Turn Normal Grass and Kelp into Groundcover at Morrowind Nexus

What this mod does
This mod uses one plugin (named “CONTENT”) to delete every individual grass and kelp in Morrowind.esm, and then a second plugin (named “GROUNDCOVER”) to put them all back in the same positions.

That lets you load the “GROUNDCOVER” plugins as grass mods, and the “CONTENT” plugins as normal mods, so that all of the original grasses and kelps appear in their usual places, but they are given a grass mod’s special handling by the engine.

That makes them more performance-friendly to render, and it enables fancy visual features like OpenMW’s grass stomping and swaying in the wind.

A second pair of plugins does the same thing for TR_Mainland.esm version 22.11. You can use just the Morrowind.esm plugins, or just the TR_Mainland plugins, or all of them at the same time.

How to install
1. If you have any mesh replacers which affect the vanilla grass and kelp (or Tamriel_Data/TR’s grasses and kelps), you have to duplicate their meshes into this mod’s \Meshes\grass\ folder. There is a list of affected files at the end of this readme.

2. If you are an OpenMW user and this is your first grass/groundcover mod, you will need to locate your settings.cfg file, open it in a text editor, find the [Groundcover] heading (or create it if it doesn’t exist), and add underneath it the line enabled = true (for more information about finding and using your settings.cfg, consult the OpenMW documentation).

3. Enable one or both GROUNDCOVER.esps as groundcover plugins:

• If you use OpenMW, this means editing your openmw.cfg file to include a line like groundcover=plugin-name-goes-here.esp for each GROUNDCOVER plugin which you want to use. Do not enable them in the OpenMW Launcher!!!
• If you use MGE XE, this means generating distant land with the GROUNDCOVER.esp(s) enabled. Do not leave them enabled when you launch the game!!!

4. Enable one or both CONTENT.esp(s) as normal plugins. Do not enable the GROUNDCOVER.esps as normal mods!

Is Tamriel Rebuilt required?
No, TR is not required. This mod has separate plugins for Morrowind.esm and for TR_Mainland.esm version 22.11. You can use either set of plugins by itself, or both sets at the same time.

Is it compatible?

• It works with both MGE XE and OpenMW.

• You don’t have to use the Vvardenfell plugins. If you have a landscape mod for vanilla Vvardenfell which works poorly with this mod, but you still want to use this mod for TR_Mainland, you can just enable the mainland plugins only.
• If you have any mesh replacers which affect the vanilla grass and kelp (or Tamriel_Data/TR’s grasses and kelps), you have to copy their meshes into this mod’s \Meshes\grass\ folder. There is a list of mesh files at the end of this description.
• This mod doesn’t contain any landscape records, so it is compatible with terrain edits in the sense that it won’t cause landscape tears. But

depending on how your other mods edit the landscape, it might result in floating or buried grass.

• This mod can’t affect any plants which were added by another mod, so those will remain ordinary non-groundcover statics. And it can’t keep track of whether another mod has moved one of the original plants, so those will be reverted to their original locations.
• It is “compatible” with both TOTSP and vanilla Bloodmoon because it doesn’t touch the island of Solstheim in any way. I have no plan to add support for any version of Solstheim.
• Lots of exterior cells are unaffected by this mod, so mods for those cells are definitely compatible. See the map below. This mod is especially compatible with mods for West Gash, Grazelands, and Vivec.

What about interior cells?
Grass mods don’t work in interior cells, so this mod doesn’t touch any of the grasses and kelps in interiors, including grottos. The only cells it affects are exterior cells with at least one grass or kelp, in Morrowind.esm and/or TR_Mainland.esm.

How did you make this?
I used Greatness7’s tes3conv tool to convert Morrowind.esm and TR_Mainland.esm into JSON text documents, then used find and replace in a text editor to delete everything in them except for cell references to specific static plant ids. I then made the “CONTENT” plugins by adding markup to turn all of the remaining references into deletion records.

Map of affected cells

List of affected meshes
If you have a mesh replacer for any of these files, you need to replace this mod’s version, in the Meshes\grass\ folder, with a copy of your mesh replacer’s version. This mod is obligated to include copies of these files in a designated \grass\ folder because MGE XE and OpenMW will only render groundcover objects if their meshes are in a subfolder with “grass” in its name.

flora_ash_grass_b_01.nif
flora_ash_grass_r_01.nif
flora_ash_grass_w_01.nif
flora_bc_fern_02.nif  <—— note that bc_fern_01 is NOT affected, because it’s a container plant
flora_bc_fern_03.nif
flora_bc_fern_04.nif
flora_bc_grass_01.nif
flora_bc_grass_02.nif
flora_bc_lilypad_01.nif
flora_bc_lilypad_02.nif
flora_bc_lilypad_03.nif
* Flora_BM_grass_01.nif
* Flora_BM_grass_02.nif
* Flora_BM_grass_03.nif
* Flora_BM_grass_04.nif
* Flora_BM_grass_05.nif
* Flora_BM_grass_06.nif
* flora_bm_shrub_01.nif
* flora_bm_shrub_02.nif
* flora_bm_shrub_03.nif
flora_grass_01.nif
flora_grass_02.nif
flora_grass_03.nif
flora_grass_04.nif
flora_grass_05.nif
flora_grass_06.nif
flora_grass_07.nif
flora_kelp_01.nif
flora_kelp_02.nif
flora_kelp_03.nif
flora_kelp_04.nif
in_cave_plant00.nif
in_cave_plant10.nif
* tr_f_fern01_db.nif
* tr_f_fern02_db.nif
* tr_flora_at_spartium01.nif
* tr_flora_at_spartium02.nif
* tr_flora_at_spartium03.nif
* tr_flora_thirrlily_01.nif
* tr_flora_thirrlily_02.nif
* tr_flora_thirrlily_03.nif

* = only needed for TR_Mainland