Difference between revisions of "Landscape LOD Tutorial"
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So go ahead and work on your heightmap. When you are happy with your landscape, save it in the heightmap editor but don't save the esp file yet. | So go ahead and work on your heightmap. When you are happy with your landscape, save it in the heightmap editor but don't save the esp file yet. | ||
=== | ===Fixing Mesh Errors=== | ||
This section is for those who just now created a new landscape and have not yet saved it even for the first time. If you have a well established mod that has been saved and re-opened successfully in the Construction Set at least once, then you can skip this section. | |||
This | |||
Here's where the going gets a bit rough. The lanscape you just created probably has some errors. These errors show up as "rips" in the landscape mesh which wouldn't be all that dramatic, but when the CS saves your esp, it can not save cells with such errors in them. Which means, when you reload a plugin with such a faulty cell, those cells will be gone, they will be gaping holes dropping down to 0 elevation. Therefore we need to fix these rips before we save our plugin. These rips occur most frequently around cell 0,0 and other corners where four quads meet, if you have more than four. | Here's where the going gets a bit rough. The lanscape you just created probably has some errors. These errors show up as "rips" in the landscape mesh which wouldn't be all that dramatic, but when the CS saves your esp, it can not save cells with such errors in them. Which means, when you reload a plugin with such a faulty cell, those cells will be gone, they will be gaping holes dropping down to 0 elevation. Therefore we need to fix these rips before we save our plugin. These rips occur most frequently around cell 0,0 and other corners where four quads meet, if you have more than four. | ||
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Once you have fixed all of those save the esp. If you still get errors about cells that are missing data, make a note of which cells they are (do not hit "yes to all"), fix them as described, and then save again. Repeat this process until you get no errors. | Once you have fixed all of those save the esp. If you still get errors about cells that are missing data, make a note of which cells they are (do not hit "yes to all"), fix them as described, and then save again. Repeat this process until you get no errors. | ||
===Creating the LOD mesh=== | |||
In the heightmap editor window, go to the '''File''' menu and select '''Generate LOD'''. There are two LOD generation options, which vary only in generation speed and accuracy. They are Quick Prototype and Full and are less accurate but faster, and more accurate but slower, respectively. Depending on the speed of your computer, generating the LOD meshes can take a long time (on my AMD 4400+ dual core it takes ca 20 minutes) . Be patient, your computer has most likely NOT frozen, although it may look like that! | |||
This step creates the actual model for the distant terrain, which is stored as a .nif file just as any other 3D object in the game. It also generates the normal maps for the terrain. These are saved as .DDS format files, with an _FN suffix in the file name and will be saved in \data\textures\landscapelod\generated\. | |||
==Creating LOD diffuse maps== | ==Creating LOD diffuse maps== | ||