Puddles in Windhelm

[rootsrat]

The quality of water puddles on the ground in Windhelm market is terrible. They are very pixelated and look very bad. Has anyone else experienced that? The only texture mods I use are STEP 2.2.1 ones. I am at work now so unable to produce screenshots, but I'll post them later on when I'm back home. They DO look bad though, to the point, that if someone else had the same problem, they would know definitely what I'm talking about.

[torminater]

I think they aren't water paddles, but ice puddles...

This problematic texture has already been in our spotlight for a whole long time, but I don't remember whether any mod on the nexus actually fixes those.

[rootsrat]

Hmm, may be. Nevertheless, they look terrible, very pixelated. In fact, if I can recall correctly, the ground (cobblestone and bits of hay) doesn't look that good either. It looks ok when looked at an angle, but looking directly down it's not as good...

 

Anyone knows if any of the STEP texture mods actually replaces those textures or are they vanilla/DLC?

 

::EDIT::

 

Sorry, torminater, I wrote before your edit above :)

[torminater]

I found a reference from WATER 1.3 release which states this:

"- Windhelm puddle water pixelation fixed with new texture."

 

Terrain Bump

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4964

has a more detailed file for the puddles in Windhelm

whroughgroundwet_n.dds

is the file that will make the puddles much much nicer.

The entire mod is nice though and I would use anything that you can.

 

https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=148&pid=2304#pid2304 is our reference post for this texture.

[rootsrat]

Interesting. WATER is at 1.6 now. It's also installed after all the main texture overhauls in STEP and looking at the mods that follow it, I can't think of any that would replace the texture...

[torminater]

So apparently Skyrim Realistic Overhaul is also supposed to have done something about this texture. According to Starac, it's supposed to be frozen mud -> no reflections.

I would ask Neovalen about a mod that enhances this texture. If there is any, he will know.

[rootsrat]

I've sent him a PM, hopefully he will be able to look into this. As mentioned, I'll post some s/shots when I'm back home.

 

::EDIT::

 

I do not use SRO - as per STEP 2.2.1 - so that's not it...

[JudgmentJay]

The problem is not the texture, it's the mesh. There are tons of stretched textures in Windhelm and until someone fixes the associated meshes (nobody has), they'll look like crap regardless of the quality.

 

I was hoping that this mod would eventually get around to fixing Windhelm, but it doesn't look like it's being worked on anymore.

[torminater]

Then I'ld like to quote myself again an excerpt from the author of Terrain Bump - Texture Pack on the nexus:

- Enhanced bump maps for vanilla textures.

- Hand crafted textures.

- Uncompressed for more clarity and zero pixelation.

- Textures are judged and tested for extra detail.

 

This mod came about because I basically thought I could do better than the original bump maps

the game uses for terrain landscapes.

 

Skyrim uses compression in almost all cases and this can make the textures look really blocky

or pixellated. A good example of this is the Windhelm puddles. They use compressed maps like

other mods, but it ends up looking harsh and contains lots of rogue artefacts. This may be

a bit better for performance but it's not good for visuals. Let's be honest, it was probably

made that way for consoles anyway.

 

Example:

 

 

As you can see Terrain Bump triumphs because it is uncompressed. You can clearly see

pixelation happening to the left vanilla image. Who would have thought they were the same

resolution?

 

So in a nutshell this mod takes the terrain normal maps, ramps up the detail, gives them more

clarity and generally improves them. The mod is fully compatible with any HD texture packs

including Bethesda HD. If you over-write any file from unofficial HD packs be warned that they

may not match up 100% if they are REALLY different from the original texture design - otherwise

you should be fine.

 

Enjoy!

[justjr]

I will try to DDSOpt this Terrain Bump.

[torminater]

There exists a tiny little problem:

The only two versions of Terrain Bump available on the nexus (1.3 and 1.4b) do NOT INCLUDE the problematic texture which is Textures\architecture\windhelm\whroughgroundwet_n.dds!!!

I know for sure, that SRO (Updates 1.3/1.4/1.5/1.6) had a 2048x2048 normal map plus corresponding textures included and WATER only has 512x512 normal map included - without any texture along with it.

[rootsrat]

That's too bad... It really kills my immersion, and the char I'm currently playing is going to station in Windhelm for a while (RP purposes).

 

Guess I'll have to live with it until it's fixed.

[torminater]

OK after some research I conclude:

The official HighResTexturePacks do not offer whroughgroundwet_n.dds, but only a whroughground_n.dds (for reference:HiResPack02.bsa).

The Skyrim-Textures.bsa contains a whroughgroundwet_n.dds with 512x512 resolution - the same as WATER. I think, that the whroughgroundwet_n.dds texture that was in the old Terrain-Bump mod is now part of Water, since the clarity of the whroughgroundwet_n.dds texture included in WATER is better even though it has the same resolution as vanilla!

However: SRO has 4 times the resolution of this. 4 ... times. I think I'm going to stick with it :)

[torminater]

Created an album: https://imgur.com/a/bTtYf

Windhelm Market Ice Puddle Issue

Two pictures mark the beginning and the end of the problematic cell (Windhelm marketplace ground texture ID: 00052585). The other 3 show the problematic ice puddles which are significantly lower resolution than all of the other ice puddles in Windhelm after applying all the textures from STEP. If disabling 00052585 in the console the ground texture will vanish, but reappear if one had clicked on the ice puddles after a few seconds... without the ice puddles. They will however respawn when 00052585 respawns. If clicking somewhere else and disabling 00052585 the ground will not reappear. If you reload a savegame made before disabling 00052585 and go to the market place the ground texture is there - but without the ice puddles! Anybody who knows what the issue is with these ice puddles, please head over to this thread: https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=1741

[JudgmentJay]

I'm confused... does the puddle still look bad even with the 2048x2048 normal from SRO?

[torminater]

Yep: here's my post from bethsoft forums

Hello guys,

I've recently come along to do some search about three ice puddles in Windhelm. They seem unaffected by whatever texture overhaul I throw at them. I'ld like to know if there is something special with those three textures. I suspect they are somehow not completely implemented. Maybe their reference is somehow missing something. I don't know anything about the Creation Kit, but I have tried some things with my limited abilities.

I uploaded an album minutes ago with screenshots showing the problematic ice puddles and the borders of where ice puddles are unaffected by graphical enhancements of all sorts. HERE

For reference: I used the not yet released STEP 2.2.1 guide in order to pimp my Skyrim and included Skyrim Realistic Overhaul including all files up until Update 1.6 in 2048² resolution. However.

The ground texture cell of Windhelm market (dunno if that makes any sense) has the code 00052585. All ice puddles in this cell are as depicted ugly as hell. BUT, all the other ice/mud puddles in windhelm are looking a hell of a lot better. I'm using the whroughgroundwet_n.dds and whroughgroundwet.dds from SRO 1.6 and it looks great everywhere except in 00052585.

If disabling 00052585 in the console the ground texture will vanish, but reappear if one had clicked on the ice puddles after a few seconds... without the ice puddles. They will however respawn when 00052585 respawns. If clicking somewhere else and disabling 00052585 the ground will not reappear. If you reload a savegame made before disabling 00052585 and go to the market place the ground texture is there - but without the ice puddles!

I suspect, that either the texture whroughgroundwet_n.dds does not apply to the cell of 00052585 or that somehow a mesh doesn't get applied correctly ... well what do I know. Could somebody try to make this issue out in the CK and give me some feedback about this?

I'm also active here and here

 

Thanks.