Tree Object LOD Skyrim LOD (level of detail) allows distant terrain, objects, and trees to be seen by the player even when the cells are not loaded, making exteriors in the game much more visually appealing and realistic. Tree LOD can also be rendered with object LOD by DynDOLOD.
IMPORTANT:
Native Skyrim LOD matches unmodded vanilla Skyrim ONLY (and is low quality).
DynDOLOD can be used to generate LOD matching the current mod list (or more specifically, the current plugin load order [LO]).
When mod authors package their DynDOLOD LOD patch into their mods, this LOD matches their LO at time of generation and is called "pre-generated LOD". It will be accurate ONLY for their LO (which is uncertain unless clearly specified).
The ONLY way to have LOD that matches a particular LO is to generate LOD oneself. For example ...
If a mod author provides pre-generated LOD in it's most compatible form (only the mod author's mod is active during LODGen), then those using a mods that change or add objects will not have LOD for the objects, which will change or appear out of nowhere once the cell is loaded (pop-in).
If a mod author provides pre-generated LOD with other mods that change or add objects, then those lacking said mods will see distant objects that ARE NOT THERE and that will change or disappear when the cell is loaded (pop-out).
Recommended DynDOLOD 3 'tree' mesh rules:
Ultra: LOD4/Level0, LOD8/Level1, LOD16/Level2
Performance: LOD4/Billboard4, LOD8/Billboard4, LOD16/Billboard(1) (looks VERY good and may be optimal for many)
thank you for this mod and the sticky post with good information. i have an old system, and still use Myrkvior because newer tree mods tank fps hard for me. Also, I didn't get into mods and skyrim until last year after a horrible work accident, and STEP was invaluable for setting up a clean install, setting up tools properly, and my first steps into understanding load orders. Thank you for all you guys do.
Please help me. I am currently using it in this order.
Myrkvior - The Flora Of Skyrim - Trees SSE
Myrkvior - TFoS Add-On - 3D Hybrid Trees SSE - DynDOLOD
Morekvior-Myrkvior Visual Enhancement
Morekvior-Myrkvior Visual Enhancement-DynDOLOD
I am using dyndolod 3.0. But there's a problem. When lod4 is set to level0, the tree in the distance becomes too bright. When lod4 is set to billboard4, it is normal. Why is that? What's the reason?
I'm guessing that you are using Myrkvior with another mod that places other trees at Myrkvior tree positions, because that mod hasn't been updated, and these LODs exactly match those trees. Use More Informative Console to check one of those 'popping' trees to see what plugin is placing it.
Nope, I don't mean completely different rendered trees and lods, they are matching, there's just a lot of pop in, the lods branches appear way more lush than the full trees.
These LOD are exactly the same crowns at the trees to which they correspond, so it's something in your mod list that is causing it. I stand by my previous assertion.
I use the RAT ( Realistic Aspen Trees ) option from the optionals, do I need to do anything different or should I just run this mod after the Myrkvior stuff?
just install this mod as usual. Not sure where RAT is coming from though. I don't recall those trees being in either Myrkvior or Morekvior. If they are though, then they should also have LOD models.
Any tips/suggestions on the Texgen lighting values? I know that they would be different for everyone depending on their particular load order but I've been messing with them for a day now and can't seem to get them quite right.
Hello, I come to see you to know a little more about the generation of lod with dyndolod v3, on the page of Kojak747 it is said in his post of September 2, 2019 that it is necessary to disable the textures that we add, personally I use https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/45294?tab=description there is a scoreboard but I did not take it because it is what I understood via dyndolod v3 so I would like to know if I have to disable the 8k textures before making the Lods? and secondly I noticed that some trees of myrkvior do not want to take the new textures of 8k branches, any idea ? I thank you in advance for my question which must be common. ps: i am french and this message is translated by deepl i hope my message is understandable.
That mod only provides textures, so it will have no impact on LODGen at all except for possibly changing the textures used in LOD trees, which is what you want (a good thing). It's the meshes that kojak747 was concerned with, but those don't need to be disabled as you can see on the Myrkvior new sticky post as I mentioned to him.
The texures from Pine Branches Redone look to be vanilla textures. They will work fine with any mod that uses tree meshes referencing the vanilla textures (like EVT), but will just not be used for mods that use custom texture paths (like some[many?][all?] used in Myrkvior and Morekvior). This mod will not detrimentally impact your tree LOD though. Worst case is they will go unused and just take up space or promise results that you will never see in game :(
That's basically the same as the 'Performance' settings in the description with the only difference being that you cut two triangles per tree, trading off a very tiny bit of performance for a slightly less light-responsive distant billboard. my guess is that you will not notice any difference in either performance or quality between the two.
The biggest gain is using any billboard rather than any model (Level0/1/2) at any LOD level. Since LOD4 is most important visually, this is where you want the best looking LOD (Level0) if possible. LOD4 is NOT most important performance-wise ... that is determined by your 'blocklevel' distance settings, with the largest area being most potentially taxing, so per DoubleYou's (BethINI developer) most recent recommendations: [TerrainManager] fBlockLevel0Distance=53248 fBlockLevel1Distance=159744 fBlockMaximumDistance=331776 fSplitDistanceMult=1.000... the largest gap is between Level1 and max (essentially LOD8 and LOD16), so using any billboard at LOD16 will have the most impact on performance with these distance settings. I personally want Level0 for everything, but it's impractical, so I usually run with LOD4/Level0, LOD8/Level1, LOD16/Billboard4 to start and then change Level1 to Billboard4 if I need 10-20 FPS back.
Very interesting... Im currently running LOD4/Billboard4, LOD8/Billboard4, LOD16/Billboard1 which gives me great performance, but Im also noticing a slight decrease in quality (due to Billboard instead of model at LOD4) so Im actuallty thinking of switching back to OPT: LOD4/Level0, LOD8/Billboard4, LOD16/Billboard1 together with the recommended blocklevel distance settings below. Thanks once again mate (and for your support at the STEP/Dyndolod-forum, Im "The Dude" btw...)
'TheDude' jives well with your Nexus avatar (Big Lebowski fan here)
If you are ticking 'Ultra' in DynDOLOD, you are disabling traditional billboard tree LOD, which effectively is also done by setting fTreeLoadDistance=0. So it becomes a meaningless setting and can be set to zero when generating trees with object *.bto meshes. If you use traditional and don't tick 'Ultra' then this setting determines how far to render the traditional billboards.
Ultra sets trees to be rendered with object LOD (whether billboards or 'Level#' settings are used in the mesh rules, they are still rendered on the atlas within 'super' meshes along with other objects in object LOD ... Level# copies the 3D model, while billboard uses a 2 or 4-sided 'X' simplified model with the entire tree billboard diffuse and normals). Traditional, flat, single-sided billboards are used in traditional tree LOD using text coordinates to determine where a picture of the billboard texture is rendered and are not part of object LOD.
Awesome, thanks a lot!! Now I can finally stop adjusting the "fTreeLoadDistance-settings" in order to try to increase performance/avoid pops etc etc. Freaking sweet!!
Update: Im keeping the OPT-settings: LOD4/Level0, LOD8/Billboard4, LOD16/Billboard1. Sure, I lose a few frames here and there but the models look better. Everything looks soooo good right now...!!
A bit OT but what setting do you recommend for fTreesMidLODSwitchDist in skyrimprefs? I've seen the value 8192 (from STEP/Trees) but BethIni Ultra puts it at 16982 and Ive also seen a lot of users with 999999... I\ve tried all three of them but cant really notice any difference...
Hi again z020669, just wanted to let you know that the "max-ini-settings" works great and that I also regenerated my LODs in order to try the "Dyndolod-Performance-setup"
Performance: LOD4/Billboard4, LOD8/Billboard4, LOD16/Billboard?(1) (looks VERY good and may be optimal for many)
Which seems to work equally great and my game feels smoother than ever! Haven't noticed any tree pop-ins either! Cheers!
I sure do, the game feels A LOT smoother than with the previous mesh-rules (OPT: LOD4/Level0, LOD8/Billboard4, LOD16/Billboard(1)) and Im getting 60 fps most of the time even with Myrkvrior- Morekvior- Trees addon and Great Forest of Whiterun-combo! Plus Dyndo grass lods (Verdant) as well! The only stutters that occurs are in problematic areas such as entrance to Roriksstead and such but I think JKs Skyrim is to blame for that since its reeeaaallly taxing...
following the instructions for Optimized from the comment from z929669 from Aug 27 @3:07pm in reply to Dideli, I'm getting lines down the centre of my tundra pine tree LOD models, not sure why that is or what's going on there.
By the sound of it, this could be an artifact of having a flat trunk. Certain lighting and time of day can make the flat trunks more apparent when using specific ENB settings. This could also happen if your TexGen lighting settings are too high in the 'Render' option.
Only guessing though, since we can't see what you are seeing and whether it's in LOD4/8/16 (and your LOD level distance settings)
I'm using an ENB with fairly high direct lighting settings, so that might be contributing here.
The texgen settings I'm using are the standard ones I've always used when doing 3d tree LODs for myrkvior, haven't encountered this issue before.
I comically forgot to take a screenie when it happened, and just reran dyndolod with my old settings and the standard myrkvior LODs, and it seems to be working fine. I can't notice a difference in performance before (with this mod) and after (standard 3d LODs from Myrk) so I'm probably just gonna stick with the standard myrk 3d tree LODs for now.
Thanks for your help with this - may just be something that's not noticeable with more muted/standard ENB direct lighting settings, but doesn't work well with my ENB (which is a custom fork I made that I'm not gonna give up anytime soon lol).
Thanks for your help w this, curious to see if it's just me (in which case I'd imagine it's the ENB settings).
Yeah, without a screen showing the 'line' and whether dark or light, it's tough to say. You can change Lighting in TexGen for tree billboards, tree HD billboards, and rendered trunks.
Performance gain is small from this mod compared to original LOD models. Just a few FPS and varies by PC and location. I would use this version if you need to squeeze our extra frames in particular locations (marsh, Rift)
45 comments
Skyrim LOD (level of detail) allows distant terrain, objects, and trees to be seen by the player even when the cells are not loaded, making exteriors in the game much more visually appealing and realistic. Tree LOD can also be rendered with object LOD by DynDOLOD.
IMPORTANT:
Recommended DynDOLOD 3 'tree' mesh rules:
LOD Instructions
DynDOLOD 3 Support
DynDOLOD and xLODGen General Support
Creating Tree LOD Models
Also, I didn't get into mods and skyrim until last year after a horrible work accident, and STEP was invaluable for setting up a clean install, setting up tools properly, and my first steps into understanding load orders. Thank you for all you guys do.
I am using dyndolod 3.0. But there's a problem. When lod4 is set to level0, the tree in the distance becomes too bright. When lod4 is set to billboard4, it is normal. Why is that? What's the reason?
There's really a lot of needed knowledge there
cheers
I thank you in advance for my question which must be common.
ps: i am french and this message is translated by deepl i hope my message is understandable.
The texures from Pine Branches Redone look to be vanilla textures. They will work fine with any mod that uses tree meshes referencing the vanilla textures (like EVT), but will just not be used for mods that use custom texture paths (like some[many?][all?] used in Myrkvior and Morekvior). This mod will not detrimentally impact your tree LOD though. Worst case is they will go unused and just take up space or promise results that you will never see in game :(
LOD4/Billboard4, LOD8/Billboard4, LOD16/Billboard4
Any advantages/disadvantages?
The biggest gain is using any billboard rather than any model (Level0/1/2) at any LOD level. Since LOD4 is most important visually, this is where you want the best looking LOD (Level0) if possible. LOD4 is NOT most important performance-wise ... that is determined by your 'blocklevel' distance settings, with the largest area being most potentially taxing, so per DoubleYou's (BethINI developer) most recent recommendations:
[TerrainManager]... the largest gap is between Level1 and max (essentially LOD8 and LOD16), so using any billboard at LOD16 will have the most impact on performance with these distance settings. I personally want Level0 for everything, but it's impractical, so I usually run with LOD4/Level0, LOD8/Level1, LOD16/Billboard4 to start and then change Level1 to Billboard4 if I need 10-20 FPS back.fBlockLevel0Distance=53248
fBlockLevel1Distance=159744
fBlockMaximumDistance=331776
fSplitDistanceMult=1.000
If you are ticking 'Ultra' in DynDOLOD, you are disabling traditional billboard tree LOD, which effectively is also done by setting fTreeLoadDistance=0. So it becomes a meaningless setting and can be set to zero when generating trees with object *.bto meshes. If you use traditional and don't tick 'Ultra' then this setting determines how far to render the traditional billboards.
Ultra sets trees to be rendered with object LOD (whether billboards or 'Level#' settings are used in the mesh rules, they are still rendered on the atlas within 'super' meshes along with other objects in object LOD ... Level# copies the 3D model, while billboard uses a 2 or 4-sided 'X' simplified model with the entire tree billboard diffuse and normals). Traditional, flat, single-sided billboards are used in traditional tree LOD using text coordinates to determine where a picture of the billboard texture is rendered and are not part of object LOD.
[Display]
https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/Guide:SkyrimPrefs_INI/Display#fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistancefMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=16896
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=16896
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=16896
[Trees]
uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=500
https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/Guide:SkyrimPrefs_INI/Display#fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance
https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/Guide:SkyrimPrefs_INI/Display#fTreesMidLODSwitchDist
... benchmark performance against more conservative settings using one of the preset values for each of these.
Linked are the LE settings, but SSE work the same way for these settings.
- Performance: LOD4/Billboard4, LOD8/Billboard4, LOD16/Billboard?(1) (looks VERY good and may be optimal for many)
Which seems to work equally great and my game feels smoother than ever! Haven't noticed any tree pop-ins either! Cheers!By the sound of it, this could be an artifact of having a flat trunk. Certain lighting and time of day can make the flat trunks more apparent when using specific ENB settings. This could also happen if your TexGen lighting settings are too high in the 'Render' option.
Only guessing though, since we can't see what you are seeing and whether it's in LOD4/8/16 (and your LOD level distance settings)
The texgen settings I'm using are the standard ones I've always used when doing 3d tree LODs for myrkvior, haven't encountered this issue before.
I comically forgot to take a screenie when it happened, and just reran dyndolod with my old settings and the standard myrkvior LODs, and it seems to be working fine. I can't notice a difference in performance before (with this mod) and after (standard 3d LODs from Myrk) so I'm probably just gonna stick with the standard myrk 3d tree LODs for now.
Thanks for your help with this - may just be something that's not noticeable with more muted/standard ENB direct lighting settings, but doesn't work well with my ENB (which is a custom fork I made that I'm not gonna give up anytime soon lol).
Thanks for your help w this, curious to see if it's just me (in which case I'd imagine it's the ENB settings).
Performance gain is small from this mod compared to original LOD models. Just a few FPS and varies by PC and location. I would use this version if you need to squeeze our extra frames in particular locations (marsh, Rift)