Need help with LOD, no TGA files : V

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:23 am

I have been building a new worldspace which is now on hold till I can figure out getting LOD to work

Following the ck tutorial h t tp :/ / ww w. creationkit . com / Creating a Custom Worldspace with LOD#Generating object LOD I don't have linkpermission :*(

Generating the landscape LOD (generating world LOD of the tut) seems to be working fine, although I have no heightmap ( been building the land by hand in the ck) so did not use TESannwyn
I simply checked my .esp in oscape and clicked "fill" and chose "test" (which is my mod name for testing purposes) from the dropdown menu and followed the tut from there.
Went in-game and fair enough i can see land of in the distance yay

So, continuing with the tutorial I get to converting with nConvert. Problem is that I am not getting any TGA files, all I get is more .dds files when I run the dat.

I am noob to modding so maybe I have done something wrong. Everything seems to be in the right folders etc

Please if anyone knows if I am doing it wrong or if I should go a different way or whatever please point me in the right direction.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:28 pm

You know what you should do ? Follow this tutorial : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUtqQUSTqh8&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

If you follow everything carefully everything will be alright. If you have any problems PM me (I have created a worldspace trough this tutorial and it is working fine) !

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:07 pm

Thankyou for the link Rein20 I will definitely use that tutorial to build my landmass. It will improve the look of my world greatly compared to hand carving it in the ck.

It still doesn't solve my problem which i should have stated properly which is "Object LOD" .
As far as I can tell if I can convert the dds files to TGA which the tutorial I am following says to do ( this is where my problem is) my worries should be over...mostly lol

and with l3dt it will be even better

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:38 pm

Did you create a .bat file and put it and NConvert.exe into the folder containing the .dds files?

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 5:24 pm

nconvert -out tga *.dds

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:09 pm

Yep, did that, all I get is more dds files.
have tried unpacking lod textures also tried unpacking all textures. No go.
And tried moving the folder to different places. I know to put the source/TGATextures folder one level up from skyrim folder.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 5:26 pm

You wouldn't get more .dds files because the file names would be the same and they would overwrite the originals, or the program would halt and ask if you want to overwrite. I don't think it auto-renames.

It sounds like you don't have the show file extension option ticked in your folder options.
If the command line has the -out[space]tga[space]*.dds, then nconvert will convert all files with the .dds extension to .tga files.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:11 am

You wouldn't get more .dds files because the file names would be the same and they would overwrite the originals, or the program would halt and ask if you want to overwrite. I don't think it auto-renames.

It sounds like you don't have the show file extension option ticked in your folder options.
If the command line has the -out[space]tga[space]*.dds, then nconvert will convert all files with the .dds extension to .tga files.

Hide extensions for known file types unchecked, still getting more dds files :/

/gpj.orsdd/728/segami-ym/otohp/su.kcahsegami//:ptth

I'm not allowed to post links but thats a backwards address of a pick, the new dds files get numbers added to them as the pic shows after several attempts.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:35 pm

Reposted the link - http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/827/ddsro.jpg/

Ok, I see that the files are getting renamed. After a little investigation, I found I can reproduce your problem. It seems to stem down to the symbol you put in front of tga.

There are 2 variations

nconvert -out tga *.dds
nconvert –out tga *.dds

Both of these look the same here, but they are very different in Notepad (Try it, copy/paste both lines into notepad (different ascii code))

nconvert -out tga *.ddsnconvert –out tga *.dds

The top one is correct (minus sign)
The bottom one is from the wiki website (wrong - could someone change this)

Make sure you put a minus in front of tga and save. I think that should solve it, provided the full line is correct.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:24 am

Tamb0, impressive that you figured that out. I am really curious how the OP types that wrong sign.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:44 pm

Tamb0, impressive that you figured that out. I am really curious how the OP types that wrong sign.

Looks like he copy/pasted it from the wiki -
http://www.creationkit.com/Creating_a_Custom_Worldspace_with_LOD

Someone should go in and change it. I would, but I'm not really sure how to. Never added things to a wiki before :wacko:

[Edit] I can't even find that sign on my keyboard. It's like an extended hyphen.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:18 pm

Reposted the link - http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/827/ddsro.jpg/

Ok, I see that the files are getting renamed. After a little investigation, I found I can reproduce your problem. It seems to stem down to the symbol you put in front of tga.

There are 2 variations

nconvert -out tga *.dds
nconvert –out tga *.dds

Both of these look the same here, but they are very different in Notepad (Try it, copy/paste both lines into notepad (different ascii code))

nconvert -out tga *.ddsnconvert –out tga *.dds

The top one is correct (minus sign)
The bottom one is from the wiki website (wrong - could someone change this)

Make sure you put a minus in front of tga and save. I think that should solve it, provided the full line is correct.

Excellent. That did it. Thankyou for going to the trouble of reproducing the problem and showing me the solution

Looks like he copy/pasted it from the wiki -
http://www.creationkit.com/Creating_a_Custom_Worldspace_with_LOD

Someone should go in and change it. I would, but I'm not really sure how to. Never added things to a wiki before :wacko:

[Edit] I can't even find that sign on my keyboard. It's like an extended hyphen.

yes, I indeed did copy/paste from the wikki

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:33 pm

Just another quick ?
Now it may be my noobness but

after doing below steps:

Open the Creation Kit, load Skyrim.esm and your .esp
2. Go to World -> World LOD
3. Select your worldspace, check "Generate Statics Objects" and nothing else
4. Click 'Generate'

Where do i find the generated textures / meshes?

as in below steps:

Navigate to Source/ and find the generated textures
2. Copy them, and paste them into Skyrim/data/textures/terrain/[worldspace]/Objects
3. In Source/ find the generated meshes
4. Copy them, and paste into Skyrim/data/meshes/terrain/[worldspace]/Objects

Are they both in the 'Source' folder I created in the earlier step below:?
And if so which files are they?

Unpack all LOD textures into Source/TGATextures That directory probably doesn't exist - you will have to create it.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 5:43 pm

The source folder is in steamapps\common\ on my machine, the same as the skyrim folder.
I found the textures in Source\DDSTextures\Terrain\[worldspace]\Objects
There were no meshes for me and it all worked fine.

Thanks for finding this Tamb0, I just got to this part today.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:03 am

The source folder is in steamapps\common\ on my machine, the same as the skyrim folder.
I found the textures in Source\DDSTextures\Terrain\[worldspace]\Objects
There were no meshes for me and it all worked fine.

Thanks for finding this Tamb0, I just got to this part today.

thanks Mrfixit84, Found 2 files there and copy/pasted with no luck.
So after you completed all the steps you can see objects from a distance?
I have a small 3 cell x 6 cell test world and after successfully completing all steps on the wikki tutorial (thanks to all the responses on this thread) I still can't see the objects I placed at the far end of my smallworld

at first my land LOD disappeared, regenerated in oscape, can see land again at the other end of my world, still can't see objects

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:21 pm

The problem with LOD is, not all statics have LOD meshes associated with them. If the objects don't have a mesh in the Source\Meshes\lod folder, then the CK will not include it with the lod mesh it creates.

Just to make sure that the steps were followed correctly, browse to your Skyrim\Data\Meshes\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects\ folder. There, you should find a number of files named
Worldspace.4.0.0.bto,
Worldspace.4.0.4.bto
Worldspace.4.0.-4.bto,
...etc.

If these .bto files are there, then the object LOD was generated correctly. You must also remember to copy the 2 .dds files from the ...Source\DDSTextures\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects folder, into Skyrim\Textures\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects\ folder.

Where do i find the generated textures / meshes?

as in below steps:...

...3. In Source/ find the generated meshes...

...Are they both in the 'Source' folder I created in the earlier step below:?

No, the object lod meshes will go straight into your Skyrim\Data\Meshes\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects\ folder, not the Source folder. If you need to regenerate, delete the Skyrim\Data\Meshes\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects\ folder and Source\DDSTextures\Terrain\Worldspace\ folder, or you'll probably get errors.

[Edit] Fixed the wiki to avoid other people having the same problem in the future.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:50 am

Thanks for that Tamb0, at work atm will have another go at it when I get home.

Thanks for fixing the wikki too, others will be able to avoid the problems that I had and hopefully this thread will help some too

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:19 am

after a bunch of testing, checking exactly what folders are created at each stage etc, did a clean run through on the wikki tutorial and from what I have learnt here in this thread, see pic

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/843/lodtroubles.jpg/

The problem with LOD is, not all statics have LOD meshes associated with them. If the objects don't have a mesh in the Source\Meshes\lod folder, then the CK will not include it with the lod mesh it creates.

Just to make sure that the steps were followed correctly, browse to your Skyrim\Data\Meshes\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects\ folder. There, you should find a number of files named
Worldspace.4.0.0.bto,
Worldspace.4.0.4.bto
Worldspace.4.0.-4.bto,
...etc.

If these .bto files are there, then the object LOD was generated correctly. You must also remember to copy the 2 .dds files from the ...Source\DDSTextures\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects folder, into Skyrim\Textures\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects\ folder.

.bto files are there, copy/pasted tthe 2 files in DDStextures\Terrain\Worldspace\Objects to the correct location.
The pic was the result.
Regenerated through oscape and ck with the same result...

fun is turning to frustration

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 9:05 am

ooh

i can link

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 5:07 pm

So far, so good.

There is one thing that's not in the wiki,...how to fix the purple mountains.

When you extracted the lod textures with BSAopt, the wiki should have said that you must also extract these 2 files -
Textures\Landscape\Mountains\MountainSlab02.dds...and...
Textures\Landscape\Mountains\MountainSlab02_N.dds

These files do not get converted. Instead, you cut/paste these .dds files into ...\Skyrim\Data\Textures\Landscape\Mountains\

You'll have to create the Landscape and Mountains folders.

Once these 2 files are in place, you have to tell the CK where to look for mountain lod texture. Do this by opening up World >> World Spaces... and clicking on your worldspace name. Near the bottom, you will see 2 buttons -
HD LOD Diffuse and
HD LOD Normal

Click on the top button ( HD LOD Diffuse ). By default, the box opens in the Skyrim\Data\Textures\ folder, so you only have to select \Landscape\Mountains\MountainSlab02.dds

Now click on the lower button and select -
\Landscape\Mountains\MountainSlab02_N.dds

These files do not need to be included in your mod. You're only using them to set the path in the CK. The actual game will now look in the Textures.bsa and follow the path that you have set.

For the missing ground, it looks like you'll have to run your mod through Oscape, to generate the LODs. The CK terrain LOD tool does not work properly.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 11:40 am

After reading a few more threads it seems I am having the the same problem as some others are...

I'm getting closer..I think lol

Re-running some tests as I muddled up which files were which...back soon with my results, but so far I have working object LOD but can't seem to have both land and object lod at the same time

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 11:48 am

So... after running oscape this is the result http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/259/oscape01.jpg/ as you can see the landscape is showing but not the textures and as I get closer to that big hole in the ground it disappears and is as it should be (flat)

After completing the rest of the wikki steps and the advice on this thread, this is the result http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/endresult01.jpg/

For testing purposes, I copied the [worldspace].lod from the LODsettings folder that was created during the oscape step, tucking it away in mydocuments folder, for I noticed that when doing the 'static objects' generation in the ck, both give a [worldspace].lod in the LODsettings folder. The first being automatically overwritten.
Oscape made [worldspace].lod and the ck generation made [worldspace].LOD...as you can see they are slightly different but it makes no difference, as I tried to put both in the LODsettings folder resulting in a overwrite or a (2) being added choice.
Either way doesn't give landscape/texture/object lod. Nor does switching the .lod file created from oscape or the ck generated one, only results in-game as the pics above show. One or the other, landscape or objects, and either way no textures.

BSAopt seems to unpack all meshes and all textures not just the lod's, no matter what I highlight..?
I have tried re DL'ing the program and also an earlier version with the same result, everything is unpacked. Also noticed they both have the file version of 1.0.0.0 although on the dl page they are given different version numbers. /shrug

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:13 pm

I posted this on another forum -

For BSAopt, open the Textures.bsa and click on - textures in the top window, to highlight it. Look down to the middle bar and put a tick in the box that says Show recursive.

This will show every texture within the texture folder in the bottom window. They will all be selected by default (I think). Next, click the red box with the X and it will deselect them all.

Now click the lod folder in the top window and all the files in the lod folder will appear in the bottom window, but will be unselected. Click the box with the green tick and all files in the lod folder will be selected again.

At the bottom, browse to where you want the files to go (Source) and click Unpack. The program will create a folder name Textures and create another folder inside Textures named lod. Folder structure is important, so just point BSAopt at the Source folder and it will sort thingS out itself...

Just do the same for the meshes, but put the extracted lod folder in Skyrim\Data\Meshes.
Also from the other forum -

...At this point make sure that your lod textures (extracted from Textures.bsa) are in the Source\TGATextures\lod\ folder and that they are converted into .tga files.
Also make sure that the lod meshes (extracted from Meshes.bsa) are in the Skyrim\Data\Meshes\lod\ folder.

Now we can proceed

Go to the Source folder and delete all folders except the TGATextures folder. Then, create another folder in Source and name it DDSTextures. The DDS Textures folder is where the CK will put all textures that it creates.

Start the CK and load in your mod. Do not select anything that will go into the render window. The render window will remain blank throughout this operation.

Go to World > World LOD. When the box opens up, select your world in the left window. Put a tick in the Static Objects box, under Meshes
DO NOT put ticks in the Generate Diffuse Textures and Generate Normal Textures.

Click the Generate Button.
It shouldn't take long.

When this is done, Look in the Source\DDSTextures\Terrain\YourWorldspace\Objects\ folder. There, you will find 2 files -
YourWorldspace.Objects.DDS and
YourWorldspace.Objects_n.DDS

These 2 files must be moved to the ..Skyrim\Data\Textures\Terrain\YourWorldspace\Objects\ folder. The easiest way is just to Cut the Terrain folder from Source\DDSTextures\ and Paste it into the...Skyrim\Data\Textures\ folder and overwrite any files that are there. This also clears the DDSTextures folder in Source.

At this point, if you look in ...Skyrim\Data\Meshes\Terrain\YourWorldspace\Objects\ folder, you will see the meshes that have been created. They will be named -
YourWorldspace.4.0.0.BTO
YourWorldspace.4.0.4.BTO
YourWorldspace.4..0.-4.BTO
etc...
the numbers will all change.

Object LOD is now complete.

Now follow these exact same steps for tree LOD, selecting only Trees in the Meshes box and leave the Textures box blank.

~~The .dds tree atlas will be created in the Source\DDSTextures\Terrain\YourWorldspace\Trees\ folder and must be copied to the .Skyrim\Data\Textures\Terrain\YourWorldspace\Trees\ folder.~~ No it won't

Distant Terrain/Water LOD cannot be made in the CK. You must use Oscape to generate those LOD files.

Quite a few folk are having problems with this at the moment. Some information in the wiki is wrong/unclear and needs to be corrected.

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:44 pm

View my post further down this page, instead

So after about a week of strugling with these issues, I've finally managed to have both LOD objects, LOD terrain and Textures show up at the same time in game!

(MyWorld ground view - WIP): http:// i47.tinypic.com/kagl5.jpg (remove space)
(MyWorld map view - WIP): http:// i46.tinypic.com/jgjqlf.jpg (remove space)

Following the wiki tutorials, and various other tutorials and suggestions I've read around the interweb, I could only manage to (at most) have LOD terrain and textures show together, or have LOD objects show (without distant terrain and textures)! Also I've also experienced issues with texture ripping, black lines going over my textures, small black squares showing, etc. - could be I've been doing something wrong and that's why I've been experiencing these issues (I'm new to TES modding), however let me briefly sum up the steps I've gone through to reach the above result (Do note that just because these steps worked for me, I won't guarentee that it works for all)!

1st step: Unpack the necessary meshes and textures (.tga) to their proper folders (Skyrim/Data/Meshes/lod/.... and Common/Source/TGATextures/.....)

2nd step: Under "Regions" in the creation kit, make sure the total cell size of your map is an equal number, for instance X -32 to 31 and Y -32 to 31 which will give you X 64 and Y 64 (as 0 is also counted as 1 cell)! Personally my test world was from X -56 to 55 and from Y -56 to 55! If I didn't do this, the file numbers produced in the next step would differ from the ones generated by Oscape later! (MyWorld.4.0.0.dds, MyWorld.4.0.4.dds, etc.)

3rd step: In the Creation Kit under World LOD, Generate "Distant Terrain / Water", "Static Objects" and "Trees", as well as ticking "High Priority", "Generate Diffuse Textures" and "Generate Normal Textures" (Source Textures Only) Make sure your world is NOT loaded in the render window- Now Generate, this will probably take several hours! EDIT: Mine crashed several times while doing this, but picked up where it left of, once I reopened the Creation kit, so all proces isn't lost if it crashes on you!

4th step: My Creation kit wouldn't generate the tree textures, so I copied the one from the Vanilla Skyrim folder and renamed it MyWorldTerraintreelod.dds and added it to my Skyrim/Data/Textures/Terrain/MyWorld/Trees folder. Also make a backup of the generated Lod file in Data/LODSettings/MyWorld.LOD

5th step: Open Oscape (I use the version found on the skyrim nexus by Ethatron) and go through the steps generating your new terrain LOD meshes (.btr) and textures (.dds), however DO NOT INSTALL them, once they are finished!

6th step: Backup the generated terrain meshes from the Creation Kit (Skyrim/Data/Meshes/Terrain/MyWorld/...)

Now this is the most tedious part of the proces! In my world, the numericals for the generated Meshes (.btr) and textures (.dds) generated by the Creation Kit were identical to the ones generated by Oscape - that is until I reached level 16 and 32, where the numericals began to differ! Where the files Generated by Oscape all began with (as an example) MyWorld.16.0.0.dds and the next one MyWorld.16.0.16.dds etc., the ones generated by The Creation Kit began with MyWorld.16.8.8.DDS and the next one MyWorld.16.8.24.DDS etc. So where Oscape counted in intervals of 16 (0;0 - 0;16 - 0;32 - etc.), The Creation kit also counted in intervals of 16, however just with another starting position (8;8 - 8;24 - 8;40 - etc.)! So in order for the textures generated by oscape to be used as a replacement for the broken ones generated by the Creation kit, I would need to manually reposition them in an image editor, so that they become compatible with each other!

7th step: Now go to your /Skyrim/Data/Meshes/Terrain/MyWorld/ folder select all level 4 and level 8 terrain meshes (MyWorld.4.0.0.btr etc.) and move them to a backup folder (that is not in your skyrim directory)! Once these have been moved, navigate to the folder where you extracted/created your Oscape terrain meshes, and select all level 4 and level 8 meshes and copy them into your Skyrim/Data/Meshes/Terrain/MyWorld folder!
Now Navigate to your /Skyrim/Data/Textures/Terrain/MyWorld/ folder and select all level 4 and level 8 terrain textures (MyWorld.4.0.0.dds and MyWorld.4.0.0_n.dds etc.) and move them to a backup folder (that is not in your skyrim directory)! Now once these have been moved, navigate to the folder where you extracted/created your Oscape Terrain Textures and copy all level 4 and level 8 textures into your /Skyrim/Data/Textures/Terrain/MyWorld/ folder!

With this done, all level 4 and level 8 meshes and textures should be okay! Now on to the remaining level 16 and 32 textures, which to say it mildly will be a pain in the ass!

8th step: Navigate to your /Common/Source/DDSTextures/Terrain/MyWorld/ folder and ONLY select all level 16 and level 32 textures (both color and normal) and copy these to your /Skyrim/Data/Textures/Terrain/MyWorld/ folder.

9th step: Now for the remaining level 16 and 32 I simply used the meshes generated by the Creation kit, as I don't have the first idea of how to manually edit a .btr file! So the focus now is on the remaining texture files! Basically you'll need to combine all of the oscape textures in a single image, and all of the Creation Kit textures in another single image (1 image for each set of textures, for each level, and from each generator, which will probably be 8 images in all, 4 from the creation kit textures (level 32 color, level 32 normal, level 16 color and level 16 normal) and 4 from the Oscape texture generation (level 32 color, level 32 normal, level 16 color and level 16 normal), from which you'll need to "cut" each section out of, and save to their respective texture files (.dds)!

This is how all my Creation Kit textures (level32 - WIP) looked once they were combined: http:// i45.tinypic.com/2vczyac.png (remove spaces) and (normals not uploaded, as these were completely utterly useless)
This is how all my Oscape Textures (level32 - WIP) looked once they were combined: http:// i48.tinypic.com/2utep.png (remove space) and http:// i47.tinypic.com/21d07eg.png (remove space)
And once I had transfered the Oscape textures (level32 - WIP) onto the Creation kit layout, this was the result: http:// i45.tinypic.com/2weklmp.png (remove space) and http:// i45.tinypic.com/16ht1ll.png (remove space) (note: the lines were to help me cut the textures out in the apropriate sizes, you can find these sizes in the file names of the level16 and 32 textures in your /Skyrim/Data/Textures/Terrain/MyWorld folder, and these)!

But basically you'll have to complete this proceduce for all level32 and level16 textures both normals and colors!
Note that the textures created by the Creation kit all are 256x256 pixels, so you'll most likely have to downsize your Oscape textures - well atleast I haven't tried keeping them in their generated sizes yet, but perhaps I will once my world gets farther in its development!

Also make sure the lodfile you're using is still the one created by the creation kit under step 3, as I haven't been able to make custom lodfiles work with both objects and distant land (including the one generated by oscape)!

And again, let me stress that these steps worked for me (so far), it's not a universal standard, but hopefully it will inspire some of you! (If someone knows an easier, or better way, then do enlighten me) Also this proces is in no way perfect, but it's the best result I've been able to produce thus far!

With best regards,
KDashnaw

» Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:06 pm

Why didn't you just install the .btr files that Oscape makes ? It would have saved a lot of trouble.
Alternatively, make sure your world size is a multiple of 16 or 32