Fixing Distant Terrain Mesh Pop-In and Flickering Trees via xLODGen and TexGen Billboards

Level of Detail (LOD) Pipeline Failure Matrix

In open-world game modding (Creation Engine titles such as Skyrim SE and Fallout 4), distant terrain, trees, and architecture rely on pre-baked Level of Detail (LOD) mesh and texture atlases. When players install modern flora and landscape overhauls without rebuilding LOD datasets, the engine attempts to blend modern 4K meshes against vanilla low-polygon billboard textures, resulting in jarring seam borders, flickering mountains, and abrupt pop-in.

Step 1: Generating Custom Billboards with TexGen

TexGen processes your active mod list to extract accurate diffuse and normal textures, producing customized 2D tree billboards matching your installed mod assets.

1. Launch TexGen.exe through your mod manager (Mod Organizer 2 or Vortex) to ensure virtual file system access.
2. Select your target resolution presets:
   • Tree Billboards: 512 or 1024 (1024 provides crisp silhouette foliage on 1440p/4K displays).
   • HD Trees: Enabled if using 3D tree LOD mods.
   • Textures: Select BC7 block compression for modern DirectX 11/12 compatibility.
3. Click Start and wait for compilation to finalize.
4. Package the resulting output folder into a new mod titled TexGen Output and place it below all texture mods in your load order.

Step 2: Generating Seamless Distant Landscape with xLODGen

To eliminate jagged terrain edges and mismatched landscape elevations:

1. Add xLODGen.exe to Mod Organizer 2 executables with argument:

-o:"C:\Modding\xLODGenOutput"

2. Launch xLODGen, select all worldspaces (Tamriel, DLCs, New Lands).
3. Configure Terrain LOD Settings:
   • LOD4 (Near distance): Quality 10, Bake Normal Maps BC7.
   • LOD8 (Mid distance): Quality 15, Protect borders enabled.
   • LOD16 (Horizon): Quality 20.
   • LOD32 (Far mountains): Quality 25.
4. Click Generate to calculate terrain geometry. This process requires 20 to 45 minutes depending on CPU thread count.
5. Zip the output directory and activate it as xLODGen Terrain Output.

Step 3: DynDOLOD Final Assembly and Load Order Anchoring

To tie terrain, trees, and buildings into an integrated visual horizon:

1. Ensure the load order sequence is strictly maintained:
   • High-Res Texture Mods
   • TexGen Output
   • xLODGen Terrain Output
   • DynDOLOD Resources
   • DynDOLOD Output
2. Launch DynDOLOD.exe, select High preset.
3. Verify that Tree LOD uses the newly created billboards from TexGen.
4. Run generation, export the mod archive, and activate DynDOLOD Output and DynDOLOD.esm/.esp at the very bottom of your plugin load order.