exploiteddna

So, the switch to MO has gone relatively smooth, so far. However, I have run into a few 'inconveniences' that maybe someone else here has a solution or workaround for. One of the main issues is with Nifskope. There are some functions of nifskope where it is preferable to have textures load properly so you can see the textures on the model (i.e. UV editing). Using MO, I dont see of a way to do this without installing the meshes and their respective textures into the data folder proper. Ive tried adding the nifskope executable to MO but this did nothing for me. Any ideas?

that would definitely be cool. Something like that could definitely be done as a mod. Ill add that to my long list of potential mods to make sometime in the future :)

yeah theres nothing technically "wrong" with doing it that way but of course would be nice to be able to use SUM

oh brother. sure, depending on a million different variables, there are equally as many scenarios. However, (most) snow melts, eventually, at some point. Melted snow-sludge on the road and roadside exists, yes? The point is, out of all the textures released for road snow, all of them have pristine white snow about them, and i merely found it refreshing to see something like this that took a step outside the "norm" and tried something different.. something that makes sense (to me) in real life.

I like the main idea and the direction that he's taking with the road01snow textures... i mean, in real life you would expect a lot of traffic on these common roadways, traffic that tends to turn the ice and snow into a sort of gray and white sludge.. it seems to me that this is the effect he was going for and, while I hadnt ever considered such an idea before, I actually do like it. I still havent gotten around to testing with the updated snow and dirt textures. I already use a mish-mosh of 3 different landscape texture packs, so if i like the way this looks and I can find a reasonable way of integrating it into my current setup, I may just use this instead of my current selections. We'll see how it develops.

lol i was thinking the same thing actually. Even though this is probably an accurate statement, his work is very remarkable. I dont know many modders that have the skill to remake textures from scratch (except those who do it for a living, *ahem*)Â :D

I'm going to guess that it would be preferable to start a new game due to changes in mods, scripts, etc.unfortunately, this is correct. i know it can be annoying to have to start a new character, but its better than your current savegame corrupting itself after youre level 50+ and have put in way more time. In short, you can either start over now, or start over later when (most likely) the save becomes unusable. You may look into getting a set of clean of savegame files that you can use to help you out when needing to start over. There are quite a few of these save packs on the nexus - a compilation of save files that were made with various races and at various points of the game (after helgen, after first graybeard meeting, etc.), and all were done without any mods. Â Or, if you dont trust anyone elses files, you can simply make your own set for you to use in the future. Basically dont install any mods until youre finished with the early parts of the game that you dont like repeating every time. Make a few good saves along the way, and youve got yourself a good resource to use in the future. Â

ok what screenshots do you want exactly? You want me to re-do them all using 2k version of hectrol (and of course only with vanilla lighting)? Ive already got the one set of shots posted that were using vanilla lighting, and even though i was using hectrol 4k they should be sufficient for a general comparison to be made. As far as the combined screenshots, Im not sure of a location that will properly show us all three mods.Im in the middle of getting my mod organizer set up for STEP testing but will get whatever screenshots you want as soon as im finished.

Sounds good. Thanks for the pointers. I guess my logic behind including shots with lighting mod is that, while not recommended by STEP (yet), most people do use them in some form or another. But I see your point. They have the potential to seriously skew results, which we dont want. Its funny you mentioned switching over to MO.. Since our discussion about it a few days ago I've actuallly started getting MO set up again on my system.  For some reason every time I switch installations using the Install Mgr i was talking about, I receive a whole lot of errors. Now it seems that they were all handled properly and everything gets transferred like it's supposed to, but it just makes me nervous that eventually it's not going to work. So I just decided to go against my original instincts and start using MO again. Ive got it all set up with several different profiles configured for personal and STEP testing, now i just need to get all my mod packages installed. Also, I agree with you that hectrol caves are too far from vanilla

actually the Hectrol screenshot in my Comparison Set 2 is set up exactly like that since i didnt deactivate S&R or Beauty after their second shots and just overwrote them. However, Ill try to find a spot that shows a part of each of the three mods at the same time EDIT: so it looks like the only significant part of Beauty that will be active (from the 'caves' part) is the cavebaseground textures. Snow and Rocks will have quite a bit more active, but most of it is ice/frozen textures. cavemossshader and caverocktile01/02 are the non-frozen/ice textures that will be active from S&R after being overwritten by both Beauty and Hectrol. So basically we need to find a place that uses these specific textures (from S&R and Beauty) alongside the main wall textures from Hectrol. cavebaseground01/02 are easy to include because the ground texture is everywhere. However, Im not as familiar with the caverocktile01/02 and will have to do a bit of searching to see where it gets used. In short, finding a good shot that includes Hectrol and Beauty components should be pretty easy, but finding one that also includes active texture(s) from S&R is going to more challenging (i think).

Comparison set number 1: Helgen Keep cave, game brightness set in the middle, ELFX and CoT are both active Comparison set number 2: Helgen Keep cave (further), game brightness at lowest/darkest, 100% vanilla lighting Comparison Set #1 is on the left and Comparison Set #2 is on the right Snow and Rocks HD 2048    The Beauty of Skyrim - Caves and Mines    Hectrol CAVES DELUXE HighRes Retex 4K   Â

Ill get some comparisons for you soon. Ive been working on the performance data for SDO, but i can take a break from that and do the comparisons for this

i agree with you in that vanilla is terrible.. theres no denying that. Im certainly not advocating for vanilla textures ;)

I can see your point for sure, and I do tend to agree with you. I just thought it was worth mentioning. Â

I disagree with this statement completely. These textures aren't even remotely close to the vanilla textures. The coloring is entirely different, the texturing/patterns are entirely different. Now, that's not to say they aren't good textures. I like most of his work (including this), but to say its close to vanilla is not right. Â Is this a great piece of work? Absolutely. Is it too far from vanilla to be considered for STEP? Personally, I think it is.Â

Nice work man. I commend your efforts. I hope the author is appreciative..

ive been using this tweak for a couple months now and couldnt be happier. Doesnt affect performance, no esp and no conflicts. No reason not to use it IMO

Since this mod, along with others (such as Realistic Mushrooms and Shrines HD) have all been merged into the larger Skyrim Ultra HD Texture Pack, i think we should at least consider whether or not we want to keep testing the individual releases or maybe we could just consider reviewing/testing/recommending the complete package. Plus, AFAIK, any updates/support will only be reflected in the complete pack and not the individual mods (needs verifying).

interesting. ive never seen anything like that, but i guess i havent been looking either.

wow i wasnt really expecting you to do it... at least not this quickly. Well done, thank you. I'll give it a test and see how it pulls togetherÂ

would be nice to see you do some of the snow textures for landscape, such snow01.dds and snow02.dss, that will be sure to match nicely the road01snow texture from this pack. depending on what snow textures people are using there can be more or less contrast between the two.

the author of Dragon Combat Overhaul has recently released a civil war overhaul. It, of course, is heavily scripted. Fortunately, the author is actually really good at what he does and seems to know the scripting language on a professional level. Thus, I would trust his mods over those released by other less-known, less 'prestigious' (for lack of better term) authors. He does make it clear that since the mod is still in its early release stage that he's expecting bugs to pop up, but he also updates the mod quite frequently. I havent gotten around to trying it yet, but one of these days i may give it a shot. I like some of the 'fixes' he has implemented into the mod.. such as when you join a side in the war, other members of that faction will recognize you as one of them. (its always bothered me that you can rise through the ranks of the legion but any time you see an imperial soldier and engage them in conversation, they speak to you as if youre just a commoner, rather than a member or superior officer of their military). He is also using a lot of code that was left behind from bethesda, so much of it is based on original bethesda development ideas. Its definitely a mod to keep an eye on. For now I just tagged it with the "Track" flag on the nexus and we'll see how it evolves over the next few weeks/months