http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37701


Description

These packages are designed to work around a limitation in the game engine. Proper usage allows you to experience semi-dynamically changing Distant LOD visuals at the touch of a button.

General Details

The idea was born with a small fixer set of plugins designed to defeat a bug in Kvatch Rebuilt. Once that had been released, I started thinking "maybe some other mods might benefit from such a treatment?" Thus, I have now started a full-blown project: LOD Togglers for Mods.

How do these plugins work? They move a few things around for the mods they cover so to only display specific portions of the available Distant LOD based on your progress in the mod. Essentially, they are faking dynamically changing distant visuals.

This circumnavigates an engine limitation and allows for the users to alter their Distant LOD for specific mods quickly and easily. Just load up the plugins into TES4LODGen and let it re-process your D-LOD.

The idea was also born from the need to work around a bug in the game's DistantLOD system: modifying the individual .LOD files after TES4LODGEn was run can cause problems, namely the game failing to load the DistantLOD for the cells the player is currently occupying. Using these eliminates that bug as the idea behind this mod is not to re-distribute pre-generated LOD files (thus risking the previous bug from occurring) but allowing TES4LODGen to do all the work.

Why, you might ask? Because the .LOD files TES4LODGen spits out are load order dependant. It is not a good idea alter those files once they have been generated for that very reason. Allowing TES4LODGen to generate the needed LOD data from an ESP (instead of dropping in pre-generated .LOD files) preserves the integrity of the DistantLOD folder, and thus minimizes bugs.

Usage

-Place precisely ONE plugin from each LOD toggler you wish to use into your mod list and adjust the load order so they load DEAD LAST.

-Run TES4LODGen

-Remove the plugin from your load order when TES4LODGen finishes. DO NOT LOAD THEM INTO YOUR GAME!!! These ESPs are not intended to ever be used within the game and WILL break things if you do. I repeat, REMOVE these plugins from your load order before starting the game.

Frostcrag Reborn Details

-Toggles between the basic spire with only the original DLC Frostcrag visuals and the new hanging village, and the full spire with all the extensions and the dragon statue.

-This includes the spire visuals for the closed city cells. Using this plugin will give you proper DistantLOD for Frostcrag Spire in Bruma, Cheydinhal, and the IC Market, Elven Gardens, and Prison districts.

-A couple of the struts beneath the mountain that were not previously VWD have been made so, this way it looks more like the wooden structure beneath the tower is properly attached to the cliff face.

Kvatch Rebuilt Details

-Allows you to toggle the walls so that they are either burnt or restored. This will also affect what buildings you see in the city if using that particular portion of RAEVWD.

-These plugins will fix both the walls in the Tamriel worldspace AND the walls in every Kvatch closed city worldspace. I assure you, there will be no more flickering wall LOD at all if you use these plugins correctly!

-RECOMMENDATION: The burnt walls are replaced with the restored walls at stage 3 of the KR questline. I would suggest updating the DistantLOD for the walls then to prevent jarring transitions from occurring. Unfortunately, this has to be done manually due to engine limitations, but that's what these plugins were designed for


Incompatibility

None whatsoever, seeing as you are never supposed to load these plugins into the game anyway.


Known Issues or Bugs

The restored version of Kvatch's walls will look like they are floating from certain angles. This is due to flaws inherent in the way this game handles the DistantLOD visuals. This cannot, and will not, be fixed, so don't waste time asking about it.


History

2011/11/04 - Frostcrag Reborn Toggler Version 1.0

- Initial release.

2011/26/03 - Kvatch Rebuilt Toggler Version 1.1

- Removed a couple pieces of restored wall that I missed in the burnt version plugin.

- Buildings removed in the burnt version for RAEVWD City Architecture and/or Wilderness Architecture users as it doesn't make sense for them to exist at that time.

2011/22/03 - Kvatch Rebuilt Toggler Version 1.0

- Initial release.

Contact

You can contact my via PM either on the Nexus or on the Official Oblivion forums. I am more likely to respond to the latter.

Credits

Thanks to Bethesda for creating Oblivion.
Thanks to DarkOne for providing TESNexus so swiftly after TESSource/TESDB went down, and continuing to improve on it.
Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.
Thanks to the Kvatch Rebuilt Team for restoring Kvatch to its former glory.
Thanks to indefiance for his incredible overhaul of Frostcrag Spire.


Tools Used

TES Construction Set - http://www.theelderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_utilities.htm
Readme Generator - http://lhammonds.game-host.org/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.asp
Wrye Bash - http://wrye.ufrealms.net/
TES4LODGen - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15781


Links to Required MODs

Kvatch Rebuilt: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15412
Frostcrag Reborn: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9769


Licensing/Legal

No resources or mod components are redistributed with these plugins, and they require their respective mods be downloaded and installed in order to function properly. If you don't have or don't want to use a particular mod, you can't use the respective toggle plugins, period. You will also need TES4LODGen, too.

At the moment, these LOD replacer plugins are to be used with Kvatch Rebuilt and Frostcrag Reborn only, right?

Right. Kvatch Aftermath/Rising are not supported, and I am unaware of any other mod that does what Frostcrag Reborn does to the spire.

These plugins are dependent on the respective mods they toggle; if you don't have them, LODGen can't load them.

I've been using the one for Kvatch Rebuilt and it's working great. Question: does the church always show up as repaired? I haven't progressed to stage 3 in the quest yet, so I've only used the burnt version, but I noticed that the church is repaired. I suspect this is because RAEVWD only has the repaired version of the church mesh, but I thought I would double-check.

Edit: whoops... I might be using version 1.0 - I didn't realize you updated this Is this the fix that's in 1.1?

Huh. I could swear I was getting the destoyed church with the plugin versions I was using, and I did specifically bury the church in the 1.1 update.

Are you sure?

EDIT: Yes, this issue was fixed in 1.1, you will get the destroyed chapel instead.

EDIT AGAIN: Also, if there is anyone out there who could point out good mods that would benefit from having toggleable LOD, please feel free to post.

Yeah, sorry about that. I was using 1.0. I'm upgrading to 1.1 right now!! The repaired church did look amazing though

And it's still there, too, and the Arena (though limited to the Restored plugin now)! Just wait until you restore the city, you won't recognize it at all. :biggrin:

I don't know about toggleable, but several of the OCR patches could benefit from being able to see the added buildings. The nature of those patches usually means the buildings don't show up even though they should be there in that load configuration.

RAEVWD has a destroyed chapel mesh btw. I just need to stop it from using lit windows.

I noticed something similar with the ImpeREAL Castles for Open Cities concerning the city flags. Turned out I needed to reset the Visible When Distant record flags for them.

Could you give me a quick example? I'm not noticing anything out of the ordinary in terms of Distant LOD in my game anymore; using this method dealt with that disappearing VWD object problem I was talking about before.

Are you, perhaps, referring to the new Better Cities OCR plugin?

Reset them how?

As for an example, if you're using the Lost Spires patch, it adds buildings to Cheydinhal, Leyawiin, and Bravil. I'm pretty sure the last time I checked the LOD for those doesn't get generated and you just see the empty lot where the building should be.

Or... maybe I've got that backward and you see it regardless.

As for the BC-OCR plugin, unless the CS, Wrye Bash, TES4Edit *AND* Gecko are all conspiring against me, there's nothing for that to place. It has no worldspace block.

I mean I went into TES4Edit and added Visible When Distant record flags to the large animated flags the castles are flying as their LOD stopped showing up when they were used in conjunction with Unique Castles OCR.

What is very puzzling to me, however, is why that plugin has to set those record flags on the flags when they behave just fine without them with just OCR installed.