So, it's about time I fill my land with some nice clouds floating about the higher mountains. I went off loading up Tamriel and went to High Hrothgar, and oh my god there are so many cloud objects. There are 'Distant' clouds and 'CloudShape's; they're all numbered like _25, or _50, and _O. Due to their pure size I was unable to determine what any of this meant by poking around Tamriel any further.

I'm sure I'll figure it all out if I just mess with it long enough, but I figured I could save time if anyone could explain it to me. Can anyone explain the difference between distant clouds, and shape clouds? As well as what the _O and _25/_50 means.

Thanks for any input!
Alexander J. Velicky

I've figured it out and posted the details below!

Pop them in an empty worldspace and find out? See how each one reacts on their own.

And are you sure its "_O" and not "_0" (zero)? Seems like theres a progression of 0, 25, and 50.

Okay, this may have been simpler than I thought. (at least some of it...)

It would appear that _25 means 25% opacity/strength (less visible/bright), _50 means 50%, and no number means 100%. Then _O possibly means overcast? It's the exact same shape, just the actual texture looks a bit darker and not as reflective, as though the sun isn't as bright?

I still don't understand Distant versus Shape, and how these get LOD? None of them have LOD defined, and it won't really help the feel of my mod if they only load when you are right up against the really tall mountains. I assume they are all always loaded, or there is some kind of hard coded deal for the LOD? I'll have to expirement.

Okay they don't generate LOD that's visible in the CK. However, going ingame, I notice that the LOD clouds you see don't appear to load out or in or change at all when you approach them; which perhaps means that the clouds are always loaded? I shall place many in my worldspace and we'll see what shows up.

Okay, well, I've figured it all out. Kind of jumped the gun on making this topic. xD But hey, now this will be here so anyone else who needs to know this can just look it up.

What it all means:

INV means Inverse direction. The clouds float from Left to Right, whereas clouds not marked as INV float Right to Left.
_O I'm not sure about. They are somewhat darker and less reflective. Possibly opaque or overcast?
_25 means 25% opacity/visibility, _50 means 50%, and no number means 100%.

All clouds are loaded at all times ingame, so they don't need LOD. I placed 4 clouds in my worldspace, and all 4 showed up from up close, as well as about 7-8 cells away.

Distant and Space I'm not too sure about. Distant are far larger, and generally rather flat. I guess these are for mountain tops and areas the player wont generally walk in, or get too near. Space are far smaller and more rounded and have layers. They are for places you get much closer too.

However there appears to be no technical differences between all the clouds. They all load in fully at all times, meaning you just use whatever looks good wherever you want.

Hopefully someone will find this helpful.

FYI, all cloud references are automatically flagged as "Is Full LOD", that's why they always show up and don't need LOD files.

Is there any way of raising the cloud layer on the actual map ?
Do the clouds that you add, show up on the map ?

There sems to be a lot of clouds below my worldspace (see below), which isn't really useful at all.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tambos.turf/Skyrim/Cloud_1.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tambos.turf/Skyrim/Cloud_1_1.jpg


I want to raise them to cover the borders, like the corner shown below.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tambos.turf/Skyrim/Cloud_2.jpg

I tried lowering the land and water in the CK, but it didn't work.

Any ideas ?

Perhaps someone now knows the answer or that Tamb0 has fixed it for himself.

The clouds in the world overview are just one giant mesh and they are unrelated to the clouds you place in the worldspace. Changing the mesh will also change the clouds in the Tamriel world overview, there is just one. It might be possible to turn off the cloud mesh through script by changing the right INI setting whenever the player enters your worldspace, and it might also be possible to add object clouds (the ones you place manually) to the Object LOD which could make these individual clouds show up in the world overview map.

Also, if Bethesda releases a DLC with a new worldspace they'll probably make the giant cloud mesh worldspace specific.

I didn't get the answer, so started on a workround.

Basically, changed my 2048 x 2048 (4 quads) worldspace into a 6144 x 6144 (9x4 quads) worldspace. A lot more extra work, but the playable area and visible map area will still be centered around the middle 4 quads, maybe a bit bigger. I can just set the viewable map area to be a little bit bigger than the final playable worldsize. It will probably look better as well. Also, it opens up the possibilities for expansion.



I don't actually want to turn off the clouds, that can be done with the sMapCloudNIF setting in Skyrim.ini, under the [MapMenu] heading.

What i want to do is have the map look similar to the Skyrim map ie. beyond the borders, there is a thick cloud layer and you cannot see through them.

If you look at this picture -
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tambos.turf/Skyrim/Cloud_1.jpg
you'll see that those thick clouds are there, but they are lower than the sea level of my land. I want them to be above, or at my sea level.
It doesn't really affect you guys, with the size of MERP and Mesogea, but on smaller worlds, it's very noticeable.


I followed thekarithian's video tutorial (very good) and he states to set the height at -8192.
I've also read a few posts that say the height should be set at -22192 and others again, saying that it should be set at -16192. All very confusing.

While I'm here I might as well ask on this thread, instead of opening a new one.

Does Oscape now correctly generate the .lod file for large worlds, or do they still have to be edited in a hex editor ?...if not...
Will it correctly generate the .lod file for a 9 quad square world ?

^^ See above last section...nobody know ?

I would like to know as well ... I dunno why there is a cloud piramid on edge of my issgard map ....

As Maegfaer said, this is part of the .nif for Tamriel worldspace. I noticed the big 'bump' of clouds as well. I think this is the part of the .nif file that corresponds to the High Hrothgar/Throat of the world mountain. I'm just trying to put a large mountain in the same area, to make the 'bump' fit in with my worldspace.