I've been toying with creating mountains with the creation kit, but when I load the game they do not shop up until I am in the same cell as them. How do I make them show up while I'm far away? is it possible?

I'm not sure if they use the same method in Skyrim, but looking at the CK compared the how it was in Oblivion's CS, it seems like all you have to do is go to World->World Testing And Reports->Update Distant LOD Data

IT didn't seem to work. Do you think i should generate LOD first?

Look at the threads about Heightmapping. There is currently a lot of issues with LOD generation, and we are trying to figure it out. Chances are you wont be able to update your LOD without a fair bit of trouble, unless BGS fixes it, of course...

ive noticed for places like college of winterhold, you can see the tower from waaaay far away. and when you get close the actual mesh finally pops in.

the tower you see at super far distance is not an LOD of the tower mesh (the tower only has 1 LOD mesh in total), what you're seeing seems to be built into a much larger terrain LOD.

if you look at the 3d world map, you can actually see the tower structure if you hover over it.

i'm wondering for distinct landmarks like this if it uses the same LODs as the world map from very far distances, and not individual mesh LODs.


if you use the console to select the winterhold tower up close it will give you the reference id. then when you pull super far away and click on it in the console, it no longer gives you the ref id because the actual LOD mesh has disappeared off the map, leaving behind a built in terrain lod which does not have a ref id.

i remember someone had made a mod that replaces the 3d world map with a flat 2d paper map, and in the actual game the 2d paper map would show up in the world if you went up high enough on a mountain top (or something along that effect)


so if you want your changes to make a difference beyond the cell its located im guesing you probably have to edit this master terrain lod as well

OK thanks for the info! I generated the LOD terrain for all of tamriel after I made a test mountain. The mountain now shows up in the distance but for some unknown reason the mountain is no longer solid terrain and you can walk right through it. ._. I think i'll just have to make a pop up mountain