I've uploaded my LOD Essentials Pack. It contains (what I hope to be all the meshes and Textures TGA files that are needed to help anyone successfully pull off the LOD Process. I also wrote a rather lengthy readme outlining the process step by step. How to translate those odd sounding LOD Errors and, what to do if you run into one, and what all needs to be packed up with your mod for release to the public.

I didn't want to hijack any of the other LOD treads so I'm starting this one.

I appreciate the offers for testing from Miaximus and, Gunmaster95, if anyone else who has a worldspace that there working on, could try this and, give feedback. I would be thankful,

If you run into any missing file errors please post a screenshot on the nexus images page or, give me the file name and path to its location. I will patch the pack to get it working the best I can.

Here's a link to the nexus download.

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13676


Moderators, I'm sorry if this should have went into the mod section but, it seemed so GECK specific, I thought it might get lost there.

Awesome! I'll download this as soon as it lets me and will let you know how it goes. I'm also working for Cipscis right now, and will balance between the two as I move through (this wont take me long)

Thanks for putting this together!!

Cheers,

Miax

I could be confused but, if I remember correctly. I think you said you were working on a LOD Generation tutorial. If my memory isn't leaving me some where short. your more then welcome to include this packs files with your tutorial.

I would be happy to write the LOD tutorial yes, but up until now I have never done the process myself. With your set I'll make the attempt, and assuming I can get LOD to generate correctly in my world space. Once I have successfully done the process once, I can take all the required screenshots at the right places to make the step-wise diagrams, and will have enough confidence to make the tutorial.

I'm on a work call tonight, I'll try it out tomorrow. If all goes well, I may bite the bullet and start the Manual of the GECK that I've been wanting to create. I will definitely do at least a LOD tutorial if I can get this right.

Stay tuned, and thanks for putting this together - both to you and Gunmaster, you've been working this awhile now!

Miax

Hey I really thinks this helps me and the rest of the community out a lot!

I just saw 1 mistake in the readme;



2. Generate Terrain Meshes:

This by far is the most time consuming part of the process it can take up to and, over 10 hours depending on your system and,
size of the worldspace. Simply hit the yes button an start to wait, go to sleep or, watch a movie.

3. Generate Terrain Meshes:

This ones not so bad, it can only take and hour or two.
Go to lunch, take a nap or, get away by taking a walk while it's running.

I think the 2nd should be generate terrein textures or am I mistaken?


I tried this with and everything goes smooth untill generate objects part;

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6219/problemgd.jpg

According to your tutorial it is a error from the GECK which i can ignore but when i try it out in my game i get this:

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/5120/screenshot28a.png

edit:

Nevermind i see it now. i dont have the textures in my files. Which brings me to another question:

i dont have the folder dlc04/architecture anywhere in my files nor have I the DDS files anywhere for the shack. Am I supposed to make that folder myself in the data folders and then go off doing LOD in the GECK?

I guess I should have mentioning this was only set up for vanilla fallout 3 not any of the DLC's.

Sorry about the mistake in the readme, step three should have ben "generate landscape textures"


Edit: If I get the time this weekend maybe I'll try to set up for OA, BS and, PL DLC's. they didn't cross my mind as having different LOD files. I rarely mod with them.

Awsome work setting this up! I will focus really hard on my worldspace, and then will try the LOD. One question, and one suggestion beforehand. First, can you generate LOD more than once? So if my worldspace is not totally done, can I generate it, look at it, delete everything, finish the worldspace, then make LOD again? Second. Might I suggest placing something in the readme that says if you get the Pink land far away, as GameGodLazy did, that you forgot to move the texture folder? Since I have seen at least one other thread about that this week, so it looks like something people may forget to do alot.

To answer your first question, Yes you can generate LOD more than once but, to do so before start you'll need to delete the old LODSettings, data\landscape\LOD\ " your worldspace" folder and, the textures\landscape\LOD\ "your worldspce" folder and, if you didn't simply move "your worldspace" textures TGA\landscape\LOD\ "your worldspace" folder. it will need to be deleted too.

I hope that was clear, to put it simply delete all files related to the worldspace before starting over.

I thought I stressed the importance of moving the textures but I'll take a look at the readme to see if I can make it clearer.

GameGodLazy's problem was because he is using DLC assets not in the pack. I'm working on them but, one thing that scared me was the missing texture in his error didn't end in LOD. there is no way of knowing if I've packed all necessary files up properly. I'm thinking LOD for the DLC's is going to be a bit of trial and error.

I had a little down time today after all. I packed up LOD files for Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel and, Point Lookout. It wasn't as big of a job as I thought it might be.

these are untested and, most likely are missing some file as I've said GameGodLazy's error shows a needed file that doesn't end in LOD. I have no way to figure out what is missing without more Testing.

So as always if you see any missing files please post screens of the errors and, I'll try to take care of them.

thxn man

I'll test the dlc stuff out for you when i got the time

I just did one test on the DLC packs.

I duplicated the mill in The Pitt ran LOD on it and I had no errors. Now I'm testing Operation Anchorage, I'm goin through in order.

I'll let you know how my tests go.

Yes I'm anol retentive.

Just wanted to say thanks for this, it's truly a huge help and will give wary modders like myself who are on the fence of making LODs the push to go ahead and make them, making the wasteland a much cooler place!

Hi!
I also wanted to say thanks. I've been playing with LOD generation this year and adding more things to my wasteland. Manually converting all those DDS to TGA was a pain. This is very useful.
I did some testing and found some issues with some LOD textures:
- Windmill
- RadioTower01
- WaterTower01
- WastelandChurch01
Any LOD model that had transparent parts had black boxes. Like with radiotower you can see the sky between the structure and after using your textures I could not due to the black boxes. Then I copied my backup manually converted textures over your pack, regenerated objects LOD and the black boxes were gone.

Of course this could be something wrong in my set up, but you might want to check if you lost the Alpha channel when doing those texture TGAs.

I have another issue, not related to this pack, with LOD object texture generation. I will post a new message shortly, please see if you help me out

My configuration:
- GOTY version from Steam
- Darn UI mod loaded
- Vault 44 mod loaded (my mod)
- DLC expansions are not loaded, but are in the Data folder.

--
Mikkis

How far are you with with the rest of the DLC's?

Any updates?

It's possible I lost some Alpha channels, I've never claimed that this pack would totally salve everyones LOD issues. I've only tried to pack the necessary files up to the best of my abilities. Hopefully, making the process easier for others.

If you want to help, please PM me and, I'll send you an email address which you can give me the working files so I can do a proper update.





Not sure what you mean? If your talking about my testing, I'm sorry but, I haven't had much chance to get any further.