FLVJOD-TheStrip by Prodlimen

Description:

FLVJOD-The Strip (Fabulous Las Vegas, Jewel of the Desert, Section The Strip) is a mod that intends to
enhance the sight, atmosphere and gameplay experience inside The Strip by attempting to turn its
worldspace back as closer as possible to its early version during the development of Fallout New
Vegas: A large, spacious, open and clean area, the most exclusive and fancy in the Mojave Desert. The
whole worldspace was cleaned and restored, all the hidden areas were opened, all the billboard walls
were replaced with concrete ones, all the vanilla resorts were reworked and completed, the LOD was
regenerated, the green areas were increased and the boundaries were extended, using Strip Open
plugins as a base and incorporating most of its improvements.
**********************
Which are the features that FLVJOD-The Strip add to the gameplay?:

- The Strip worldspace is now a fully open single section without any walls hiding areas.

- All the sections in the Strip have been fully navmeshed according to the extentions and relocations
that were made.

- The Billboard walls between resorts, the destroyed roads, the debris piles, the litter papers, the
damaged cars, the bridge in front of Vault 21 are all gone for good.

- The Tops hotel tower model has been replaced with one that doesn�t have the chunk in the top
corner.

- The Billboard walls that surround the strip have been replaced with concrete walls, and moved a little
further in order to gain some space to host the Resorts backside.

- All the main resorts (Lucky 38, Gomorrah, The Tops and Ultraluxe) models were completed to
resemble their courtyards and backsides. Now its possible to walk around each of them.

-The STRIPWORLDNEW worldspace LOD was regenerated; the LOD models of all the main resorts
(Lucky 38, Gomorrah, The Tops and Ultraluxe) were changed to match their new High poly models. The
ghost of the Billboard walls/Tops Hotel tower Chunk are gone for good.

- The Ultraluxe original annex Hotel building was restored and connected to the casino through a little
bridge passage. A section of the gained area behind the Ultraluxe was claimed in order to give the
Resort its very own courtyard, allowing it to have now similar dimensions and services than the other
resorts (Tops/Gomorrah).
- Some grass has been added to the green ground. 4 new green areas are available now for the
gamblers to go and relax/step out: one behind and another next to Gomorrah, one in the backside of
the Lucky38 and one behind the Ultraluxe.

- The area behind Michael Angelo�s and Vault 21 was cleaned. The first one was relocated there, and
the NCR Embassy was moved to its old location. The Ultraluxe Hotel Building was located where the
NCR Embassy used to be placed.

- The Las Vegas Boulevard Station increased its size in order to cover the empty area generated by the
movement of the concrete walls.

- 3 new Parking lot areas have been built: 1 in front of the Lucky38, one next to the Gomorrah and one
behind Vault 21. Originally those areas should have been filled with prewar cars, but since most of
them are just junk Mr. House had them removed out of the Strip.

- The Tops Lobby building was crowned with the same pink neon lights that are displayed inside; the
neon musical notes have been put too outside the casino.

- Some glowmaps were put outside The Lucky 38 and Tops in order to make them look more colorful.

- The door that connects Freeside with The Strip has been replaced with Camp McCarran main gate.

- A row of Queen Palms with lights have been placed in the Street to highlight the Strip area. Some
other plants have been distributed in all the green areas to enhance the atmosphere of luxury and
exclusiveness.

- The Stripdoor located in Freeside that teleports you to the Strip worldspace was changed to match
the new door model.

- Due to the fact the mod was built using the Strip Open plugins as a base, most of all the hardwork
done by its authors is incorporated here, in the form of bug fixes and restored content.

*********************
Notes:
- The door model that teleports the courier from Freeside to The Strip and vice versa (originally located
next to the Lucky 38 and Gomorrah) has been physically moved to where the concrete wall bound is
located; however, the activation marker to teleport back remains on its original place, as well as all the
triggers/markers related to quests and NPC�s spawns. Therefore, you have to activate it in the air, to
find it you just have to take the magazine machine dispenser in front of the Queen Palm as reference,
just as shown in the picture. This had to be done to prevent possible bugs.
- No new NPC�s or additional clutter have been added to the new areas in order to keep performance
high. Through feedback I�ll decide in the future if something is added there to make the gameplay
more complete.
- Getting to see the embellished Strip comes with a price in performance. Rendering large open areas
full of NPC�s and neon lights everywhere might cause even mid range PCs to struggle at times.
Therefore, it is MANDATORY you use this mod with a 4GB address space enabler patch. Here�s where
I got the chance to personally check/verify/fully understand why the early Strip iteration had to be
rejected in favor of performance and inmersion. The billboard walls were the less intrusive solution to
allow the engine to hide NPCS and be spared from drawing too much areas/objects at the same time.
Considering all the additional pressure the new stuff had put to the engine and the resultant hit on
performance, adding new Resorts/neon lights to the STRIPWORLDNEW worldspace is out of the
question.
Two LOD models (Gomorrah Resort and Vault 21 sign) as well as some concrete walls weren�t
recognized by the GECK during the last 2 runs of the LOD Regeneration process. This will be fixed
ASAP.

The Ultraluxe glowmap is not being fully displayed, due to the change of the model. The old glowmap
for the Tops old damaged Hotel tower is still being displayed. They will be fixed ASAP.

Some Road pieces seem to display a white seam depending on the ENB Shadder you�re using. This will
be revised and fixed ASAP.

In order to keep the lore all the new doors in the Tops Resort, BLV station and Michael Angelo�s are
locked or inaccessible. The same applies to the new main gate located at the end of the south section
of the strip.

The billboard walls that surround the Strip outside in the Wasteland worldspace will remain there,
same as the ones located in Freeside. They can be considered as additional protections that Mr. House
raised to prevent intruders from climbing the concrete walls.

****************************
How was New Vegas Strip modified from its original concept and why?
During Electronic Entertainment Expo 2010 (E3 2010) Bethesda presented some Fallout New Vegas
footage that shown a New Vegas (Freeside and the Strip) that looked different from what we got
when the game was released. The more evident difference was the fact the Strip was a clean, well-
preserved and stripdoor-free area surrounded by concrete walls. However, the version we found
when the game was released featured a splitted worldspace surrounded by billboard walls. What
happened there and why?.
I started working in a project that aimed to enhance and expand New Vegas, Freeside and the Strip in
particular. One of the planned main features was to increase the amount of resorts in both areas;
however, the lack of space inside the strip led me to inquire about the worldspace design and the
options available to expand it. I remembered some time ago a friend of mine told me that during the
development of the game, Freeside and the strip areas were very different from the version that was
released to the public. Therefore, I wanted to get detailed information about the differences and the
reasons behind the modifications both areas suffered. It was very important to be able to identify the
opportunities the project could have and the obstacles that I would have to come to grips with.
I started researching experts that knew about the topic. Moburma80, a talented fellow modder and
author of some popular mods hosted here in Nexus, scrutinized through the game code and found a
lot of information bits that he later sticked together to reveal some of the content that was cut, left
incompleted or abandoned. Based on that information and with the help of other skilled modders, he
looked after of restoring a part of the cut off content and created a series of mods from which Open
Strip and Freeside Uncut can be emphasized. He also wrote a blog where he detailed all his findings
and where other fans have contributed posting new evidences and clues.
More pieces of information were found in some youtube interviews made to Bethesda staff while
promoting FNV in E3 2010, some teaser images that were posted before its release, as well as the very
game BSA files. The NIF models in contrast with the footage provided during the interviews and with
the worldspaces in GECK revealed some of the adjustments that were made to both areas. An
additional evidence was found in two of the loading screens that feature the Lucky 38 and Ultraluxe
resorts on prewar times.
According to all the collected information The Strip and Freeside were splitted in sections and some of
their content was cut off or hidden because of performance issues. The game requires a lot of
memory to be able to render big open areas full of NPC�s, such as the ones mentioned; the users of
Strip open and Freeside Uncut mods can confirm this. Since the game was planned to be released as
well for game consoles like XBOX and PS3, that at that moment were unable to handle such amount of
work without experiencing constant bugs and freezing, it was required to make adjustments that
could allow a decent performance. In the case of Freeside the worldspace was splitted in 3 different
worldspaces linked between them: FreesideNorthWorld, FreesideFortWorld and FreesideWorld. As
for the Strip, the Worldspace remained in one piece (StripNewWorld), but it was divided internally
through doors that hide some spots and spared the game engine from rendering an extra load of
assets and NPC�s.
The way I see it, in the case of the strip a dilapidated touch was added to the whole worldspace to
make the divisions more coherent and less intrusive. It was required to hide areas and NPCs, but
how?. Placing concrete walls between the resorts would have been very intrusive and would have a
major impact in aesthetics. However, the billboard walls were something thiner that could create the
illusion of makeshift stuff that was put there years later, while in the case of concrete walls would
have suggested they were there in prewar times. Because this change affected the Strip, it was
required to implement it to Freeside as well (some footage revealed Freeside was originally
surrounded by concrete walls as well).
Since the reason that motivated the researching was the lack of space in the strip, below are
mentioned the most important differences and adjustments between its early development version
and the one released to the public:
* Both Freeside and The Strip were enclosed inside a concrete wall at some point of the game
development; it was replaced later with a makeshift wall made of billboards.
* Freeside and The Strip were two complete worldspaces without any divisions; they were later
splitted in sections and some doors were put between them.
* The Strip worldspace used to be more spacious.
* The four casino models were somehow cut in the rear and the access to that area was
cancelled. The Ultraluxe even had an adjacent building that seemed to be where the hotel
rooms were located, but it was cut off and the new model was also cut from the rear. The
original model was kept in the Wasteland Worldspace though.
* LVB Station building model during early development was very different to the one that
appeared in the released version of the game. A piece of the new version was fully viewable
and the rails were clearly spottable, but it was later hidden behind some billboard walls and
the access cancelled.
* Some planters and paths had another shape or were set in a different way.
* The streets inside the Strip looked cleaner and well-preserved in contrast with all the dirt,
debris and concrete chunks we find in Vanilla Strip.
* The Tops hotel tower was originally pristine and the Lobby building used to have another
circulating neon light.
* Some of the original glowmaps were discarded, but kept in the game files.
The researching results provided a very useful reference for the project: if the Strip got expanded it
would require a balance between aesthetics and practicality in order to be able to run the mod with a
playable performance. Therefore, it was decided to keep and enhance the original Strip area and its
resorts and channel any new custom content to another section in the future.
Here we have a list of the most relevant sources of information:
Moburma�s Hacks � Blog personal de Moburma80 http://moburma.wordpress.com/ Contains a lot of
interesting information about Fallout New Vegas cut content.

E3 2010 Fallout New Vegas Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-x-1fm2cq8 Some scenes
show footage of the early strip.

Fallout New Vegas TV Spot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqzjlrI6W1s Some scenes show
footage of the early strip.

Fallout: New Vegas Demo - IGN Live E3 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28EFHmQedPo
Some scenes show footage of the early strip.

E3 2010 Stage Demo: Fallout - New Vegas, GameSpot's Live Stage Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wF4Yo-FxNY Some scenes show footage of the early strip.

Fallout New Vegas BSA files: Fallout � Meshes.BSA, Fallout � Textures.BSA. Some NIF models and
textures reveal a part of the cut content.
GECK Worldspaces: FreesideNorthWorld, FreesideFortWorld, FreesideWorld and StripNewWorld

****************************
Installation instructions:

1) Go to the Strip Open mod page (located here:
http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/38056/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.
nexusmods.com%2Fnewvegas%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D38056&pUp=1 ) and
download version 1.4. Inside the compressed file you will find 4 files (NVStripOpen.bsa,
NVStripOpen.esm, StripOpen V1-4 readme and StripOpenMain.esp) and a folder named
sound. Cut/Copy ONLY the Files NVStripOpen.bsa, NVStripOpen.esm and the sound folder
and drop them inside your data folder, located in the following directory:
C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data
You don�t need the other files, so you can erase them. The plugin provided by this mod is an edited
version of one of them.

2) Go to your LOD folder, located in the following directory:
C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data
Look for a folder called LODSettings. Open it and look for a file called TheStripWorldNew.DLODSettings.
If you find it make a backup first in case you want to uninstall the mod and revert the Strip back to its
original look. Then erase the file.

C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data/Meshes/landscape/lod
Look for a folder named TheStripWorldNew. If you find it make a backup first in case you want to
uninstall the mod and revert the Strip back to its original look. Then erase the folder. It contains the
original LOD generation of the Strip Wordlspace, I mean the files that allow the game to render certain
low poly models at distance (like the Lucky 38 when you are in the other extreme of the Strip).

3) Go back to FLVJOD-The Strip mod page and download the file FLVJODTheStrip Resources. It contains
all the custom models and LOD files for the Strip. Inside the compressed file you will find 3 folders
(LODSettings, Meshes, Textures) and 1 file (FLVJODTheStrip Readme.docx) Cut/Copy all the folders
and paste them inside your Data folder, located in the following directory:
C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data

4) Download the file FLVJODTheStripLatestPlugin. Inside the compressed file you will find one file
named 50sFFFLVJODTheStrip.esp. This file is the Strip Open edited plugin that tells the game what to
modify inside the Strip and how. Cut/Copy the file and paste it inside your Data folder, located in the
following directory:
C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data


5)Open Fallout Mod Manager or Nexus Mod Manager. Locate the plugins NVStripOpen.esm and
50sFFFLVJODTheStrip.esp, put them as low as possible in your load order and activate them.

3) Run the game

It�s highly recommended to start a new game before starting to use the mod. That way bugs can be
prevented and in case you want to uninstall the mod you won�t loose your progress in an already
started game.

***********************
Uninstallation instructions:

1) Go to the following directory:

C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data
Look for a folder called LODSettings. Open it and look for a file called TheStripWorldNew.DLODSettings.
Erase it. In case you made a backup of the original file, put it here.

2) Go to the following directory:
C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data/meshes/landscape/lod
Look for a folder called TheStripWorldNew. Erase it. In case you have made a backup of the original
folder put it here.
3) Go to the following directory:
C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data/meshes
Look for a folder called 50sFFFLVJODTheStrip. Erase it.

4) Go to the following directory:
C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data/textures
Look for a folder called 50sFFFLVJODTheStrip. Erase it.

5) Go to the following directory:
C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Fallout New Vegas/Data

Look for the files NVStripOpen.esm and 50sFFFLVJODTheStrip.esp. Erase them.

6) You�re done.

******************************
Credits:
Bethesda and Obsidian for creating Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas.
Blender, PAINT.NET and GIMP development teams for creating such amazing tools.
Prodlimen for the creation of the mod, of the custom resort High Poly and Low Poly (LOD) models, the
edition of the STRIPWORLDNEW worldspace in the Strip Open plugin and the regeneration of the LOD.
Moburma80, Schizofriendlia/TheQuickness, Tarrant for their outstanding work creating Strip Open
mod, the base that made possible creating FLVJOD-The Strip. The link to their project is here:
http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/38056/?
Permission for using Strip Open as a base of FLVJOD-The Strip was granted by moburma80 in the
comment section of the post �Cut Dead� (located here:
http://moburma.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/cut-dead/#comments) in his blog �Moburma�s Hacks�
(located here: http://moburma.wordpress.com/ ); by Schizofriendlia/TheQuickness via PM and by
Tarrant as stated in the description section of Strip Open Mod.

Dave Finch for his detailed tutorial regarding generating LOD Data for custom worldspaces, located in
his website truancyfactory: http://www.truancyfactory.com/about.html

Ez0n3 for his detailed video tutorial regarding the creation of custom worldspaces, located here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyL2matGIzs

TrickyVein and Kuroitsune for their technical help regarding the creation of LOD.

**********************
License/Legal:
Uploading, use and modification of any part of this mod requires my permission and the corresponding
permissions of The Strip Open authors.