I wish I'd known this was about to come out before trying to generate my own lods with a blender script. In case anyone else is wondering the reason the lods in this mod are not the same size as the full trees is that the original Ulvenwald models generally have a scale and z offset in their BSMultiBoundNode that holds the tree meshes. I'm happy to send a script and portable blender environment (or the output nifs if PHmami wants them) that will correct this in a few clicks. Since the scales of a few trees in Ulvenwald seem to change every version it will be tedious to update by hand.
On an unrelated note:
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anyone who wants it can have my lod generation script and I will try to update this if I finish it. It already does pretty well with most trees and ought to be able to generate lods for a new version of Ulvenwald in a few clicks. It should work on any high poly tree mod too provided that someone labels any tree meshes that it's automatic identification fails on. the primary way it simplifies is by raycasting through the leaf meshes and trying to preserve the silhouette as it decimates them. The outputs are low poly and low overdraw and can look better than simply using the full model due to the squirrely way dyndolod handles transparency.
Hey just read your post, about the script and lod resource you made you can try to post your own here on nexus and upload it as a mod just ask for Wigfrid's permission first. Btw, how were the nifs made were they decimated also or the lod model was redone from scratch.
I don't want to post the mod on Nexus because I will not be around to support it. Anyone else is free to. I obviously did this for the fun of programming it but I can think of things that would be more fun if I hadn't wanted lods. I may eventually just put the code up in a Reddit post or on one of the minor mod sites. I wanted to put something where people could find it on Nexus in case anyone else was thinking of doing the same thing. The lods are just decimated but it uses a relatively accurate raycast based heuristic. Honestly I think it would have been easier and certainly given much better results to just perturb the 3D models with AI and then actually render them to get an error function. The script was much harder than I anticipated, as usual.
Hmm I see, well I could post it here and am grateful for having it here but as for the support I might not be able to be on hands with it also, since I do not know how to use scripts and I am interested with another method of creating 3d lods, however just dont have time yet to learn about it. If you ever want to also try doing it, its called billboard clouds. If you are still open to providing the resources just DM me here on Nexus. Thanks for creating the script.
Thanks for letting me know about billboard clouds, it's the first I've heard of the technique. It sounds like you should be able to get higher quality results once you're generating custom projected lod textures. I considered similar approaches and decided that it would be too much work to implement. l'm unaware of any foliage simplification available for blender and don't have access to Max. I'll dm you a link to the files as soon as I get them up.
I've got the tool working on pretty much everything in Ulvenwald. All the significant features are done too so any further development will be tweaks. If anyone else wants it let me know.
I DMed you the link, did it not go thru? I'm not posting the link here because I'd like to introduce it to anyone who's going to use it and hear about what they're planning to do so that I can offer some additional guidance. While it should be extremely straightforward to apply it configuring it yourself is another matter.
Hello, I noticed that the LOD tree is not the same size as the original tree. I thought it was a problem with my operation until I saw your paragraph. I really need your script. Can you send me a copy?
Need some help, i enable this mod when running texgen, then: Error: OpenGL: invalid operation for D:\MO2\DynDOLOD\TexGen_Output\textures\terrain\lodgen\ulvenwald.esp\haafingar_treepineforestdeadsnowl02_0000fcb1_1 while processing D:\MO2\DynDOLOD\TexGen_Output\textures\terrain\lodgen\ulvenwald.esp\haafingar_treepineforestdeadsnowl02_0000fcb1.
Just wondering if it's normal for a mod like this to increase my DynDOLOD time and file size by a load? because before it was 1 maybe 2 gig and now it takes over 2 hours to run and comes out at 26 gig - is this just because the LODs are so much higher quality? Or am I doing smt wrong?
Not so far sorry - I'm going to run it at a lower setting but keep the mod, and if the same happens I might just delete it - 3D LODs are nice but not worth this
From my experience, 3D lods are going to be larger and more performance heavy, that is true. Some 3d lods aren't very well optimized or compatible (at least that's the explanation I'm going with) and lead to massive file sizes like that and sharp performance hits. Had that issue with Veydogolt in the past, others like Happy Little Trees 3D lods work really well.
Well, not a good sign. Probably some components is stressed by the calculation, in terms of power consumption and heat generated. Maybe you could try some bechmark application to reproduce the problem.
Hello, with 3.3.2 or 3.2.1, I always got 2d billboard and not full 3dlod My HLT or aspen ablazre 3dlod works fine, so its not come from tex gen or dyndolod wrong set. Any idea how to identidy where the missing 3d lod come from?
I've tried getting the lods in this mod to work, but since I use seasons of Skyrim that is probably causing this mod to not work correctly. Is this still being worked on and might be updated to work with seasons of Skyrim?
Works beautifully, and the performance hit with Level 0 LODs at LOD level 4 (with some INI tweaking) isn't the worst on my system (5600X/RTX 3070). I get around 30-35 fps in tree-heavy areas like Falkreath at the absolute lowest, which is more than playable.
I applaud you for having the patience to consider 30 FPS playable with those specs. I'd be livid if I couldn't run something at 60 even with a 3070.
Ever since I upgraded from a garbage laptop to a mid-end gaming PC, I just can't deal with the low frames. Would rather play with no LODs than at 30fps. It's like... performance PTSD or something lmao
Hello that's a 2d billboard, meaning you have to use lod 0 objects instead of billboards for lod 4 8 16. Try using the high settings when generating dyndolod so that it is automatically using lod 0 obj instead of billboards.
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On an unrelated note:
Error: OpenGL: invalid operation for D:\MO2\DynDOLOD\TexGen_Output\textures\terrain\lodgen\ulvenwald.esp\haafingar_treepineforestdeadsnowl02_0000fcb1_1 while processing D:\MO2\DynDOLOD\TexGen_Output\textures\terrain\lodgen\ulvenwald.esp\haafingar_treepineforestdeadsnowl02_0000fcb1.
My HLT or aspen ablazre 3dlod works fine, so its not come from tex gen or dyndolod wrong set.
Any idea how to identidy where the missing 3d lod come from?
Thank you!
Ever since I upgraded from a garbage laptop to a mid-end gaming PC, I just can't deal with the low frames. Would rather play with no LODs than at 30fps. It's like... performance PTSD or something lmao