[Jennifer May]

Landscape LOD is beyond the scope of this mod and you'll run into that problem even in vanilla. Bethesda's landscape LOD is a very poor approximation of the actual land detail. You could try generating new ones in the CS but that often leads to worse results.

As far as rocks, the rocks subpackage only installs the size 2080 rocks plus the 1125 and larger size ones in the Gold Coast region. Doing anything much smaller than that would result in terrible performance due to polygon count overloads. It could be done but then you may as well be using MAETVWD at that point and believe me, trying to even walk at 5fps is no fun.

[X(S.a.R.a.H)X]

Ok, thanks for clearing that up! Just wanted to make sure that there's nothing wrong with install orders etc. It just got me thinking cause I don't remember seeing black sites like that for the rocks with my previous installation, or the funny landscape heightmap changes. :huh:

[Julie Ann]

Greetings Arthmoor,

Let me start this off by just taking a moment to say thanks for everything you do in this community. I see your posts all over the place, not just in your threads, and they're always very helpful and informative.

Second, you probably don't recall, but last year you were one of the folks trying to help me get my game straightened out. I was struggling w/ FCOM, Better Cities, Open Cities, and on and on. Regrettably, I was taking too many shortcuts back then to really know what was going on, but I thought you were really helpful all the same. Like I said, I doubt you remember that, but just in case, thanks again! I am much more diligent about things these days, BTW...

So, moving right along, I absolutely love RAEVWD. It makes my game look so much better, besides the more immersive quality that just make eveything feel "right", you know? It is a beautiful addition. And this is probably the best time to say that my question probably doesn't have as much to do with RAEVWD as just the concept behind distant LOD and how it works. The reason I am posting here is because it seems the most appropriate place, but if there's a more appropriate thread please let me know.

Basically, I have RAEVWD, and it works beautifully. I run TES4LOD4Gen if/when I make any changes, and the world is always beautiful once it's done. Now, I have a bunch of mods (http://sites.google.com/site/oblivionpoinfo/runoblivion/loadorders/vegtabill is on Tomlong's site if you want to have a look), and some add distant LOD data. A perfect example is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22962, placed up behind Dragonclaw Rock. The Tamriel and Bruma worlds both pick the Hero store up, and it is visible when distant, situated nicely near Cloud Ruler Temple. This particular mod does not include a distantLOD directory, nor any LOD files that I am aware of.

On the other hand, another mod that does include distant LOD files (LODs and CMPs), does not seem to do the same thing, and I am trying to determine why. The mod in question is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9769, though I don't want to focus so much on getting that to work as I do on understanding why it is different, and what I can do about it.

I could have sworn I saw a not-too-old post somewhere by you where you were talking about "merging" LOD data from mods. Man, that is probably terrible terminology, but perhaps you get the idea? If you could point me in a direction or two, maybe to a link to something that explains these concepts in ways the feeble-minded can comprehend, that would be awesome! lol

Well, that's it. Sorry if this is a bad place for this, but I really wanted to get at some of your knowledge on such matters.
Thanks,
veg

[Laura Hicks]

Basically, I have RAEVWD, and it works beautifully. I run TES4LOD4Gen if/when I make any changes, and the world is always beautiful once it's done. Now, I have a bunch of mods (http://sites.google.com/site/oblivionpoinfo/runoblivion/loadorders/vegtabill is on Tomlong's site if you want to have a look), and some add distant LOD data. A perfect example is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22962, placed up behind Dragonclaw Rock. The Tamriel and Bruma worlds both pick the Hero store up, and it is visible when distant, situated nicely near Cloud Ruler Temple. This particular mod does not include a distantLOD directory, nor any LOD files that I am aware of.

On the other hand, another mod that does include distant LOD files (LODs and CMPs), does not seem to do the same thing, and I am trying to determine why. The mod in question is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9769, though I don't want to focus so much on getting that to work as I do on understanding why it is different, and what I can do about it.

The Apachii Hero Store, at least from the screenshots, appears to be using standard building meshes. Since you're seeing it show up on LOD, I'll assume this to be true. This works because RAEVWD supplies _far.nif files for all of the standard building meshes that come with the game.

Frostcrag Reborn supplies it's own _far.nif meshes. It should have worked once you ran TES4LodGen. Although if they have the VWD flag set on the statics in the ESP, it may not, because tes4lodgen has a tendency to filter those out.

FR has a nasty problem though. The _far.nif meshes it does supply are not properly stripped of information, are not polygon reduced, and are using full sized textures. You will end up with visual anomalies as a result of this which can affect LOD anywhere in Tamriel, even if the tower itself isn't directly visible. They really need to do something about that on their end. Further, some of the meshes they supplied directly conflict with those supplied by RAEVWD. Since those also have not been properly prepared, they will cause issues in any worldspace where those meshes have been placed by others - including where Bethesda put them. It is not sufficient to just take a mesh and tack _far.nif on to the end of its name.

[Bigze Stacks]

FR has a nasty problem though. The _far.nif meshes it does supply are not properly stripped of information, are not polygon reduced, and are using full sized textures. You will end up with visual anomalies as a result of this which can affect LOD anywhere in Tamriel, even if the tower itself isn't directly visible. They really need to do something about that on their end. Further, some of the meshes they supplied directly conflict with those supplied by RAEVWD. Since those also have not been properly prepared, they will cause issues in any worldspace where those meshes have been placed by others - including where Bethesda put them. It is not sufficient to just take a mesh and tack _far.nif on to the end of its name.

Yes, that is what I was thinking... not in those terms exactly, but conceptually at least. And though I did not state it earlier, we're talking about 1 building here. RAEVWD trumps anything FR may want to do to my distant LOD as far as I'm concerned, and I wouldn't want anything to mess that up.

So I am thinking that I should just forget the supplied distant LOD files from FR, and perhaps check in the CS to look at the ESP. TES4LOD Gen does indeed remove the LODs supplied by FR when I run it, so you may have hit it on the head there. Barring that, I am not going to worry about it too much. However I will be certain not to use those _far.nif's.

Do you have a reference you use for this stuff? Perhaps a distant LOD for dummies link or something? Ha ha!

And I do apologize for asking about this here, but your willingness to provide insight into my problem with someone else's mod does not surprise me one bit! Very helpful and informative, as always. Thank you.

[teeny]

Do you have a reference you use for this stuff? Perhaps a distant LOD for dummies link or something? Ha ha!

Trial by fire, as it were. I documented my findings on what has to be stripped through brute force, and it's in the readme file for all to see

And I do apologize for asking about this here, but your willingness to provide insight into my problem with someone else's mod does not surprise me one bit! Very helpful and informative, as always. Thank you.

No worries. Though I will admit I do this so it's clear where the blame for these sorts of problems belongs. You have no idea how many times I've seen a PM from someone insisting that I broke their game with bad LOD only to take the 5 minutes to look into it and find out they're dead wrong, as usual. Now I just ignore those PMs. I also look into stuff like this so I know where problems can arise, and I really had no idea what FR was doing until I did that. I don't know why they need LOD for city buildings for a Frostcrag revamp, but there it is.

Heck, if they really think they need that stuff, I'd be perfectly willing to let them grab the pieces from RAEVWD itself. Even if all they grab are the meshes. At least then it wouldn't pose a further problem for others down the road who don't even know where to ask for a solution.

[Jonathan Egan]

No worries. Though I will admit I do this so it's clear where the blame for these sorts of problems belongs. You have no idea how many times I've seen a PM from someone insisting that I broke their game with bad LOD only to take the 5 minutes to look into it and find out they're dead wrong, as usual. Now I just ignore those PMs. I also look into stuff like this so I know where problems can arise, and I really had no idea what FR was doing until I did that. I don't know why they need LOD for city buildings for a Frostcrag revamp, but there it is.

Heck, if they really think they need that stuff, I'd be perfectly willing to let them grab the pieces from RAEVWD itself. Even if all they grab are the meshes. At least then it wouldn't pose a further problem for others down the road who don't even know where to ask for a solution.

No, I probably would believe it, but only because I work in software development myself. I am always amazed at how certain and angry people can be... until you show them how dead wrong they are, and how they really didn't understand what they were talking about in the first place! lol... yeah, it's great sometimes! Do you get many apologies? Sadly, I am guessing not. I'm sure it's only worse when you work on something like RAEVWD... I mean, if ANY mod has something screwy with its distant LOD, it could appear to the less informed that something like your mod must be causing it. But PMs? Man, do people have no shame? That's just not cool.

Thanks again, and keep up the great work. I have been eyeing your New Roads and Bridges for some time now, and I think it's time. I am really interested in Faregyl and Vergayun as well.

[Carlos Rojas]

Thanks again, and keep up the great work. I have been eyeing your New Roads and Bridges for some time now, and I think it's time. I am really interested in Faregyl and Vergayun as well.

All great. Don't forget feldscar tooo

[Dan Scott]

All great. Don't forget feldscar tooo

Got it, thanks!

[Ebou Suso]

Hello everybody, I want to ask something.

How I can use "TES4LodGen.exe" (or something else) to make DistantLOD from RAEVWD files or DLC plugins (Frostcrag for example) ONLY ?

When I just run "TES4LodGen.exe" it makes DistantLOD from ALL what it find in Data folder and I have very many unnecessary objects in the world (flying DistantLOD trees for example) that drops my FPS.

[x a million...]

You could make sure only those mods are listed as active and then run it, but chances are you won't get the results you're expecting. Generated LOD is load order dependent and once you reactivate all your mods some or all of what you did will not be visible.

You also won't be able to dodge the trees since the vast majority of those belong to Oblivion.esm anyway.

[Chris Cross Cabaret Man]

You could make sure only those mods are listed as active and then run it, but chances are you won't get the results you're expecting. Generated LOD is load order dependent and once you reactivate all your mods some or all of what you did will not be visible.

I have been meaning to ask about this before. I tend to switch load order now and then without rerunning TES4LODGen. For example, currently I have almost all my mods disabled (in order to test the new version of Enhanced Economy without unrelated crashes), but distant LOD generated with full load order. And while I haven't checked specifically for it, it seems to me that Glenvar Castle, the Weye village from AFK_Weye and all the other additions are visible from the distance (but of course disappears when the cells get loaded).

So to me it looks like the generated LOD is not only load-order independent, but also independent of active mods. But as said, I've not tested this, just got this impression from playing. So is there any chance you could explain this?

[matt white]

So to me it looks like the generated LOD is not only load-order independent, but also independent of active mods. But as said, I've not tested this, just got this impression from playing. So is there any chance you could explain this?

Nope, can't explain that. I've personally experienced the problem of having things swapped in the load order, removed, added, whatever, and having LOD vanish which is supposed to be there because it was generated with something in place that isn't. It's always been fixed by rerunning tes4lodgen. I've always assumed it's because the LOD files behave in much the same way as landscape LOD and won't show up if the index doesn't match the order the mod was active in the load order.

[HARDHEAD]

1. This mod look really cool.
2. BUT I am pretty interested in all those houses that can be seen outside the cities in the pictures! Which mod does that? Or is it this one which does that too?

[He got the]

The windows are also illuminated at the day or is it an issue that's only happening to me?

[Paul Rice]

1. This mod look really cool.
2. BUT I am pretty interested in all those houses that can be seen outside the cities in the pictures! Which mod does that? Or is it this one which does that too?

That's this. The city stuff is part of the City Architecture folder.

The windows are also illuminated at the day or is it an issue that's only happening to me?

They're lit at all times. LOD has no mechanism for being able to toggle them on or off, and the majority of users these days have mods that illuminate windows at night when up close. It would be a maintenance nightmare to have two sets of LOD.

[Michelle Chau]

Ok, last question, I've installed it and it's working almost perfectly, but I have an issue, and it's that LOD trees are flying, do you know how to solve it?

[Ana]

Arthmoor, noticed a conflict with Adash - City og Magic:

= Lower ========================================
==10== RAEVWD_v1_7-20053.7z
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbase01_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbase02_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbase03_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbase04_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbase05_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbase06_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbase07_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbase08_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbasecap01_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsbasedoor2x_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsmid01_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsmid03_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsmid04_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsmid04a_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsmid05a01_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsmid05a_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsmid08_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallsmid09_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop01_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop02_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop03a_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop03b_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop03c_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop03d_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop03e_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop04_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop05_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop05botadd_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop06_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop07endcap_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop08endcap_far.nif
Meshes\dungeons\fortruins\exterior\castle\rfcastlewallstop09_far.nif

Since I know your meshes are optimized I'll BAIN install Adash before RAEVWD.

[Davorah Katz]

Thanks for all of your work on RAEVWD! I decided to install it on a recommendation from another player and WOW, what a difference it makes.

I do have a question though. It seems I overestimated the power of my graphics card, so I've had to lower the uGrid settings in Oblivion.ini to compensate. Do any of you have minimum settings you would recommend? Right now I'm using 15 for uGridDistantCount and 9 for uGridDistantTrees; and even so I get some stuttering in heavily forested or wide open areas.

[[Bounty][Ben]]

Ok, last question, I've installed it and it's working almost perfectly, but I have an issue, and it's that LOD trees are flying, do you know how to solve it?

This is due to the LOD system itself--i.e. that it isn't very accurate. The trees are where they are supposed to be, the distant LOD meshes just aren't accurate enough to reflect that.

[Ashley Campos]

Should I be able to use this mod, along with QTP3 Full with my system, and get 20-30+ FPS on average,
especially near the Imperial City?

System:
- Core2Duo 1.86 GHZ CPU
- NVidia 9800 1 GB VRAM graphics card
- 4 GB of PC2 6400 system Ram
- 550W powersupply
- 250 GB Sata harddrive
- Intel onboard HD Audio
- Intel Motherboard G965 Express motherboard
- Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 3 and up-to-date

[tegan fiamengo]

Should I be able to use this mod, along with QTP3 Full with my system, and get 20-30+ FPS on average,
especially near the Imperial City?

System:
- Core2Duo 1.86 GHZ CPU
- NVidia 9800 1 GB VRAM graphics card

Not with that CPU/GPU combination. Your CPU is under spe, and you don't have enough VRAM to handle full QTP3. The video card can handle QTP3 Redimized, but the CPU is going to bottleneck you bad. Tossing RAEVWD on there without at least doing something to mitigate the polygon count (leaving stuff out, changing the uGridDistantCount) is never going to happen at 30fps.

[An Lor]

I am having some problems getting some Lod to show up.

Using Elswyer with your add on Arthmoor. So far as I can see I can recreate through the Lod generator all the files from the RAEVWD with trees and such. But in Elswyer all I get is the occasional fort; no rocks, no trees, no cities.

I reapplied the Elswyer RAEVWD again and again. Checked that it is there. Redated the files.

I am using Onras new heightmaps and lod's. I too get the error

[01:50] LOD Generator: 

I can't be 100% sure but I think in my earlier work with reinstalling Oblivion it did work even with the error and produced the lod's.

I tried uninstalling Onras esp that let the lod generator work without errors but it still did not produce any results.

Something is borked but I haven't a clue to what it could be? I've been fairly careful when reinstalling just so I could avoid stuff like this :sadvaultboy:

Hope you can shed some light on the issue Arthmoor.

I also like to thank you for the tip of raising the hash table to 1024 in stutter remover - I raised it somewhat but only when I did the 1024 did the game start to flow.

Cheers!

[Saul C]

I am using Onras new heightmaps and lod's. I too get the error

[01:50] LOD Generator: 

I can't be 100% sure but I think in my earlier work with reinstalling Oblivion it did work even with the error and produced the lod's.

I tried uninstalling Onras esp that let the lod generator work without errors but it still did not produce any results.

I'm sure I'll take some flak for saying this - again - but Onra's ESP is broken. He zero-scaled numerous trees in Elsweyr in order to stop them from generating as LOD. Well, it works, but as you can see the error it causes also stops further processing so nothing else after it in the load order will process either. It needs to be brought up with the Tamriel Heightmaps people because only they can fix it to work properly. Even if that means 0.01 scaling the trees or something instead.

[Luis Reyma]

I had an issue, but I figured it out, lol. Basically, I'm a [censored]! I'm giving your mod a go. Thanks for your hard work.