TechAngel85

No worries, it took me at least a year of reading, researching and cutting myself off from mainstream media before I grasped everything, formed my own opinions and believed any of it. Now that I completely ignore mainstream media and have knowledge of certain signs, I realize just hope much the vale is pulled over everyone's eyes.

It starts off talking about free energies and how they are real and available today and that the technology exists cheaply; however, the governments have suppressed them and other knowledge such as cure for cancers and the existence of life beyond our planet. Then they "follow the money" to tell you how the world is influenced by a few elite men (Rockefellers, Morgans, Carnegies, Rothschilds) and their goal of a World Order. Interviewers and research proves these plans are real and reveal many of the things that have been done. These things include admitting to the World Order goal, putting "their" people in power in various countries, purposefully making groups of peoples sterile, faking situations to achieve desired outcomes that ultimately result in them having more power and influence etc etc etc. It is well worth the watch.

Some shots: Vanilla (Current STEP) >> Ancient Falmor Armor Overhaul My verdict is an "I'll pass". This is made of moonstone. What do we know about moonstone? TES Lore only really tells us the color; creamy white to yellowish. So if we take what real moonstone looks like, this armor doesn't match up. "Moonstone is a member of the orthoclase feldspar mineral family. It is a combination of potassium aluminum silicate. The stones have a crystal structure that shimmers when the light hits them." They shimmer...not glare in the light; however, this retexture has gone over the top with it, IMO. It may not show up that well on screens but in-game the shininess is very out there and over the top for my tastes. I think I'll wait for CaBal's retexture and pass on this.

After testing out in-game for a while, I see no reason to not include this in STEP. The weapons (i tested around 10) feel far more believable and realistic over the vanilla paddles. I had the mod overwriting everything and installed the entire mod. This overwrites much of Closer Quivers and Longer Arrows which is undesirable so if accepted those options should not be installed. The DSR patch (meshes) are included as an option and I found no issues when dual welding and dual sheathes. There are also options for refraction version of a few of the swords which look nice. Suggested load order will be after Greatsword Sheaths and Scabbards Redux as not all of this mod nor Skyrim Weapon DeLARPification Project is covered by BSW.

Now that I have tested in-game. I can officially say this should remain with Book of Silence (current STEP). Ren's retextures are stylistic in nature. Adding patterns to the creature as well as changing the color of some textures from green to gold/yellow. This does not hold up to the Mandate which states: It's my understanding that this applies to both single retextures as well as massive texture overhauls which change the style from the vanilla game. Some style changes are considered okay such as changing the wood from one texture to another as long as it doesn't include "decorative" art and changes in color (greyish to reddish). Since this mod does include these stylistic changes of the textures in the ways described here and above, it should not be considered, IMO, unless it is a consensus with the STEP Staff as Extended is "our" STEP Pack. With that said, the retexture itself is quite good and I see nothing wrong with it as it stands. I don't agree with the change from green to yellow but I'm a bit of a purist and that is a stylistic choice. I also don't agree that the new patterns aren't noticeable, as stated, because they light up during combat bringing your attention to them. This mod is good and a well done retexture but perhaps not for STEP. That is my personal assessment of this mod in regards to its STEP inclusion.

I'll do some in-game testing in a bit but I still think that BoS textures are going to come out on top for me.

I'm in the US and watch it just fine. Is your ISP filtering content? lol

I don't know how many of you here gawk at society and believe in this way; however, I encourage everyone to watch this video if you haven't already: I am one that does believe in this and have done much of the independent research. This videos pulls together many of the things I've found through research of my own and over time have come to believe them as being truths. The views aren't popular in society; however, if you believe these things then you know that is exactly the point. Society wants these views to be unpopular and mocked at; calling them conspiracy theories, hoaxes and the like. For those few that see past it. This video is inspiring. I for one, plan on doing more from now on. Watch the video and talk about your thoughts. WARNING: Any and all flaming will be dealt with according. Keep it civil!

My mistake. It's not running at all actually. I'm getting an error that I'm missing a DLL file of some sorts. I'll sort it out and report back. EDIT: I was missing one of the Redistributable packages. It's working as expected now. Please ignore my previous post.

You can find mods in testing my clicking on the "Testing" prefix tag or by doing an advance search and searching for the tag "testing". This will display all the mods currently in testing.

I assumed there were some textures because of the screens on his page. My mistake. DSR shouldn't be an issue. The author has created compatible meshes for DSR. It is also my understanding that the author has included scabbards for the great swords so GSSR would most like be dropped if this is added as well as SWDP or at least overwritten. Only way to really know is to try them out in game.

Considering this is a summoned creature the gold can be passed off I suppose. I haven't read any objections for this being added to Extended ( Core mandate will be allow it). It's just a matter of choosing the best texture.

These obviously need some good compare shots, but from the author's page they look much more believable than the vanilla swords. There is at least one stylistic change that isn't vanilla friendly but is a tiny thing and makes more sense to me when you think about how a sword is used. There is also at least one texture that isn't vanilla friendly and likely more. But we're more interested in the meshes, right?

These texture do not look too far off from chrome (dirty and scratched chrome). Not a fan. The only time you get metal that shiny is if you buff and polish it which is unrealistic to do on armor, IMO.

The new version of BOSS sorts all the STEP mods correctly, including the two that previously had to be manually sorted (Improved Face Helmets and SkyFalls ESPs). Please ignore. BOSS wasn't working correctly. It is now.

Did you run Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skryim - Sounds.bsa, Skyrim - Voices.bsa or Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa through BSAOpt or DDSOpt? If so, restore them and post back. They shouldn't be ran through these optimizations. I once ran Skyrim - VoicesExtra,bsa through BSAOpt and the game would CTD every time I hit the run key. Weird because it had nothing to do with the controls! But when i restored that file everything was back to normal.

Not my first rodeo... Pure vanilla lighting there. The gems just react unnatural in the lighting and look terrible. I can see why the author has tried to fix them. lol Daylight shot is around noon and night shot is around 10pm.

Logical sense in the realm of Skyrim... use some imagination here. Why would a creature of the wood and forest have gold inlaid on itself. Just one good answer that makes sense from anyone will suffice. If there isn't one then it's still BoS. I could completely understand a Stone creature to have gold inlaid because it would be a creature of the earth. That gold on this woodland creature is just screaming at me that is make no sense because it's suppose to be "of nature". Truth be told, I prefer not to add elements to the game unless they make 100% sense. Core doesn't allow this but Extended does as long as it makes sense and fits into the game as something that can be deemed as "missing" from the vanilla game that should have be designed in.

Updated OP. I say there is no reason NOT to add this mod into STEP. I get no FPS loss; however, I'm on a system with the latest generation of hardware. Taking that into account, I'd like someone who is NOT running the latest generation of hardware to do the same test I did in the OP. Install SDO with all options and use the heaviest Full options. Run FRAPS and benchmark a run through the swamps without this and then again with this mod and post your two benches. These swamps on one of the, if not the most graphical intensive area in Skyrim is it should provide the most extreme case of what SDO is going to do in terms of performance loss.

I'm personally a fan of the BoS textures and they are simply improved vanilla. Ren's are a bit too dark and the extra patten of gold makes no logical sense as to why a creature of the wood and forest would have gold inlaid on it. Just my opinion and thoughts.

The storm is the only one I like. The frost looks way too bright and the flame...I agree with the rest on that one. I don't see this making the cut to be honest.

Any ETA on the new image viewer?

Now the screenies! STEP:Core >> Gems of Skyrim The only thing I don't like about this mod is that it turns the regular diamond into a "grey" diamond. I'm sorry but even the worse flawed diamond grade (i3) isn't that bad. Some of the flawed gems need work as they aren't clear/glassy looking at all. The author says this is an issue with the Particle Patch for ENBs (included in SMIM as well) and that he doesn't know how or the time to fix it. Disabling SMIM did not fix this for me.

The image posting is completely broken... Error: "You are not allowed to use that image extension on this community." (neither png not jpg works) https://imgur.com/tpjzAF4 - inline is not working either. Perhaps because the link doesn't end with an extension? yep, that's it.

Got some screenies... Coming soon... (apparently PNG files are not allowed... so now I have to retake them... ) EDIT: Nope...it's just broken... Nevermind, you have to use a link that ends with an extension...