01-25-2007, 10:35 PM
Thought I'd start a new thread.
I've managed to generate the LOD for the 2x Vvardenfell landmass (screenshots).
For those that are testing the landscape, you can download the LOD files.
Just copy the contents of the Data folder to your Oblivion game directory (there'll already be a Data directory there obviously). Then go in to the Oblivion\Data\Textures\LandscapeLOD\Generated folder and double-click on the 'VVD-2xGen.bat' batch file; this just creates multiple identical copies of the basic texture file for all 36 quads, it saves me having to distribute an extra 50Mb of duplicated textures.
LOD doesn't appear when you visit the Vvardenfell worldspace unless Vvardenfell2x-LW2.esp is loaded as your first mod. This is a game bug (I don't think anyone has a work-around yet). Alternatively just unload all other mods solely for the purpose of this testing.
The CS, being the buggy tool it is, seems to produce some join problems along the meshes (each mesh is 32x32 OB cells - i.e. one 'quad' in size), the most notable problem shows up along the Balmora river. There are fixes somewhere for this, but I have to research them, I might ask on the main forums. The LODs can be reproduced at any time, they don't take too long (maybe 20-30 mins for all the quads).
The texture generation was also rubbish in the CS, half the texture was jet-black, a known bug mentioned in the Wiki. Since the entire landscape is just one texture at the moment, I manually generated the texture from the working half and write a batch file to duplicate them for all the other quads. This saved about 2-3 hours of pointlessly clicking in all 36 quads just to produce identical files.
Like the MGE distant land generator for Morrowind, visiting the land with LOD is an entirely different experience. Sometimes it looks awesome. Sometimes Vvardenfell just looks plain weird. It will of course look a lot nicer with other textures on the landscape, the grass I used looked almost like sand from a distance. If someone has a better texture they'd like me to apply, just tell me the name of it (the dds name from the landscape editor window).
LOD takes away some of the mystery of Vvardenfell, which is a mixed blessing, but it'll help provide a good perspective on how much land there is to fill and how one might go about carving sections up.
Lightwave
I've managed to generate the LOD for the 2x Vvardenfell landmass (screenshots).
For those that are testing the landscape, you can download the LOD files.
Just copy the contents of the Data folder to your Oblivion game directory (there'll already be a Data directory there obviously). Then go in to the Oblivion\Data\Textures\LandscapeLOD\Generated folder and double-click on the 'VVD-2xGen.bat' batch file; this just creates multiple identical copies of the basic texture file for all 36 quads, it saves me having to distribute an extra 50Mb of duplicated textures.
LOD doesn't appear when you visit the Vvardenfell worldspace unless Vvardenfell2x-LW2.esp is loaded as your first mod. This is a game bug (I don't think anyone has a work-around yet). Alternatively just unload all other mods solely for the purpose of this testing.
The CS, being the buggy tool it is, seems to produce some join problems along the meshes (each mesh is 32x32 OB cells - i.e. one 'quad' in size), the most notable problem shows up along the Balmora river. There are fixes somewhere for this, but I have to research them, I might ask on the main forums. The LODs can be reproduced at any time, they don't take too long (maybe 20-30 mins for all the quads).
The texture generation was also rubbish in the CS, half the texture was jet-black, a known bug mentioned in the Wiki. Since the entire landscape is just one texture at the moment, I manually generated the texture from the working half and write a batch file to duplicate them for all the other quads. This saved about 2-3 hours of pointlessly clicking in all 36 quads just to produce identical files.
Like the MGE distant land generator for Morrowind, visiting the land with LOD is an entirely different experience. Sometimes it looks awesome. Sometimes Vvardenfell just looks plain weird. It will of course look a lot nicer with other textures on the landscape, the grass I used looked almost like sand from a distance. If someone has a better texture they'd like me to apply, just tell me the name of it (the dds name from the landscape editor window).
LOD takes away some of the mystery of Vvardenfell, which is a mixed blessing, but it'll help provide a good perspective on how much land there is to fill and how one might go about carving sections up.
Lightwave