOD won't show up at all)

The second and fourth values (FF FF) I am not sure about, but changing them to anything else will make all LOD disappear. I kinda expect these affect the size of the LOD field, but since I can't change them nor give them more digits, that's of no use anyway.

So, changing these values only shifts the displayed LOD area around, it doesn't actually make it bigger. You can't make the values longer than 2 digits either as far as I can see, the game simply crashed in that case. So my conclusion is that we are stuck with a maximum of 8x8 quads. For a project like MERP (14x13 heightmap) or Mesoga (16x16) this is kinda disastrous, and we will need to make drastic decisions.

Perhaps some very knowledgable modders (programmers) may be able to change this somehow, perhaps by increasing the value directly in memory, or adjusting it on run-time if that's possible depending on where the player is... That would be very awesome, but I don't think we can assume that that will be possible. Some input on that topic from awesome modders would be much appreciated.

Not to sound like I'm belittling your problems, but that means that as long as your worldspace is under 8x8 quads LOD will work just fine? This is both great news (That it works), and horrible news for the bigger projects. I hope you guys can find a way around it! I am looking forward to seeing how others do their massive worldspaces.

Can't we contact anyone from Bethesda about this?

I really doubt they would bother to change it. Projects with bigger than 8x8 heightmaps are extremely rare, there are just a handful of them.

My hope is that a programmer modder might be able to implement a solution, although I'm afraid this issue would be low priority for them as well.

This is just a suggestion, and would require dramatic alteration on your part, but perhaps you just border each 8x8 quad with very tall mountains that you cannot see past, and have a loading screen to connect the two 8x8 quad areas together? That would allow you to have your entire land, and a loading screen like once every 8 hours of straight running (because of the pure distance and size). The only issue with that is abrupt straight (relatively, at least) lines of tall mountains wouldn't look good, or fit your land. :/

A0 FF A0 FF

The first and third values (A0) determine the X and Y starting coordinates of the LOD. Two hexadecimal digits can range from 00 to FF (FF == 255 in decimal numbers). The displayed LOD area seems to be 255 cells in length and width. So if the first and third values are A0 (which is 160 in decimals), LOD will only show up from the coordinates -96,-96 to 160,160. (Btw, these values need to be multiples of 8 or LOD won't show up at all)

These values look like 16-bit signed integers to me, reading FFA0 FFA0, which translates to -96,-96 in decimal. The next 2 bytes are 00 01, which could mean 0100, decimal 256 (width of displayed LOD area). Maybe the engine does allow for a larger LOD area to display, keep experimenting.

Shor's balls, you are right!

00 FF 00 FF 00 02 00 Does the trick!

Sorry everyone for giving you a heart attack! Please forgive me, I showed you how to make LOD appear at all didn't I?

Shor's balls, you are right!

00 FF 00 FF 00 02 00 Does the trick!

Sorry everyone for giving you a heart attack! Please forgive me, I showed you how to make LOD appear at all didn't I?

So LOD isn't as limited and you can proceed?! ^-^

Also, can you explain renaming the Heightmap files real fast? The CS gives me Q1-Q4, but I need to make them like 0_0 or something. What exactly do I rename to?

It's limited to 16x16 I think, same as in Oblivion. Should be enough for everyone.

Rename them to X_Y.raw files, a 0_0.raw file means it is the quad with the lower left coordinate being 0,0. So the quad to the east of of 0_0.raw will be named 1_0.raw, the quad to the west of 0_0.raw is -1,0.raw etc. Place them in Data/HeightField and they will show up in the Heightmap Editor.

Okay this just got weird. :F So each RAW file is one quad? And a quad is 32x32 cells? I ask because I made a random island in the CS (just random bumps everywhere) and exported, and got 4 files. I then imported them and renamed them 0_0, 0_1, 1_0, and 1_1 and only got some land in the top right. I tried getting rid of 0_0 and renaming 0_1 to 0_0, and I get some weirdness but only some stuff in the top right square.

I think I'm just being really stupid and forgetting how all of this works... Also, I renamed assuming Q1 was top left, and it went in a circle clockwise, as I believe that's what I figured from yesterday.

Then of course I used the erode tool to smooth out my map....since the pictures from photoshop aren't high enough quality for smooth changes

The erode tool in the CK? If so, how did you save then, because I still get crashes when I try to. If I can save in the editor, I can make my map right in the CK, instead of importing from the CS. :F

Sorry for being such a noob. 3 years modding and I've never had to handle a large worldspace.

I just click the save button.....it doesnt crash on me.

It may have to do with my computer, it has an i7 2600k with 8 gigs of RAM.