Hi, I've been making a mod for some time now in a new world space, with about 170 cells. I've now finnished building all the exterier areas and I would like to be able to see it all in game insted of items just popping into existance, my question is, how do I generate the LOD for my world space, what do I need to do, is there any other files I will need and after its done which files do I need to include with the mod for it to work on other systems?

Hiya buddy.

You may well kick yourself for not checking this first prior to building your mod.

But, whatever Bethesda used to generate LOD objects sucessfully was removed from the GECK before it was released. I currently dont know of a way to sucessfully generate LOD objects. When LOD is generated within GECK it produces a wasteland.dlodsettings, but the information is corrupted somehow and the LOD for the entire wasteland displays incorrect textures.

The best course of action is to create areas that mask this by reducing the players view to under the LOD activation range through visual obstacles like tall buildings and canyons.

If someone wants to correct me on this I would be over the moon.

Skykappa

I cannot verify the validity of these two resources, But I have found some info on creating LOD. One is through making http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/gamesas_Tutorial_Static_Collections#Static_Collecting_Objects_with_LOD, the other is through the http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/World_LOD. My only experience comes from the fact that I have made SCOL, but not with LOD. This is how I found these articles. Perhaps you have already seen them and would like to comment on their usefulness.

I have to admit not attempting SCOL and would be very interested to see the results. My comments were based purely on mine and other attempts to use the World LOD generator in the wasteland.

Skykappa

I have collected alot of notes about LOD, and I know that both are possible but difficult.

I'm finishing a re-texturing job for a friend, but right after that I'll compile my notes and try to come up with a solid procedure thats tested for both Object and World LODs.

Stay Tuned,

Miax

Really? I thought this was common knowledge. I used http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3541 to successfully generate LOD for a test world, including LOD trees (but not buildings). I still have the LOD files, but it looks like I've deleted the .esp. That was back in Feb, so maybe I've forgotten something but I seem to recall it working. :shrug:

In any case, be forewarned: generating LOD takes an insane amount of time. For a couple of cells, maybe only a few minutes, but for 170 cells, you're looking at perhaps days worth of non-stop generation. The LOD meshes are considerably more sophisticated in FO3 than they are in OB, but the algorithm used to generate them doesn't appear to have been optimized. Not many people comment on it, but the LOD in OB was pretty bad, with a lot of visible seams and sharp transitions between meshes. FO3 LOD is very good in comparison. The developers obviously noted the complaints about OB LOD and put some effort into improving it for FO3. The cost is longer processing.

@Miaximus: Your guides are excellent, so I look forward to seeing what you come up with. It would definitely be another huge boon to the community.

Question

Does your link above also include "remaking" the LOD for vanilla world space's?

No. I understand there are special problems with that, but I've never tried to regenerate vanilla LOD. The op said he was making a new world space, for which Ar1z's tutorial should be fine. (I'll have to experiment with this again now that I've updated to the GECK 1.5 patch. Perhaps something has changed.)

Well I was hoping -_-

Thanks for the info TheMagician

Wow, this sounds kinda crummy.

If someone like me wanted their own worldspace and didn't want to screw around with this apparently-horrid process, is there anything preventing me from copying an existing worldspace as-is and absconding with it for my own mod's purposes?

Hehehe either that or:

World craetion without LOD: http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk/fallout-3-creating-worldspaces-the-easy-way

Using an existing worldspace/LOD may only work if you have the same large objects/LOD objects in it, but again I wont know for sure till I drill into it with my own worldpsace.

More to come!

Just tested LOD using Ar1z's guide on a very small worldspace with 1 object (a ruined house). Looks ok to me. (Picture quality is bad, but the LOD is correct.)

Vid 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya3J4cSNlRM
Vid 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3lG0QJz72w

It is possible to generate LOD if you have all the correct files in the correct folders, but the editor IS buggy. The Geck crashed on me a couple of times during the generation (which may have had something to do with the order I was doing things) but in the end I ended up with LOD that acts exactly like vanilla LOD.

I'm going to experiment with this some more to see if I can find a more reliable way to go about this.

This is excellent, thank you Magician!!

If you wouldn't mind sharing any wisdom you gain from it, I'll fully credit you in the tutorial for it once done.

Cheers,

Miax

It occurred to me that perhaps people are forgetting to copy the object textures from the Bethesda\Source\Textures TGA folder where the WorldLOD -> Generate Object function places them. I've forgotten to do this myself on occasion and ended up with purple textures on LOD objects in-game.

Ar1z's guide mentions moving texture files in relation to generating landscape textures, but he forgets to mention it in relation to object generation. The best way to go about it is to Generate Terrain Textures, then Generate Objects then copy everything from the Source\Textures TGA\LOD folder (copy the folder named after your worldspace) to the Data\Textures\Landscape\LOD. Remember to rename DiffuseGenerated to Diffuse (you can just delete the Diffuse folder and then rename DiffuseGenerated). I'm sure it was set up this way so that Bethesda could do post-processing on the textures before adding them to the LOD. Although there has been some mention of a corrupted nameOfYourWorldspace.DLODSettings file in certain threads, I haven't seen anything related to this in my own worldspaces. The editor can't find the files because you have to move them there after generating them. Again, probably to facilitate post-processing.

It's also important to remind people to convert their .dds files to .tga before creating the LOD. Default settings in GIMP seem to work ok.

I haven't worked with LOD very much, so I'm sure there are problems I'm overlooking (especially in relation to regenerating vanilla LOD) but basic mesh/texture/object LOD generation seems to work ok for me, even if it does crash a lot and take a really long time.


Edit: @Miaximus: If you do write up a guide, see what you can do with http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=126510&st=20. It's pretty interesting, and would be useful to vanilla wasteland modders, I'm sure.

Decided to update the wiki with http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/World_LOD. Let me know if this process is not working for any of you. (I'm still testing it myself.)

Nice, thanks for updating the WIKI.

I've copied all the data into my notes for the guide, but I have quite a few DDS images to convert (lol).

I'll be able to start this weekend I think.

Miax

Yes, I'm the great necromancy dude!, Not!

I'm a lonely dude approach trying to make new world spaces and anything between and within understanding the binary things to create new or modify FO3 world spaces. In 2009 there seemed to be guys trying to understand G.E.C.K. for world spaces and LOD generation, and lot of interesting findings. Well...

In 2010 this seems to be a dead dead dead end... What did I miss?

Within .G.E.C.K. and simplified import of .RAW I manage to get workable base to create LOD and whatsoever BUT I'm not sure of limitations and the bugging limitations on what you really can manage to RAW import into FO3. I really wish to know what's the current status? Has everyone else given up?

I don't think there is really anything preventing you from creating a custom worldspace with working LOD anymore. I don't know anything about using RAW files (as I mentioned in the other thread) but it is completely possible to create a working heightmap, regions, and LOD. I've done it a couple of times. I haven't checked lately, but I believe all the information you need is on the wiki. The only real obstacle for a lot of people is the LOD generation time.

Others may feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Slightly off topic but I don't want to make my own thread. I'm currently working on a worldspace and ingame the water is not appearing. However it is at the correct height if I walk into it, it reacts to being shot etc. It's just the physical appearance that isn't their.

When you create your worldspace, if you set the default water height below 10500 this usually occurs. Unfortunately the only way to fix it is to delete and remake your worldspace. Just set the default water height to 10500 or higher and make the Default Water LOD height the same as you make Default Water height. The Dflt Land height does not matter. Hope this helps.

F!*@(%^(*$%*$#( Is there potential to workaround this using placeable water?

Not that we have found.

Its a tough issue, my mod also had the holes (past tense), as I had to take out the crater filled with water in mine because I am already too-far along in my mod to "re-create" 25 fully-populated/complete exterior cells. :facepalm:

To preserve the content in a new/fixed world-space, we would need a way to universally change the height/Z value on every exterior reference we have placed - and there would probably be something else to get in our way.

I hope I'm wrong in this, but so far I havn't seen any fixes posted. :shakehead:

Doesn't matter after all, it's actually inspired another project which can still you all the same concept work.