Oblivion

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Created by

Gruftikus and Lightwave

Uploaded by

gruftikus

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Safe to use

About this mod

This tool converts the landscape heightmap of all your mods into landscape LOD meshes. It can be configured by a script and adapted to different requirements.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Changelogs



The new v5.00

  • Complete re-write
  • New scripting language
  • Much faster
  • Does not need an external dds converter
  • No "partial" directory for TES4qLOD

Overview

Tes4ll creates new and individual high-resolution landscape meshes including all the additional changes added by the mods which one has installed.

To use this tool, one has different choices:

  • A one-click method on one of the prepared windows bat-file,
  • if you would like to use a GUI, please download my MPGUI in addition,
  • or download one of the pregenerated meshes


In addition to that, it has an expert modus where a script allows to configure the behavior of vertex setting and calculation completely, up to the placement of single vertices. If you interested, read the full manual.

Good to know...

Before installing the new meshes, make a backup of data/meshes/landscapelod

Motivation

In Oblivion, the LOD meshes can be replaced quad-by-quad only. If one has a lot of landscape changes (like UL), the following problems may appear:

  • The quad meshes do not fit at their borders, because they were created independently
  • "Wall-like" steps between the normal grid and the LOD meshes
  • Floating objects (trees, buildings)

Features of the executable tes4ll

  • To generate the LODs, tes4ll triangulates the entire worldspace in one single step. The single quads are created and written based on this complete triangulation. This avoids ugly "steps" in the far landscape.
  • tes4ll uses an irregular mesh pattern, whereas the edges of the triangles from the CS are oriented in multiples of 45 degrees.
  • tes4ll is completely configurable by the user by adapting a batch script
  • Single vertex points can be self-defined to avoid gaps, floating trees, etc., wherever you want.
  • Contour lines are added (for better coast lines)

Several algorithms can be used to define individual vertex points density functions:

  • First and second order derivatives (i.e. based on the slope and the curvature of the heightmap)
  • A peak finder for better mountains
  • Enhanced/reduced density based on the absolute height
  • The number of vertices per quad can be chosen. Depending on the system, a larger or lower number of vertices can be defined.
  • For debugging and better visibility nif files with textures and ps files can be produced.
  • Tes4ll can also produce the normal maps with faked terrain shadows and the meshes for the Immersive Interiors Landscape AddOn (or similar projects).

Installation (since v5.00)

Unpack the tes4ll 7z-archive and move the content into the data directory of Oblivion. When asked, merge the ini-directory of tes4ll into your ini.

Usage

Start one of the Windows-bat-files by double clicking on it.
At the moment, 3 versions are supported:

  • "tes4ll_midres.bat" -> "Mid resolution", 10000 vertex points (leads to 20% more triangles as Vanilla
  • "tes4ll_highres.bat" -> "High resolution", 13000 vertex points (leads to 80% more triangles as Vanilla)
  • "tes4ll_ultimate.bat" -> "Ultimate resolution", 18000 vertex points, and a very detailed wall remover (something for high-end graphics cards)

This overwrites your LOD files (hey, did you made a backup?). Your mod list is taken into account. The batch file is written such, that optional parts are automatically included (e.g. a viewpoint in Corinthe and additional vertices for UL Rolling hills around the farm)

If you use MPGUI, you also can go into <Oblivion>\Data\ini\tes4ll and double-click on tes4ll_all.mpb. Here you have a hell of options.

Normal map generation

Use tes4ll_normalmaps.bat, if you don't have MPGUI.

Color map generation (since v4.00)

You can run the build-in TES4qLOD with MPGUI (recommended) or by using the bat-file tes4_tes4qlod.bat.

Compatibility

The tool is compatible with TES4LODGen (which replaces only the static meshes) as well as tes4qlod.

By definition, tes4ll is compatible with all mods which change landscapes.

The meshes created with tes4ll are not (yet) compatible with the new LLOD system of OBGE.

Pregenerated Meshes

They come in several versions and combinations for Tamriel. For other worldspaces only one version is provided (ultimate).

Installation: drop the archive in <Oblivion>Data or use the nexus manager.

Credits

This program uses the following 3rd party source code:

  • Tes4qLOD: http://projectmanager.f2s.com/morrowind/TES4qLOD.html by Lightwave
  • niflib: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope
  • bmp file reader: written by P. Pourke
  • An extensible math expression parser with plug-ins (MTParser) by Mathieu Jacques
  • Triangle: "Engineering a 2D Quality Mesh Generator and Delaunay Triangulator", in "Applied Computational Geometry: Towards Geometric Engineering" (Ming C. Lin and Dinesh Manocha, editors), volume 1148 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 203-222, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, May 1996" by J. R. Shewchuk
  • imageresampler, a C++ class for separable filtering 2D image resampling by Rich Geldreich.
  • crunch/crnlib, for dds file generation.
  • ANN, Approximate Nearest Neighbor Searching by David M. Mount and Sunil Arya

Thanks to:

  • Lightwave for TES4qLOD and tesannwyn.
  • Auryga, Supierce and llde for testing the program.
  • The UL team
  • Iliana for Elsweyr the Deserts of Anequina

...and finally:

  • My wife for all the support (in particular with chocolate and coffee) over the last months and helping me me writing down the vertex data files.

The images I show...
...contain a lot of mods and changes due to my personal Oblivion installation (in particular all UL parts, Kvatch rebuild, Better cities, and many other things...). These changes are not part of tes4ll, which changes only the LOD meshes, nothing else.

If you like the new landscape I would be happy to see screenshots in the user section

Permissions

  • The software comes under the GNU license and is available via Github.
  • It would be nice to give acknowledgment if you use tes4ll for a mod.