exploiteddna

Not sure if you missed this Michaelrw. If you still have the saves from your shots in the OP, could you provide Vanilla and BoS from those saves and post this in the OP? Thanks! If you don't have those saves anymore let us know and we'll take them down. I noticed we were missing ice cave compares so I'll be grabbing a set of those today. Actually, I'm already in the process of doing just that. :) yeah i must have missed that.. not sure how. I should still have the saves. let me take a look and getback to you

hey thanks for the response. i appreciate the information. the only script ive written was for autosorting storage containers.. but have never used any other functions and im not very versed in papyrus syntax. however, I will do some research with the suggestions you gave me and i should be able to figure it out with the info thats out there. I do have a few weeks off from school so this can be a little project for me.Â

so i have a mod that basically disables all of the civil war rubble and ruins. the issue is that, in order to do this, many of the objects have been flagged with "set enable state to opposite of parent". this means that if the mod gets activated before the civil war/battle, the rubble will be there prematurely (since its enable state is opposite). Â I want to basically "wrap up" the entire mod (which is a simple collection of vanilla record edits - no new records) and put a Condition on it that prevents everything from being applied unless the battle quest is complete. 1. whats the best way to get this set up? 2. is there a way to do it without any (advanced) scripting? 3. any other thoughts?

yeah thats what it was for me too.. i was suggesting the texture optimizing as a means of reducing vram/dram load. before the ENB "fix", i would sometimes get ILS at load doors if i didnt go high enough to cause CTD but pretty close to it. plus i think texture optimizing is just a smart thing to do anyways and is always good to recommend for troubleshooting :)

yeah for this character/profile i currently have terrainbump being overwritten by Rocking Stones and Mountains that ive been testing out this week. So, that's what should be in most/all of those screenshots.

bah! i hate those. there was a time (about 2 or 3 months ago) where i was struggling with those for quite a while. it took me many many hours of pain and suffering before i was able to get them to go away. my overall conclusion is that it's usually not one thing alone, but rather a combination of small things that each contribute and cause a large problem. However, if i had to give someone advice on the issue, i would say start by optimizing all of your texture sets and reducing resolution where necessary (such as landscapes). I would also delete or make backups of your INIs and let the game regenerate them and start from scratch. Driver settings have also been a somewhat common culprit for infinite loadscreens (especially vsync settings). Driver settings are a pain because its a lot of trial and error. And you can really only change one setting at a time if you want to effectively troubleshoot and control for the other variables. Anyways, good luck :)

yeah in the troubleshooting process i deactivated all of my mountain and rock meshes so those are the fugly vanilla meshes :) ive done a ton of research into this and basically there are many different factors that go into the appearance of that ugly white paint snow, including (but not limited to): slope/bumpiness of the snow01_n and snowrocks_n normal mapsalpha channel in the diffuse maps of the same namealpha threshold of the mesh, set by the NiAlphaPropertyhex-code shader flag for NiAlphaProperty (although i dont think a different flag will help here or would be worth the trouble of changing every single mesh by hand)im sure theres something im forgettingso yeah, its not a straightforward solution and depends a lot on which snow textures you use since different artists use different alphas, some dont provide normal maps, etc. etc. All in all, it's just really annoying and a huge PITA to mess with :)

i must be having brain fart.. ILS...? between here and school, after a while i start to get all the acronyms mixed up lol

not sure about development at this moment. this is also the first ive heard of a lip sync bug..

all i know is that in the past few days my game has run so much smoother in terms of subtle choppiness and lag i used to get from pop-in and such, .. seems to have basically disappeared now. 4k exteriors? pshhh! pipe dreams. I will be more than satisfied with full 2k :D @Aiyen - just curious what monitor you use for 1440p

your best bet is to copy and paste the original mod packages into the folder where MO downloads are saved (\ModOrganizer\downloads). Once they are all in that folder, open up MO and move to the 'downloads' tab, you should see all the mods you just moved. Dont freak out - all of them should have a red exclamation symbol next to them, indicating they dont have any associated meta data. Right-click on any mod package, and select "Query Info". This will create a new meta file for that mod so when you actually install it, all of the info will be correct and stay current. Do this for each mod in the list. Once you get the meta data for a mod and the red exclamation icon goes away, youre good to install the mod like normal.

it makes you human.. not unprofessional :D

yeah that sounds good. and i also use Greatswords SSwTB on top of DeLarp, so i'll need to see how many conflicts there are between all 3, then decide on best order of overwrite. Maybe DeLarp then GS-SSwTB then this mod

Hey guys, just curious where we stand with this mod? I have been talking with the author and we've been brainstorming some ideas for a new revision. I was curious about what the admins and longtime members think about this mod, which changes you would like to see the most that would give it more credibility in terms of consideration for STEP core. *For example, removing the Frodo Baggins would probably be a good start, right? *What about the random merchants name? Do you think the actual name of a bethesda merchant NPC would be appropriate/lore friendly? *Any other ideas or potential changes that may make this retexture more suited for STEP?

nice man, looks good to me. installing now to see what they all look like in-game. nice find

as great as it may or may not be, mods that are considered to be gameplay overhauls of skyrim typically have no place in STEP. Unless my interpretation of the STEP mandate is incorrect... but im pretty sure that's the case. Im sure one of the admins will confirm or deny this

yeah, what EssArrBee said. Any mod that has SKSE files should be installed like any other mod. This is because they are all installed into the Data directory (usually Skyrim\Data\SKSE\). Any "mod" that has assets needing to be installed in the Skyrim root directory (not Skyrim\Data\..) have to be installed manually. Mod managers generally only handle files that go into Skyrim\Data .. any files or folders that have to go directly into \Skyrim wont usually be recognized by mod managers. So, for SKSE, I use the mod manager (in our case, Mod Organizer) to install the SKSE scripts since they are installed into the Data folder (Skyrim\Data\Scripts) and then I manually install all of the other files directly into the Skyrim root directory.

my poll results show the same thing, but if you click on "Show Results" (at the bottom right of your picture), it will show you that you actually voted for AMB. I believe it has an asterisk next to BoS bc it's reflecting your original vote before AMB was even an option

Yes I mostly agree with what you're saying. I think we're at a point in this debate where we're nitpicking the words each of us are using to describe the situation. I try very hard to stay away from using subjective terms or absolutes, such as "best", and perhaps Z should have used the word "better" in place "best". Sure, there are times when we are very far from the walls and dont notice details. There are also plenty of times where there are narrow walkways and you can't help but notice the fine details. Now, should we be nitpicking a single stone or pebble? Probably not. But in techangels defense (if that's what you were referring to), i think he was talking about shiny pebbles that were scattered all over the texture (although i personally did not get a lot of this effect during my testing of this set, i know what he's referring to. ive used some textures in the past that for some reason or another -- i think oversharpening will cause this -- have a lot of very small white/shiny pebbles or speckles on it that will create a type of glitter effect.  But..this is off-topic) I just think it is important for both "distant" and "closeup" screenshots, regardless of how we want to define "distant" and "closeup". Since we can't measure distance inside the game (not that i would even want to, lol), we're going to have to assume that "closeup" is roughly equivalent to 1-2 waraxe/battleaxe lengths (swing/reach distance), give or take... so close enough to see detail, but not as close as possible. I definitely agree that the most important thing is how they blend in with surroundings and the overall feel of the environment. But it certainly doesnt negate the importance of texture quality (which you already know, im just making the point) :D

I agree with the importance of far-away/distant shots, but strongly disagree that closer shots have no value. Â I do notice the details when I am in-game, running through caves and such. So yeah, distant shots have importance, but i think closer shots are equally as important. theres nothing worse than seeing a texture that looks decent from far away, but when you move closer turns all blurry. Â I think that the majority of bethesda textures look decent when youre far away... its when you get closer that you first notice their lack of definition. Thats the whole point of high-def replacers.

if you read my previous posts you will see that i have had nothing but positive experiences with this mod. one thing to note is that you must always take 'horror stories' with a grain of salt. there is no way to know what settings, additional mods, potential conflicts, etc. a person has when they report these horror stories and claim that mod X or mod Y is the root of their troubles. Here is what I can tell you: 1. the author of this mod is very well-informed and educated in what he does. He may put some people off a little bit because of his odd mod page descriptions, but for the most part he's earned the right to say just about anything he wants. Of course we are all human and errors can be made that manifest in bugs. This however is a normal part of software/mod development. Bugs pop up sometimes because of author error, sometimes because of unforseen/unintended interactions between different parts of the game. Regardless, any major problems with the mod would be fixed very quickly. Other small bugs that may be related to the use of other mods might not get addressed as quickly. Whatever the case may be.. at the end of the day, you have to know which mod authors you can trust. For me, this is one of those authors. You may decide not to use a mod of his based on your preference or whatever, but I wouldn't doubt the integrity of his work. 2. I have used the mod on a new game with a full STEP install and a few other small mods and have zero problems. The character is now around level 55 and still going strong, with the civil war questline completed by level 35 (i chose imperial side). I have read some of the problems that people have experienced but i have not had any of them. There are so many variables at play when it comes to troubleshooting problems and/or "bugs" ... the moral of the story is this: try things out for yourself -- learn which modders in the community actually know what they are doing ... those who have either put in a ton of effort and took the time to learn the craft, or those who already have professional careers somewhere in the industry (or have in the past).

i agree in that the BoS ground textures (cavebaseground01 and cavebaseground02) are really nice looking. I also think that the issues you found with the AMB ground textures could probably be fixed by cabal rather easily... I ran the diffuse map through CrazyBump and generated a new normal map that I think plays a little better...so if i can do it (without any real artistic skill), then im sure cabal can as well :) The other thing is, we must always make exceptions because very rarely will we find a texture pack that is 100% "correct". We must consider if having the "better" ground textures is reason enough to completely trump the entire AMB pack. (i.e. crap walls with good ground VS. good walls with crap ground). On a different, but not unrelated note ... I recently noticed the green glow you (techangel) are referring to with AMB cave walls. In my opinion it looks like specular reflection (im almost 100% sure), and it is green because of the green imagespace or lighting template that a lot of caves use by default (i could be wrong about this being the source of the green for this particular instance, but i know for certain that many caves do you use green imagespace/lighting template colors - im merely drawing a logical conclusion).

nice comparison, tech.. im sure that took a while to do. I do see pretty much everything you pointed out there (though sometimes i wasnt sure where your arrows were pointing.. and dont know what the little circles were for on the BoS ground texture). Very informative, glad to see you point out "problems" on all textures, rather than just cabals :D Nice job

Either I inadvertently changed something, or I have never noticed this before. (Im betting that I accidentally changed something and now i dont know what it is) yes, i do use better dynamic snow (but i dont think that mod touches this mesh or similar meshes) for this particular screenshot, the ugly white paint splatter is associated with the MountainCliffSlope.nif mesh