Cell Sized LOD Water Plane

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23055
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/78-cell-sized-lod-water-plane/

Bodies of water. They're everywhere in the game. The most obvious of which are Lake Rumare and the Niben Bay. They're both visible in LOD all the time. But what about your big lake in the hills? Or the lake outside of Cheydinhal? Or any other body of water which is raised above sea level? No, those are not visible at all in LOD. There is apparently a limitation in the game engine which will simply not display it regardless of the water height assigned to the cells. This resource is meant to aid you in changing that.

Provided in this package are two simple nif files. LODWaterPlane.nif is simply a large square editor object that you use within the CS to add to a cell where you have water. LODWaterPlane_far.nif is the LOD version of the same, which is a basic two triangle water plane with the Lava material added so that the game will treat it as water. It has all of the reflective properties expected, and even displays water ripples when passing over it with the free camera.

How To Use This Resource

Copy the two mesh files into a folder of your choice under Data\Meshes. The specifics don't matter.

Create a static in the CS using LODWaterPlane.nif.

For best results, drag the mesh into the render window and use its upper right corner to place it as precisely as you can on the NE corner of the cell you want. Use the INNER border of the editor marker, not the outer. Do not rotate the piece. It helps if you turn on cell borders while editing, that way you can zoom in close on the border for an exact fit. It should be placed exactly at the Z coordinate of your cell's water level.

To string multiple pieces together for larger bodies of water spanning several cells, simply add or subtract 4096 to the X or Y coordinates of the object. That will cause the piece to center into the next cell over.

For this to be visible in-game, you will either need to generate LOD files for your mod, or instruct your users to download and run TES4LODGen (recommended).

See the screenshots on the Nexus download page for visual aids.

The type and coloring of the water will be dependent on whatever water mods the user has installed and what type of water is present in the cell. So it should adapt itself to things like green slimy water vs clear blue water. It is also for this reason that you should avoid overlapping a water plane past a cell boundary.

Performance In Game

In game performance impact from this should be negligible. I've used it in a fairly large area already an noticed absolutely no change in frame rates. The _far.nif is two triangles, so it's as low as the poly count can possibly get. There is no need to optimize it.

I have not noticed any visual anomalies due to leaving the alpha channel in place on the LOD nif. I am fairly certain that is required or the water will not be transparent.

How It Works

This method works by essentially tricking the game into switching the _far.nif in for the editor object. The editor object and the _far.nif both came from the same source object. The nif was initially blown up to the exact size of one cell in the CS, then split into two parts.

An LOD _far.nif file does not have to have the same contents as its close-up counterpart. TES4LODGen does not care, and the CS won't know the difference either.

Credits

Da Mage and Throttlekitty for the original water plane resource: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18905
The original water plane resource is quite awesome in and of itself, check it out. You may have use for it too.

Legal

You are free to use this resource in any mod you see fit. Credit is not required, but would be appreciated anyway

Nice one Arthmoor, I hope modders like the UL team start using this soon.

Heh. That was pretty much what drove this. Brena River needed it badly. So someone on the UL team is already using it

Prodding back forward since it was missing a [RELz] tag before.

I like this one Arthmoor, I never knew we needed something like this. You really surprised me this time.

Thanks for coming up with a workable solution. This has been a thorn in the sides of landscape modders for a long time. I was just trying to figure out a way around this limitation when I saw your thread. Kudos! :goodjob:

Thanks for sharing and the linky, will add this to the list ! ! ! ! !

Thank you Arthmoor.

If I was still worldbuilding in NpcwithJobs I could find a use for them there..Perhaps Sjors will use them, since he has been doing all the worldspace work with npcwithjobs.

Corepc

Thank you for this resource :goodjob: !


I've got some problems getting the LOD waterplane to show up - but I fear I already know why. But before I have to accept that it won't work, I thought I better ask - not that I have missed anything small .

Only this is necessary, right?
- creating an object with the LOD plane
- placing the object
- check "visible when distant"
- run tes4lodgen

Correct? Or did I miss something?


If not, then... well, for me it looks like the default land LOD mesh is placed over the water mesh at this place I wanted to use the waterplane, therefore it seems to be hidden beneath it. I'm not sure, though - hard to see from the distance .

(Now how to create a land LOD mesh only for the place I've changed? Grmpf!)

Correct except for checking visible when distant. That isn't necessary for tes4lodgen to make it work. I don't think it will hurt anything though.

If the body of water you're making falls below the land height enough that the LOD land mesh shows through, you'll need to get the CS to generate that for you. That process is an incredible pain because the smallest unit it makes is still 32x32 cells.

There's also one hitch with this system. If your body of water is below sea level, the game will still render the sea level LOD. Nothing much can be done about that. It becomes even more noticeable if your body of water starts above height 0 and goes below that. You'll end up with a second LOD water layer underwater. Yes. Bethesda really screwed the pooch on water LOD.

BTW, I think we'd all kill for land LOD at the cell level. May exist with tes4anwynn but that whole thing with LOD2 made little sense to me.

32x32 cells?!


Can't do this. Players would kill me!

(Visible when distant: I hadn't checked it at first try, didn't work, then I checked it.)


Well, at least this problem I don't have, considering that my lake is about 20.000 units above sea level...


Too true, too true .


Hm. I guess I take a look at tes4anwynn... whatever that is :blink:.

Well since your body of water is 20,000 units above sea level, it depends on what part of the map this is going to be on. If you've got a land height change large enough to warrant needing an LOD quad (32x32 cells) then players may already want to kill you anyway

generate the LOD files, what does that include? making meshes, and texture LOD orgenerate the LOD files, what does that include? making meshes, and texture LOD or just updating the LOD Data because the last option does not work for me. I hope you are still able to answer my question Arthmoor just updating the LOD Data because the last option does not work for me. I hope you are still able to answer my question Arthmoor

Speaking of tes4anwynn, I remember reading about it when it was first released but I cannot seem to find anything on it on the web these days.

No offense Awia, but I didn't understand what you posted and don't know what it is you're asking.

As far as tes4anwynn, I goofed, it's actually called "TESAnnwyn" which should get you the right results.

My English is not very good xD

I try to write like bg2408

Only this is necessary, right?
- creating an object with the LOD plane
- placing the object
- check "visible when distant"
- I don't want to use tes4lodgen what do i do instead of using that (I already have generated LOD meshes and Textures)


If I can make this work then this mod is AMAZING!

If you're dead set against using tes4lodgen, you need to follow the process of having the CS generate the distant LOD files. Not the ones for the landscape meshes+textures, but the other one. I don't have the link to that handy.

It's much simpler to use tes4lodgen, that utility does not have anything to do with landscape LOD.

Do you mean to update the LOD data trough World testing? i have no idea about what the Distant LOD files is. what do they do? I just don't want to force my downloaders to download Tes4lodgen

The distantLOD files are what let you see buildings like forts and ruins from a distance. The same system is what lets this water LOD resource work. tes4lodgen is really small and is a one-click program. Nothing more to it, and most people who would be concerned with LOD have probably already got it.

I know, but still. My worldspace is not very big so i won't get the cs crash if i try to generate it, but how do i generate it without using Tes4Lodgen, i tried to make a search on the wiki but there was no results i could use.


This must be the update LOD data function, because this generates the distant trees, buildings and so on, but it deos not generate your LOD water plane, what could be the cause of this?

Is this fix already included in your Brena River Ravine mod?

This isn't really a "fix" so much as a workaround to an engine bug. Yes Brena River uses the water planes and is what I shot the example pics with.

hmmm, maybe its a problem with my cs cause the mesh is not even showing when I'm close to it, what could be wrong?

Sorry, missed this earlier. The mesh used in the CS is the size of an entire cell. If you have it setup right, you'll only be able to see the large yellow border. The _far.nif that goes with it requires you to either use the CS to generate LOD files or to use tes4lodgen to make the water visible. It's also possible if the work you're doing involves modifying landscape levels that you'll need to make a landscape LOD mesh too.

Keepalive nudge.