Edit: Terms:
LOD = Level of Detail and refers to the optimizing process whereby high-detail, large polygon-count meshes and large page-size textures are replaced by smaller, lighter meshes and textures when you move far away from them. Generally speaking, in the vanilla game, only large objects have LOD meshes and textures, though it is possible to create LOD objects for any static or static collection.
VWD = Visible When Distant and refers to a flag that can be set in the Geck for static objects and static collections. The flag informs the editor that a LOD object replacer exists for that object and that it should be included during the LOD object generation process.

(Thanks to pkleiss for the reminder.)

Edit 2: Added a new poll option. (Thanks to Skykappa )

I have been doing a bit of research into http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/World_LOD using http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3541 as a basis. I would like to expand on the existing knowledgebase by collecting any additional insights or problems world builders (or others) have experienced in the last few months to see if there are any poorly understood, undocumented, or intractable problems remaining in LOD generation for FO3. I'm posting this thread because LOD generally takes a long time to generate (especially if you have an old mid-range computer like me) and there are certain problems that are not easy for me to investigate in the time I have available.

LOD Generation falls into several categories:

• distant land mesh generation
  
• distant landscape texture generation
  
• distant LOD object generation (statics)
  
• distant LOD tree generation
  
• distant water LOD generation

It also includes a couple of different world space types:

• unparented vanilla (eg. Wasteland)
  
• parented vanilla (eg. Megaton)
  
• unparented custom (eg. YourWorldSpace)
  
• parented custome (eg. YourTown)

When posting, please qualify your statements by including information about the type of world space you are generating LOD for, and the category you are having problems with (or have found solutions for).

LOD goes beyond the LOD generation process in the Geck and touches on other aspects of modding (like mod conflicts and heightmap editing) so if you think your problem is LOD-related, don't hesitate to share your questions/advice.

TheMagician,

Good idea on the poll! Below are some accumulated notes from various posters on World and Object LOD for the research:


World LOD Notes:
------------------

1. Click World -> World LOD

2. Select your landscape and click Generate Terrain meshes

3. continue your life... depending on your landscape size / CPU power it can take from 12 hours to 12 days

First copy your landscape folder from ...\Bethesda Softworks\Source\textures tga\Landscape\ TO ...\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout 3\Data\textures\landscape

Then Transfer files From inside your Diffuse Generated Folder to Diffuse.

LODs are generated int data\meshes\Landscape\LOD\"name of worldspace"
You should have two folders inside your ...\fallout 3\data\
textures\landscape\lod\\normals\
textures\landscape\lod\\diffuse\
the diffusegenerated folder probably isn't required

Inside those folders there should be .dds files named .n.level.??.x??-??.y-?? where ?? are various numbers. You should try to open them with irfanview to check they do show up. Having the names "worldspace name".Level16.X-16.Y-16.NIF


There is a XXXX.DLODSettings where XXXX is the name of your landscape inside DATA\LODSettings. Rename it and regenerate LODs again. You might need to delete (backup first) all object / texture LODs and do it again also.


1. Unpack meshes.bsa.
2. Deleted all nif files in meshes\landscape\lod\wasteland.
3. Generate terrain meshes.
4. Packed meshes and trees folder back into meshes.bsa.
5. Generated terrain textures.
6. Unpacked textures.bsa.
6. Copied the wasteland folder out of source\textures tga\landscape\lod.
7. Pasted it over the wasteland folder in the unpacked textures\landscape\lod.
8. Packed the textures folder back up.
9. Tried to generate objects but failed due to the following error: "One or more LOD blocks failed to build. The following missing files or other problems were reported: Data\Meshes\Landscape\Rocks\Cliffs\CliffCanyonL01_lod.NIF." I unpacked meshes and found that the file that caused the error was located where it should be. Not sure what's wrong with it.

If anyone sees that I've done something wrong, please let me know.

After doing the above, I've also begun to have two additional problems:
1. Fallout 3 crashes when I try to run it.
2. When I open the GECK I get a warning error: "Default: Cannot load the stars."

Here's something else I noticed. If I unpack Meshes.BSA and then repack it (using full compression) without changing any of the files, Fallout crashes when I try to run it. It doesn't even get to the main menu. I'm using Fallout Mod Manager to unpack and pack the BSAs. Has anyone else experienced this?


1) After you complete the Object creation go the Bethesda Softworks/Source/Textures TGA/Landscape/LOD/[YOUR WORLDSPACES NAME HERE]
2) Copy the "LOD" folder and put it in your Fallout3/data/textures/landscape/[HERE]
3) Remember to include this folder AND the "LOD Settings" in the Fallout3/data with your mod


Tested with level4 - work with terrain,objects and visible_when_distant objects(world_name.level4.high.)
level8-32 not tested(we don't need them anyway), but there shouldn't be any difference.

So, to put it simple. If
level4.x<=Your_cell_coord_x
P.S. in my first post i make a mistake, i shoud wrote
World_Name.Level4 - LOD for 4x4(16) cells - detailed,for near terrain\objects ?
World_Name.Level8 - LOD for 8x8(64) cells - not so detailed.for distant terrain
World_Name.Level16 - LOD for 16x16(256) cells - for more distant terrain
World_Name.Level32 - LOD for 32x32(1024) cells - and so on


If all correct, you can find cell -5,25 LOD (for example) in
Wasteland.Level4.X-8.Y24.nif - terrain
blocks\Wasteland.Level4.X-8.Y24.nif - objects
trees\Wasteland.Level8.X-8.Y24.nif - trees

A quad is 32x32 cells, so my landscape is 32x32x12=12288 cells. Wasteland in comparison is 32x32x4=4096 cells but in reality it is just limited to 4 quads. When bethesda made the LODs they used the whole landscape which is 32x32x36=36864 cells. Obviously 16 cells shouldn't take 12 hours. Unless your landscape is part of another landscape like the wasteland. If you used the Heightmap editor then your landscape is 4 quads = 4096 cells.



Object LOD Notes:
------------------

Hey, I'll keep it simple, when I'm trying to create (Object) LOD for my worldspace I get no error messages during the process as I followed the geck.gamesas guide, but in-game the LOD is all messed up, it all comes out purple/white (Using Normal Maps instead of the regular maps?) Note that I only clicked "Generate Objects" not "Generate Terrain Meshes or anything like that, it's a city, not a wasteland so I didn't think I'd need it and I've heard it takes hours, should I create the Terrain LOD?


in your fallout 3 directory, not meshes, the one above it (mines B:/programs/games/fallout)
you need a 'source' folder, with the folders 'textures tga' then the following folders will be defined soon

B:/programs/games/fallout/source/textures tga/*

now .tga textures go in that.
the tga textures are every single texture that is used in any model that will be LOD'd, so the first error that you got (yes there will be more, alot more)
was UrbanBuildingsLOD_n.tga, so go to your textures folder and find UrbanBuildingsLOD_n.dds and load it in photoshop, or whatever you use and save it as a .tga.

the error also defines the folder it needs to be in, so UrbanBuildingsLOD_n.tga will go in /source/textures tga/architecture/urban/

once you've done that just click 'generate objects' again, and you will get a new error, jsut repeat above steps until it says its done
lemme know how it goes, or if you need help


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.

----

Hope this helps, let me know when you want me to test generation of this in my mod - I very much look forward to your results!

Miax

The poll should give us some idea of the general level of LOD expertise in the community.

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=126510&st=20 about LOD levels got me thinking about the LOD tree problem many people are having. LOD trees are generated separately from LOD terrain meshes and objects, so simply regenerating these will not solve the problem with the floating trees. To delete the floating trees, you would have to delete the LOD tree block (meshes\landscape\lod\'name of worldspace'\trees\'whatever block is causing the problem'). (Tree blocks seem to only generate for level 8 LOD (8x8 cells) which should cover many mods unless the mod overlaps more than one tree block.) Of course, you could always just regenerate all trees for the worldspace and distribute all of the tree blocks, but distributing a single block would make for a smaller dl. I'm still looking into the order in which blocks are generated, but I'm hoping there will be an easy way to accurately identify which blocks need to be kept and which can be deleted. As a head's up for anyone who is trying this, you have to remove the vanilla tree blocks from the folder (I recommend keeping them safe in a new folder) or the Geck won't regenerate them. LOD only regenerates missing blocks, afaik.

P.S. Thank you for the notes.

This is an excellent idea kudos to you 2, though I dont have anything to add beyond what Miax has posted. Very comprehensive M.

Thanks

SKykappa

Yes, I agree with Skykappa. Great idea. I can hardly wait for the notes to form a cohesive anthology of the subject.
The only thing I can add other than what I posted in the http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1049967is this:

LOD = Level of Detail

@pkleiss: Thanks for reminding be about the definition. Forgot to include that. Fixed now.

Hi!
A detailed guide would be greatly appreciated. Would it be possible to include example files like .esp files or heightmap bitmaps (or whatever it is that TESAnnwyn uses to generate landscapes). I realize that it may be offtopic / out-of-scope for LOD generation but it would be helpful to trace your steps while following a guide.
--
Mikkis

I would love to hear what sort of success/failures people have had using TESAnnwyn with FO3, since it's not designed to work with it. I've used it myself for Oblivion (a while back) but haven't had the time to experiment with it for FO3. I think I recall reading a post about someone using it, but I don't remember who. The guy doing the New York mod maybe.

And it's not really OT, Mikkis, since heightmaps are closely connected to LOD. As far as sample .esps go, though, LOD is all generated content, like regular models and textures, so you won't really learn anything by looking at the plugin itself, per se. I've been including my observations on the wiki as I experiment, so that's probably your best place to look until a real guide comes out. There's a lot of information there; just remember to check the talk pages, too.

I'm a little surprised that more people haven't voted/posted on this thread, since it seemed to be such a sore point for modders a few months back. Maybe everyone has resigned themselves to creating world spaces with no LOD. Shame, since from what I can tell so far, it works ok. Or maybe everyone who wanted to know has already figured it out and I'm beating a dead horse. Can't really tell. :shrug:

I think most are just being timid with regards to admitting that they don't know anything about it. Look how many views this thread has. People are reading it, but choosing not to answer the poll. I would venture to say that most of them have no clue what LOD is or what its used for or have little intention of getting involved in trying to apply it to their mods.

Think if you add this as a possible reply to the poll.

`I have tried for hours, but couldnt get it to work. `

You`ll likely get more votes.

I`d put my vote there anyway.

Skykappa

EDIT: Thanks. Voted!

@skykappa: Done. Now vote.

Update: For anyone who's been hesitant to generate LOD for their worldspace here are a couple of interesting points: if you use the landscape editor to create your world space (instead of the heightmap editor) you can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to generate LOD. I generated LOD terrain meshes for a 16x16 worldspace (256 cells) in less than ten minutes on a 5-year old mid-range computer with 2GB ram. It would seem that the accounts of LOD generation times have been greatly exaggerated. Generating terrain textures and objects (once textures for said objects had been converted to TGA) literally only took seconds. I'm willing to bet that a lot of mods with new worldspaces would fit in a 16x16 cell area.

The trick is not to use the heightmap editor. Using the heightmap editor commits you to generating LOD for the entire heightmap displayed in the editor whether or not you have actually touched the vast majority of the cells. Creating a 16x16 map in the heightmap editor will cost you the 9+ hours people are reporting for other worldspaces.

Fascinating find - thank you for posting this!

I used the Landscape Editor for the exterior spaces in my mod, so I have the shorter time to look forward to. But now I'm curious about the Heightmap editor. I've never had to use it really, I'll have to check it out! The Landscape Editor has a nice hot-key and is very convenient to use, so I never even bothered with the Heightmap editor.

I look forward to other nuggets you mine out of the GECK, its very helpful indeed.

Miax

I decided to try just creating a new worldspace outside. No heightmap, just directly modify the terrain with Landscape editor. I have added some buildings, raised and lowered land. 69 cells have some stuff in them (counted all cells with "*"). Mod loads in game and I can run around, with no LOD generated, mountains and large buildings pop-up when close enough. Fun and fast to work with / test.

Then I decided to try LOD generation. I select World > World LOD. Select my worldspace and click "Generate Terrain Meshes". Geck starts processing (Decimating the mesh). Then, each time I try this, I get a crash when Geck starts to "Computing morph targets".

Sound familiar to anyone?

I have not extracted any models / textures from .bsa files. I don't have any other .esp loaded than my mod. I'm using Vista SP2 64bit, 4GB memory. Did a clean install of FO3 and Geck with latest patches few weeks ago.
--
Mikkis

Morph targets are used in mesh deformation, usually in animation. Interesting. I've never had this error, so I'm not sure what's wrong. Does the LOD generation get through any of the chunks, or does it crash on the first chunk? I'd probably create a test mod, create a small worldspace (just a couple of cells in the landscape editor) and try the LOD on that. That way, you'll know whether it's connected to your worldspace or your system. If it is your worldspace, it could be a problem with some sort of landscape error, if you have tears in the landscape or a hole somewhere. Is there anything else you can tell me about the error?

I tried again and duplicated Paradise Falls worldspace. Same error. Geck generates folders Diffuse, DiffuseGenerated and Normals to "\Source\Textures TGA\Landscape\LOD\ParadiseFallsCOPY0000" but none of the folders have any files. "Fallout 3\Data\LODSettings" folder has xxxx.DLODSettings file for each worldspace I tried LOD generation.

As I mentioned, I have not yet extracted any models or textures from .bsa files. Do you have those files available somewhere not in an archive?

Try it out and see. You might just unpack Point Lookout, and try generating LOD for that if your worried about HD space.

Miax

The Generate Terrain Meshes command creates those folders, but doesn't place anything into them. The Generate Terrain Textures command populates those folders with the required textures. Every time I generate terrain meshes I receive warnings about missing diffuse and normal maps for the meshes, but the warning is benign as far as I can tell since I can generate working terrain with no problems.

It's possible that the LOD generator is looking for unpacked files, so you might want to extract them to see if that helps. All of my files are extracted, since I use them all the time for experimentation and stuff. I suppose I could 'hide' them and see if I get the same error. The problem with working with vanilla worldspaces that are crammed full of objects is that there could be an error associated with one of those objects that is causing your LOD to fail (though I don't see why). That's why I recommended trying it on a 'clean' heightmap with no objects. My own experiments have been limited to a small map with two textures and a couple of static objects specifically to limit these kinds of interactions until I know that the basic process works.

I'm using WindowsXP SP2 32bit with 2GB ram so it could be a system-specific problem that I can't help you with.

Keep tinkering. Maybe we can get to the root of this problem.

EDIT: Mikkis, try creating a meshes folder inside your data folder. I hid mine and received the same error you are getting. When I unhid my meshes folder (I hid my landscape folder inside the mesh folder to see what would happen) the process worked fine. It created a new landscape folder inside my meshes folder with the correct LOD meshes. I don't think you'll have to unpack anything except the lod object meshes and textures for distant LOD object generation.

"Awesome. Done!" Geck was looking for "Meshes" folder. Calculation took about 4-5 minutes. Now I can continue with the next steps. Thanks for the advise!

I got LOD terrain working! I had problem with LOD mesh not showing correctly, but after reading http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/World_LOD section of "Regenerating LOD Data", removing my generated old mesh data and then regenerating everything (about 5 mins) everything was showing ok.

There seems to be a minor random problem with LOD texture: initially object shows ok (electricity pylon), then when player walks for out of the cell LOD texture is shows as it should be. When returning to that cell with the electricity pylon the LOD texture is not removed and is shown on top of actual detail mesh. It makes the object "fuzzy" and pixelated like 3D games in 1999 This does not happen everytime and I seem to recall this happening a few times in FO3 wasteland. I'll test some more and see if the problems go away. Now I can start really experimenting and landscaping before starting on actual mod project.
--
Mikkis

Yes, I've had the same problem. It happened to me once playing vanilla FO3, but I don't remember if I did something to trigger it.

In my own experiments with LOD generation on my small world space it happens consistently if I move to a cell that goes beyond my heightmap. In other words: if I create a 12x12 heightmap in the landscape editor but go beyond the edge of that in-game (by swimming way out to see how my LOD looks) the LOD object meshes get 'stuck' and don't get hidden by the high-poly mesh when I reapproach it. As long as I stay within the 12x12 area, however, it doesn't happen. I can reproduce this result consistently. Reloading will not fix this issue, you actually have to restart the game, in my experience. Are you going beyond your hand altered heightmap in-game? Let me know if this is consistent with your results.

The good new is this should be an easy problem to fix since you can just set a border on your region (though there are still problems with that as it nukes a player's ability to move their avatar when they hit the border; but that's a different problem to solve...and I have a theory to test on that!).

TheMagician,

Again, many thanks for studying this at depth and sharing your results.

I had the exact same thing happen to me; I generated LOD Objects which seemed to work just fine, but got the blurry low-poly meshes even up-close and inside instead of the high-poly normal meshes that should be there when close-up. I had no idea at the time that it was related to going in/out of an area and coming back, but it makes perfect sense.

Now with that said, in actual space my custom world space will go beyond the 12x12 cell-size at least in one dimension (say X), my cell space including LOD buildings and distant objects is going to be about 12-14 cells/squares long and 8-10 cells/squares wide (max 14 x 10). I have not used the Heightmap editor in my worldspace, only the Landscape editor to modify the ground. Everything else has been object placement, though I do plan to add mountains in the distance on one side (they make sense on one side where the mod is at).

Do I need to reduce my overall world space to within a 12x12 cell area for Object LOD to transition successfully outside? Or do I just need to avoid the Heightmap editor as you eluded to earlier in the thread? I recall getting the blurry object textures in exterior as well as interior cells when I tried.

Cheers!

Miax

LOD data is generated in 4x4 chunks of land (cells), therefore, based on my own experience, I would use a square heightmap divisible by 4, so 12x12 or 16x16 would be ideal. I find LOD generated using non-existing cells beyond the borders of the heightmap tend to be deformed so I would avoid 12x14. The additional cells will have a negligible effect on file size and LOD generation time. LOD is generated in levels of reduced detail meshes, rather like mipmaps, with additional levels generated in 8x8 and larger size chunks which will only generate if it is possible to see a chunk of this size from far enough away. That's why there are 'spikes' in the generation time and why the process gets longer exponentially for large worldspaces: every time the generator needs to add another level of LOD detail, it essentially doubles (quadruples?) the generation time. Again, this is all speculation since I haven't gotten around to actually experimenting with worldspaces this large, but it does tally up with my previous attempts at generating LOD for large worldspaces and other people's experiences. That's why I said not to use the heightmap editor: it compels you to generate LOD for the entire 4-quad area even if you've only used a few cells in one quad.

P.S. The 'blurry' textures are the LOD textures, a low-level mipmap. LOD meshes have no collision and are probably stencil-rendered, which means you can go inside the LOD for a house and see the low-level mipmap from both sides. At least, that's my guess.

Thanks for the info Magician! I copied all of this into my accumulated notes on LOD. As soon as I finish the exterior cells/area I'm working on, I'll spend some time trying to generate LODs and making them work correctly. I'm still up against a busy schedule right now, combined with some medical leave, so I'm still out of action for a bit. When I do get back though, I plan to spend some quality time on this!

Thanks again.

Miax

Hi,

I understand the world general generation and it A.F.A.I.K. produce workable new world spaces. I'm still not sure how to work out imported RAW data. what's the status currently on making new or modifying the LOD for world spaces?

I'm not sure why most threads stopped in 2009, and there seems not to be any updates since then... Reached a dead end?!!

Please enlighten me before I spend time on a dead case!?

Actually I'm hard at work with my mod (not yet announced) and I've been using LOD terrain & object generation for few months now. I have not tried to use RAW since I can work just fine without it. I use Landscape Editing (press "H" in render window in exterior cell). My mod has among other things a new wasteland worldscape of 24x24 cells (about 72 chunks now). Terrain Mesh LOD generation takes about 4 hours now. Textures and object LODs are generated in just 15-25 seconds. When I need to remind myself of the steps for generating new wasteland a look at Geck Wiki:
http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/World_LOD

If you are going to try this, remember to read the last part : what folders to delete before re-generating stuff after some changes

Let me know if I can help in some way.
--
Mikkis