z929669

Thanks for all the hard work, tech. Agree that the BCFs should be updated, but I wold call upon members of the community to jump in and help with that as they discover they are outdated. Otherwise, I will get to them as I continue my STEP:Core install, but I never made it past Sec G during this last iteration. We will continue to support use of both MO and WB, but we may increase the exposure to MO and how we use it in the future. It may well be that we will officially support the use of MO as the official STEP mod manager, but until I become more familiar with it, I can't talk too loudly about advocating it. The server will likely be moved to the new hardware this evening, which will be a big task that we no longer need to worry about or manage (well, accept for the VMs to support dev). Expect the site to be down for an hour or so at some point this evening if all goes as planned.

Not so for STEP:Core (we assume anyway, and that is what alpha testing will help to determine with regard to specifics). We have constructed STEP:Core to minimize downstream conflicts and *problems* associated with that. For add-on Packs, this concern of *breaking the game* is unwarranted. For complex overhauls, I agree, but let's takle that once we explore how far Packs can go on top of a STEP:Core base. We want to know the explicit "issues" with regard to add-on Packs right now. If you encounter any potential, please specify them explicitly so that we know beyond the intuitive/assumptive statement above. STEP:Extended is not yet finalized and we do not make any assumptions about being able to install Packs on top of STEP:Extended (or any other modded setup other than pure STEP:Core ... that is why we constructed it the way we did ;) ). I am pretty certain that STEP:Core users could install all of this Pack as last in their install order on top of STEP:Core. Information gleaned to the contrary will give us reason to examine the idea of pulling specific mods from STEP:Core. Also, Pack-specific patches can deal with any special cases like adding a Pack as a final install to to other common mod setups liek STEP:Extended or STEP:Core with certain Packs already installed. EDIT: I renamed the tables accordinly and deleted redirects. We will need to add in a link to the subpages containing the Pack Tables (will hold off on that until we know what other changes are needed, as everything is interconnected).

you are asuming that everyone is using MO or Wrye Bash and that they are experienced modders. Without explicit instructions on the concept of installation order and how these mod managers work, it will definitely beg that question or similar/related ... over and over, believe me. All the user needs to do is install your Pack mods LAST in their install order (think of those doing manual installs).

Use the latest 187 Basic That note needs to be updated; however, that mod is evolving rapidly right now.

You have to execute the BAIN wizard via Wrye Bash, not MO. If you want to use MO, just open with wizard in a text editor and select the options indicated in the STEP default script.

STEP official Packs with be named "STEP:Survival", etc. ;) Also, your table headings: "Add into 2I Clothing and Equipment", etc. ... this will be confusing to users, who should already have installed STEP:Core. Instructing them to add this to that section will be the question "Do I need to reinstall STEP:Core now?" I think that it is best to not use the STEP Section IDs at all. Go ahead and use the names if you want though, so the above becomes: "Clothing & Equipment"

Please name this "Survival" We need to avoid adding Author name and "Pack", as these are redundant, and apostrophes might break things (not sure about that yet though). Pack threads need to be named explicitly after the Pack page name for clarity. (and don't forget to ad the "Pack" tag) See new thread title.

Uhuru added that for some reason to the template. Fixed. Again, there is no reason for anyone other than the admin and developers to edit the templates and forms. Screwing around in these areas just breaks things.

@Smile I fixed the issues you were having with this Pack. It turns out that you cannot use apostrophes in the Pack name. I don't fully understand why, but it screws with the parser somehow. s4n or Farlo could explain probably.

187 Basic is the best version yet, IMO. I have some minor nits with regard to some of the pine color: some of the pines ar just a bit too bright green under vanilla lighting. I would darken and desaturate just a tiny bit.aspen LOD has brown aspen bark, which does not match the light gray of aspen bark.some of the LOD look a bit too "painted". I found this to be due to the alpha mask being too 'thick' or overexposed. I fixed this by thinning a bit, especially aspens. I also used noise for the alpha, which breaks up the color on the LOD tree edges, helping them blend better with various backgrounds (see my previous post on this)Looking forward to similar changes in Regular version ;) Question: there are now four LOD in the terrain/trees folder. Are these being applied at different times of day or different weathers by the plugin?

I am uploading version 1.5.4 with the fixed holder. It is a higher def and appreciably darker version of vanilla.

I think that this one looks very good. I have placed all LOD saves out on DropBox: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45644759/STEP/Savegames/LOD%20saves.7z https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45644759/STEP/Savegames/MTN%20saves.7z

This is the best place for Pack support questions. I created the Pack page for this project and added it to the Pack on the wiki (see forum link in the info box on the wiki pack page). Use the Pack page to discuss aspects of the Pack and your project, but use this thread to discuss reatures of Pack creation and the guide-bulder project. Thanks

Pack:Mod Organizer Testing Also see: https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=3638&pid=54053#pid54053

As I said tin the other thread, please try with Chrome to verify that this behavior is browser related. It is for me.

All I can say is that this is similar to the bugs I see in FireFox. I also was able to edit twice, but then my third edit refused to save ... the popup window did not close either, and editing within the popup was not possible, because it kept flipping back up to the top after scrolling down and trying to perform any action. Try with Chrome and you should be OK. I saved some colored test text out there using Chrome.

OK, I am out of my region of comfortable-partial understanding and into the realm of befuddled misunderstanding, but I assume that this means that we are discussing the the inner workings of a LOD generator ...? Come to think of it, why do we have TESlod for Oblivion and not for Skyrim?

Just use Page Tools > Refresh Mediawiki page caching sometimes does not show the latest revisions of SMW changes. Also, bypass browser cache using Ctrl+F5 in most browsers.

Yes, just regular I mean. The one that does not use most of the canvas. I am assuming it is necessary to work with a new source image generated in PS or Gimp. Something that scales continuously, like PSP, PNG or whatever image format. Obviously, the pixel resolutions for use after conversion to DDS will be set at 1k, 2k, of 4k. Maybe it is possible to manipulate the current hi-res DDS in PS and remake the DDS and redo the UV map ... not sure if that is how LOD works or not (I mean if they use models or if they are just decals of a sort). There must be some kind of mapping of LOD texture pixels to gamespace, since I can see the results of moving one of the trees in the LOD texture. Basically, go from this: to this:

What? Your career? Your life? EDIT: OK, I get it... you are afraid of 30. 30s are THE BEST.Assistant prof must mean that you have tenure, no? Location: Nebraska, US Nationality: 60% German/Austro-Hungarian, 25% Irish, 7.5% Dutch and 7.5% Danish Occupation: Survey Research - Healthcare (previously, post-doctoral researcher, plant virology) Age: 44 I hope 30s are good, but I've started working out extra hard lately to try and keep my youthfulness as long as possible.  And no, I don't have tenure, I started this year after gov't cut backs got my research killed. My university doesn't have adjuncts in math department, so it's assistant -> associate -> full. What is with all this all this some percent this, some percent that? Y'all white, deal with it. (•_•) (•_•)>⌐□-□ (⌐□_□) you don't begin physically fouling until around 36-ish, and that does not really become too noticeable until 40. ... oh, and not all whites are the same (physically and culturally speaking) :P I should have said "Northwestern European" (i.e., more WASP-ish, as opposed to Southern or Eastern)

We may have done this before, but I am from Chicago ;) (Edgebrook and Bridgeport) @ath3nos You are up there, but not quite at the top. I'll be 45 in a couple of months (see my prev post). I think s4n is 40, and Bealdwine (one of the site founders) is 52 or 53 I think! Boys never really grow up ... and some girls don't either ;)

OK, so the 4k texture does cost a lot and reducing to 2k is probably just as beneficial to performance as always, even with foliage and other 'branchy' textures; however, the quality cost of inefficiently using the texture space seems like a huge hit for no quality payoff whatsoever. @Vurt It would seem that much could be gained by reducing the Basic LOD by, say, 10-20% in PNG format and adding the new trees to the right side of the image such that it all fits efficiently on the canvas ... then converting back. Since it is a LOD, it may not be that huge a deal though, but I just hate the idea of waste

SRO should not be optimized at all. Reduce the texture sizes, but don't remip or recompress. Best thing is to download SRO from the link that Neovalen provides in Skyrim revisited. This one is already size-constraint optimized where it matters (exterior normal maps). All interior textures should be left alone. No reduction beyond this is necessary, and the total performance gain is well worth it. The quality loss is almost imperceptible. Also, your screenshots are strange. It makes no sense taht the 'optimized' 2k constraints look quite different from the 'optimized' 1k constrains (which in turn are similar to the untouched textures). Ar you sure that you have the right assets loaded and that these are the actual treatments? The normals are definitely steeper in the third screen than all the rest, so Behave settings don't seem to be consistent but for the different constraints. Just download the torrent linked by SR and don't worry about this one.