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Hey everybody,

yes I know another topic made by me about something that i messed up with the GECK.

Anyway,

I seem to have messed up making a lod for my worldspace sinds i get the above problems with it from a distance.
I used the lod section of the GECK official guide, but i dont seem why it doesnt work.

Look at this thread. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1103763-does-lod-actually-work/

I ask about LOD for my worldspace, and get some very helpful information. Before generating did you put all the meshes in the right spot, and the textures in the TGA folder and convert them to TGA? Hopefully CevSteel can help you more with this, as he is one of the more experienced when it comes to LOD.

It looks like (given your ran through the LOD process without any errors,) You simply need to go to the source folder (which should be outside of your fallout 3 folder. Find the newly created Landscape folder and place it into the data\textures folder, it should look like this when properly placed data\textures\landscape\LOD\Your world space folder. The game needs this to show the newly created textures just as any texture replacer you try to use, needs to fall into there proper file paths.

This is just my first guess from looking at your screens but, if you had any other errors or problems while running through the LOD process, let me know and I will try to trouble shoot more.

LOD is complicated, don't be to hard on yourself for not getting it on the first try, it took me weeks to totally figure it out.

cev

thnx both of you. It seems that the textures where the problem.

I am now using the world space create tutorial.

I am a bit confused about step 3:

3. Generate Objects. Creates LOD geometry and texture maps for all refs in the world that are marked visible when distant(VWD). This is a somewhat difficult task. Since the Geck expects to find TGA files for textures, you must extract all object textures from textures.bsa into Bethesda Softworks\Source\Textures TGA and converted them to TGA using a graphics program (ex. Irfanview). Similarly you must extract all the meshes into Data\Meshes. If you don't have a lot of VWD objects you can copy only the meshes and textures you have used in your landscape. This doesn't take much time either.

So please correct me if i'm wrong about this:

I should extract all object textures from my texture files in the date file to Bethesda Softworks\Source\Textures TGA using Irfanview

So i have added a few sandbagwalls then i should extract all the dds files from C:\Program Files (x86)\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout 3\Data\textures\Sandbag into TGA and export them to C:\Program Files (x86)\Bethesda Softworks\Source\Textures TGA.

So far so good I think. Now i get confused:

Then i need to extract all the meshes into data\Meshes......
I dont get this part nor I can i find any meshes in the source folder.

They aren't found in the Source folder, only the textures go there. The meshes go where you normally put them. You only need to worry about meshes that have _lod at the end of their name.

As Belanos has said the meshes go into there proper directory inside data\meshes folder not into the source folder.

the textures (Once converted to TGA format) go into Bethesda Softworks\Source\Textures TGA.

all you need for both the textures and meshes are the files that end in LOD. they however must be placed inside the meshes or, Textures TGA folder in there appropriate file paths. Just as they are when you first extract the files from the BSA's.

If you miss something you'll get an error when generating the LOD, it will tell you which file is missing, you'll then have to track down the missing file or, files and, start all over.

It's a little time consuming and, annoying to get all the files into there appropriate directories but, once it's done, the process should run smoothly

Hey Cev. I was doing some steps to prepare for this, and I am having an issue. How did you convert your texture files from DDS to TGA? I am trying to use IrFanView but it cannot batch convert because it always says "Error, cannot load" Do you use a different program or did you do them all by hand on at a time or something?

I used theCompressonator.
http://developer.amd.com/gpu/compressonator/Pages/default.aspx

With this app you can do many things like set the appropriate dds compression on files that may be oversized or, have the wrong compression, batch convert files to another format, all while maintaining the proper file paths.

What I did was to extract a new copy of the textures from the BSA, went through it by hand deleting ever file that didn't end in LOD. (this was only to make sure I hadn't already altered the files that I may need.)

Then there is a batch convert function, ( I'm not in the program now so, I can't give an exact step by step description but, I found it fairly straight forward. ) with an option to include subfolders and, maintain file paths.

Selected my newly unpacked and, cleaned textures folder, simply hitting convert to TGA. A few minutes later all was set to go into my source folder.

the hardest part was wading through every folder, subfolder inside of the textures folder to clean out the unneeded ones. Don't worry though if your not perfect and, leave something that is not necessary it will only be converted to TGA and, ignored by the LOD process. IF you accidentally delete something you need then the LOD process will error out, then you'll have to dig that file out and, convert it into it's proper place.

With a little patience, time on your hands it's not a big deal.

You know on a slightly different thought, I think I'll go through the full Mesh folder, ( I know mine is missing things that may be needed.) and upload a new modders resource. "Chuck's LOD Essentials" containing all necessary files to pull off LOD. In there proper file paths and formats, of course.

This would cut down on some of the confusion people have with running LOD.

Awsome I will try that program out. Thanks alot.

You know, when I extracted the meshes and textures, in FOMM I simply types _lod in the search bar, and it only gave me the ones that ended in, or contained '_lod' so I dont have to delete a single thing. This will be much much faster than extracting it all, then deleting the extras. Also, for textures. Do I do "Bethesda Softworks/Textures TGA/Textures/Architecture" or "Bethesda Softworks/Textures TGA/Architecture"? Also it is Textures(Space)TGA correct?

Not to sound rude but, there is a flaw in your system.

Not all of the needed textures and, I suspect the meshes too, have file names that end in the, "_LOD" your searching for. I know for a fact some, billboard Textures have names like "billboard01blod.dds", which wouldn't come up in your search. This may or, may not cause you issues depending on if you've used that mesh or not.

If you haven't noticed Beth was not cool with there naming system.

To answer your other question on the file paths, all of the new TGA textures need to be in this path, Bethesda Softworks/source/textures TGA. ( Architecture, clutter, dungeons, landscape and so on! ) Once you complete the LOD process you'll need to move the Landscape/LOD folder back into a Data/textures/LOD folder.

It will contain a folder which has all of the newly created LOD textures that the game needs for your mod.

your Date/LODSettings, Data/Meshes/landscape, and Data/Textures/Landscape folders will all need to be included with your mod for it to work properly for others.

yes, I know and, I'm sorry but, LOD is complicated. It took me weeks to really get my head around it.

This is exactly why, I started thinking I should sort through the meshes folder, I've already got a good source folder for the TGA files, Once I clean up the meshes folder I could upload a LOD resource pack.

Again, not to sound rude, arrogant or, cocky! I've already gotten it figured out, if there is something I could do to make it easier for others, I'm all for it.

I love this community, for the most part, we all try to help each other expand our collective knowledge. Granted, I was violated by some noob on the nexus the other day but, I don't hold it against the community as a hole.

(yes, I'm venting, sorry! didn't mean to take it out on all of you.)

This thread is turning into a must have for generating LOD. If you do get around to it CevSteel, posting a link to pre-made TGA textures would be simply awesome and save a lot or redundant work for everyone else who decides to generate their own LOD. :nod:

Yeah that would help out the community a lot!

anyway i happen to found a problem which I cant seem to solve.

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/5267/errorl.jpg

Now the problem is not making the 2 the same size but the fact that i cant find either 1 in any of my files.
I have tried to run everything for my lod from scratch again but i still get the smae problem.

What should I do to get my hands on the file?

It's because your missing the two (or possibly more,) files. I found them easily by opening up my untouched textures backup, they live under textures/landscape/roccanyonlod.dds. the GECK may give you errors that have capitalization's for easy reading but, is not sensitive to them.

You'll need to find the missing files convert them to TGA and properly place them in the source folder and, try again.

unfortunately, there is no starting from where you left off, you'll have to start the process all over.

One thing you can do to see if your missing more files is to hit the ok in the error window, it should continue the process until it hits another snag, telling you what is next missing.

Awww I now see the error of my ways. :/

I see how you cant really use the filter to find them all, because Bethesda does svck at naming so there are all sorts of inconsistancies. Well I have all textures containing _lod, or ending in lod.dds so that will be a majority of them... I hope. It would be really fantastic if you did make a file for this with all the necissary meshes and textures.

thats the problem.

I went trough the whole process again, deleting everything but still the textures didnt appear in my files

GameGodLazy,

Did you have any errors while running through the process? If you didn't did you move the source/textures TGA/landscape/LOD folder into the Data/textures/landscape folder where it needs to live? This folder contains the newly created LOD textures for your worldspace, the GECK places them into the source folder but, the game needs them back into the textures folder.

As I said if you have any errors you'll need to fix the missing files then, starting completely from scratch. I may not have ben clear on this though, You'll also have to go into the Data/LODSettings folder, the Data/Meshes/landscape folder and the Bethesda Softworks/source/textures TGA/landscape folder and delete any files the LOD process has created for your worldspace.

When I say start from scratch, I really mean from scratch, If you've gotten half way through, you can't simply pick up where you left off, after the missing files have ben located.

I started working on my "LOD Essentials Pack", I've gone through the entire Meshes folder cleaning out everything accept the needed LOD files and, double checked my source/Textures TGA folder against a clean unpack of the textures folder.

I tested it with a duplicated worldspace, of Takoma park. I ran into a few bugs but, fixed them. I think I've gotten most of the necessary files packed up properly. (I'm sure I've missed something but, there are a lot of files to go through.) After, the two errors I found the process worked like a charm.

I'm going to wright up a very remedial readme on the process and, when I say remedial I mean, I'm going to try to make the process seem "Idiot proof."

I'll go through step by step. first on installing the pack properly, then try to walk people through the process I use to generate my LOD. Finally, ending with a description of what files and, there file paths, which will be needed to be included with your mods for distribution.

I hope I can count on you guys to test it for anything I may have missed and, even critique the readme, I'm by no means a writer, I'd really like it to be clear and understandable for anyone who has a basic understanding of the GECK. If one of you who may be a better writer even wants to rewrite it to make it even clearer, that would also be cool. I know my short comings and, I'm OK with them.

This will probably take a few days, my DSL modem seems to have fried out! I've ben responding via, my IPhone and, am unable to upload anything until I replace my modem.