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.

[JudgmentJay]

If they still look low resolution even with a high resolution texture + normal, then refer to my previous post in this thread. It's most likely a mesh problem.

[torminater]

But it is only a problem with these exact 3 puddles. Not with any other puddle in windhelm... checked all of them.

[rootsrat]

Yeah, as far as I remember in my game there were only the ones in the market square, however I did not specifically looked around the other parts of the city to confirm.

[JudgmentJay]

But it is only a problem with these exact 3 puddles. Not with any other puddle in windhelm... checked all of them.

Not sure what to tell you. If both the texture and normal are high resolution but it still looks low resolution in-game, the only thing I can think of is bad UV mapping. Windhelm is probably the worst place in the game for stretched textures.

[torminater]

Well, then why don't they reappear with the rest of the 00052585 texture after disabling it?

[JudgmentJay]

I'm confused as to how that's relevant.

[Kelmych]

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.

I described in this post how to determine which mesh is used for an object; we might want to put the details from that post in one of the guides since it is a common question. Using this I found that the mesh used for the puddle is architecture\Windhelm\WHmarket01.nif . Determining which textures this mesh uses requires the nifscope tool, but you already know at least one of the relevant textures. My game uses the default vanilla mesh; none of the mods I use including the STEP mods, Unofficial Skyrim patches, Skyrim Revisited mods, and any other mods I use replace this mesh. "No stretching" has no architecture meshes, by the way.

 

You might want to check the other puddles that are OK to see which textures and mesh they use. If the high resolution SRO textures don't fix the problem then you probably need find some way to get the mesh edited.

[rootsrat]

Ok, finally back home! So, here's how my Windhelm market looks like. It's actually MUCH worse than I remembered this morning... The cobblestone texture is kind of cut in a straight line, across the paddles. The then are partially placed below the stones - it looks absolutely horrible! The last two s/shots what I said about the cobblestone not looking so bad at an angle, but when looked at straight down, it's very bad. The underlying hay texture is very low resolution, where the stones are higher. 

 

Any ideas of how to make things better? It totally destroys the immersion...

 

    

[torminater]

Well I looked at the mesh whmarket01.nif using nifskope and it looks as if there wasn't anything looking similar to a puddle or sth like that. I'll try to find a mesh which should have some puddles integrated - if that is actually the problem.

 

couldn't find anything suspicious in any of the other meshes why the puddles there look good and the ones at the market don't. MAYBE because the market mesh looks really flat and the others have a bit more ... 3D-appearness.

Still, what does that tell me? Why are only those 3 puddles fugly?

 

Well, whatever. I posted about this issue on the SMIM comments section. Maybe Brumbek has some insights...

[rootsrat]

I asked Langley if he's planning to do any more work on No Stretching. Here's the answer:

 

Elenear

No, sorry. I now am engaged in textures for Dragonborn's a landscape. I advise to use for Windhelm good HD-textures, it improves a look. For example from here: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26269

Look screenshot #9

Unfortunately the mod he quoted does not touch neither the meshes nor the textures for those paddles - or so I understood from the mod's description.

[torminater]

well the screenshot he is referring is not from the market, so it's no problematic puddle.

[torminater]

OK, a short update to this thread as it is still an issue:

Brumbek said he will look into this! :)

 

Also I found out, that after optimizing the vanilla textures with ddsopt the ice puddles look even worse and there is a horrendous texture seam around them!

[rootsrat]

Excellent news!

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[Kelmych]

OK, a short update to this thread as it is still an issue:

Brumbek said he will look into this! :)

 

Also I found out, that after optimizing the vanilla textures with ddsopt the ice puddles look even worse and there is a horrendous texture seam around them!

Which ice puddle textures?

[torminater]

The bad ones we are always talking about in this thread...