xLODGen - Terrain LOD beta 109 for FNV, FO3, FO4, FO4VR, TES5, SSE, TES5VR, ENDERAL, ENDERALSE

[sheson]

Hi all, just a small problem with flickering mountains...I have two mods to compare the problem, one done by someone else, one mine. On the first mod, LOD mountains nicely fade in when approached, on my mod they flicker in, the transition between lod and the actual model is abrupt and takes about 2 seconds. Anything I can look at? Known culprits? I'm on LE.

No concrete information.

 

xLODGen generates LOD meshes and textures with the installed assets. It does not change how the engine loads or unloads LOD. 

 

In case of object LOD, the engine always loads full models before disabling LOD. No INI settings or LOD meshes or textures can change that.

Edited December 7, 2020 by sheson

[Dammal19]

xLODGen for Skyrim SE is very inconsistent for me, sometimes when I create terrain LOD and load a save i get instant CTD once loading is done. Then I delete all terrain output and redo xLODGen, and the new textures and meshes work fine and cause no crashes. Sorry for the vague problem description, but any idea what might be causing this? It seems to create faulty meshes or textures occasionally. I am well aware that this might be on my end, but I don't see why it happens. I run xLODGen through MO2, the output goes into a dedicated output folder outside of Data.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Dammal19

[sheson]

xLODGen for Skyrim SE is very inconsistent for me, sometimes when I create terrain LOD and load a save i get instant CTD once loading is done. Then I delete all terrain output and redo xLODGen, and the new textures and meshes work fine and cause no crashes. Sorry for the vague problem description, but any idea what might be causing this? It seems to create faulty meshes or textures occasionally. I am well aware that this might be on my end, but I don't see why it happens. I run xLODGen through MO2, the output goes into a dedicated output folder outside of Data.

How do you know that the CTD is caused by meshes or textures generated by xLODGen?

 

Problems with meshes or textures are typically 100% repeatable. If the game works with the meshes and texture, then the generated meshes and textures are fine.

 

xLODGen does not create faulty meshes or textures occasionally. If it did, this thread would be full of reports.

 

Do proper troubleshooting. Find the cause of the crash in the log from .NetFramework. Problems with meshes/texture are typically very obvious in the log.

[Dammal19]

How do you know that the CTD is caused by meshes or textures generated by xLODGen?

 

Because I did nothing else than redoing terrain LOD before the crash. Loaded twice and instant CTD, unchecked xLODGen output, loaded fine again. I am very well aware that this is most likely on my end, because of the reason you brought up (this thread would be full of reports).

 

I am on a more or less minimal load order, I am creating a landscape+Grass overhaul for SSE, that's why I am very frequently recreating terrain LOD right now, to obtain LOD colors suiting the grass for all the regions. Most of the time xLODGen works fine and I can load my safe, but every couple of times the output seems to contain something causing CTD. I am really bad at interpreting crash logs but think its a texture (Textures\Terrain\Tamriel\Tamriel.8.56.16.DDS), according to this log...!?

 

 https://textuploader.com/1ebbp (crash log)

 

I should keep track of the xLODGen log and see which output makes it crash the next time. If i remember correctly, there is a an error now and then in the log saying "failed loading DDS [...]". Maybe this is related. The error is not in every xLODGen log, it is often completly free of errors. All I was wondering is how this can sometimes occur, sometimes not..? :( Is it possibly third-party software from me, like anti-virus, crap-ware, etc., that might interfere with your program? Maybe you have an idea since I have no clue how things work. I already added xLODGen to anti-virus exception. I do not wan't to upload crashing terrain LOD once the mod is done, and if it is just one LOD4 texture on an akward occasion, I would have a hard time validating its safe. I would have to run up and down whole Skyrim map :D

 

I appreciate your time to respond to single user issues, and thanks for all your hard work! 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Dammal19

[Dammal19]

Right now, I found the error in my last log: look here please https://ibb.co/T2bVctj

 

It just occurs once in the whole log. Can this be the culprit? What does it mean?

 

EDIT: I looked through the output and tamriel.4.-36.-48 is just missing from it. So that means thats another issue? I doubt missing texture could cause crash. I deleted the ouput that last made me crash unfortunately, next time i can see through all the textures and try to find if there is one that could cause a crash, by not having power of 2 pixels or something like that... as far as the btr files are concerned, i have no clue how to trouble shoot those unfortunately

Edited December 12, 2020 by Dammal19

[sheson]

Right now, I found the error in my last log: look here please https://ibb.co/T2bVctj

 

It just occurs once in the whole log. Can this be the culprit? What does it mean?

 

EDIT: I looked through the output and tamriel.4.-36.-48 is just missing from it. So that means thats another issue? I doubt missing texture could cause crash. I deleted the ouput that last made me crash unfortunately, next time i can see through all the textures and try to find if there is one that could cause a crash, by not having power of 2 pixels or something like that... as far as the btr files are concerned, i have no clue how to trouble shoot those unfortunately

Instead of posting screenshots of text, post the text to paste bin or upload logs to a file service.

 

The FAIL loading means, that the file dds file was not loaded by Texconv and thus not converted to the DXT1 compression format. If the file existed it would simply be still fully uncompressed R8G8B8.

 

If the file is missing and there was no error about saving it, then something like 3rd party antivir, crapware deleted it in the meantime.

 

Typically uncomprrsed R8G8B8 textures or missing textures do not cause CTD.

 

Unless you somehow tricked xLODGen to not use the texture resolution set in its options, it cannot possibly generate non power of 2 textures.

 

Why do you believe the meshes or textures are causing CTD? CTD caused by invalid meshes or texture are typically so reproducible that it can be narrowed down to single files with a binary search, or better yet by simply looking at the crash log.

Edited December 12, 2020 by sheson

[Dammal19]

No problem, I was just taking a shot if other users possibly had a similar issue in the past.

 

 

Why do you believe the meshes or textures are causing CTD? CTD caused by invalid meshes or texture are typically so reproducible that it can be narrowed down to single files with a binary search, or better yet by simply looking at the crash log.

As i said, because it only crashed once they were loaded, otherwise not. But you are right, I will try to narrow it down to the root with binary search the next time it occurs. I can post the result anyways once I figured it out, even if it is most likely on my end. Maybe it is helpful for you or others.

 

Regarding looking at the crash log (from NetScript Framework I assume), I am really bad at interpreting these, I know Skyrim very well from extensive modding, but I am more of a user in the end. Is there any way / guide on how to reliably interpret those?

 

Thank you!

[sheson]

No problem, I was just taking a shot if other users possibly had a similar issue in the past.

As i said, because it only crashed once they were loaded, otherwise not. But you are right, I will try to narrow it down to the root with binary search the next time it occurs. I can post the result anyways once I figured it out, even if it is most likely on my end. Maybe it is helpful for you or others.

 

Regarding looking at the crash log (from NetScript Framework I assume), I am really bad at interpreting these, I know Skyrim very well from extensive modding, but I am more of a user in the end. Is there any way / guide on how to reliably interpret those?

 

Thank you!

If you narrowed it down to a single file you can alays upload it for me to check what is wrong with it and what might have caused it.

 

To interpret crash logs programming experience and knowledge about the game data and assets is required. The relevant object and stacks and other will either hint strongly at NIFs bs mentioned NIF blocks, names etc if not outright naming the NIF or texture somewhere earlier when it was loaded. Just upload it as well.

[Dammal19]

If you narrowed it down to a single file you can alays upload it for me to check what is wrong with it and what might have caused it.

 

Hi Sheson,

 

Upon redoing terrain lod like 10 times, the crash occured again. I did a binary search and traced the CTD down to a single faulty DDS file (mega link). Loading the whole xLODGen terrain ouput without this file into my game does not result in a crash, this single file crashes every time.

 

Here are crash logs from the Netscript Framework in case they help you:

 

https://textuploader.com/1e3ub

https://textuploader.com/1e3u3

 

I already tried loading the DDS file in GIMP myself, I get this error: GIMP error. (sorry that it's german ^^)

 

I am very curious if you can find out if xLODGen creates this faulty file because something is wrong on my end, or if it is a weird rare bug. Because I am doing a landscape mod and don't wanna upload faulty stuff .. :( 

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me with this !!

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention: I am pretty sure there were no errors of any kind in the log after running xLODGen. I created 512 mb BC7 Max textures for all LOD levels (4,8,16,32). However, if i recall correctly, this problem also occured earlier when I used different texture formats (DXT1, 565), so it might not be a problem restricted to one format type

Edited December 14, 2020 by Dammal19

[sheson]

Hi Sheson,

 

Upon redoing terrain lod like 10 times, the crash occured again. I did a binary search and traced the CTD down to a single faulty DDS file (mega link). Loading the whole xLODGen terrain ouput without this file into my game does not result in a crash, this single file crashes every time.

 

Here are crash logs from the Netscript Framework in case they help you:

 

https://textuploader.com/1e3ub

https://textuploader.com/1e3u3

 

I already tried loading the DDS file in GIMP myself, I get this error: GIMP error. (sorry that it's german ^^)

 

I am very curious if you can find out if xLODGen creates this faulty file because something is wrong on my end, or if it is a weird rare bug. Because I am doing a landscape mod and don't wanna upload faulty stuff .. :( 

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me with this !!

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention: I am pretty sure there were no errors of any kind in the log after running xLODGen. I created 512 mb BC7 Max textures for all LOD levels (4,8,16,32). However, if i recall correctly, this problem also occured earlier when I used different texture formats (DXT1, 565), so it might not be a problem restricted to one format type

xLODGen exports textures uncompressed for the external Texconv tool to compress them.

 

Despite the texture having an issue, it does load in irfranview.

 

It is very unlikely for texconv not to print an error if it has a problem reading or writing a texture - which typically should be reported in the log. In that case, it seems more likely that the texture was corrupted afterwards. For example when outputting into game or mod manager folders, or if antivir checks the file afterwards.

 

Double check the log.

 

565 will not work in Windows 7.

 

Generate the same file without compression (specific chunk in xLODGen), then no Texconv will be invoked.

 

Then manually convert the texture with texconv to the desired format, see what happens.

Edited December 14, 2020 by sheson

[Dammal19]

I'm on Windows 10, I am aware certain formats make Windows 7 crash.

 

It is unfortunate that I think it is not always the same texture that gets corrupted (maybe most of the time no texture at all), it can be anyone. Crashlog from earlier listed different texture than this one causing the crash. Makes it hard to troubleshoot and try to convert manually as you suggested. :-(

 

I added more exceptions to my antivirus, I just had xLODGen.. now i also added Textconv and pretty much the whole folder where xLODGen stuff is located in. Also added administrative rights to everything. If you say it is on my end I believe you. 

 

If i can find out more or if this solves it I can report back, so others know this can be problem. I will also thoroughly check the logs now, so I can ascertain whether there is an error or not when I come across that crash again with a new xLODGen output.

 

Thank you

Edited December 14, 2020 by Dammal19

[Surjamte]

When I trying to generate terrain lod for a small chunk, xLodgen seems to run just fine but it doesn't output any new meshes. It did output new textures.

 

xLodgen - Pastebin.com

This log is from my latest attempt through mod organizer. I also tried just running the xLodgen without MO with the same result. 

 

I'm trying to generate terrain lod for a small chunk outside Windhelm, Tamriel Wordspace. Edited the landscape too much so the shape doesn't match the lod (textures are fine). The plugin esp editing the landscape is in my data folder. 

 

I noticed in the log it said some options file was missing.

[00:06] [Tamriel] No options file found: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\data\xLODGen\Edit Scripts\SSELODGen_Skyrim_Tamriel_Options.txt

 

Sorry if it's something obvious I've missed, it's my first time using this. 

[sheson]

When I trying to generate terrain lod for a small chunk, xLodgen seems to run just fine but it doesn't output any new meshes. It did output new textures.

 

xLodgen - Pastebin.com

This log is from my latest attempt through mod organizer. I also tried just running the xLodgen without MO with the same result. 

 

I'm trying to generate terrain lod for a small chunk outside Windhelm, Tamriel Wordspace. Edited the landscape too much so the shape doesn't match the lod (textures are fine). The plugin esp editing the landscape is in my data folder. 

 

I noticed in the log it said some options file was missing.

[00:06] [Tamriel] No options file found: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\data\xLODGen\Edit Scripts\SSELODGen_Skyrim_Tamriel_Options.txt

 

Sorry if it's something obvious I've missed, it's my first time using this. 

Do not install xLODGen into any game folders. Do not install xLODGen or the game into Program Files x86.

 

The log shows Tamriel.8.32.8.btr was generated. If the file can not be found in c:\XLODGenOutput\meshes\terrain\Tamriel\ it was removed afterwards by something else.

[Surjamte]

Do not install xLODGen into any game folders. Do not install xLODGen or the game into Program Files x86.

 

The log shows Tamriel.8.32.8.btr was generated. If the file can not be found in c:\XLODGenOutput\meshes\terrain\Tamriel\ it was removed afterwards by something else.

Thanks for replying! Had installed two xLODGens for some reason and MO was set to use the wrong one. Moved game outside program files as well. 

 

The cells I've edited landscape in are mainly 31,8 and 32, 8 and 32,7. Imgur: The magic of the Internet

 

If use 32,8 for the specific chunk, it outputs a btr file. Worked fine ingame as well.

If use 31, 8 or 32,7 it doesn't output a btr.

 

Do you know what the cause might be? Tried different dimension 4, 8 etc.

 

 

This one worked. (32,8)

xLodgen worked - Pastebin.com

 

This is what it looks like with no output.

xLodgen no output - Pastebin.com

[sheson]

Thanks for replying! Had installed two xLODGens for some reason and MO was set to use the wrong one. Moved game outside program files as well. 

 

The cells I've edited landscape in are mainly 31,8 and 32, 8 and 32,7. Imgur: The magic of the Internet

 

If use 32,8 for the specific chunk, it outputs a btr file. Worked fine ingame as well.

If use 31, 8 or 32,7 it doesn't output a btr.

 

Do you know what the cause might be? Tried different dimension 4, 8 etc.

 

 

This one worked. (32,8)

xLodgen worked - Pastebin.com

 

This is what it looks like with no output.

xLodgen no output - Pastebin.com

The LOD level 4 means 4x4 = 16 cells are covered by it, 8x8 = 64 cells and so on. Only chunks for valid coordinates (the lower left cell - which are part of the filename) are generated, obviously. The LOD system of the game does load files that do not fall on the 4x4, 8x8, 16x16, 32x32 grid.

 

Cell 32,7 is covered by 32,4 for LOD level 4 or 32,0 for LOD level 8.

Edited December 23, 2020 by sheson