[Alexandra Louise Taylor]

That has been confirmed, yes. The problem appears to occur when Oscape produces 1x1 textures.

Anyway, as I don't know what you're doing, don't know where the error occurs (in Skyrim or the CK), and I am using 1x1 final textures in Skyrim without problems, I really have to say I'm totally lost myself. All I know is: there should be no error.
I could think that if the problem is in the CK, and the CK paints directly onto textures - I always though the CS paints into the ESP/ESM instead ... - it'll not work, of course. So make me a video or something so I can understand this. I have very few time, I'll have an important meeting next week, basically am in crunch time, so I can't sit down learning the CK. Which also seems a bit buggy ...

Okay, I'll record the process of me texturing the worldspace, generating textures, and a quick video of the problem.

Just to clarify, I should be painting textures in the CK, generating LOD using the exact steps listed in the OP, and I should have normal looking LOD?

[quinnnn]

Okay, my software didn't record ingame, and editing and re-encoding the footage was much harder than just uploading the small initial file, so stop watching once I install the LOD, and refer to the screenshots instead.

Video of me generating LOD: http://youtu.be/lNBBmlIducA

What it looks like ingame 1: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/488876173300304542/1C92FC223ED9554738FBDD15643424CC8A39ABAC/
2: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/488876173300306577/4BC6B287872C6270635B3366F4DE311DDD0907BC/

That plateau is what I randomly textured, so if I understand everything correctly, it should look proper from a distance, but it doesn't.

Am I misunderstanding something, is something broken, or am I doing a step during generation wrong? :/

Also, does anyone have any tips for the region generator? I tried doing something similiar to Oblivion's regions. My parent objects are a few textures, and under them are larger objects that would fit that texture (large tree's for lush forest floor, small tree's for open fields, and rocky islands for dirt) then under those some smaller items. (Shrubs, stumps, branches, etc) However, when I generate all I get is the ONE parent texture with the highest density, all the textures are done in perfect 1024 unit squares, and the objects are in perfect rows... :F

[Logan Greenwood]

Interesting fact.

the CK is a 32-bit program, if it's memory usage reaches 3.5 GiG......it will crash. Found this out when trying to generate textures for a large world in an .esp ... i had to convert it to an .esm so that the CK loaded it better and would have enough memory to do the textures.

[TRIsha FEnnesse]

Interesting fact.

the CK is a 32-bit program, if it's memory usage reaches 3.5 GiG......it will crash. Found this out when trying to generate textures for a large world in an .esp ... i had to convert it to an .esm so that the CK loaded it better and would have enough memory to do the textures.

So you're saying loading a .esm uses less memory than a .esp? Why would that be?

Also, I'm getting an absolutely crippling issue with the region generator, where sometimes when I clear what's been generated, nothing actually gets cleared. When I delete them by hand and re-generate, nothing gets generated, with all of the objects being blocked "because of bounds". Reloading doesn't help, and now I'm stuck with several important cells that have absolutely nothing on them. Has anyone heard of anything remotely like this? It's driving me crazy.

[claire ley]

So you're saying loading a .esm uses less memory than a .esp? Why would that be?

Also, I'm getting an absolutely crippling issue with the region generator, where sometimes when I clear what's been generated, nothing actually gets cleared. When I delete them by hand and re-generate, nothing gets generated, with all of the objects being blocked "because of bounds". Reloading doesn't help, and now I'm stuck with several important cells that have absolutely nothing on them. Has anyone heard of anything remotely like this? It's driving me crazy.

I know that in the CS if you generated a region, then exited and reloaded your plugin, you could no longer obliterate generated objects. It only stores them for the current session. They had to be manually deleted after that. I think if you changed the region and regenerated, though, it would just redo them, so it wasn't a big deal, iirc. It seems to be different with the CK, from what you're saying about the 'bounds' issue. In any case, I always used a test .esp to fine-tune my regions and then once I had them the way I wanted them I just copied the settings over to my mod. I never 'tested regions' in the mod I was working on. (Alternately, just make a back-up and use the back-up to test things.)

[Hearts]

So you're saying loading a .esm uses less memory than a .esp? Why would that be?

Also, I'm getting an absolutely crippling issue with the region generator, where sometimes when I clear what's been generated, nothing actually gets cleared. When I delete them by hand and re-generate, nothing gets generated, with all of the objects being blocked "because of bounds". Reloading doesn't help, and now I'm stuck with several important cells that have absolutely nothing on them. Has anyone heard of anything remotely like this? It's driving me crazy.

Yeah in my few hours with the tool, it doesn't appear to get rid of the textures on the ground, but all objects disappear. Though I cannot tell if it simply paints over the textures and redoes them, because I'm still bad with the tool so the textures look exactly the same every time....

I know that in the CS if you generated a region, then exited and reloaded your plugin, you could no longer obliterate generated objects. It only stores them for the current session. They had to be manually deleted after that. I think if you changed the region and regenerated, though, it would just redo them, so it wasn't a big deal, iirc. It seems to be different with the CK, from what you're saying about the 'bounds' issue. In any case, I always used a test .esp to fine-tune my regions and then once I had them the way I wanted them I just copied the settings over to my mod. I never 'tested regions' in the mod I was working on. (Alternately, just make a back-up and use the back-up to test things.)

When you set up your objects, did you do a bunch of parent textures, with relative objects as children, or did you do something like Textures > Child texture, then completely separately Objects > Child objects? I tried texture > objects, but it didn't really work, so I'm going to do textures and objects in separate parent-child stacks after school to see if that's right...

Also, any word on my video or anything you think is going wrong, Ethatron?

[Quick draw II]

Region generator is definitely bugged, but there seem to be some work arounds. For the issue I was having at least, if I manually cleared the area, changed worldspaces, unloaded and reloaded the esp, it would allow me to regenerate. Huge pain to do that over and over though...

Since I'm fairly confident my island is working as it should, I'm going to start writting up a small tutorial on the wiki on how to get this whole thing working. These are my basic steps, does everyone else agree/see something very wrong?

• Create heightmap, export as 16 bit .raw with IBM coding at 1024x1024
  
• Use TESAnnwyn to export a .esp
  
  • TESAnnwyn -i Skyrim -w [worldspace] -d [XxY] -s [height] -x [-.5 * total width] -y [-.5 * total height] [heightmap file].raw
• Use Oscape to generate LOD (meshes, normals, and colors)
  
  • For meshes: DirectX only
    
  • For normals: DirectX only
    
  • For colors: PNGs only
• Convert PNGs to .DDS using nConvert
  
  • nconvert -out dds *.png
• Copy meshes into:
  
  • data/meshes/terrain/[worldspace]
• Copy normals and colors (DDS, not png) into:
  
  • data/textures/terrain/[worldspace]
• Extract tamriel.lod from Skyrim - Meshes.bsa; rename to [worldspace].lod, place in:
  
  • data/lodsettings

[Richard Dixon]

Okay, my software didn't record ingame, and editing and re-encoding the footage was much harder than just uploading the small initial file, so stop watching once I install the LOD, and refer to the screenshots instead.

Am I misunderstanding something, is something broken, or am I doing a step during generation wrong? :/

Also, does anyone have any tips for the region generator? I tried doing something similiar to Oblivion's regions. My parent objects are a few textures, and under them are larger objects that would fit that texture (large tree's for lush forest floor, small tree's for open fields, and rocky islands for dirt) then under those some smaller items. (Shrubs, stumps, branches, etc) However, when I generate all I get is the ONE parent texture with the highest density, all the textures are done in perfect 1024 unit squares, and the objects are in perfect rows... :F

Cool, that's all exactly right. And that light-blue, or bluish violet ( it's not purple ) actually is not the http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSGnIBP6mVvWgDZaAKOIckncTtbSgLOYq62gaZJTCcFqwPnDtOS AFAIK, that's something else, well, or they changed the color.
Okay, first) when you have a default texture there is a texture (a pattern, something with contrast) and the 1x1 (if it'd be a problem) wouldn't even apply. So you're good with default textures.
Then second) I assume you can't see thumbnails of DDSs http://paradice-insight.us/stuff/oblivion/blank-lod.png, so if you generate PNGs instead, you can look at the contents of the "TEX-1024" folder. Okay you have two locations to check what's the surface-texture, a ) the preview of Oscape (Preview-tab, Surface-selector), it should be all brownish-green (with the default texture) and then b ) in the "TEX-1024" folder itself, which should be filed with lots and lots of tiles of brownish-green. PNG-normals are blueish, DDSs normals are greenish (G<->B swapped), c ) after install you can check the "terrain/worldspace" folder and you should find the same brown-greenish DDSs.

Now ... if the default texture isn't dirt02, especially if it isn't a standard texture, Oscape may possibly not find the texture at all, but's unlikely, as the CK finds it I suppose, so it should be in "landscape". So if you have black tiles instead of brownish-greens, we may have to figure out that one as well. If you find all the textures to be correct, we maybe need to play with the NIFs (BTR) as one guy previously reported the "Data/"-part should/could be removed. If that's the case we have another bug which probably will never be fixed, because Tamriel does work with "Data/", I got that from reverse-engineering the original Tamriel BTRs in the first place!

So. 1st ) Textures are okay through the whole pipeline (ends up okay in "terrain")? 2nd ) Textures are okay, but BTR not?
Testing with MERP shows all textures are produced correctly through all steps fe. But I didn't load it into Skyrim to check if they show up.

You see we are in the middle of the thick, progressing in tiny turtle steps, as in Oblivion.

Edit: What happens if you use 4x super-sampling (Menu->Settings->Texture super-samplig->4x)? You have to re-extract.

[Cccurly]

I fixed it!!! nConvert did the trick... the pink I was seeing WAS the normals, and it was missing the actual textures (Colors). This is because I believe as Maegfaer stated earlier, the game isn't loading them for some reason, due to that Oscape doesn't keep the mipmaps? nConvert does, so when I converted it (Using the line provided above by tno, thank you!) then installed it worked.

Now, is water shown properly now? I didn't regenerate meshes, which I assume water falls under, but I'm going to try that now. I hope it is, becuase then my land will look awesome.

EDIT: Water LOD is at the correct height only in cells where I manually altered the height. (Like rivers higher up on my island), however the default-level ocean LOD is not there. Is there a fix I can do for this or is it something you have to fix? (Short of me manually setting the level for every single cell of ocean water around my island...)

[Vera Maslar]

Default-level is a fixed -14000 currently.

[Amber Ably]

Default-level is a fixed -14000 currently.

Can you possible update Oscape to take the DNAM value of the default value set for that worldspace like Maegfaer suggested? Or heck, even have something like a 'type in default water height here' input box? I can't move my land down to that value (as I have done a fair bit of specific editing and whatnot) so I'm lost without a fix. :/

Though I would like to say, THANK YOU, because without Oscape practically none of us would have any LOD whatsoever, so yaaaay!

[Silvia Gil]

I'm stuck on this I'm afraid - Followed it pretty much to the letter but Oscape keeps crashing when attempting to generate the LOD;

To generate LOD with Oscape:

1. Make sure your heightfield ESM (can't be ESP, Oscape won't read ESP worldspaces for some reason) is activated in your mod load order list.
2. Start Oscape, make sure that it's in Skyrim mode (under 'Game').
3. Click Fill.
4. Select your worldspace in the list, check feature-map and surface-map boxes.
5. Browse to desired output folder, doesn't have to be in your Skyrim directory, anywhere will do.
6. Click Extract. If you get an error message that it can't find the worldspace, close Oscape and return to step 2. This always happens for me, second try does work.
7. Wait until it is done, Oscape should automatically switch to the second tab (Preview).
8. Usually all the data here is already correct, it will give you rough view of the RAW file it extracted (don't skip all the previous steps because you already have a RAW file btw, Oscape's is different) and in the tables you can select which area will be generated. Default is everything.
9. Go to the next tab 'Generator'.
10. The first value you should change is 'Target of max. resolution'. Try a value of 728000. Don't ask me details, I don't know all the details how it works, but this is a good value for my map. Higher and it crashes for me.
11. Under that, make sure the 'Meshes', 'Normals' and 'Colors' are enabled.
12. For 'Meshes', disable DirectX and Wavefront.
13. For 'Normals' and 'Colors', disable PNG, PPM and all the resolutions except for 1024 (or if you prefer a different resolution choose that).
14. At the bottom select the output folder, can be anywhere. Click Generate.
15. When it is done, Oscape switches to the 'Installer' tab. Enable all the 'Install' boxes here. At the bottom of the tab browse to your Skyrim Data directory. Click install.
16. When installing the textures, Oscape always gives me errors that it can't convert the .dds files. I always press Retry and then it seems to work (keep holding down Enter if you get thousands of messages).

Basically, converted a .esp I generated of Vvardenfell into a .esm using Wrye Bash, the .esp works fine in the game (albeit without any LOD - I can run about the place, stare into red mountain's crater et al) and opens in the editor. At step 14 in that guide it starts saying "Resolution: X, generating mesh" counting down from whatever the highest "target of max. resolution" value is. Whenever it gets to "Resolution: 81,250, generating mesh" and "placing hi-res points" it completely crashes the program, or just sits there doing nothing and I have to kill it with task manager. This occurs exactly the same on both x86 and x64 versions of Oscape. Now currently the only workaround I'm even attempting is to remove all the generated LOD- folders out of the directory (otherwise Oscape seems to want to delete them) and reducing the value to 81,250. I have no idea if this works but it seems to generate those values then start generating lower ones, after which it keeps crashing the program on a slightly lower value until I get down to zero. Like I said no idea whatsoever if this is even a good idea or what the hell these files are really doing. I know once you put them all back and start the 'install' tab it seems to have no issues, although the install process is suspiciously fast (like a second or something). It does however install a folder full of .btf files into Skyrim's Data/meshes directory. Unfortunately this appears to have done nothing in-game. The map loads, and the view distance is just as crappy as if I was playing a copy of vanilla Morrowind.
Also do I have to go through this like every time I make a change to my mod? Like if I put a landmark or a tree or something and I want to see it in the distance, I have to run the whole thing again? Ugh, I hope not. Can't really find any definite info on the deeper mechanics of LOD and how it works, but It's painful enough trying to make a brown mass that can be seen from afar! Anyway I just realised it is now 6am. Wow. I'm going to bed, if noone's got any ideas on that tomorrow I guess I'll have to try one of those other programs.

PS; rig is an i7 930 OC'd to 3.8ghz with 12GB triple channel ram @ 1400mhz. All 8 cores do briefly max out when using Oscape, but never at the point when it crashes, it always seems to be using one or two cores when it freaks out and breaks itself.

[Sammygirl500]

Can you possible update Oscape to take the DNAM value of the default value set for that worldspace like Maegfaer suggested? Or heck, even have something like a 'type in default water height here' input box? I can't move my land down to that value (as I have done a fair bit of specific editing and whatnot) so I'm lost without a fix. :/ Though I would like to say, THANK YOU, because without Oscape practically none of us would have any LOD whatsoever, so yaaaay!

I think you can try http://paradice-insight.us/stuff/oblivion/OscapeGUI_v20beta4.7z. The sealevel field is in the preview, you can type the value if you want to have a different from the export. You have to re-export to get the water-sealevel pre-set correctly into that field, but you can also type it if you know it for testing. Also no 1x1 maps are created anymore.
MERP with a sealevel of 0.0 works at least. I didn't integrate the land-level, maybe later.

I'm stuck on this I'm afraid - Followed it pretty much to the letter but Oscape keeps crashing when attempting to generate the LOD;

Files to download please.

[Kathryn Medows]

I've not had chance to keep up with this thread. Could someone post the settings for Oscape now that the getting rid of the purple land has been figured out. Many thanks

[djimi]

I think you can try http://paradice-insight.us/stuff/oblivion/OscapeGUI_v20beta4.7z. The sealevel field is in the preview, you can type the value if you want to have a different from the export. You have to re-export to get the water-sealevel pre-set correctly into that field, but you can also type it if you know it for testing. Also no 1x1 maps are created anymore.
MERP with a sealevel of 0.0 works at least. I didn't integrate the land-level, maybe later.

It said Sealevel was 32500, which is what I have my default water height set too, yet the water LOD still doesn't show. (I extracted and regenerated all Meshes, Textures, and Colors from scratch)

You did link to the exact same version of Oscape that I have, was that intentional?

I've not had chance to keep up with this thread. Could someone post the settings for Oscape now that the getting rid of the purple land has been figured out. Many thanks

Generate the Colors as PNG instead of DDS, then get nConvert and make a batch file with the line 'nconvert -out dds *.png' then run it (and nConvert) from the same folder as all your PNG colors. Then delete the PNG's, and have Oscape install the functional DDS files.

[christelle047]

No PNGs && nConvert. Well PNGs are advisable, but not nConvert.

[Big Homie]

What do I produce then, dds? png? sorry a bit confused. I have the latest oscape, should I just follow the previous settings that will now work with the new oscape, or do I set png as well? help.

[natalie mccormick]

The intermediate format is not really important, it just affects quality. The "Installer" will always produce DDSs in the end.

[Alycia Leann grace]

Ethatron - the reason we've been using nConvert is because when generating DDSs in Oscape, we get the black border issue, while when we convert pngs to DDSs, we do not (or at least that is my experience). Something must be just a little off with Oscape's DDS conversion code.

[Alyna]

Trying now the whole day to get a working new land LOD - nothing works here - CK World LOD is broken - and i dont get the nCovert thingy right

[Sista Sila]

No PNGs && nConvert. Well PNGs are advisable, but not nConvert.

What do I produce then, dds? png? sorry a bit confused. I have the latest oscape, should I just follow the previous settings that will now work with the new oscape, or do I set png as well? help.

Ethatron - the reason we've been using nConvert is because when generating DDSs in Oscape, we get the black border issue, while when we convert pngs to DDSs, we do not (or at least that is my experience). Something must be just a little off with Oscape's DDS conversion code.

Yeah When I just use Oscape to make my DDS I get that pinkish-blue texture bug, so I don't have any choice...

Also, Elthatron, did you mean to link to the same version in your earlier post, or were you meaning to link to a newer version or something? I extracted and it got the correct sea level, but when I generated the LOD it didn't make the LOD ocean at the right height still.

[Jessie]

Oh god my head is exploding AAAAAHHhhhh

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

[lydia nekongo]

I created LOD textures with CK world lod -> created LOD textures ONLY for my world.esp file with OSCAPE -> OSCAPE creates broken LOD textures -> deleted all only black tex from OSCAPE output -> the leftover textures replace with the CK world LOD output (must copy manually) -> now you have land textures with black borders -> edit/remove black borders with graphic program (for my worldspace 45 textures) -> AT LEAST I HAVE WORKING (few bugs) LOD !!! for my new Landscape

took me at least 6-8h to learn/extract/convert/place all the [censored]

cheers

[roxanna matoorah]

I created LOD textures with CK world lod -> created LOD textures ONLY for my world.esp file with OSCAPE -> OSCAPE creates broken LOD textures -> deleted all only black tex from OSCAPE output -> the leftover textures replace with the CK world LOD output (must copy manually) -> now you have land textures with black borders -> edit/remove black borders with graphic program (for my worldspace 45 textures) -> AT LEAST I HAVE WORKING (few bugs) LOD !!! for my new Landscape took me at least 6-8h to learn/extract/convert/place all the [censored] cheers

See my post above... That's like the super long way around.

Not including waiting for answers it took me under an hour to figure all this out as the instructions are pretty straight forward. :F

[Conor Byrne]

Trying now the whole day to get a working new land LOD - nothing works here - CK World LOD is broken - and i dont get the nCovert thingy right

The correct command line is:

nconvert -out dds *.PNG