TexGen and DynDoLod Settings

[Corinze]

I have a question about TexGen setting. I’ve done so much reading and have started playing with settings but I’m still a little confused on two things.

1) TexGen down the bottom the Diffuse and Specular settings. What is the difference between BC7 Quick and BC7 Max, and the other few settings? I found the BC7 Max is a better file format, but not knowing what it is or what is does, is not much of a help.

2) DynDoLod – Once osculation.esp is generated do I need to keep that checked? Or can I uncheck it and use the one loaded in game? Does it effect with making HD, QHD and 4K files?

What I do know, using my vast 30+ years on construction experience, I ran to google, texgen/dyndoload settings, images and found a pretty picture to follow. Using BC7 Max at 1024 and running Dyn with osculation with QHD settings, I ended up with a 17G file that took 12 HRs to generate. In game everything looked fantastic, I mean WOW, but getting off my horse to scan the sky to find the moons with a 0 to 3 fps, was a little rough. I bet if I could find the moons they would have grass and trees on them – lol.

I know I just need 512 setting with TexGen, but still need a little help with the 2 questions. Thanks

[SgtScum]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Corinze:

I hear ya Sgt. I’ve always been keen on game play over visuals. Sure, the screen archers and videos of super vids of gorgeous toons walking around in a pristine paradise are great. They are not playing Skyrim, they are modeling Sims. Let’s see them play with mods like Immersive Patrols heavy, fighting 32 soldiers at a time in the Reach as a werewolf and have the kill cam go off all the time as you eat them.

Oh I did both which is why there are 100+ mods. Every reasonable graphic improvement mod along with ordinator and apocalypse. On the kill it with fire side there is the wildcat combat overhaul and obis set to have a ~minimum~ of 10 extra bandits per area along with extra monsters for the overland. Then the diverse dragons mod and a drauger buff mod that adds in more of them per dungeon they already infest along with super drauger and on top of all that is an extra bandits mod that tosses in reiklings into the typical bandit numbers.

Yeah I got more than enough to kill. Hell just getting from place to place by walking can be a fight for my life.

[Ozymandias]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από bLaCkShAd0w:

Did you generate 8K LOD's lol?

Mine is 900MB compressed and about 1.5gb uncompressed. Seasonal with maybe half a dozen moded worldspaces added.

It's quiet close to the default high settings, actually. As for mods, I have the 4 Cities of the North and The Great Towns/Villages for smaller settlements, so at least they don't conflict. The other capitals are untouched, other than the textures. But I also have the dozen or so new settlements by Schlitzohr, Ryn's mods, new bridges, maybe a dozen player homes but not the castle type...

Not much else that would require dyndolod to work harder. Well ok, Majestic mountains, Helgen Reborn, and probably a couple others. I've already mentioned the grass cache, but of course I use a grass mod, and a tree mod. Speaking of which, I expect trees are a big variable, whether it's ultra or the other option, and if you change the rule for the 4 levels of LOD.

[Ilja]

Okay. Let's see that this is done properly.
xLODGen for ground textures. Do not create Occlusion.esp with it.
TexGen for textures
DynDOLOD for LODs.

Which version of DynDOLOD you are using? I am using DynDOLOD 3 Alpha, which runs far faster and does a great job.

[Ozymandias]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Ilja:

Okay. Let's see that this is done properly.
xLODGen for ground textures. Do not create Occlusion.esp with it.
TexGen for textures
DynDOLOD for LODs.

Which version of DynDOLOD you are using? I am using DynDOLOD 3 Alpha, which runs far faster and does a great job.

Same here. DynDOLOD 3 has had a couple updates since the last time I've used it, but it shouldn't matter much. I don't have it installed on my current incomplete mod list, so I can't check what exact settings I've been using, but I mostly followed the STEP guide (only for the LOD generation), any difference would be using lower settings such as grass density.

[Corinze]

Ok I have to say my game looks fantastic. If I was not so heaven bent about walking through grass fields from Dawnstar to Solitude and looking at pretty flowers during the summer, I'd probably leave things along. But. Playing around I finally noticed I don't have these commands, so I don't have seasonal grass

4. Make sure you rename all .cgid generate by NGIO for each seasons as described here, https://dyndolod.info/Help/Seasons, under "Grass and Grass LOD". You may use the powershell command
"$sum = '.SUM'
Dir | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.basename+$sum+$_.extension}" Without quotes, where "$sum = '.SUM' must be changed for each season accordingly, i.e.
"$sum = '.WIN'
"$sum = '.AUT'
"$sum = '.SPR'
As described here: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/uwxg7d/comment/ib31w1y/

I used the mod No Grass In Objects to create my grass cache file, but that was a massive single file. I am using TexGen and DynDOLOD 3 Alpha.

I'm back to square one, rolled back to 1.5.97 and now have xLODGen. I'm following the Seasons of Skyrim guide to the T, even going to use their tree and grass mods. The only good news is at least I know what I'm doing with Tex and Dyn now. xLod seems simple enough already renamed it so it finds my game. Hopefully file sizes will be smaller and generate quicker, like you guys said.

[bLaCkShAd0w]

Just to clarify, for seasonal grass cache, in 1.5.97, NGIO needs to be run 5 times total with PO3's seasons of skyrim forced to default, spr, sum, aut, win. Then the cgid's need to be renamed to match each season. Switching back to 1.6.640 with your seasonal grass cache installed, you then run xLodgen (run multiple times for each season if you have issues running all at once), then Texgen, then DynDoLOD with seasons and grass enabled.

Its a long process and needs to be redone if you modify things so its best to have your load order nailed down before you start generating things.

The 1.5.97 LO used for NGIO should mimic the 1.6.640 LO as closely as possible. Especially for landscape, textures, worldspace additions or edits, new worlds or lands, grass, trees, foilage etc.

[Corinze]

( Over Sized Frown)

Thanks bS, I really appreciate the guidance.

NGIO is not even mentioned in the Season Guide. It starts with xLODgen, but it seems to be doing the same thing( I think the landacpe mod has seasons built already?). First try took 45 minutes but I had the file path wrong, with Vortex, so I'm running it again, since the data did not go anywhere. O course the guide is for MO2, so I'm improvising.

I'll have to look into PO3 again, I guess the one guide I followed for NGIO/PO3 was not for seasons of skyrim and just grass lod.

To be honest, at this rate I could go into the CK and replace all the snow and winter/ regional weather faster than what I have accomplished. I don't even like the grass with Seasonal Landscape, but it's a starting point. At least I got my vehicles serviced, that was a accomplishment.

[SgtScum]

Eh I think I might try this but if I do it will be on a cloned copy of the game. Not risking screwing up my current build since its working nicely.

[bLaCkShAd0w]

Yep thats a good idea, also what I do. Just in case something doesn't work out it's always nice to have a backup.

[Corinze]

All I can say Sgt, is good luck, hopefully you make out better and faster than me. lol

I got seasons, winter in Riverwood and sort of summer in Dawnstar, docks and building are without snow but it was snowing. I'll have to look how weather mods are treated, I use Solas and that ENB weather mod loves snow. I was a little underwhelmed :( but really don't like the trees or grass that Season recommends. I'm wondering if I can make just a summer season with my preferred tree and grass mod.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2925112140

[bLaCkShAd0w]

Some links for anyone who needs them.

https://dyndolod.info/

https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/SkyrimSE:2.2.0#STEP_5

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2789657603

[Corinze]

black Shadow a question about this part.

" you then run xLodgen (run multiple times for each season if you have issues running all at once"

So I can check all 5 seasons with xLODGen?
but
If I want full manual control of the seasons, I need to do each separately?

If I do them separately, naming like "xLODgen_Output_SUM" "xLODgen_Output_SPR" works or the name does not matter as long as I know what they are?
When installing, I would use the xLODgen_Output with all five seasons (default,win,spr,sum,aut), and the individual seasons left (disabled/ not active) for manually setting to a specific season later, along with my grass cache files?

You can tell, I'm a little confused here. Good news is xLODgen runs quick, maybe 15 minutes. Worse case is I can experiment a little quicker. My combined grass cache folder is like almost 18 GIGs. That was an all day affair yesterday, I don't really want to remake those, now that I'm back on 1.6.640 - lol.

[bLaCkShAd0w]

The reason for running it multiple times is to prevent out of memory errors from xLodGen, I was only able to do def,spr,sum and had to run it a second time for aut,win.

Once you have all 5 generated, you combine them into a single "xLodGen output". I guess you could install each season output seperately but I like it all merged into one file, easier to replace when you run it later for any reason.

You can leave these installed throughout the rest of the process, to force a specific season, go to SkyrimSpecialEdition/data/SKSE/Plugins and edit the PO3_SeasonsOfSkyrim.ini

The first group of settings is to manually force a season.
1= win
2= spr
3=sum
4=aut
5= seasonal (default)

You need to have forced each season and run NGIO 5 times as well for your seasonal grass cache, hopefully you did that part correctly, as you have switched back to 1.6.640.

For xLodGen you can just leave the PO3.ini set at 5 for seasonal. It is only forced for NGIO or for when you manually want to change in game.

End results:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2925682855
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2925682705
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2925682750
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2925682797

I disabled some grass for winter thinking it would look more realistic, but I am second guessing that choice and may re-run everything to change that.

[Corinze]

Ok 10-4 thanks again bS.

I'm on the correct path then, I might have a working version tonight or tomorrow then, if I do low quality for testing purposes. Then I'll go back and do a full one season breakdown and higher resolution models, once I see the whole file path layout working.

Without your notes, I never would have gotten this going since the guides are meant to stay on older versions of the game I read on the Dyn page everything is in the testing stage, that explains the lack of a detailed youtube video.

[Corinze]

I still have to re-run DyndoLod, I only ran a 1024/medium setting for testing, but I still have plenty under the hood.

Apparently I had this working yesterday but this mod (Seasons of Skyrim - Swap Randomly) https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/82559
is not the best thing to have enabled when trying to manually force seasons. lol

Only took less than an hour finding it today, after checking every single file path for this

blackShadow I really owe you a few rounds of mead.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2926546827

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2926546814