Well after three days of hard slog I have custom desert mountains with LOD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAk1yZYdlew&feature=youtu.be


It takes a lot of effort and trial and error but thankfully its there. I will post up a tutorial after more experimenting. At the moment the World LOD generator throws out an error on HD textures, so only low quality distant textures are possible for custom stuff, so far anyway. If anyone else wants to join me in testing this kind of stuff and working it through fully then please shout up.

They look fine, but you should use my weather settings instead of the Skyrim ones:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=14086

Experiencing a very odd LOD glitch. All of these meshes are identical, they all reference the same object master so the game should treat them identically. In esp all of the meshes remain when the player gets close enough for them to come out of LOD except one mesh. One of the cliffs disappears when the player gets closer in than LOD. Odd.

They look quite different from distance than tclose no?

the disappearing one may be due to the esp memorized an old lod , try to regenerate the lods .... anyway the problem is still about the smaller stuff like trees and buildings...

I would think that he hasn't done any weather related stuff yet. Like me, I'm working on my own new land, and I haven't even touched weather systems yet. I'm doing those far later on.

Well, I spent time to make that resource so others don't have to. It's only if you want "realistic" weather, but compare to vanilla:
Vanilla version: http://i.imgur.com/d3lA1.jpg
Mod version: http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/images/14086-1-1333773135.jpg

I am going to download the weather stuff, its better than the vanilla, thats for sure. I am making a library of downloaded mods as before, I used to download them, add them in and keep a list of credits. Having lost the list once and having to spend hours trying to remember what I added, from where and search them out again, I dont want to go through that again.

Ok so sorted the LOD disappearing stuff. Each individual mesh has an option for using high level HD LOD. If that is ticked the mesh will disappear if there is no HD LOD texture attached. Collision remains but the item is invisible. This is a catch 22 as I have found my custom mesh will throw an error in LOD generation if it has any texture referenced by a LOD nif via the parent object that involves wrapping the mesh. Its hard to explain so I will do a video of how I made the custom LOD work.

As for the textures looking different, yes they do, I havent concentrated on custom textures yet and have just had to cobble together something that look as near as, because I cant re-edit the UV mapping in max with any hope in hell of getting it back into the game without a right old fart around in nifskope. I grow a beard in the time it takes to export a nif, muck around in nifskope and spent hours trial and error getting it to go in game without errors. Roll on nifskope and the 3d exporters being finished.

REQUEST: Please if anyone has any skill in texturing, please shout up in here and help me do some re-texturing of the LOD to make it look more similar to the close up textures. We can then put all these custom bits together and release them as a modders resource.

Ok update for generating and creating distant view re-textures.

The Creation Kit under the World menu provides a World Spaces sub menu: choosing the custom world allows High Definition LOD textures to be selected. However this is not a pointer to a folder containing distant LOD but to one particular texture map (and normal map)

Data\Textures\Landscape\Mountains\MountainSlab02.dds and Data\Textures\Landscape\Mountains\MountainSlab02_N.dds

The directory can be changed, and the dds file can be, but it applies to EVERY HD distant LOD file.

There seems to be a catch 22 situation in the make up of LOD. In each static object selected in the CK there is an option to have it visible when distant and to designate the files for four types of LOD. Rising from a low quality mesh, more detailed, even more detailed and finally high. The more detailed and high nifs point to texture maps of much more detail than the LOD maps. The LOD map for let's say cliff01 is 256x512 and is a kind of flattened UV map. Within the 256x512 box is a cliff shape with basic detail on it. This goes for the very low and "more detailed" LOD nifs. Both these nifs use the 256x512 low quality image.

The "even more detailed" and "high" Nif LOD's do not use a flattened UV type map but a tile of texture either 256x256 or greater. However it seems that there is only one choice here and that is to have these higher quality nifs point to the two high def textures defined by the World Space "custom world" selection as detailed above. Either its Data\Textures\Landscape\Mountains\MountainSlab02_N.dds etc or nothing.

To render world LOD for the custom worldspace for any object with high definition texture paths will throw an error and LOD is not created. To avoid this error each object that has a LOD high def or "even more detailed" LOD nif the box "Has HD LOD" must be ticked. This directs the nif to be painted with the mountainslab02 dds, regardless of what texture the high or "even more detailed" nif's point to. If any other texture map is chosen the game ignores it and goes to the mountainslab02 anyway.

So to have a high quality LOD texture on any distant object the "has HD LOD" (or somesuch) box must be ticked. It doesnt matter what texture the nif actually points to, it automatically gets given whatever texture was chosen as the HD texture in the World Space menu for that particular world.

Interesting, and another Bethesda f./...u...

A limitation then of Large World and any non vanilla world is that the only high definition texture that can be applied to any form of high definition visible when distant object is the one selected under the custom world dialogue. If you world contains ordinary mountains and jungle mountains or desert mountains then only one type of HD texture map can be chosen, you cant have two.

I didn't understandmuch what you wrote but in short can we make lods for buildings or not?

If you can make a custom mesh and texture then yes, but you cant make high definition meshes for closer up buildings and such as they would automatically be replaced by the mountain texture close up.

I am hoping that someone else will help me with this and try to figure out a way of getting decent distant LOD custom textures in HD or at least a decently high level of texture detail.

Latest video. Much better LOD, I am pretty much at an answer now for custom landscape items such as cliffs, mountains and general landscaping. This is a wip so bear with me on the content. For 3 cliff LOD/Meshes I think this looks pretty good and certainly shows the kind of potential available. Hopefully this will be useful for others who use desert stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr5KphmQ7lQ&context=C44410b9ADvjVQa1PpcFNEcPK2D4yIXPHuo-NLpLJdhvoMzRr_piA=

what did you change? And yes it looks way bette rnow , very much acceptable than befoure ...

You can change the texture.
I was messing about one day and changed all the distant mountains to tartan
You must put your .dds textures in the \Data\Textures\mountains\ folder. Then, in the CK, select World > World Spaces... and click on your worldspace in the left hand box. Click on the HD LOD Difuse button and browse to the texture in the \Data\Textures\mountains\ folder. Do the same for HD LOD Normal.
Generate Object LOD and it should change the LOD for that world.

Thats unfortunately the very issue I am talking about. Change the worldspace HD LOD and it affects ALL distant HD LOD rocks. You cant have a world with grey rock and desert rock, its one or the other. That is what creates the problem with HD terrain. If a world contains for instance a desert and an arctic region, you cant have a HD LOD for both of them.

I discovered that LOD nifs can use 512x512 textures, however the nif texture has to be UV edited into the 512x512 box in nifskope, not a single point of the mesh can be outside of it, otherwise error.

I'm not knowledgeable on textures and UV's and all that, but isn't it possible if you have for example two types of mountains to merge the HD textures together in one DDS file, and change the texture settings of one mountain type models to use the left side of the HD DDS file, and the other mountain type the right side? Or did you touch that idea in the posts above? I didn't follow all of it.

why? In skyrim you have Icebergs and mountains ... one is blueish the other grayish ... so ?


How DO I do to fix my buildings problems?

You obviously don't understand the problem, the icebergs don't use the same HD LOD texture system that the mountain meshes use. And this thread isn't about your buildings problem, let's stay on topic here.

well the topic is about new meshes and I tought he did use new meshes , plus Isee some items in the video that look like retextured ice glaciers !

Its possible but HD textures use wrapping so every LOD texture (cliff and so on) would need to be refigured to use one part of the file. Possible but very fussy to do. However the HD meshes can be taken and a HD texture applied with UV mapping for the mesh done in nifskope for vanilla retextures, and in max or blender for custom ones (when the exporters and nifskope is fit to do so).


Because only the cliff and mountain meshes use a HD texture for LOD. Everything else uses a lower one for distant stuff. I think you need to completely re-generate all of the textures for LOD for your stuff. I think somewhere the lod dds compilation file got mucked up.

I did that but every single time I regenerate they switch positions ... everytime looks like is pseudorandomly made ... the same mountain textures tough are stored on the same dds file ...

severall mountain textures do appear on my nordic walls !

Hey, Karithian. I'm working on some mountains myself as well. I pretty much was reasoning the same thing you figured out but I had not been able to generate objects. That could have been because of the ticks incorrectly chosen, however now that you have figured that out I would like to point out that I can have identical models with different texture paths. But be aware, the mountains use other textures that are used widely through the skyrim world in a central theme. When making new mountain textures, it's wise to use something that would be thematic. I'm sure you know that though.
Concerning the process of having a different mountain texture path, it requires some simple hex edits that will change the texture file names 'value' only, not it's file name length. Changing the texture filepath's filename's length in characters will fail. For example if the dds file name is RedLight.dds, I could change it to BRNLight.dds and place the mesh in game with no errors. I currently play skyrim with all my mountains with a different texture of a file pathname of EmynMuilmtns01.dds. Notice the name is different but has the same character count of MountainSlab01.dds. Maegfaer and I poke about with the hexeditor and he pointed this out to me and it works great.
I haven't been able to correctly generate my object LOD though, I suspect that it has to do with the ticks. I would appreciate if you could point that out more clearly for some here and I'll give mine a whirl now. Thanks for being so persistent.

On the fact that new texture paths can be made, proof of concept is already merged in our MERP master, once I get the LOD ball rolling, I'm going to try working out multi-duplicate object generation.. hopefully.

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/2117/screenshot595.jpg of the same mesh type in game, one with vanilla gray and the other with a custom texture. They are the two center mountains, it requires the process I mentioned ealier and... from in your CK within the Render window, tick the "Full LOD" and nothing else.
I'm looking into how this can be achieved in a faster automation now.

what thick full lod? This is not a usable solution as it would make all the items be loaded at full scale at every distance meaning a very high unoptimized solution ....

Looks and sounds good. I have found that HD LOD can be made by re-working the textures in nifskope. Editing texture allows each vertex to be moved inside the texture that is represented as a box within a tiling box in nifskope. As long as all vertices are within the central box then HD LOD meshes can be used by making the game treat them and think of them as non LOD meshes. Custom meshes will be much easier.

Its all about tiling textures. Non lod textures cannot be tiled, LOD textures can be tiled but MUST use the generally designated texture that in the vanilla game is mountainslab02.dds.