Visible When Distant Tutorial
Many of you will have seen this checkbox, checked it, but found it to be completely useless, because when you walk away from whatever it is in the game, you can clearly see that it is not at all visible. I made this tutorial after reading a forum post and seeing an online video - neither of which exist any longer. It's more of an explanation than a tutorial, but nevermind.
The good thing about the gamebryo engine that Oblivion uses is that it does a lot of things automatically. For example, when texturing a mesh, you do not have to apply normal maps and glow maps to it. Instead, you have your default texture called MyTexture.dds, and then you place a normal map called MyTexture_n.dds and the game will automatically use it as a normal map for whatever uses MyTexture.dds.
The same thing works for distant but visible meshes. All you do is make your mesh, let's call it MyMesh.nif, and then you have a seperate distant mesh called MyMesh_far.nif. This mesh can either be the same, or a more basic version (recommended). When you check the box in the picture above, the game will automatically seek out this _far.nif and display it when you are far away. It's as simple as that! This is how you can see the White Gold Tower from all over Cyrodiil. It's also worth noting that the _far.nif doesn't need any collision, because you can't get close enough to collide with it.
I hope this helps many people, because I know a lot of people including myself have wondered why that checkbox didn't do anything.
Note: If you have tried this and it still isn't working quite right, try going to World->World Testing->Update Distant LOD. Thanks to dung_beetle for pointing that out.
Another note: If it still doesn't work, try TES4qLOD program, which should generate all VWD objects without any crashes. Using special options, it can also generate all distant objects, even when those objects are not flagged as VWD. However remember that each of those objects, except standard "ModelName.nif" file, must have a "ModelName_far.nif" in the same "data\meshes\..." directory, otherwise it will not be visible in the game from distant. Note that many vanilla objects, even buildings, do not have a "_far" model, and in these cases you should make simplified "_far" nif versions.