http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=818420

Name: TES4LODGen
Version: 2.2.2
Date: 25/02/2008
Category: Utilities
Requirements: None
Compatibility: Windows XP/Vista
Author: ElminsterAU
Source: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15781

Description
===========
TES4LODGen is a One-Click DistantLOD Generator.

Installation
============
Not necessary.

Usage
=====
Usage couldn't be easier:

1. Start TES4LODGen.exe - It will automatically find your Data Folder, list of active Modules and Oblivion.ini, load all active modules, load all associated BSAs and generate DistantLOD data for all worldspaces in all active modules.
2. Close the application once it's finished.
3. Play.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=936004 is highly recommended to get the greatest benefit from TES4LODGen.

Advanced Usage
==============

It is possible to control the processing for each worldspace by creating a plugins.tes4lodgensettings file in the same folder as plugins.txt.

>>>> Example >>>>
;Supported Rules: Skip, Clear, Replace
[Default]
Rule=Replace

[Worldspace]
Toddland=Clear
ToddTestLand2=Skip
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Any worldspace which is not specifically listed will have the Default Rule applied.

History
=======
1.2.44 BETA, 2008-03-07, Initial release.
2.2.0, 2009-02-23, Update to same backend as TES4Edit 2.2.0, should handle .bsa's on different drives
2.2.1, 2009-02-24, Deletes old .lod files before writing new ones. Processing rule can be specified per Worldspace using plugins.tes4lodgensettings file.
2.2.2, 2009-02-25, Fixes rotation of generated .lod information

Future
======
Nothing specific.

Contact
=======
You can find me on the official Elder Scrolls forums as 'ElminsterEU'
You can find me on TESNexus as 'ElminsterAU'

Licensing/Legal
===============
This program is provided as-is with no warranties expressed or implied.
I won't be held liable for any damage related to it's use.
There is nothing that can be considered malware in this program such as virus, trojan, adware, or spyware in it's original distribution.
If this program gets romantically envolved with your significant other and runs away with him/her, I won't be held responsible for that either!
Source code available upon request.

Anything else changed compared to version 1.2.44 Beta except for handling BSA files on different drives?
Perhaps theres a changelog somewhere, would be interesting to see what you've done.

Thanks for the tool, wouldnt play Oblivion without it!

The only change is to synchronize the codebase with TES4Edit 2.2.0, including the fix for supporting .bsa's on different drives. No change has been made to any code which isn't shared with TES4Edit.

Been waiting for this ever since I started moving BSAs around. thank you for updating an already excellent tool :foodndrink:.

Public Service Announcement: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=936004 is highly recommended to get the greatest benefit from TES4LODGen.

How come my video setting reset everytime I changed them in gameplay. I even changed them in the Oblivion.ini, but it keeps reseting. Anyone know how to solve this. I also tried typing "saveini" after changing the video setting.

Would there be any chance of getting the ability to select which worldspaces ( or all ) we want to generate files for? Or if that's not feasible, to have it skip all those silly test worldspaces the game comes with but nobody ever visits?

And would it be possible to clear any previously existing files for the worldspaces that have been selected?

Thanks EU for the update..



I agree would be nice if test worldspace lod was not generated, or just a option to build lod only for certain worldspace once again..I hate having to remove all those testworld, testtree, etc..out after every lodgen is run..

Creating these .lod files takes almost no time at all. The presence of these .lod files has absolutely no impact as long as you are not actually walking around in one of these worldspaces.

The main reason for TES4LODGen is to have a simple one-click-and-you-are-done solution that no one can mess up. If you want more control and select which worldspaces you want to build .lod's for, use TES4Edit.

I have to say that I currently consider this a total non-issue. Care to convince me otherwise? Give me a very good reason.

I don't see any need to remove the extra .lod files--it's almost instantaneous generation on my system, and if I rarely frequent those areas, it's not like performance will be impacted at all...and the lod files don't take up any space on the HDD anyways.

+1 vote to leaving the system "as is."

Because using TES4Edit to generate LODs does not seem to do so for every mod in the load order. I have tried this several times and it seems to only generate LOD for the particular mod you right clicked on. So unless I'm doing something wrong, using TES4LODGen is the only method available for generating against your entire load order. Since I tend to then take the generated files and pack them into a custom BSA along with everything else, it's massively tedious to have to dodge the other things I didn't want.

You didn't address the wish to delete the existing files, so in case you want a good reason for that, Psymon can vouch for this one. If you generate LOD with one set of mods, then remove a mod or two or however many, and there are no remaining objects in a particular cell, that cell's LOD file will remain behind and cause it to leave artifacts in the game that disappear when you get close. He regenerated his LOD after upgrading the New Roads & Bridges mod in which I'd changed the Niben bridge and moved it into new cells. The river has no other objects in it that cause LOD to appear, so the Tamriel worldspace files remained in place and he saw two bridges at a distance where only one really exists.

I can vouch for this, I have seen the exact same thing occur.

Me Three..

has for test world files they are just taken up space this is all, manually removing them is really not a pain unless you have a ton of worldspace mod files that have ton of lod files..then sorting through that can get messy since vanilla distantlod folder contains almost 11,000 plus files..add worldspace lod files and you can see what I mean..npcwithjobs, silgrad, merp, etc..

me ... umm - four

and I vouch its all true and deleting the contents of Distant LOD and rerunning lodgen fixed it all up.

would Eliminster actually be saying that you could choose the world spaces - because I'd be ok with an option to not run lodgen for city spaces. Makes running Better Cities much smoother. Of course just deleting those LOD files takes about 3 minutes tops after lodgen creates them.

I'm personally much less concerned with getting the worldspace option, it would be nice though. Deleting files I don't want isn't that huge of an issue.

Getting the clean wipe on the DistantLOD folder though, that seems more important and would make the "one click" ease of use that much easier.

Could this be related to me having odd colored lights that show up in my peripherals where distant objects should be? Only started after I generated my third LOD batch when I readjusted my mod list =\.

Anything is possible. I'd suggest purging the DistantLOD folder and running the utility again.

So basically, have TES4LODGen delete the contents of the DistantLOD folder prior to running? Or am I not getting the issue? (and I've had the leftover DistantLOD issues from removing mods)

No, it does NOT clean those files out right now. It simply generates over what's there which can lead to dirty files left behind if you've removed mods that once had stuff in those cells.

Can everything in the DistantLOD file be deleted safely? As in, are the files there just the ones that will be replicated by another TES4LodGen run?

NO. I meant that an improvement for TES4LODGen would be for it to do that.

Edit: As opposed to doing it manually with mod changes, like I do now

more than safe, it's recommended.
for simplicity, just delete DistantLOD folder before running TES4LodGen. it'll create the folder and everything necessary in it.

Excellent news. And much appreciated.

Thanks . Love learning stuff like this when browsing the forum.

Version 2.2.1 has been posted at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15781.

What's new?

Existing .lod will now be deleted before generating new ones for a Worldspace.

It is possible to control the processing for each worldspace by creating a plugins.tes4lodgensettings file in the same folder as plugins.txt.

;Supported Rules: Skip, Clear, Replace[Default]Rule=Replace[Worldspace]Toddland=ClearToddTestLand2=Skip

Any worldspace which is not specifically listed will have the Default Rule applied.

Elminster, you rock. Thanks for that. Both of those are perfect.