Bear with me as I try to explain this! I'm just looking into the LOD thing - I need to get rid of some trees from an area, taking their LOD away as well. I'd seen a couple of references to the idea of dragging the trees underground and the LOD goes with them. This didn't work for me but then I experimented with 'Generate tress' in World LOD - now, am I right in saying that this function generates LOD trees in the (wasteland) world that have the 'Has Tree LOD' bit ticked? If that tick doesn't exist on a tree then no LOD will be generated?

Ignoring that Tree LOD bit, if I just move trees, then regenerate trees, the LOD ghosts will move to the new tree locations? That's seems to be what's happening in my experiments.

What is the difference between Visible When Distant and Has Tree LOD bits? At first guess I would say a LOD ghost tree is generated for the latter, but for the 'VWDistant' bit I'm guessing the game just allows the object to be seen from a further distance than normal, no LOD ghost generated.

As far as I know, everything you have surmised is correct.

I don't know if perhaps someone could shed light on this error message:

http://i47.tinypic.com/2h871mw.jpg

I thought I would experiment by pushing the 'Generate Objects' button in World LOD. The progress bar goes so far then snags out on this problem. Searching through the game folders and the .bsa files themselves, I find no reference to TGA files. Tried this generation test using a basic install of the game as well, before applying replacement textures and mods etc, but still no luck.

Edit:

http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/World_LOD#LOD_Object_Generation

...answers my question!

Doh! :facepalm:

I kept running into the exact same error message while trying to create a VWD object for the Big Town houses, and no matter what I tried it didn't work. The thing of it is that by default, those files don't seem to even exist. I've unpacked all the files for the game and there is no tga files to be found anywhere. And when I tried to create my own and put them in the Source folder, I still got that message even though the two files were exactly the same size. So how exactly did you get past that one? Unfortunately the Wiki seems to be down at the moment so I can't follow that link. I would really like to get a VWD object working for the Big Town houses, they seem to be the only type in the game that doesn't have one.

I've been trial and erroring for hours now and doing pretty well. As we've found out, the TGA files don't exist, you'll have to create them yourself - I used Irfanview - GIMP didn't work out for me, as suggested by another page. Irafanview requires the DDS plugin, which apparently can only be found in the 'all plugins' download. Anyhoo, for the sake of saving time by trying to convert those files that I needed to use the Generate Objects button, I just converted ALL of the DDS files found in the 'Fallout - Textures.bsa' file (unpack this with the tools in Fallout Mod Manager). You'll need a bit of space to do all the files in one go,

Irfanview has options for batch processing: 'Use advanced options (for batch resize)' then go into the 'advanced options' button next to that...and on the bottom right you'll find an option that says, 'Create subfolders in destination folder' - make sure that's ticked. Choose a save folder in the main batch processing window. So, if you convert all of the DDS files to TGA and dump them into say, 'New Folder' - you'll find all the required subdirectories created for you, architecture, armour, characters, etc.

Now, I have my Fallout game installed to C:\Fallout, so I need to create a folder structure above that (outside) this way:

C:\Source\Textures TGA\

(If you use a regular install of Fallout, you'll put your 'Source' folder in the Program Files/Bethesda Softworks directory.)

In 'Textures TGA' (yep that has a space), dump all the folders containing the TGA files you converted earlier. I believe you'll also have to unpack 'Fallout - Meshes.bsa' and put that 'meshes' folder in the Fallout 'Data' folder...then hopefully you can click the 'Generate Objects' in the 'World LOD' and things will work out fine. Maybe lol, my mind has been minced by this, to be honest. I knew I should have written this down as I went along.

Actually, I think I've just jumped over the question you were asking. I'll have a look into it.

Edit: Yeah, it's likely we're both now tripping up on the same thing. Trying to make something VWD that wasn't implemented by the programmers? Personally, I'm working on Tenpenny Tower - Bond123 came up with a really nice clean texture for it, but when I used that in conjunction with the regular building LOD, the old LOD was showing through (Bond123's new texture and cleanup removed the scaffolding from the back of the building) - the LOD version remained with the old scaffolding showing. The original files for the building had NIF files for the structure, plus LOD versions. I'm guessing Big Town buildings don't have seperate LOD files and I haven't progressed far enough to have a solution. It seems you don't have the option for VWD for those buildings either. Same thing has happened with me now with the new Tenpenny texture.

I'm not progressing well really. What seems to be true though, is if a certain file exists then you'll have the VWD and High-priority-LOD options. Example being:

\meshes\architecture\urban\tenpennytowerbalcony02.nif
\meshes\architecture\urban\tenpennytowerbalcony02_lod.nif

That second _lod file.

I don't know how you build a _lod file though. Also, another thing that may help with your question - about the difference in size error - it makes it appear like your file exists, but is a different size, what is most likely means is that the (TGA) file doesn't exist at all. Currently I have turned off the VWD Tenpenny option, it means my building disappears and reappears in a flash, but I can live with that. This is for the new clean texture that I have no _lod to go with.

Well it looks like I just didn't put the Textures TGA folder in the right place. While I realized it didn't go in the Data folder like the others, I assumed that it would at least go into the game folder. So it wasn't seeing those Rock Canyon graphics I made up. What's the problem with using Gimp BTW, according to the Wiki it should work just fine. I can't quite remember if I was using Gimp or Photoshop at the time.

I'm not sure, I couldn't figure out what it was doing to the saved TGA file, but it was doing something wrong. Perhaps my options were set wrong - GIMP throws up a heap of TGA options, whereas Irfanview asks nothing...I like the simple way

The Wiki keeps mentioning that the default settings in Gimp work OK. So I just reread that part about where the Source folder is supposed to be and yes, I did have it wrong. I guess I'll have to try again soon. I would really like to have those houses made visible, it bugs the hell out of me that Big Town doesn't appear until I'm right on top of it, while all these other distant objects are clearly visible. I sure wish they would have come up with an easier way to accomplish this though, it was far easier in Oblivion.

PS: Well I made it past RockCanyon, but now I'm getting that error message for ConcreteMetalBase. Man this is a major pain in the butt! I can't believe all the problems the GECK has with default files. I keep running into error messages like that all over the place. Anyway, thanks for the help. Eventually I should have Big Town showing up on the map. I don't see the textures themselves being an issue, they're pretty basic and shouldn't be a problem to convert. And there's no extra objects on the house meshes that might cause a problem.

Well I made it through the textures, now I'm getting missing mesh errors. Why can't the GECK understand that it only has to look in the BSA archives for them? :brokencomputer:

I give up. I finally got the objects to generate just fine without making any change to the Ranch Houses, but as soon as I try to add that in I get all sorts of error messages and the LOD textures end up getting totally messed up in the game. What a stupid, stupid system for generating VWD objects. :brokencomputer:

I had the mesh issues as well, so I had to unpack the original Fallout - Meshes.bsa into the meshes directory. You're absolutely not wrong though, I've given up on my Tenpenny issues as well - basically I've done away with the VWD object and just used the clean Tower that Bond123 created. Bit svcky in game, but I'll live with it. Since you're using untouched houses in your experiments, I'll play with them myself and see what happens. I'm already set up with meshes and TGA files etc in the right place, I'll see if I have any luck. Give me a day or two.

It's not because I'm adding the houses, I'm running into problems without making any change to those at all. Just using vanilla objects I started getting some very odd error messages, and it looks like the textures are getting screwed up because of them. Things like "(null): (null) is missing a normal texture", or a diffuse one. Or "object blah, blah, blah has too many vertices, consider simplifying it". I got the textures looking OK at first but after a couple of times everything started getting messed up, and I'm pretty sure it had something to do with those errors.

That's a tough one to even begin solving. My usual route is simply to say 'Yes to All' errors hehe...then judge how things look and behave in game, rather than try and decrypt the GECK messages. I had a pretty good stab at Big Town earlier, but I can't do the VWD thing there either. Looked good at first, I could see the buildings from a distance - for example, I took the ranchdestroyed.nif and copied it to ranchdestroyed_lod.nif (not sure if that filename is correct), so I could then use the VWD option. Problem would actually be solved easier (for me) if the LOD version disappeared when the close version appears, and vice versa. When they both exist in the same space, it really conflicts badly. I did it that way based on this info:

"The same thing works for distant but visible meshes. All you do is make your mesh, let's call it MyMesh.nif, and then you have a seperate distant mesh called MyMesh_far.nif. This mesh can either be the same, or a more basic version (recommended)."

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Visible_When_Distant_Tutorial

Just some info for someone else to check out. Another thing I came across of interest was Meshlab and SimplyGon - apparently SimplyGon will take a detailed mesh and simplify it for LOD usage, can't get a downloadable copy though - I think it's about $￡1000. Meshlab is free, but complicated.

We could just wait a few years for a decent enough computer to run the entire game in one cell, no LOD objects and other futuristic amazing things.

That doesn't apply to Fallout, that was the method used in Oblivion. They've made a number of changes with this version of the engine. Frankly the Oblivion method was alot easier to work with. I actually had a VWD mod for Oblivion posted on the Nexus with a whole bunch of objects, including rocks, until RAEVWD made it obsolete. So I'm no stranger to creating VWD objects for this game engine. But the current method svcks IMO, there's all sorts of errors that can crop up. I've spent hours trying to get it to work and gotten nowhere with it. I don't understand why they didn't include those buildings to the map in the first place, there's only 20 something of them scattered about. That's hardly going to create a major performance problem.