The Exterior of Dumac

[Razorwing]

Actually I wouldn't recommend setting them to be vwd because it hurts the FPS more than I thought initially. The best way to mitigate the effect of rocks popping out of nowhere is to shield them from view, by either hiding them behind landscape or by placing trees in front of them. By the first method I mean making the landscape more hilly (hiding the rocks behind the hills) or making inclines.

[Seniosh]

Hmm, that presents a slight problem, because in the traditional West Gash, and as you can see in the screenshots, the rocks are placed exclusively on hills, meaning you can almost always see them. one thing i could do is make only the first ridge VWD, as it will hide the 2nd and 3rd ridges, at least until the player gets close enough to see them.

It also depends on the individual player's graphics options, such as the "object distance" slider.

I'll test it out, and see if i can get away with only having 1 ridge be VWD. VWD does use the _far models correct? If not, then how do i get those to appear?

[sandor]

Originally posted by Seniosh


I'll test it out, and see if I can get away with only having 1 ridge be VWD. VWD does use the _far models correct? If not, then how do I get those to appear?

They have to be made (_far nifs).

For testing you could use the Jerral rocks (screenshot).
Use search and replace.

You have to update the DistantLOD after you're done.

I doubt one ridge will have the desired impact (lower FPS) because you need many more VWD objects.

[Seniosh]

The rocks i'm using are retextured west gash rocks, and as such, all of them have _far nifs.

So i have to update the distantLOD to get the _far models to appear? That's the info i was looking for. Course i'm not quite sure how one updates the distantLOD, but i'm assuming it'll be quite easy to find once i actually poke around for it in the CS

[sandor]

Originally posted by Seniosh
The rocks i'm using are retextured west gash rocks, and as such, all of them have _far nifs.

Ok, then it's easy to test the VWD.

Originally posted by Seniosh

So I have to update the distantLOD to get the _far models to appear? That's the info I was looking for. Course i'm not quite sure how one updates the distantLOD, but i'm assuming it'll be quite easy to find once I actually poke around for it in the CS

Look under World>>WorldTesting>> Update Distant LODdata.

[InsanitySorrow]

Lookin good, you could always edit the meshes to use less polys, this was done with another mod, if I recall the name, Ahh yes Poly be gone mod, it changed the poly count of the most used rocks and this had a significant impact on FPS, i got more FPS in the wilds than before. So maybe someone, like Razorwing could edit them for you, that way you would not have to worry as much about FPS.

[Seniosh]

Ok. I've basically finished the landscaping for Dumac, and now i want to make just the first ridge of rocks VWD, cause they'll hide the other ridges, and nobody will notice when the meshes all pop into place.

So sandor said i need to go into World>Worldtesting>UpdateDistantLOD data To do this, i apparently have to export LOD settings for an entire worldspace at a time, in this case, SilgradTowerLand. There are three checkboxes i can enable, LOD trees, LOD Cities, and LOD landscapes.

Which of them should i check and update? This is for all of SilgradTowerLand i assume. Or should i just wait and have Sandor do it when the file is merged?

And how could i forget screenshots? Here's 3 quick ones, and the ESP for anyone who wants to test it out. Distant LOD has not been updated. To get there, type into the console "player.cow SilgradTowerLand 44 -17" (without quotes, obviously) (i think that's the proper console command) To properly view the landscape, you will need Phitt's Dwemer assets, but you can still get a feel for the awesomeness without them (a lot of the stuff is RideWithTheWind's anyways)

[sandor]

Originally posted by Seniosh
Which of them should I check and update? This is for all of SilgradTowerLand I assume. Or should I just wait and have Sandor do it when the file is merged?

Check all three of the options, you could generate the Distant LOD for private use (ST land). I'll update the Distant LOD after the merge and send the files to Razorwing.

For the console:
cow SilgradTowerLand 44,-17 or cow "SilgradTowerLand" 44,-17 will both work.

Should I merge the file?

Nice screenshots.

[Seniosh]

Do you have a copy of the Dumac rocks i made for it? I forget if i ever submitted them. They're just retextured versions of the West Gash rocks we have, which look much closer to the originals from TES3. If you have them, and the textures, then merge it. If not, i'll see if i can get some kind of link to a filesite up.

[sandor]

Originally posted by Seniosh
Do you have a copy of the Dumac rocks I made for it? I forget if I ever submitted them.

No, the landscape textures are missing as well (screenshot).