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Everything' date=' just point to whatever you think is a good starting point for someone like me trying to understand the basics for getting the most out of someone like you ;) Introductory stuff that you think is pertinent to our purposes in modding and optimizing textures, including prerequisite topics that you might think are building blocks to understanding the relevance of various compressed (and uncompressed) texture formats. the links you have already provided are a great start. & thanks for A2. that is helpful ;)[hr']

We may get flag-post functionality sometime in order to point to posts of interest from the User CP or some such.

Your baby is growing up, eh? Same

It looks like in addressing issues with pre5b (the original vesion of 8.0 on the nexus I think), Ethatron may have broken something else. I would refrain from using the latest release until we get this ?bug? fixed.

I processed the uncompressed LOD using DDSopt v080 update 1 from Nexus, and looked the LOD texture with several texture viewers (Irfanview, Paint.net, Windows Texture Viewer, and the preview mode in DDSopt; I haven't been successful installing Compressonator on my system). It looks different in each viewer, and I can't decide which one I should post here. There seem to be two layers, the tree LODs from the original LOD texture and "in front" of that is another partly transparent texture. The partially transparent layer is the part that looks different in each view. I then repeated the optimization using DDSopt v080 pre5b, the version prior to the update 1 posted on Nexus. The LOD texture looks fine; there is no partially transparent layer "in front" of the texture. Only the 32-bit installer of the compressionator works. the 64-bit is broken. unfortunately, I don't think that any of those other programs will let you get much out of viewing normal maps.

This is where RefScope for Skyrim would come in really handly... wish someone would make that

I would not bother with texture opt until you have your mods installed. By then we will likely have more info on best practice.

Such videos are also insightful, since we can each learn tips and tricks of others. There is often more than one way to do things.

ditto that

Yep, and I suggested a topical series to avoid a gigantic video, which is difficult to create professionally or to view. People will do much better with 5-min short topical videos dedicated to one or two simple tasks all presented in a recommended order. Sounds good to me.

Screens are never unappreciated by the likes of me ;)

Yep, I am pretty sure that it is the normal maps. Pretty sure as well that this could maybe be *fixed* with DDSopt (or made even worse). Agree that the shininess or reflectivity is too high for all, but most obvious on lighter skin; however, the ratio of reflectivity among the different facial components of all races is done correctly IMO. This is why it has a more 3D appearance I think. I believe that peacefulmoments also has settled on Nuska, so you should see some of his posts on the topic. He goes into a lot of detail about matching with bodies and such.

I'm pretty terrible at giving presentations, I wonder if we can get Gopher to do one :DThis is perfect for instructing users in the basics if they don't want to really understand *why* they are doing certain things; however, it should still be left to the doc (including both official program Help and the WB Guide on the wiki) to provide the background for users that do. There would need to be a series on this via YT though, because there are a lot of little tasks that need to be accomplished when using WB

I'm pretty tired so this might not make complete sense, but if you dump all the archives into that folder and go to the Installers Tab in WB it should recognize most of them. From there it's a matter of ordering them and setting them all up to be BAIN friendly (i.e. folder structure recognizable by WB). All the color codes are explained here.@Farlo Glad you are becoming so fluent in using WB ;) The only thing is that you are pointing above to the ancient WB guide. WrinklyNinja has since updated extensively, and the color info in the new help file within WB itself will be more accurate and also have much more updated info. Technical guides also exist in the Mopy folder.

I believe that we are letting the USKP do its thing instead, but correct me if I am wrong.

Agree with Trexasle completely. Nuska is the best face mod IMO, becuase it is the only mod that makes all faces 3 dimensional. all others make the faces flat and too painted. The lighting of Nuska is very good, but the faces of Light women (Nord/Breton/HE) are just a bit too bright. Replace ing with XCE normals would be a great idea if they still look 3D after. Otherwise, the Nuska normals need a bit less shine and a few more imperfections. Still my favorite *base* though.

Same as the consensus. Very little time playing the game much past the first several quests; although, my first char made it to a little while past the civil war. Waiting until I am satisfied with the mod lineup and the quality-stability/performance peaks on my system. (i.e., when STEP is pretty much stable and flying more on autopilot).

Based on the OP, this sounds like a VRAM-cap issue. Are you limited to 1 GB GPU memory? Are you installing the quality versions of the texture mods? If not, then it could be INI related, and I would move your current INIs and boot with the Launcher to reestablish and see if the problem persists.

My point is that mages (i.e., alchemists, wizards, practitioners of the cerebral "arts"), by definition of their nature do not "want" to go into battle. They are wise and intelligent and practiced in the arts of manipulation. They do not train for "fighting" as does a martial artist or a knight or a Samurai. A mage trains to manipulate their environments to obtain their interests. Evan mages of the schools of Destruction. The exception is the battlemage, and everyone knows that the magic of the battlemage can never be as potentially powerful as that of the pure mage. End result, a mage that wears armor is either not a pure mage of highest potential or is not at all used to equipping something so tedious and barbaric as armor :happy: We can agree to disagree, but I think that there is a lot more argument for handicapping a mage wearing armor in RPGs than there is for not. In fact, we could also point out how unrealistic it is that a warrior can recover from near mortal wounds simply by resting

If you were a master alchemist, having spent years learning your trade, how likely is it that you will ever have had the want or the need to equip a full suit of armor? :o_O:Â ... or the chances that you would have a squire on hand to maintain it for you and assist you with equipping it? A warrior fluent in the art of alchemy might have light armor, but rarely medium and almost never heavy. Let's say just for kicks, you happen to be a mage that happened upon a squire and a battery of weapons and armor ( :? ). Why on Earth would you sacrifice your stealth and speed for this? And if you did, how do you think the extra 60+ pounds, heat and discomfort would affect your concentration ability? There is no way that a suit of anything but the most pleasantly comfortable, airy and light armor would not affect the concentration of anyone other than a hardened warrior that has grown used to wearing such attire and dealing with such discomfort in the heat of battle and the tedium of travel and the boredom of standing watch.