SKYRIMLE Hectrol CAVES DELUXE HighRes Retex (by Hectrol)

[phazer11]

I agree Beauty and Hectrols are neck and neck in my opinion. Small update it looks like the compares for this are handled for now anyways. I'm still working on my tester install but I just got the go ahead to film so that's going to be eating up a fair chunk of time.

[TechAngel85]

Caves

 

Vanilla  >>  Snow & Rocks HD  >>  Beauty of Skyrim  >>  Hectrol

 

 

Vanilla  >>  Snow & Rocks HD  >>  Beauty of Skyrim  >>  Hectrol

 

 

Vanilla is with all the HRDLCs; optimized textures and normals.

[TechAngel85]

Mines

 

Vanilla  >>  Snow & Rocks HD  >>  Beauty of Skyrim  >>  Hectrol

 

 

Vanilla  >>  Snow & Rocks HD  >>  Beauty of Skyrim  >>  Hectrol

 

 

Snow & Rock HD and Hectrol does not edit the mine texture files.

[TechAngel85]

Since we now have a lot of compares up, I'm reopening the poll. I've also reset it so if you voted before you'll need to vote again. Check out the OP and the two posts above for all the compares.

 

My official review is this:

 

Snow and Rocks HD is probably the closest to vanilla in color and style; however, I find it too "blocky" to be natural and would nearly just prefer to use vanilla instead.

 

Beauty of Skyrim wins my votes for a couple different reasons. First, I like that the textures are smoother. Caves are naturally formed by erosion, usually by water, and thus should have smoother surfaces. Beauty of Skyim gets this right. Secondly, I also like that the textures are just a bit darker. This gives the cave more of a "cave ambiance" in my opinion. And finally, the textures look more "wet and damp" as you would expect to find in a cave. As for the mines, I like them just as much. The shot I provided is a big change; however, while playing in-game the mine feels more "mine-like" as if it was carved and dug out.

 

Hectrol, I don't care for at all. The color is too greyish and too far from vanilla for my liking. Also, the "caved out" texture looks out of place and unnatural, in my opinion, because even though some places in a cave might form textures like that from water dripping down the wall, it's not going to be everywhere you look. It's just been way overused. Hectrol might be good for users whom prefer "bleak" style textures and lighting; however, it's not for me and not for STEP in my opinion.

[exploiteddna]

nice shots buddy, and i agree with your assessment. Beauty of Skyrim wins my vote as well.

 

I do have a point of discussion though .. Hectrol texture pack doesnt cover mines i dont believe (correct me if im wrong). Although the caves textures are used inside of mines, I dont believe the hectrol pack actually covers any of the textures located in textures\dungeons\mines (like BoS does)

[TechAngel85]

Thanks and I noted above that Snow & Rock HD nor Hectrol changes anything in the mines that I could find.

[exploiteddna]

ok good deal. thanks, i wasnt sure so figured id just mention it. 

[EssArrBee]

After looking at your compares tech, I think Snow and Rocks is the best and closest to vanilla. I do have to disagree that Beauty of Skyrim is even close to vanilla though, just look at the first Mines set of compares on the right side of the images, way to far from vanilla IMO. Beauty does look really well done on it's own and the colors are great, but I think that the shapes it conveys are not really matching an enhanced vanilla look.

 

Also, water doesn't determine the smoothness of a cave formation, the mineralogy does. I've been in some pretty nasty places carved out by natural springs or shallow seas because of the granite and rhyolite. I hate granite unless it is made into my kitchen counter tops.

[TechAngel85]

Texture wise (shape), Beauty of Skyrim is closer to vanilla. Color wise, Snow & Rock HD is closer. Mix the two and you'd probably have a near perfect vanilla replacement. I look at both shape and color equally when doing my evaluations.

 

You're also right what you say about cave formation, but I'm not about to sit here and debate what minerals are present in the textures in Skyrim. I will say that the closest you'll get to finding that out is to think about the ores that are found in the caves and then think about what material is generally found around those ores in RL (if they exist). For our purposes, most caves in Skyrim are either simply rock or ice and that's as technical as I'm willing to get or we'll be debating forever without reaching results.

[Neovalen]

Thing won't let me vote... for some reason it says I voted for beauty of skyrim... lol

 

My real vote however is Beauty of Skyrim overwritten by Hectrols... best of both worlds.

[WilliamImm]

Neo, try undoing your initial vote.

 

Sent from my LG-E970 using Tapatalk 2

[phazer11]

Beauty of Skyrim overwritten by Hectrols in selective instances are my vote.

[exploiteddna]

My real vote however is Beauty of Skyrim overwritten by Hectrols... best of both worlds.

hmm yunno if that was a legit option i would really have to reconsider my vote. ...yeah, the more i think about that idea the more i like it.

[TechAngel85]

Vanilla  >>  Snow & Rock HD  >>  Beauty of Skyrim  >>  Hectrol  >>  Hectrol overwrite Beauty*

 

 

Vanilla >> Snow & Rocks HD >> Beauty of Skyrim >> Hectrol >> Hectrol overwrite Beauty*

 

 

*Beauty of Skyrim installed and Hectrol instaledl after it; thus, overwriting some of Beauty's textures

[TechAngel85]

The only real difference in that setup (Hectrol overwriting Beauty) is the ground textures from Beauty which I will say does look better. However, the issue of this texture/pattern:

 

 

from Hectrol being overused is still present. To me it really stands out because of the texture and I notice it everywhere which is borderline annoying. It's breaking me out of the immersion of the game because it just simply stands out too much. It seriously looks like a human went in there and carved out the wall and then carved out a line at the top to complete some sort of "design". It's looks unnatural to me, especially with that line across the top of the vertical texture and the "normal" rocks sticking out from it that aren't carved. I even spent some time on Google Images trying to find any cave walls that looked similar and couldn't. The only ones I came across were "slime" looking or in small sections. Sorry, but no cave is going to look like this in my opinion.