Distant lod's

[lordrahl]

I have generated dlod's for my worldspace, but i have a few very large rocks, (courtesy of Sachiel) that i want to view from far away. It seems if you get more than one cell away they disappear. how do i correct this. I might add that I scaled them up from thier original size. Here are a couple pics!

[Lady Nerevar]

you need to have a distant mesh wich is the same name as your rock but with the _far suffix (for example, rock01.nif and rock01_far.nif). then you need to mark the rock "visible when distant" in the CS and it will show the _far model when youre far away. idealy the _far model is a lower poly version of the real one, but it will work either way. just rightclick and copy the rock file in windows, then rename one of them with the _far suffix.

[lordrahl]

Thank you, I wasn't expecting it to be so simple! Thanks again!

lordrahl

[Sachiel]

To be honest, I was wondering the same just yesterday. Thanks to you two for asking and answering.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

It's good to see Sachiel getting some much deserved credit for his great work! Nice LODs :goodjob:

[SACarrow]

Sachiel: Some guidelines for making _far NIFs; admittedly from a guy that has only made a few:

• Don't be afraid to drastically optimize the poly count. At the distance that they will be see, just hinting at the basic shape will be enough.
  
• Textures and UV mapping are much simpler. If 1024x1024 texes are used, they can probably be simplified to 256x256 _far texes. Similarly, the UV maps do not need to be as intricate; again, at a distance only hints of the basic color scheme are visible anyway.
  
• No collision necessary.

The rest of the class should feel free to chime in with either additions or contradictions.

Steve

[Lady Nerevar]

i usually run a basic poly-reduce function a couple times, works like a charm. the only problem ive encountered is with vertex shading: if your model has a lot of shading or shading that is intricate part of it will be lost since youre loosing the vertexes it was attached too.

[lordrahl]

Sachiel, just wondering if you gave any thought to making any more sets of rocks. Your work is incredible! Do you have any other resources that you created?

lordrahl

[Sachiel]

Well yes, I've been thinking about creating some more. I haven't finished anything else by now, though. The first thing I wanna do next is to take a shot at some distant meshes taking into account SACarrow's and Lady Nerevar's tips.
Then there's still the unfinished stonehead for the black marshes that needs some finishing tweaks.

Concerning the current rock set, I was about to add an esp with some readymade rocks. I'm also thinking about including different texturings for those who aren't yet used to use Nifskope. Maybe add one bigger size version that has a fitting UV-layout as well so you dont walk above textures with gigantic pixelated grassblades.