Load/Overwrite Orders

The load order of mods and plugins determines which assets and plugins win conflicts.

Unambiguous terms are loading before or after, lower or higher priority, something overwrites something else. Something loading after replaces something loading before it. Something having a higher priority means it loads after something with lower priority. Something overwriting something else is the most clear expression to convey what is winning a conflict.

Ambiguous terms like top or bottom are always confusing and became meaningless with mod managers that allow sorting of lists by ascending or descending by different options. These ambiguous terms should never be used by anyone, especially guides and explanations.

Before Generation

TexGen generates object LOD textures and tree/grass LOD billboards from full models and full textures. Any existing LOD assets do not matter. What matters is previously generated TexGen output, which should be removed before running TexGen again. A warning message will notify the user if that is the case.

In order to generate LOD with DynDOLOD, several different resources are used. Lets separate the several resources and what they result in:

  • Tree/Grass LOD Billboards -> generated tree LOD or object LOD meshes and generated tree LOD or object LOD atlas textures
  • Object LOD models or full models -> generated object LOD meshes
  • Object LOD textures or full textures -> generated object LOD atlas textures

Since TexGen should be used to create all tree/grass LOD billboards there shouldn't be any billboards installed from mods. In case there are, they are typically overwritten by the TexGen output.

Object LOD models and textures included in DynDOLOD Resources need to overwrite any vanilla object LOD models. New lands mods often add the same vanilla LOD assets again for no apparent reason, but nevertheless, DynDOLOD Resources also need to overwrite them. This more or less happens automatically since the loose files in DynDOLOD Resource or the generated meshes and texture files overwrite any assets in BSAs.

If and only if a mod makes a specific note about its own LOD assets needing to overwrite DynDOLOD Resources, they need to be loose files and the mods instructions should be followed. Be aware though about outdated mods not specifically mentioning DynDOLOD 3 or newer versions. Pay attention to Textures do not match warning messages in the log while DynDOLOD is processing base records. If there are visual issues, remove the outdated 3rd party assets to test if the issue goes away. Ask questions or report issues on the official DynDOLOD support forum.

DynDOLOD Resources also contains a few updated full models and textures to fix various minor issues. They should overwrite unofficial patches and Skyrim particle patch for ENB - their changes are carried forward or improved. Typically they should be overwritten by other mods - sometimes at the expense of LOD maybe not matching as well anymore. This depends on user preference.

TexGen output needs to overwrite DynDOLOD Resources and also any other assets from other mods.

When the plugins are generated, records from the last plugin that is the winning overwrite are copied to create the DynDOLOD plugins and Occlusion.esp. Sort and finalize the load order before generating the LOD patch. If any other plugins are added later consider to generate new output from scratch again.

When updating, the existing DynDOLOD plugins need to load after any other plugins of the same type (e.g. DynDOLOD.esm after the highest priority ESM, DynDOLOD.esp with the highest priority possible). In case Occlusion.esp is to be updated as well, it needs to load after DynDOLOD.esp.

After Generation

Generated output should always overwrite everything else.

The generated plugins typically can be sorted by LOOT or manually if you know what you are doing. Occlusion.esp - if it was generated - should load after DynDOLOD.esp, both should be the last plugins after LOD generation. If a DynDOLOD.esm was generated it should be the ESM with the highest priority possible or just before the first non-ESM.

When the plugins are generated, records from the last plugin that is the winning overwrite are copied to create the DynDOLOD plugins and Occlusion.esp. Sort and finalize the load order before generating the LOD patch. If any other plugins are added later consider to generate new output from scratch again.

In case new LOD generation is not needed or wanted, it is also possible to use xEdit to manually patch the new conflicting records in the DynDOLOD plugins (or whatever plugin is the last to overwrite a record that requires the forwarding) or sort the plugin to load after the DynDOLOD plugins.

Generated meshes and textures should always overwrite everything in the order it was generated.

Do not disable any LOD assets (meshes and textures) after generation. In particular do not disable DynDOLOD Resources or the TexGen output.