Hey love the mod, i was wondering if you could ( If you have the time ) Create a optional for Realistic Texture overhaul Lods like you did for Amidian landscape? That would be hugely appreciated, other than that thank you for the wonderful mod!
I will not update this mod no longer. Because I don't play skyrim now a day. Please try this. This tool is better than this mod. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/59721/? Also you can make your own terrain lods with Oscape.
Does this collaborate with your other mod "Skyrim High Definition LODs" or did you abandon it and this is the new version? I'm just wondering that is it better to use both of them together or only this one? I also wonder whether I should use this mod in conjunction with The Skyrim Distance Overhaul LOD Improvement or only this.
This looks really great, but I'm a little worried about it not working with a few mods I use, as well as with LOD changes made by Dawnguard and Hearthfires. Let me explain:
Maybe I don't understand how the the .BTO files work, but I notice when I compare your Tamriel.Objects.dds with the one found in the official Bethesda Hi-Res DLC, I see that some LOD textures are missing, such as icebergs (I think,) and since you've added new LOD textures, the positions of the original LOD textures have been changed from where they are in the HiRes DLC copy of Tamriel.Objects.dds.
So, as I understand it, your replacement .BTO files must be used, and any other .BTO files provided by other mods probably won't work.
The problem is that there are a few mods out there that provide edited .BTO files, to display modified LODs for the changes those mods make to the worldspace. The ones I have which do this are Immersive College of Winterhold and Moon and Star, with 3 and 6 edited .BTO files provided, respectively.
In fact, Dawnguard and Hearthfires supply 1 and 3 changed .BTO files each, respectively, and I assume that your version of the .BTO files would not display the LODs intended for DG and HF in those areas, correct?
So, my question is why not change Tamriel.Objects.dds to just add the new LOD textures at the bottom, and keep the positions of all the other vanilla Skyrim LOD textures intact, so that this would be compatible with mods that change a few .BTO files, and also Dawnguard and Hearthfires?
Sadly LOD does not work that way. You can splice in meshes in soms cases into the bto files, but This can give issues, including crashes and giant Space ships.. If you add any LOD that uses vanilla textures already found in the Original, than you can simply regeneratie and replace the respective bto files as texture positions Will remain the Same. However, when Using New assets, the LOD generator completely remakes the objects.dds. There is no easy way of fixing This or changing the way the generator works. I know there are 2 New ways of doing LOD in Development. 1 by Sheson, which allows new objects to be rendered as LOD, but only when in view and until a certain distance. The other tool is in development by the Tes5edit team which will allow the addition of LOD to the vanilla LOD as long as it uses the same resource textures, using any mod really. Quite powerful.
So, what is the process to regenerate the .BTO files for the above mentioned mods and DG and HF in order to work properly with tamu75's new assets?
I know you know the answer since you created your own set for SkyFalls & Skymills, of which you know I am a happy user of!
Although I'm aware of and keeping tabs on the 2 methods of doing LOD being developed, thanks for mentioning them, since it's something everyone should know to look forward to.
CK adds textures into objects lod atlas alphabetically based on EditorID of static STAT records. So if you play with EditorIds a bit like adding "Z1..", "Z2.." at the start of EditorIds for extra static objects added to lod, and then generate LOD in CK with such esp loaded, you can probably force it to include new textures at the end of atlas and avoid compatibility problems with other mods. But I never tried it myself, so it is just a theory.
Creating LOD is not exactly an easy process. You need to also get all the vanilla assets as well. (and DLC ones obviously)
Alexander J Velicky made a nice tutorial about it HERE. Wish I'd seen that before I did all my work . Read wiki pages and looked at forums....
Now you need to add to all the resources that Tamu75 has made low poly meshes for the LOD meshes. In the CK you can do this on the resource properties tab where you can see the LOD for multiple depth layers. I would add the same low poly mesh for 1 and 2 and leave 3 empty. Save this ESP. Then you need to find all the textures for the low poly meshes and change them similarly as in Alexander his youtube video.
Run the generate LOD for the TaMriel worldspace in the CK.
Replace the DLC blocks with the ones you generated.
Hope you can follow me, I am not going to write the full detailed tutorial now as I don't have time atm.
And @Zilav, thanks for that idea I am definitely going to try that. However, not all LOD textures are of equal size, or take up equal amount of space in the objects.dds, it may not work that way but I am curious to find out when I find the time.
Thanks for the link to AJV's video. Having watched the whole thing, I can see its clearly not a very straight-forward process.
I note right at the very beginning of the tutorial he states "...this is for custom word spaces. If you edited the Tamriel world space, I do not recommend generating LOD for that, due to the issues and compatibility things, and it will be a mess. This is only for custom world spaces that you have made yourself."
Anyhow, for me to play with tamu75's LOD resources, do I need the .esp plugin that was used when the world space LODs were generated?
Don't worry about typing up a full tutorial. I'm probably in over my head with this, but my main goal is to see if it's possible to force the Tamriel world space LOD generation to order the LOD textures that are put into Tamriel.Objects.dds in the same order as the original, so that any new textures are at the bottom. This would in theory ensure that any mods with replacement .bto files would still work, although tamu75's additional LOD objects in those world space areas would be missing.
In the least it would be great to generate a set of expanded LODs for DG and HF to make replacements for the 4 .bto files that they change.
Yep you need the esp. But you can make one yourself. Use the resources tamu provides, duplicate all the static objects tamu provided resources for, put in the LOD levels, and rename with z1 at the beginning etc. Replace all vanilla statics without z1 in name with the new ones. There is an easy search and replace tool in ck. Etc.
You require an older version of the ck for Tamriel. The latest one makes solitude look horrid. However, if you manage to keep the objects.dds the same as you intend, you can simply replace the solitude blocks with vanilla ones.
You should overwrite all files from SkyFalls and SkyMills, and than reinstall the Expand object LODs patch from the SkyFalls mod, which you can find under the optional file tab HERE. That one should then subsequently overwrite this mod.
Hi tamu. I'm the creator of the Skyrim Distance Overhaul and I'd like to share my resources with you. Here's a list of the files/meshes I already edited: http://philipbrandes.de/sdo_list.html
If you are interested in those files, just let me know.
Grieche, I have a question for you if you read this. I compressed the tamriel.objects.dds to DTX1 for tamu75 her mod, as it is 22mb. I made it just over 2mb and did not notice a visual impact in game, as it is just a diffuse map. I simply copied your patch, and was wondering if you compressed it to anything, as it is still 6mb.
I am a big fan of SDO, but this looks very promising as well. Am I allowed to make a patch of your tamriel.objects.dds to remove the ugly static waterfalls so it plays nice with my mod (SkyFalls and SkyMills)?
I am in the process of updating my mod, and would like to add the compatibility patches, it would be much appreciated.
I also have a question regarding your mod because I did not have time to test it properly in my game yet. A problem with SDO is the fact that castle Volkihar from the Dawnguard DLC is wrongly textured due to tamriel.objects.dds being changed, or completely lacking from the LOD. Is this mod suffering the same problem? or did you solve that?
Will there be an optional for skyrim realistic texture overhaul as it is the sharpest landscape overhaul I have seen here on the nexus even the 1k version, as you are still working on this mod are there any other similar mods you would recommend to run alongside as I do want lods for solstheim as well, almost forgot....Endorsed lol
Does this make your previous mod, "Skyrim High Definition LODs", redundant? I'm asking because, judging by the video, both of your mods change the distant terrain textures, except that this one also includes distant LODs.
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Any idea how to fix?
Please try this. This tool is better than this mod. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/59721/?
Also you can make your own terrain lods with Oscape.
After installing Expand Object LODs mod I am getting semi-floating Winterhold College.
I'm using Mod Organizer so here are conflicts with other mods:
Is one of them responsible? or maybe it's a bug in Expand Object LODs?
No way around it for the time being... It is a problem created by the LOD generator in the latest CK update.
Maybe I don't understand how the the .BTO files work, but I notice when I compare your Tamriel.Objects.dds with the one found in the official Bethesda Hi-Res DLC, I see that some LOD textures are missing, such as icebergs (I think,) and since you've added new LOD textures, the positions of the original LOD textures have been changed from where they are in the HiRes DLC copy of Tamriel.Objects.dds.
So, as I understand it, your replacement .BTO files must be used, and any other .BTO files provided by other mods probably won't work.
The problem is that there are a few mods out there that provide edited .BTO files, to display modified LODs for the changes those mods make to the worldspace. The ones I have which do this are Immersive College of Winterhold and Moon and Star, with 3 and 6 edited .BTO files provided, respectively.
In fact, Dawnguard and Hearthfires supply 1 and 3 changed .BTO files each, respectively, and I assume that your version of the .BTO files would not display the LODs intended for DG and HF in those areas, correct?
So, my question is why not change Tamriel.Objects.dds to just add the new LOD textures at the bottom, and keep the positions of all the other vanilla Skyrim LOD textures intact, so that this would be compatible with mods that change a few .BTO files, and also Dawnguard and Hearthfires?
Thanks in advance!
So, what is the process to regenerate the .BTO files for the above mentioned mods and DG and HF in order to work properly with tamu75's new assets?
I know you know the answer since you created your own set for SkyFalls & Skymills, of which you know I am a happy user of!
Although I'm aware of and keeping tabs on the 2 methods of doing LOD being developed, thanks for mentioning them, since it's something everyone should know to look forward to.
But I never tried it myself, so it is just a theory.
No problem, and thanks
Creating LOD is not exactly an easy process. You need to also get all the vanilla assets as well. (and DLC ones obviously)
Alexander J Velicky made a nice tutorial about it HERE. Wish I'd seen that before I did all my work
Now you need to add to all the resources that Tamu75 has made low poly meshes for the LOD meshes. In the CK you can do this on the resource properties tab where you can see the LOD for multiple depth layers. I would add the same low poly mesh for 1 and 2 and leave 3 empty. Save this ESP. Then you need to find all the textures for the low poly meshes and change them similarly as in Alexander his youtube video.
Run the generate LOD for the TaMriel worldspace in the CK.
Replace the DLC blocks with the ones you generated.
Hope you can follow me, I am not going to write the full detailed tutorial now as I don't have time atm.
And @Zilav, thanks for that idea I am definitely going to try that. However, not all LOD textures are of equal size, or take up equal amount of space in the objects.dds, it may not work that way but I am curious to find out when I find the time.
I note right at the very beginning of the tutorial he states "...this is for custom word spaces. If you edited the Tamriel world space, I do not recommend generating LOD for that, due to the issues and compatibility things, and it will be a mess. This is only for custom world spaces that you have made yourself."
Anyhow, for me to play with tamu75's LOD resources, do I need the .esp plugin that was used when the world space LODs were generated?
Don't worry about typing up a full tutorial. I'm probably in over my head with this, but my main goal is to see if it's possible to force the Tamriel world space LOD generation to order the LOD textures that are put into Tamriel.Objects.dds in the same order as the original, so that any new textures are at the bottom. This would in theory ensure that any mods with replacement .bto files would still work, although tamu75's additional LOD objects in those world space areas would be missing.
In the least it would be great to generate a set of expanded LODs for DG and HF to make replacements for the 4 .bto files that they change.
You require an older version of the ck for Tamriel. The latest one makes solitude look horrid. However, if you manage to keep the objects.dds the same as you intend, you can simply replace the solitude blocks with vanilla ones.
You should overwrite all files from SkyFalls and SkyMills, and than reinstall the Expand object LODs patch from the SkyFalls mod, which you can find under the optional file tab HERE. That one should then subsequently overwrite this mod.
Hi tamu. I'm the creator of the Skyrim Distance Overhaul and I'd like to share my resources with you. Here's a list of the files/meshes I already edited:
http://philipbrandes.de/sdo_list.html
If you are interested in those files, just let me know.
Have a nice day.
Hope you two can work together.
Grieche, I have a question for you if you read this. I compressed the tamriel.objects.dds to DTX1 for tamu75 her mod, as it is 22mb. I made it just over 2mb and did not notice a visual impact in game, as it is just a diffuse map. I simply copied your patch, and was wondering if you compressed it to anything, as it is still 6mb.
I am also interested btw
I am a big fan of SDO, but this looks very promising as well. Am I allowed to make a patch of your tamriel.objects.dds to remove the ugly static waterfalls so it plays nice with my mod (SkyFalls and SkyMills)?
I am in the process of updating my mod, and would like to add the compatibility patches, it would be much appreciated.
I also have a question regarding your mod because I did not have time to test it properly in my game yet. A problem with SDO is the fact that castle Volkihar from the Dawnguard DLC is wrongly textured due to tamriel.objects.dds being changed, or completely lacking from the LOD. Is this mod suffering the same problem? or did you solve that?
Thanks,
Joe
I'm asking because, judging by the video, both of your mods change the distant terrain textures, except that this one also includes distant LODs.