Difference between revisions of "World LOD"

World LOD (edit)

Revision as of 20:36, 22 October 2009

2,830 bytes added , 20:36, 22 October 2009

major rewrite for clarity and workflow

Anonymous user

imported>Truant

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 =='''Data Fields and Buttons'''==
 * '''Worldspace list:''' List of all Worldspaces.
-* '''Worldspace Stats:''' TBD
+* '''Worldspace Stats:''' Editor name, in-game name, form ID, number of LOD terrain chunks, number of cells.
 * '''Generate Terrain Meshes:''' Creates terrain meshes for the world from the local land geometry.
 * '''Generate Terrain Textures:''' Builds texture and normal maps for the LOD terrain, also from the local land.
 * '''Chop Terrain Texture:''' Allows you to instead build LOD terrain texture maps from a handpainted texture up to 8192x8192 in size.  It does not build normal maps.  (This might be changing - TBD)
-* '''Generate Objects:''' Creates LOD geometry and texture maps for all refs in the world that are marked visible distant.
+* '''Combine Generated and Handpainted Terrain Textures:'''
+* '''Generate Objects:''' Creates LOD geometry and texture maps for all refs in the world that are marked visible when distant.
+* '''Generate Trees:'''
 =='''Notes'''==
-* The mesh generation process increase in time with the amount of chunks of your worldspace. It takes only a few minutes up to 20 chunks, then it increases to around 30-60 min for 20-50 chunks and increases again to more than 5-6 hours above an amount of 50 chunks. For generate a entire Heightmap with 1360 chunks it will take around 2-3 weeks of generate non-stop.
+==='''Terrain Mesh Generation'''===
-*During the mesh generation process it could be that GECK seems to be crashed, this is only in some cases true, but mostly it still generates new meshes and only the process bar is frozen.
+* The time that it takes the GECK. to generate LOD meshes is directly related to the number of "chunks" that it has to generate, which depends on the number of cells in your world space. For a small world (up to about 20 chunks) it may only take a few minutes; for a larger world space (20-50 chunks), the time increases to around 30-60 min; a world space with more than 50 chunks generally takes several hours. To generate an entire heightmap created in the heightmap editor (circa 1360 chunks) it will take around 2-3 weeks of non-stop generation.
-* Currently, all of the functionality that creates textures creates source TGA textures that need to go through GECK build process to actually be visible in the game. When generate of landscape LOD textures is finished, you will find the generated DDS LOD textures outside your Fallout3 Game Directory in source\textures TGA\landscape\LOD\(Directory named as your worldspace)
+* During the mesh generation process, it may seem as though the GECK has crashed. In some cases, this is true; in most cases, it is still generating new meshes and only appears to be frozen. (You can check this in the task manager by observing whether or not the GECK is using any system resources. If it is, it is still working. In the case of a crash, it is not likely to be using any resources. The GECK will typically use up to 100% of your system resources to generate LOD meshes.) If the GECK crashes during LOD generation, simply reopen the GECK and start the process again. Any LOD meshes that were generated in the previous session will remain and the editor will continue to process from where it left off.
-*Source TGA textures for generate LOD-Objects dont extract automaticly out of your textures.bsa Archive. Open your textures.bsa archive and extract the required DDS textures for your LOD-Objects out of this Archive. Then convert those DDS textures into source TGA textures. Use a Programm like http://www.irfanview.de/ for it. Now copy those converted TGA textures into source\textures TGA\(now use the file structure of textures.bsa Archive here). Source\textures TGA\ is located outside your Fallout3 Game Directory.
-*For successful generate of LOD-Objects not only the required TGA textures are needed in the correct Path, but the required *_lod.nifs too. Open your meshes.bsa archive and extract the required *_lod.nifs out of your BSA-Archive into your Fallout 3 Data\Meshes Directory and use then the file structure of your meshes.bsa
+==='''Terrain Texture Generation'''===
-*The capital wasteland worldspace is located at a coordinate of around 10500z. You should always create a new worldspace far above this z coordinate, what means at a minimum of 3000z above 10500z. In other case you will get floating trees in the sky or above the ground when you change worldspaces.
+* Currently, all of the functionality that creates textures creates source TGA textures that need to go through the GECK build process to actually be visible in-game. When landscape LOD texture generation is complete, you will find the generated DDS LOD textures outside your Fallout3 game directory in Source\Textures TGA\landscape\LOD\(''directory named as your worldspace'').
-*Be aware when creating LOD for worldspaces with worldspace autowater that you will get in some cases big surface holes in the Water-LOD and it's not easy to fix them.
+* In order for the game to find your generated textures, you must copy this folder and place it in your Data\Textures\Landscape\LOD\ folder. You may delete the Diffuse folder and change the name of the DiffuseGenerated folder to Diffuse, or copy the files in the DiffuseGenerated folder to the Diffuse folder. (The game will look for the textures in the Diffuse folder but the GECK doesn't put them there by default.)
+==='''LOD Object Generation'''===
+* To generate LOD objects, you must provide the GECK with the necessary LOD meshes and textures.
+* LOD meshes are generally located in the same folder as the original mesh but end with "_lod.nif". If you have not already done so, you must extract these files from your meshes.bsa archive to locate them in the correct directory. (Generally speaking, only objects with their Visible When Distant flag checked will have LOD meshes.)
+* LOD textures can be determined in one of two ways: by opening the LOD mesh in NifSkope and expanding the NiTriStrips to find the BSShaderTextureSet (the textures will appear in the Block Details window beside the purple flower icons), or by running the Generate Object command and making note of the missing texture warnings that appear. (You will, of course, have to re-run the command to actually generate the objects once you have the textures in place.) You will need to extract both the diffuse and normal map textures and convert them to TGA format for the object generation process to work (see below).
+* All textures for LOD objects must be in the TGA format or the editor will not process them. To convert your DDS textures to TGAs, open them in an image editing program like [http://www.irfanview.de/ Irfanview]or the [http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ GIMP] and "save as" TGA. (Default settings appear to work for the GIMP.)
+* Your converted TGA textures must be placed in the Source\Textures TGA\ folder using the same folder structure that the game uses. For example, if your texture is in the Data\Textures\architecture\urban\ folder the TGA file must be located in the  Source\Textures TGA\architecture\urban directory. (The Source\Textures TGA\ directory is located outside your Fallout3 Game Directory in the main Bethesda Softworks directory.)
+* Once all of your textures have been extracted and converted, run the Generate Objects command. The editor will place the generated textures in your Source\Textures TGA\landscape\LOD\(''directory named as your worldspace'') directory. Copy the generated textures to the corresponding Data\Textures\Landscape\LOD\ folder. (If you do not remember to place your generated object textures here, objects will render in-game with purple textures.)
+==='''Additional Notes'''===
+*The capital wasteland worldspace is located at a coordinate of around 10500z. You should always create a new worldspace far above this z coordinate; that means at a minimum of 3000z above 10500z. Otherwise, you may get floating trees (LOD) in the sky or above the ground when you change worldspaces.
+*Be aware when creating LOD for worldspaces with worldspace autowater that you will sometimes get big surface holes in the water LOD and it's not easy to fix them.
 [[Category:World]]