Greetings.

This issue cropped up today on my secondary computer's Oblivion install. I use that one mainly to test newly downloaded mods before adding 'em to my primary computer's Oblivion install, and also to test self-created landscape LODs I've recently been working on. My primary Oblivion install is A-OK. So this isn't a life-or-death issue as far as actually playing the game is concerned. But I of course hope to get it resolved pronto, if for no other reason than I'd like to resume my LOD creation experiments.

I believe I triggered the issue through my own absentmindedness. I created a new landscapeLOD "normal" for the IC quad last night, and this morning decided to test it on the machine in question. Here is where I think things went south. I dropped the new 7z into Bash Installers directory, then launched Wrye Bash. Went to its Installers tab. A number of packages had turned red. Looking closer, it seemed as if those red packages were mods that came with their own landscapeLODs. Oh oh, I thought. I exited Wrye, launched my file manager, and navigated to Oblivion\data\textures\landscapelod\generated. Sure enough, the folder was empty. I had forgotten that I'd cleaned it out yesterday while creating my own LODs. I do this quite often, but in the past have always remembered to copy 'em back before launching Wrye or playing the game. Not this time.

I copied the LOD files from my backup folder to Oblivion\data\textures\landscapelod\generated. Launched Wrye. Went to the installers tab. All looked fine. No more red mods. I clicked "anneal all" to be safe (ha!), installed my new self-made LOD, re-annealed, and exited. Ran TES4LODgen, though I KNOW it has nothing to do with landscape LOD files. Launched Oblivion. Lloaded my latest save, made inside Leyawiin. Fast Traveled to a cave on the Blue Road between IC and Cheydinhal. NO landscapeLOD visible! Once near-landscape ended I was greeted by emptiness with floating trees, rocks and structures.

It's been that way ever since. No matter what I try, distance landscape does not appear. I've removed all mod added landscape LOD except for those included in Elsweyr. Even Oblivions own LODs don't show! I checked Oblivion.ini, thinking I'd need to rebuild it. BUT...I have a fairly recent backup, made before this started. Comparing the two line per line, there is NO change that affects landscape LOD. NONE. The only difference between the two INIs is stuff like screenshot index (duh!), grass and other fade differences, music (off now), footstep sound volume, and the like. So it's not an ini issue.

(Yes, I've rebuilt my Bashed-Patch several times.)

What could it be? Those LODs (the mod provided ones) now show up in WB Installers tab as being properly installed. My file browser sees 'em there too. Wrye does not show any sort of oddness with them. Still, I suspect Wrye might be at fault, since launching it with those LOD files missing is what started all this.

Any input is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
-Decrepit-

Did you check that the meshes are present? They should be under data\meshes\landscape\lod

If that's not the problem, what form of Archive Invalidation are you using?

I agree, it sounds like the meshes have gone missing. Textures going missing would result in large chunks of purple landscape LOD.

If you haven't altered the original BSA files though, the original game landscape should have come back from the dead.

I've reloaded Bash many times in doing landscape LOD and forgotten to reset the folders. Yes, it complains and shows plenty of red for missing files. It's never hurt anything so long as NO mod installing or annealing took place while that condition existed. Returning the folders to their normal state has always worked. Even if I didn't exit Bash before doing so.

Darn it, I though we were on to something there. I'd seen that directory before, but never bothered to give it a good look-over. For good or ill, that folder looks fine. Has 24 files in it, corresponding to the files in my landscapelod\generated directory. Other than a few minor quibbles, the directory on my "bad" machine looks exactly like its equivalent on my "good" machine.

-Decrepit-

Darn it! I'm worried that I might have annealed "while that condition existed". Don't recall doing so, but it's a possibility. Was tired and in a hurry at the time and wanted to test out that new self-made FN.DDS before lunch. If I did indeed anneal, what then?

-Decrepit-

It shouldn't ultimately matter. The anneal should have replaced the missing content with what's in the archives. At which point you manually overwriting it should have returned things to the state you want them in.

What do your generated filenames look like? If they have names that are missing a digit, that could account for it too.

The only other possibility I can think of is that the normal maps generated by the CS are bad and are doing like bad normals on a creature/NPC and causing them to be invisible.

Ah, yes, that infamous CS bug. When it generates Landscape LOD data (usually the textures), the CS has an annoying habit of dropping zeros off the filenames when they are needed, and labeling the files as something like "60.0.0.32" when the game is expecting "60.00.00.32."

Might want to check up on that, too.

A bit more research, which sort of ties in with your reply. It looks as it the BORDER landscapeLODs, any NOT replaced at some point by mods, are OK. When I Fast-Travel to any of 'em, like way north high in the Jeralls, and face AWAY from Cyrodill, everything looks as it should. But the heart of Cyrodiil is totally missing. As is Elsweyr. Gonna look at those NIFs more closely. Is it possible those need to be regenerated?

As to the CS created "normals" being corrupt, I use those same files (save the one created last night) in my "good" install. They work perfectly there, as they did with my "bad" install up to this morning. Well, perfectly considering they aren't the best quality "normals" in existence. Har!

Yup, turns out it was corrupt meshes all along. Thanks for the pointer! Funny thing is, since my goal was/is to create High Res landscape LODs, and nothing I've seen discusses how meshes fit into the "high-res" picture, I totally forgot about 'em. Thinking on it, it's obvious why the player-created High-Res landscape LOD mods I've downloaded don't include meshes or even discuss them. Any mesh change is going to be mod-centric, and everyone has a different combo of mods. Normal Maps and Color Maps, on the other hand, are generic enough to be adaptable to a great many mod combos with only minor visual gotchas.

The only sad part about this whole episode (besides losing a solid day of play) is that I somehow lost the LOD mesh that looked so great in combo with my downloaded 4096 landscapes ON MY PRIMARY INSTALLATION. I'm not giving up on getting that one back, but have other priorities at the moment.

At any rate I'm now able to run both installations without issue (other than my normal issues...heh)

Thanks a bunch!

-Decrepit-