Kelmych

The quick start portion of the DDSopt guide has a simplified version of the optimization process. It's still a little complicated, and you might prefer to wait until you have used Skyrim with some of the mods first. You can always do the optimization later.

We'll add a comment in the DDSopt guide reminding MO users to do this. It's mentioned in the Skyrim Revisited guide, but when we add some of the material in the SR guide to the MO guide we should probably add an extra warning there also.

The DDSopt guide has some small updates based on issues with how tint/tone maps were treated. An updated batch file for pre-optimization (sorting) of vanilla textures was added which now moves uncompressed tint/tone maps to the temporary folder that also has uncompressed normal maps. This allows the constraints tab recommended values to be consistent across vanilla and STEP mod textures since any uncompressed tint/tone maps are now optimized along with other uncompressed textures. The constraints tab value for tint/tone maps depends on whether the associated textures are compressed or uncompressed, so it was previously not possible to recommend a single tint/tone map constraints tab format. Now that ordinary textures are assumed to not include any uncompressed tint/tone maps, a single recommendation can be made. Note that even though there is a new batch file it is not necessary to rerun the vanilla texture optimization; the resulting optimized textures in "Vanilla Optimized" will be the same. The optimization results for vanilla textures are the same for the new and previous batch files. The change was made to support consistent parameter recommendations for STEP mods. Comments about the potential problems with collapsed textures with some mods (e.g., RaceMenu) on some hardware were added to the STEP mod tables.

If you use the batch file that archives the vanilla textures you have a set of 4-7 (depending on how many DLC you have) archived texture files . In order to install these into the proper folders in Skyrim you need to use either Wrye Bash or Mod Organizer to install the textures. If you use Wrye Bash, then put these archive files into the Bash Installer folder. Installing these files as well as those from other mods is discussed in the Wrye Bash guide section on installing mods. Since these files are optimized versions of the vanilla textures they are the first files to be installed, before any of the STEP mods are installed.

Ethatron discusses the general issue of collapsing textures in his answer for Q2 in the Technical FAQ tab of the DDSopt guide. He said that this collapsing is a reasonable optimization approach but some hardware has a problem with these 1x1 textures. For example, DDSopt collapses many of the vanilla textures, especially in textures\terrain. There have not been many reports of problems with this; I personally don't have any problems with the collapsed textures from vanilla textures or RaceMenu. We'll add a note in the STEP mod table that there can be problems if this texture is optimized. Perhaps it would be better to either not optimize the textures in RaceMenu or to be more selective about it. One of the tint/tone maps is 2Kx2K so some users may prefer to resize and optimize at least that texture.

The constraints in "Using DDSopt" tab are general purpose recommendations. Some of the Constraints tab parameters rarely change, but the tint/tone map format parameters used depend on whether the tint/tone textures are compressed or uncompressed. The tint/tone maps in the vanilla textures are generally uncompressed so the recommended Constraints tab settings for vanilla tint/tone map textures were set for uncompressed textures. The other format option for these vanilla tint/tone map textures would be R8G8B8; we added a little bit of size reduction with the recommended settings. Some notes are needed in the recommendations for STEP mods since the recommended tint/tone map format depends on the mod; there really isn't a single recommended setting for this format parameter that works with all mods. RaceMenu uses DXT5 compression for tint/tone maps. We haven't done any testing of these RaceMenu textures to see whether it is better to keep DXT compression or change to an uncompressed format if they are reduced in size. The DDSopt guide STEP mod list has the most recent optimization information we have, but we rely on user feedback and testing to identify potential issues. We have done some testing using the guide's recommendations, but not always extensive testing.

That's certainly true for mods with textures used on interface screens; there isn't any point in optimizing these textures. Some mods in Fixes and Interface section have textures that are used for NPCs or creatures, and when this happens we need to look at the textures to see whether they should be optimized.

IMO Forgotten Magic has a fatal flaw. While the author feels the impact perk in destruction is overpowered, I feel the author needs to spend more time in Skyrim as a mage without the impact perk. Archers and Mages fight at a distance; the armor they wear even with the best non-overpowered magic enchantments and buff spells still yields frequent single hit melee kills by enemy NPCs. A shout helps, but before they can be reused the NPC will recover and reach the mage. A much better solution IMO is the approach in Mighty Magic that leaves staggering but reduces its effectiveness with lower level spells; higher level spells can't be cast often anyway because they use so much magicka. Combined with potions that work over time vs. instantly (so magicka can't be quickly restored), it's possible to be a mage but still very challenging.

Two lore-friendly mods I mentioned a long time ago that had a lot of interest that didn't seem to quite fit into STEP, but would be relevant to packs: Ingredients of Tamriel adds Morrowind and Oblivion ingredients to vendors and chests since they would have been available in small quantities in Skyrim. The effects for these are very similar to the original effects in these two games (the small differences are due to changes in alchemical effects available in Skyrim vs those in the previous TES games). True Medieval Tavern Music replaces vanilla tavern background music with actual tavern music popular in medieval times (pure replacer, no esp). I find the music more lively than vanilla. Like Garfink, my character is primarily a magic user. Since vanilla TES games have always nerfed magic users with few spells, especially area spells, and limited spell effectiveness I use similar Skyrim mods to have some useful magic. In my case these include Mighty Magic, Apocalypse, Midas Magic, and the Revenge of Colette.

Whether they mention it explicitly or not, all of the STEP guides are WIP. The DDSopt guide incorporates changes that result from testing and use of the approaches to optimizing, and it also tracks updates in mods in the STEP guide and the pack guides currently under development. Recent approach changes have included using different optimization parameters for normal maps from textures as well as for for uncompressed and compressed textures, and separating exterior textures from other textures to support reducing exterior texture sizes. The mod table in the guide was recently updated to provide recommendations for optimizing mods in STEP 2.2.7 . Meanwhile, other parts of the guide haven't changed very much.

Editing the changelog is, of course, easy. Where is the list of mods included in the current STEP list stored?

There have not been any previously reported problems with DDSopt pausing when extracting placeholder text files. It did not do this when I extracted the HRDLC BSAs. The files \textures\dlc01\architecture\snowelfruins\seruinsmarble01_n.tga and \textures\dlc01\architecture\snowelfruins\seruinsmarble01_n.dds are both in HRDLC2 and both should be deleted. The file ending in dds happens to be corrupted. The tga file can be used to fix the corruption, but it isn't needed since the Unofficial High Res Patch fixes the problem. The error was caused by a missing " in the batch file. I uploaded a new version which includes it.

Snow and Rocks HD is still in the 2.2.7 guide but changelog says it was removed Superior Lore-Friendly Hair replaces AOF Believable Hair in the 2.2.7 guide, but this is not noted in the changelog Enhanced Distant Terrain - Earth includes both a 512x512 version and a 1Kx1K version, but only the 1kx1k version is mentioned in the guide.

Neo also chose some of the textures for SR; when we look at using this mod for packs both the TPC and SR selections can help narrow our initial selections.

There is a discussion in the DDSopt guide of the differences between Optimizer Textures and DDSopt.

The comments I made on batch files to separate exterior textures are for mods rather than vanilla. There isn't really any value in separating exterior textures for vanilla. The max resolution of almost all the HRDLC files in 1Kx1K; there are very few 2kx2k textures in the HRDLC. The 2Kx2K exterior textures that are present are 3 *\landscape\trees files in HRDLC2 and 3 in HRDLC3 which are later overwriten by STEP mods (primarily Skyrim Flora Overhaul), and a handful of normal maps that typically get reduced to 1kx1k or less using the existing vanilla batch files and the associated recommended constraints tab parameters for DDSopt.

There will be multiple packs. SR:LE will be one of the packs, and in addition as you see discussed in this forum there will be other packs. The packs are independent but multiple packs might use some of the same mods. The other packs are not subpacks of SR:LE; they are independent.

The name weathering is included in the roadsign textures, and in vanilla it is clearly done manually since the same letter has different weathering when used multiple times. Vanilla has the most name weathering and the names look like they are painted, especially the white letters. The Legible roadsigns texture roadsignscities01.dds has names that look carved, but the names in the other Legible roadsign textures look painted and have a very small amount of weathering included. I wonder if there is a way that the mods could just use the names from the vanilla textures.

I meant that it was adding a script in order to add additional capabilities beyond those supported in vanilla vs. adding a script to provide a fix for vanilla.

One problem I have with all the sign mods that include weathering is that the wood is weathered but the letters are not. Vanilla has weathered letters but the other mods don't seem to include this.

The DDSopt constraints do not include specified handling for special map textures (*_sk.dds, *_g.dds, etc.) other than normal maps. You will need to select these texture files using the filter window and then select the desired format in the Color-maps and/or Color-maps-with-alpha values, then process these files.

Since the recent posts from TheEye seems to be an WB problem vs. an Amidianborn mod problem, I'm moving the posts to Support and Troubleshooting so more people familiar with problems like this can respond.

Which version of Wrye Bash are you using? I use the standalone WB 304.1 version, although I haven't yet installed the new update that came out a week ago, and I don't get these errors when I use the wizard to install the amidianborn Book of Silence mods. Some users have reported problems with WB 304 and are using WB 303 since they have fewer problems with it; I haven't had any problems with WB 304.

Can you suggest a good tutorial or walkthrough on doing this for anyone using Mod Organizer? I've read a few, but i'm still unclear on the best way to optimize my textures, and what the best dimensions are. -IG The Quickstart tab in the DDSopt guide gives a brief overview of the process, but it doesn't include steps that are specific to a particular mod manager like Mod Organizer. It does have a table with recommendations on which mods to optimize.