Name: Evenstars Colourwheel LOD Update
Version: 1.2
Date: 20/5/2012
Category: Visuals & Graphics
Requirements: TES4LODGen (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15781) - needed to generate the distant view information.
Author(s): Colourwheel & EvenstarGW
Source: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=42190

Description
===========
This is a further improved version of Colourwheels LOD Project part01

Details
=======
After having played a long time with RAEVWD, I had gotten used to low framerates and accepted them as the tradeoff for having pretty scenery. When I recently started a new install, I was happy with the FPS and smoothness of my new vanilla game. But not being able to see the places I was travelling to was very annoying. So I decided I needed my LOD back. Luckily, Colourwheel came along and released a more reduced LOD package. I tried it and was happy with the framerate, but from time to time I encountered annoying neon flashes and reflections. Me wanting the best of both worlds, I decided to track down the cause of these bugs and eliminate them. Took me a good while to trace them as they show up on all LOD, not just the objects that cause them. Along the way I also made some other improvements.

For clarification: This mod will not improve your FPS compared to vanilla LOD. It adds more objects that previously could not be seen from afar, thus reducing your framerate. If you were already using another mod that added such objects, chances are good that installing this over it will improve your FPS.

Features:
Fixed all flashing neon blobs and reflections (as far as I can tell).
Removed all tangent spaces for further reduction of mesh sizes.
Minor tweaks to UV-mapping of the sheepfold
Recalculated normals on Fortruin pieces to reduce the visibility of layers under certain light angles.
Deleted all non-LOD rocks. They are reduced compared to the originals, but if you need that, you should probably not be running full LOD.
Copied the rocks from the Gold Coast and retextured them to all other regions (that use the same rock meshes). So for every region all rocks from 1150 to 2080 now have _far.nifs. On my GTX 240 I barely noticed the impact of having them enabled. Your results may be different.
Added some missing normal/glowmaps and removed alpha channels from a few normalmaps.

Install
=======
I've packaged this mod as a BAIN archive. If you use Wrye Bash to install your mods, select the subpackages you want and install them. If installing manually, unpack the archive to a temporary location. Make a data folder. Copy the contents of each of the subpackages you want to install into the data folder. Finally copy this data folder into your oblivion folder and merge it with the data folder in there.
The packages are:
00 Textures - Required
01 Dungeons - Forts, Ayleid ruins and Doomstones
02 Farms & Shacks - Settlements, inns, farms and priories
03 Docks & Ships - As it says. Docks are also used for some bridges.
04 Statues & Shrines - Daedra statues, godstatues and wayshrines of the nine
05 Rocks - All rocks of 1150 and larger for Gold Coast, Colovian Highlands, Great Forest and Jerall Mountains

If you are unsure how much your system can handle, start small and install in your order of priority.
The rocks have only a minor visual impact but can be a strain on your system. There's a lot more of them on screen than you will ever notice. Mods like unique landscapes may add even more rocks than vanilla, so if they are too much, just remove them.

After installing or removing LOD meshes, you have to run Tes4Lodgen to update your LOD information.

Uninstall
=========
Delete whichever meshes you no longer want. If you used BAIN you are in luck. Otherwise you will have to find them manually. A search on *_far.nif in your meshes folder may help speed things up. Afterwards, rerun Tes4Lodgen.

Incompatibility
===============
Other VWD mods. Install this over them to improve FPS at a very minor cost to visual detail. Also keep in mind that any mod which adds different VWD meshes with unsupported properties can cause the strange glitches described in the introduction, which may cause perfectly fine meshes to appear to be broken.

The textures are based on Vanilla. If you use QTP3 or any other texture replacers, LOD meshes may not match their detailed versions. There are several optional texture packs available at Really AEVWD.

Recommended mods
================
-Streamline 3.1
-Oblivion Stutter Remover
-Really AEVWD core for improved vanilla LOD meshes and some missing pieces.

History
=======
1.2, 2012/05/20 - Update released with Colourwheels permission

Contact
=======
You can find me on TESNexus as 'EvenstarGW'

Credits
=======
All meshes were reduced in blender by Colourwheel. All credits for the meshes go to her. Further editing by me was completely done in Nifskope.

Thanks to Bethesda for creating Oblivion.
Thanks to TESNexus.com for the a one-stop-shop resource for authors and players.
Thanks to Brumbek for his Texture resources
Thanks to Arthmoor for giving Colourwheel the idea and for some useful info about LOD meshes posted on several forums
Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.

Tools Used
==========
7-Zip - http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/15579
GIMP - http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/14920
NIFSkope - http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope
Readme Generator - http://HammondsLegacy.com/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.asp

Licensing/Legal
===============
I do not claim ownership of these resources. If you want permission to use them, you will have to ask Colourwheel. Colourwheel has full permission to use these files in any future updates of her LOD project.