Cestral

The currently prioritized one is from Langley's, and the WATER lightmap is made for the vanilla texture iirc (which also fits with SRO's). I can't use a lightmap made for an entirely different texture. I agree though that it isn't great and Windhelm has always looked kind of crappy, but still Langley's is better than SRO's in my opinion (not to mention anything that isn't from SRO nowadays is a step in the right direction). I'm open for suggestions though.

I didn't get to try WB. Reinstalling the game apparently fixed it. Don't ask me why. It's all good now.

I'm going to try WB tomorrow to see what happens.

You are correct, there should be 9 meshes removed, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the issue. The issue is that using these meshes causes the problem, so removing them isn't a solution, just a way to not have to deal with it. Load order of the ESP files doesn't help me. I'm using NMM, but even that can handle load orders. One shouldn't be forced to use WB to get it working. It's really strange, but since it seems to work for most people, something must be wrong on my end. I just can't figure out what it could be. And just to be clear: the issue is the new tree types that don't move at all, then suddenly they go nuts for 3-4 seconds. Moving will sometimes cause the branches to "fly out" in odd shapes. Other times they move pretty consistently, however, they do so like twice per second at 2 FPS (i.e. more like switching between positions rather than animating). EDIT: I just tried again with Skyrim Flora Overhaul being the only mod in use. Same problem.

Well, I still have this issue. Of course, if I remove the 6 meshes then the problem goes away, but what if I want to actually use them? Load order of the ESP files makes no difference for me either. I can't seem to resolve this unfortunately.

I think both have their advantages, but the main advantage of STEP is that it's a complete package that covers many more aspects of the game as well.

Yeah it's definitely the toughest choice to make. The reason I didn't go with the TreesHD version is because those shrooms shine so abnormally crazy much even when afar, while the wood quality doesn't make much of a difference except when you're pretty close. Also the branches shine unnaturally much of white, which I find very eye-catching and annoying.

Yes, Hectrol is the best, then comes Beauty of Skyrim, and last Snow & Rocks HD. Both BoS and S&R have extremely flat and smooth surfaces when viewed from afar compared to Hectrol which looks a lot more detailed, deeper and 3Dish. Beauty of Skyrim does have SOME advantages over Hectrol's, but in the big picture Hectrol's is the best by far.

Don't really agree with you here. treeaspenaddon01.dds: TreesHD does indeed have a nicer wood texture, but the branches are worse, and the connected mushroom embedded in this texture will shine pure white when viewed in game. Overall, Realistic Mushrooms is much better. treereachaddon01.dds: Realistic Mushrooms may have a nicer mushroom texture attached when viewed separately, but otherwise its colors are just way too strong and shiny making it stand out extremely much. It looks very out of place. TreesHD wins, even with the slight issue it has with the texture not entirely covering the mesh. moratapinellabits01: Indeed mixed opinions, but you have to keep in mind that the world viewed texture and the inventory textures must match. This is the inventory texture only of the treereachaddon01 connected mushroom. scalypholiotabits01: Same thing again, but this time for the treeaspenaddon01. The Realistic Mushroom version of this one looks "bugged" however, because I think the lightmap is a little off, causing it to look very blurry and strange. Thus, HQ Food wins. mushroom01: I would agree with you that Realistic Mushrooms has a higher quality looking texture, but it suffers hugely from clipping issues which just looks terrible when viewed in your inventory (look at the whole lower part of the mushroom). This in addition to its colors that are too strong and shiny making it feel out of place makes the Hybrids version the overall winner.

Alright, then I'll go ahead. Figured I'd ask since you have yet to finish the next version without the TPC.

I want to remove Soul Gems Differ and replace it with HD Soul Gems in the next version of the TPC because I'm not overly satisfied with the texture combinations in it, and I'd also like to keep the number of ESP files down. Since STEP is still using the TPC, I'm wondering if you have an opinion about this before I make the change?

Yes, there's a handful of files that are part of the full SRO pack which aren't in the Lite version. Namely the "011", "_nn" "_nnm" stuff. Also the sgrass01_n because I believe the Lite pack uses the vanilla lightmap. I believe they were left in the SRO pack by mistake and I keep forgetting to remove them. I've had this reported a hundred times over the past months so they'll be gone in the next version. :p They don't break anything other than giving a false alarm to SRO Lite users.

Well, you will of course not have 100% of the files from the SRO texture pack, but what you WILL have are all the SRO textures required by the TPC. Doing this manually wouldn't magically rescue more files, so this is the best and only way to do it. If some files were overwritten, they were only overwritten with better alternatives anyway.

I have an even better solution: 1) Copy your game textures directory and place it in Required Mods\SRO\Textures 2) Make sure you have NO OTHER mods placed in any TPC mod folder. 3) Run the batch. 4) Ta-da! Now you have all the SRO files in your combined folder.

Yeah, what Neovalen said. The three base mods are expected to be there, so any choices I've made regarding the optional mods have been based on that expectation.

Yeah, redoing everything would be painful. It's not even as "simple" as just replacing the SRO textures, one also needs to keep in mind surrounding textures. I don't know how many textures that have been skipped from other mods because SRO has had better alternatives. One would have to go through pretty much all of the other mods if it were to be done correctly. Yes, it'd take weeks. The only way to do it quicker would be to cheat. Additionally, I very rarely base my selections on how textures compare in a texture viewing tool. They can indeed be helpful, but there's nothing like looking at the stuff in game.

An orange version was released today.

Did anyone try this along with Benjamin318s Realistic Rocks and Mountains? https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27753 I have yet to try any of these two mods myself, but perhaps they would both be an improvement to what's currently in STEP/TPC. I'll download those mountains while I sleep tonight. Yay for crappy broadband. :( EDIT: Nm the mountains. Just saw the specific thread about them and it seems they have some disadvantages.

I have yet to explore alternatives and it will be somewhat difficult for me to do so as well, since, as most of you know already, I still have my connection issues. Secondly, there is the question of energy and motivation from my part. I do want to expand the TPC, no doubt, but going back and revising every single choice I've made so far is going to be extremely tedious and time consuming. The choices I've made have been expecting the official DLC and the three required mods as a base. The TPC will continue to have SRO support for those that still have the files. I am contemplating adjusting the batch for those that don't have the SRO files already, and remove the "required mods" part altogether, but it will create a duality in the development of the TPC that will be extremely inconvenient. Again, this will be very time consuming, and I have yet to come to a decision. As for the relation between STEP and the TPC, if you still want to take advantage of the TPC, you should probably just take it for what it is currently, obviously discounting SRO. What you want to grab from there, is of course up to you. I have yet to load up an SRO ridden TPC merge to see which texture inconsistencies will pop up etc, but there will certainly be plenty of gaps. I don't think I will redo all this work anytime soon. It took me about a month of working every single day to merge the initial three required mods. I just don't have that kind of time right now. We'll see what happens.

Hello everyone and sorry for my disappearance. I am going through a very difficult time right now and am unable to work on this right now. If anyone from STEP wants to maintain updates for i.e. SRO and anything else that may have been updated, you can go ahead and do so either by a separate batch file that adds whatever is missing, or you can email me the additional batch lines necessary and I will add them into a new version of the TPC. Rest assured that I will continue working on the TPC when I am able.

Yeah, I'm not going to touch that. If anyone wants to use them then they can just replace the files themselves. I applaud Vurt for experimenting and it could be interesting to check it out, but it's not very lore-friendly all the same.

Yeah, well, I don't know if this is a "suit yourself" issue or if it's better to spoon-feed the users. You usually have to go through great lengths if you are to cover every possible mistake or confusion when so many people are using something.

Not really. I mean, there are exceptions, but most mods have textures hand picked from them, so you can't really install the complete updated mod right on top because you don't know what it'll overwrite. Additionally, the batch file has a sort of "load order" for mods so that you will get the best textures available even if you skip a few optional mods. Adding an updated mod separately can, again, overwrite textures with ones you don't really want.

I've come across quite a few people that don't seem to know what the "Baseline" column means. I've also noticed a substantial increase in TPC Light downloads since the new STEP was released, so I'm thinking many people download the baseline versions without really knowing what it is. I believe the reason for this is that many skip reading the first pages and go straight to the mod lists. Not sure if you should change it to "performance" or how it could be clarified, or if it is even necessary. Yeah, I know, RTFM, but unfortunately many don't.

Can't we just drop the updated mod files into its corresponding folder and run TPC again? No, you can't do that because the new files aren't included in the batch file. I have to add them, which I now have done with v1.71, as well as improved the logging function to include full file paths.