"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass."

- Walt Whitman, 'Song of Myself'


WELCOME TO VELDT!

VELDT is a grass retexture mod.  It will turn the Wasteland into a wild and wooly expanse of prairie and meadow.  While working on BOREALIS I ended up only being able to use a handful of the many wonderful grass textures cooked up by other, more skilled digital botanical illustrators.  I set the extras to the side, with the intention to return to them later for a dedicated environmental overhaul all about grasses other herbaceous plants of open lands. 

This project is near and dear to my own heart- by profession these days I'm a nurseryman who specializes in native prairie species.  I've endeavored to make this version of the 'Wealth 'feel' like a real place- even though almost everything to do with this game is pure fantasy.  The mix of grasses and forbs, wildflowers and woody shrubs is meant to evoke real-world oldfields, eastern prairies, meads, savannas, and other grass-dominated ecosystems- even though the species on display here are from all over the place, some entirely imaginary.  Blame the radiation. 

This iteration of VELDT is designed to give the sense of late summer-early fall in the Northern Hemisphere.  Grasses have mostly gone to seed, while wildflowers are in full bloom.  Grasslands tend to be mostly, well, grass- but for the sake of visual interest I've increased the density of flowers in certain areas beyond what one would expect in wild nature.  The Commonwealth is a varied prairie, Nuka World is a lush wet meadow, Far Harbor features the sort of tough, weatherbeaten, windswept foliage you'd expect on a subarctic island with no trees, and the Glowing Sea is... you'll just have to adventure there and see for yourself.



SO WHAT DOES IT DO/NOT DO?

VELDT changes existing grass textures, adds new grasses, and changes their distribution throughout the game.  Different areas of the map have different ecosystems featuring different species.

VELDT does not touch any landscape textures.

VELDT does not alter trees in any way.

VELDT does not break precombines.

VELDT does not affect LODs.

VELDT is just grass.


BUT BUT BUT WHERE ARE ALL THE TREES?

Sure, you can use VELDT as a regular old grass mod, furrying up the gaps between awkwardly spaced pine trees, but you'd be missing out on the main event.  VELDT was designed to be used alongside the mod Barren Wasteland.  Barren Wasteland removes every stick of tree cover from the entire map- no more snags, logs, copses, groves, etc. anywhere (well, mostly anywhere).  Without an aggressive grass mod to cover all the newly barren ground, it all looks a little empty and gross.  See for yourself in the images section what it looks like with a nice hearty coat of VELDT.


OK YEAH WHATEVER HOW DO I MAKE IT WORK?

1. Download + install True Grass.  It is a hard requirement.  After it is installed, delete the True Grass .ini file.

2. Download + install VELDT

3. Make sure nothing is overwriting the VELDT files or the ESP, including any loose files

4. Add or modify these lines in your fallout4.ini:
[Grass]
iMinGrassSize = [pick a number between 30 and 70, lower numbers mean denser grass but lower FPS]
bAllowCreateGrass = 1
bAllowLoadGrass = 0
iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure = 32

5. (OPTIONAL) Install Barren Wasteland + its 'Remove Trees' plugin

6. (OPTIONAL) Install BOREALIS or BADLANDS or another landscape texture mod of your choice.

7. (OPTIONAL) Install the VELDT - NATURAL SELECTIONS pack and activate ONE of those ESPs at a time- they all require VELDT to be activated as well.

8. Double-check to make extra sure nothing is overwriting your VELDT files.

9. Take some pictures in-game and post them here.


F! A! Q!

What's up with the LODs?
Fallout 4 LODs are just the worst, aren't they?  You should really just make your own.  Learn all about it here. (And please don't pester me about LODs, this is a grass mod, not a LOD mod).

What other mods were used in the pictures?
Landscape textures are from BOREALIS or BADLANDS or Vivid.

Weather and skies are from a WIP update to NAC.

ENBs used are Film Workshop and another WIP update to PRC.

Deforestation courtesy of Barren Wasteland.

Clothing, armor, etc. are from all over the place- sources too numerous to list.

How bad is the FPS hit?
That depends entirely on your machine, how well you take care of it, what other flora mods you're using, and how many haphazardly scripted quests and 8K resolution combat bikinis you're running around with.

The textures themselves are mostly small, 512 to 1K, with a few extra-sharp flowers at 2K. Those shouldn't drain your framerate much, if at all.

The lower you set iMinGrassSize, the denser the grass and the slower your performance.  The opposite is true the higher/sparser you go.

Barren Wasteland gets rid of a ton of FPS-sucking trees, so expect substantial boosts on the open range.

Your mileage will almost certainly vary.


Will this be available on console?
If you make it, it will be.  Holler at me if you would like to perform the port yourself.

I have a question about Barren Wasteland.
Please read this first.  I'd really prefer it if you took your Barren Wasteland questions to the Barren Wasteland page.

I don't like it!  Make it how I want it!
No.

I love the concept, but could you just change this one thing?
No.  Make your own patch to meet your own individual aesthetic.



CREDITS

Many thanks to all of the generous modders and artists who have graciously allowed me to use their work in my mods.  A handful of the textures in VELDT are fully original, but the vast majority are wholly or in part the result of the imagination and work of other folks.  It's entirely possible that in the whirlwind of compiling and publishing I've unknowingly missed someone here.  If you recognize your own work in VELDT, please hit me up about it and I'll add your name to the credits.  If you really don't want to be a part of the VELDT project, please consider the benefits of the Cathedral approach to modding- but if you're still adamant about non-participation I'll remove and replace the offending files.  In no particular order, many thanks to:

Spiffyskytrooper
Silverfox600
T4gtr34um3r
Vurt
Pfuscher
Doodlezoid
Velanimus
L00ping
Winedave


Remember kids, if you like it, endorse it.


"A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven."

- Whitman, 'Song of Myself'