I've gone through a couple of mods adding trees to Whiterun, and then back when I had Tropical Skyrim installed and saw that Whiterun was baked dry, I decided to green up the city by adding the trees that came with the mod.
However, some people requested me to create a version for those who don't use Tropical Skyrim, but time constraints prevented me from doing so. That is, until I was unsatisfied with the last mod I made by planting aspens, decided to work on a true version that really brings in big trees to Whiterun -- I wanted that feel I'm walking through a city rife with history and greenery, the sun shining through the canopy, something that even a couple of Bosmer brothers would be impressed enough they're willing to set up shop and live in Whiterun.
This version is different from the one made for TS, in that I put in a few less items like benches because I assume that most people are using city mods (i.e. JK's, Dawn of, etc.) and don't want to see some clipping problems. To ensure that there's minimal disruption to NPC activities, some trees have been navcut so that NPCs can move around the trees and other obstacles without altering the original navmesh.
The big little wrinkle here in this version are swings. They're pretty static and decorative, but then they're very useful if you have Halo's Poser and would like to have your character hang around the swings for poses and then do snaps, or if you're like me using Dovahkiin's Relaxes Too -- select DRT in your powers list, point at the swing, press the power key and your character can sit down there.
Now if you use some other Whiterun mod and notice some clipping or obstruction, do post a report in the Bugs section, and I'll see what I could do to fix it.
--------------------------------- Merged with Solitude
Now, someone asked a few days ago if I could try to green up Solitude. Did just that (and it's now available for evaluation), but I had to make sure that most mods remaking the city wouldn't be clipped out, including two of my Solitude player homes and JK's Lite.
--------------------------------- What about the other cities?
I would've wanted to do the same thing to Markarth, but the problem is that Markarth is already known all too well for being poorly optimized, which means it'll be hard to place trees in a laggy city, and considerable testing is required before release.
Riften is perfect for greening up, but before I do that I have to make sure that some mods wouldn't clip into it, and there are instances where I get a slight performance drop.
Windhelm could use a few more dead trees to make it look ice-bound, but as with Markarth I'll see if adding trees would affect performance in that area.
--------------------------------- For DyndoLOD and TES5LODGen Users
If you need to generate tree LOD for this mod, version 3.0 now includes tree LOD billboards for use with those utilities.
For some reason DYNDOLOD wants to use the NIF files that comes with the tree billboards but those NIFs have to be mapped with an existing LOD, if I try to put it that way. Instead the only recourse is to use only TES5LODGEN to produce tree LOD.
EDIT: the recent version of DYNDOLOD strictly requires that tree LOD must be generated. Unfortunately in this case and until I get hold of some way of preventing Paradise City tree LOD showing up inside cities, it's not recommended to use this mod's tree billboard LOD resource with DYNDOLOD.
EDIT 2: the xLODGEN billboards for this mod won't be needed any longer, as most of the trees have been flagged for full LOD and Persistent.
--------------------------------- Version 2.0
It took me nearly a day to build the all-in-one version of the mod, plus creating a few textures needed to create the autumn and winter versions of the trees for Riften and Windhelm respectively, and perusing tutorials on how to create a FOMOD.
Should you run into problems with this mod and NMM, you could try to manually install the mod by click-dragging the files you have chosen into the Data directory, as long as you also install-copy the Resource .ESM and .BSA files, which are needed by the .ESPs.
Thank you for creating/providing such a brilliant mod. This is one of the few mods that doesn't cause my game to crash every couple minutes, especially in Whiterun. It seems light-weight enough, yet the affect it has on these cities is stunning. Whereas before, these places were essentially populated "deserts", dead and bland, now they are beautiful and alive. Sometimes, when walking through a city, I simply stop and stand there, looking about at all the beautiful work you have done. Absolutely gorgeous. Again, thank you for providing such a wonderful mod. Definitely endorsed.
I'm sure citizens of Skyrim are doubting my sanity as I wonder though streets staring at the stunning trees. I have it both on oldrim and se with SSBT and can't play without it anymore. Thank you! Happily endorsed!
Has the issue with DynDOLOD been fixed yet? I don't see anything about it in the changelogs, but it's been close to three years since version 3.0 of this mod has released.
After trying so many times I cannot recommend using DYNDOLOD with this mod, in that DYNDOLOD uses NIF billboards that require their UVs mapped to the vanilla tree atlas. Instead TES5LODGEN is needed to rebuild the tree atlas, or don't use this mod's tree billboards and use the billboards that are made only for vanilla or SFO trees when generating with DYNDOLOD.
Alright then. I read in the mod description that the issue is really only affecting Solitude. From my understanding, and I might be wrong, the LODs that are place inside the city, but are meant to be seen from OUTSIDE the walls, or the "overworld", are being generated while you are INSIDE the city. If that's the case, can I just not use the LODs for that area alone? I noticed the archive containing your mod is pretty much loose files, but I'm not sure if the LODs are set up in such a way that I can just deleted a specific file or files and not use the LODs DynDOLOD won't get along with.
I apologize If I misunderstand the issue. If my idea above isn't possible, then would you be willing to make a version of this mod without trees for Solitude? I could probably find another mod to add trees to Solitude.
It may be a bit selfish to ask of that considering TES5LODGEN is still an option, but I'm used to playing Skyrim with about a thousand mods at a time. Sometimes more. It's really difficult to keep a stable game with so many, but I manage to pull it off luckily with enough tinkering. Adding a second software for generating LODs will just skyrocket my paranoia, since I make mistakes or overlook things easily.
DynDOLOD is the advanced and easier version of xLODGen. It uses the exact same tree LOD generation requiring billboard textures and optional text files as xLODGen. This tree LOD generation creates the tamrieltreelod.dds tree LOD texture atlas from the billboard textures. I suggest to read the included manual.
As always, I suggest to ignore all 3rd party advice and instructions, especially if it is to disable or not use something. Use the most recent version of DynDOLOD and generate LOD as explained in its documentation. In case of problems use the official support forum for qualified support.
First of all, thank you for the advice and info on how DynDOLOD works. I only recently started using it myself, so my knowledge is limited. That said, this isn't exactly "third party advice". The mod author suggests not using DynDOLOD for his mod, because it causes a bug with Solitude's LODs for the trees in that location. This bug is cause when using DynDOLOD, and not xLODGEN. Even after three years, he couldn't fix this issue. Therefore I'm trying to find a workaround that will suit myself, as selfish as that sounds.
I'm aware DynDOLOD is a superior too to xLODGEN in the way it functions after researching it for my own use. Doesn't change the fact that DynDOLOD causes issues with this guy's mod where xLODGEN does not. Regardless, I'll follow your advice, and stick to DynDOLOD. I'll simply have to hope the workaround I suggested to the author is doable, or whether he's willing to make a "non-Solitude" version of the mod.
JENOVAbsolute wrote: Has the issue with DynDOLOD been fixed yet? I don't see anything about it in the changelogs, but it's been close to three years since version 3.0 of this mod has released.
sa547 wrote: After trying so many times I cannot recommend using DYNDOLOD with this mod, in that DYNDOLOD uses NIF billboards that require their UVs mapped to the vanilla tree atlas. Instead TES5LODGEN is needed to rebuild the tree atlas, or don't use this mod's tree billboards and use the billboards that are made only for vanilla or SFO trees when generating with DYNDOLOD.
JENOVAbsolute wrote: Alright then. I read in the mod description that the issue is really only affecting Solitude. From my understanding, and I might be wrong, the LODs that are place inside the city, but are meant to be seen from OUTSIDE the walls, or the "overworld", are being generated while you are INSIDE the city. If that's the case, can I just not use the LODs for that area alone? I noticed the archive containing your mod is pretty much loose files, but I'm not sure if the LODs are set up in such a way that I can just deleted a specific file or files and not use the LODs DynDOLOD won't get along with.
I apologize If I misunderstand the issue. If my idea above isn't possible, then would you be willing to make a version of this mod without trees for Solitude? I could probably find another mod to add trees to Solitude.
It may be a bit selfish to ask of that considering TES5LODGEN is still an option, but I'm used to playing Skyrim with about a thousand mods at a time. Sometimes more. It's really difficult to keep a stable game with so many, but I manage to pull it off luckily with enough tinkering. Adding a second software for generating LODs will just skyrocket my paranoia, since I make mistakes or overlook things easily.
sheson wrote: DynDOLOD is the advanced and easier version of xLODGen. It uses the exact same tree LOD generation requiring billboard textures and optional text files as xLODGen. This tree LOD generation creates the tamrieltreelod.dds tree LOD texture atlas from the billboard textures. I suggest to read the included manual.
As always, I suggest to ignore all 3rd party advice and instructions, especially if it is to disable or not use something. Use the most recent version of DynDOLOD and generate LOD as explained in its documentation. In case of problems use the official support forum for qualified support.
JENOVAbsolute wrote: First of all, thank you for the advice and info on how DynDOLOD works. I only recently started using it myself, so my knowledge is limited. That said, this isn't exactly "third party advice". The mod author suggests not using DynDOLOD for his mod, because it causes a bug with Solitude's LODs for the trees in that location. This bug is cause when using DynDOLOD, and not xLODGEN. Even after three years, he couldn't fix this issue. Therefore I'm trying to find a workaround that will suit myself, as selfish as that sounds.
I'm aware DynDOLOD is a superior too to xLODGEN in the way it functions after researching it for my own use. Doesn't change the fact that DynDOLOD causes issues with this guy's mod where xLODGEN does not. Regardless, I'll follow your advice, and stick to DynDOLOD. I'll simply have to hope the workaround I suggested to the author is doable, or whether he's willing to make a "non-Solitude" version of the mod.
@sheson
With due respect, DYNDOLOD is superior, but when it comes to adding more trees than vanilla the UV-mapped billboards are causing trees to look bad. What is really needed is for DYNDOLOD to recognize added tree resources and generate _lod_flat.NIFs with correct UV mapping. It's not the fault of DYNDOLOD, per se, but the GKB trees with their fixed _lod_flat UVs.
This is what I'm trying to explain why some people have bugged LOD when they have this mod and DYNDOLOD, as this is a flat LOD mesh from one of the trees this mod is using:
Per Elinen:
In Skyrim all trees that have LOD have two files, the tree.nif that is the actual tree and a tree_lod_flat.nif LOD mesh file. All tree_lod_flat.nif files use the same image texture (called a tree atlas), with each file using a different part of the texture. This texture is named "worldspacetreelod.dds" and is always placed in Textures/Terrain/Worldspace/Trees.
One of the problems if you wish to use different tree resources like GKBs trees and Hoddminirs trees are that the LODs are conflicting with each other and with other mods as the tree atlas textures have the same name.
_lod_flat.nif files with fixed UV to a specific tree LOD atlas texture is what CK requires to generate tree LOD.
Since its inception, the tree LOD generation of xEdit (xLODGen/DynDOLOD) uses billboards (a texture showing the side view of a tree and an optional text file) to generate tree LOD. The _lod_flat.nif files and existing tree LOD atlas textures do not affect xEdit tree LOD generation.
Yes. But the question I'm trying to articulate is, what happens when I add more trees than those recognized by the game? This is one of several issues I have to grapple about trying to provide people skinned trees, it's either your method or end-users will have to forgo using this mod's tree billboards and run DYNDOLOD straight using only vanilla or SFO tree billboards.
Billboards installation and tree LOD generation are the same for any version of xEdit, xLODGen and DynDOLOD. There is no difference in the setup of billboards and nothing else needs to be done for tree LOD generation.
For skinned trees I cannot simply map UVs manually everytime new trees other than vanilla are introduced into the game, as each time the tree atlas is generated, which means new trees in that atlas are mapped somewhere other than the locations of vanilla trees.
Whatever you do with with _lod_flat.nif or tamrieltreelod.dds has nothing to do with xEdit/xLODGen/DynDOLOD. These files are irrelevant to tree LOD generation with xEdit/xLODGen/DynDOLOD.
The UV coordinates in the *.LST are calculated automatically when the tree LOD atlas texture tamrieltreelod.dds is created from the billboards. There is no need to do anything manually other than to provide the billboard texture and optional text file for xEdit/xLODGen/DynDOLOD to generate tree LOD.
There are billboards available for this mod. It makes no sense to say they work for xLODGen but not for DynDOLOD. They are doing the same tree LOD generation.
xLODGen/DynDOLOD uses billboards to build the LOD atlas when generating LOD. Manually editing the tree LOD atlas is pre 2014 modding when CK was the only tool to generate LOD. For each new/existing tree that should have tree LOD, a matching billboard is required. That's the established standard since 5 years.
Using the IsFullLOD flag is an archaic and performance intensive method to make full models show across the entire map without care about visuals, resource usage or performance.
One major feature of DynDOLOD is to automatically correct such archaic modding methods by converting IsFullLOD flagged references to static object or tree LOD if possible or dynamic LOD with limited distances to regain performance and free up resource usage.
For better looking tree LOD, create optimized 3D tree LOD models for ultra tree LOD in addition to billboards. Then users can decide between a performance and a quality option with a slight performance impact for their load order/setup.
I assume, all your screenshots were made with the same enb, after a lot of trials with enb i would like to know which enb you used, as i didn't ever forget the enb you have used
Thank your for your work sa547, its also compatible with The Great Forest of Whiterun Hold and I use many texture pack from Osmodius also for Solitude and Windhelm and everthing works fine.
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150 comments
I've gone through a couple of mods adding trees to Whiterun, and then back when I had Tropical Skyrim installed and saw that Whiterun was baked dry, I decided to green up the city by adding the trees that came with the mod.
However, some people requested me to create a version for those who don't use Tropical Skyrim, but time constraints prevented me from doing so. That is, until I was unsatisfied with the last mod I made by planting aspens, decided to work on a true version that really brings in big trees to Whiterun -- I wanted that feel I'm walking through a city rife with history and greenery, the sun shining through the canopy, something that even a couple of Bosmer brothers would be impressed enough they're willing to set up shop and live in Whiterun.
This version is different from the one made for TS, in that I put in a few less items like benches because I assume that most people are using city mods (i.e. JK's, Dawn of, etc.) and don't want to see some clipping problems. To ensure that there's minimal disruption to NPC activities, some trees have been navcut so that NPCs can move around the trees and other obstacles without altering the original navmesh.
The big little wrinkle here in this version are swings. They're pretty static and decorative, but then they're very useful if you have Halo's Poser and would like to have your character hang around the swings for poses and then do snaps, or if you're like me using Dovahkiin's Relaxes Too -- select DRT in your powers list, point at the swing, press the power key and your character can sit down there.
Now if you use some other Whiterun mod and notice some clipping or obstruction, do post a report in the Bugs section, and I'll see what I could do to fix it.
---------------------------------
Merged with Solitude
Now, someone asked a few days ago if I could try to green up Solitude. Did just that (and it's now available for evaluation), but I had to make sure that most mods remaking the city wouldn't be clipped out, including two of my Solitude player homes and JK's Lite.
---------------------------------
What about the other cities?
I would've wanted to do the same thing to Markarth, but the problem is that Markarth is already known all too well for being poorly optimized, which means it'll be hard to place trees in a laggy city, and considerable testing is required before release.
Riften is perfect for greening up, but before I do that I have to make sure that some mods wouldn't clip into it, and there are instances where I get a slight performance drop.
Windhelm could use a few more dead trees to make it look ice-bound, but as with Markarth I'll see if adding trees would affect performance in that area.
---------------------------------
For DyndoLOD and TES5LODGen Users
If you need to generate tree LOD for this mod, version 3.0 now includes tree LOD billboards for use with those utilities.For some reason DYNDOLOD wants to use the NIF files that comes with the tree billboards but those NIFs have to be mapped with an existing LOD, if I try to put it that way. Instead the only recourse is to use only TES5LODGEN to produce tree LOD.EDIT: the recent version of DYNDOLOD strictly requires that tree LOD must be generated. Unfortunately in this case and until I get hold of some way of preventing Paradise City tree LOD showing up inside cities, it's not recommended to use this mod's tree billboard LOD resource with DYNDOLOD.
EDIT 2: the xLODGEN billboards for this mod won't be needed any longer, as most of the trees have been flagged for full LOD and Persistent.
---------------------------------
Version 2.0
It took me nearly a day to build the all-in-one version of the mod, plus creating a few textures needed to create the autumn and winter versions of the trees for Riften and Windhelm respectively, and perusing tutorials on how to create a FOMOD.
Should you run into problems with this mod and NMM, you could try to manually install the mod by click-dragging the files you have chosen into the Data directory, as long as you also install-copy the Resource .ESM and .BSA files, which are needed by the .ESPs.
Translations with only the plugin, yes, just message me.
But the whole mod... Nope.
I apologize If I misunderstand the issue. If my idea above isn't possible, then would you be willing to make a version of this mod without trees for Solitude? I could probably find another mod to add trees to Solitude.
It may be a bit selfish to ask of that considering TES5LODGEN is still an option, but I'm used to playing Skyrim with about a thousand mods at a time. Sometimes more. It's really difficult to keep a stable game with so many, but I manage to pull it off luckily with enough tinkering. Adding a second software for generating LODs will just skyrocket my paranoia, since I make mistakes or overlook things easily.
As always, I suggest to ignore all 3rd party advice and instructions, especially if it is to disable or not use something. Use the most recent version of DynDOLOD and generate LOD as explained in its documentation. In case of problems use the official support forum for qualified support.
I'm aware DynDOLOD is a superior too to xLODGEN in the way it functions after researching it for my own use. Doesn't change the fact that DynDOLOD causes issues with this guy's mod where xLODGEN does not. Regardless, I'll follow your advice, and stick to DynDOLOD. I'll simply have to hope the workaround I suggested to the author is doable, or whether he's willing to make a "non-Solitude" version of the mod.
@sheson
With due respect, DYNDOLOD is superior, but when it comes to adding more trees than vanilla the UV-mapped billboards are causing trees to look bad. What is really needed is for DYNDOLOD to recognize added tree resources and generate _lod_flat.NIFs with correct UV mapping. It's not the fault of DYNDOLOD, per se, but the GKB trees with their fixed _lod_flat UVs.
This is what I'm trying to explain why some people have bugged LOD when they have this mod and DYNDOLOD, as this is a flat LOD mesh from one of the trees this mod is using:
Per Elinen:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/61078?tab=description
Since its inception, the tree LOD generation of xEdit (xLODGen/DynDOLOD) uses billboards (a texture showing the side view of a tree and an optional text file) to generate tree LOD. The _lod_flat.nif files and existing tree LOD atlas textures do not affect xEdit tree LOD generation.
The UV coordinates in the *.LST are calculated automatically when the tree LOD atlas texture tamrieltreelod.dds is created from the billboards. There is no need to do anything manually other than to provide the billboard texture and optional text file for xEdit/xLODGen/DynDOLOD to generate tree LOD.
There are billboards available for this mod. It makes no sense to say they work for xLODGen but not for DynDOLOD. They are doing the same tree LOD generation.
The question of adding new tree resources to the existing atlas should be considered.
Using the IsFullLOD flag is an archaic and performance intensive method to make full models show across the entire map without care about visuals, resource usage or performance.
One major feature of DynDOLOD is to automatically correct such archaic modding methods by converting IsFullLOD flagged references to static object or tree LOD if possible or dynamic LOD with limited distances to regain performance and free up resource usage.
For better looking tree LOD, create optimized 3D tree LOD models for ultra tree LOD in addition to billboards. Then users can decide between a performance and a quality option with a slight performance impact for their load order/setup.
after a lot of trials with enb i would like to know which enb you used, as i didn't ever forget the enb you have used
Previously used Rudy and NLA.