ACCEPTED Smooth Shores Patches (by Step Modifications)

[TechAngel85]

Discussion topic:
Smooth Shores Patches by Step Modifications
Wiki Link

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[z929669]

Nice

[z929669]

I vote we accept this outright, since we know we need it. kinks can be worked out if we find any, but that should be simple, since tech created it, and Step is maintaining the mod. Since Tech has approved by virtue of creating this, I will mark as accepted.

[Mousetick]

Does the 'Smooth Shores-Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods Patch' assume a specific order between Smooth Shores and LFfGM? For me, LOOT puts SS before LFfGM.

Going through the conflicts in xEdit, I found a bunch of landscape edits made by Smooth Shores that are stupidly lost because LFfGM overrides them with 'dirty edits' (typically "ITU" - identical to Update.esm), without making any changes of its own. These are straightfoward to resolve in xEdit by simply forwarding the SS LAND edits wholesale into the patch, as if SS were loaded after LFfGM - nothing from LFfGM will be lost.

They are not included in your patch as far as I can tell. Here is a list of affected LAND records that I've found so far:

Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 00006FA3 \ 00007FB7
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 00006FC2 \ 00007FD6
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 00006FC4 <DruadachRedoubtExterior01> \ 00007FD8
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 00006FC5 \ 00007FD9
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 00006FE4 \ 00007FF8
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 00007138 \ 0000814C
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 00007157 \ 0000816B
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 000075A9 <MarkarthAttackStart02> \ 000085A9
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 000075AD <MarkarthMainGate> \ 000085AD
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 000075C2 \ 000085C2
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 000075C4 <ReachwaterRockExterior01> \ 000085C4
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 000075C9 <SalviusFarmExterior> \ 000085C9
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 000075E1 \ 000085E1
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ 00007605 \ 00008605

It's such a pain to resolve landscape conflicts, but when landscape mods uselessly forward vanilla records without making any changes, it's even more annoying. I hate it. LFfGM is not the only mod guilty of this.

If you agree with my assessment and think it would be useful to include them in your patch, I'll update the list above as I find more of these, otherwise I won't bother 

[TechAngel85]

If it does, it was LOOT sorted on my end with just those mods loaded. I'll have to take a look at this and the rest. The patches were made in the CK and very little was done in xEdit. Landscape records are very difficult (if not impossible) to resolve in xEdit. It's much easier to fire up the CK with both mods loaded in as masters to fix the issues they cause.

[Mousetick]

I only mentioned them because they are straightforward. The patching consists of 'Copy [SS LAND record] as override into... [patch.esp]', as if LFfGM were not there after SS. It might as well not be there, and should not be there for these particular records IMHO, since it doesn't make any difference compared to vanilla. I trust that SS edits are correct and worth restoring. I could be wrong on that point.

[z929669]

I assume you can submit a metadata change to LOOT so that Smooth Shores overrides LFfGM.

I looked a t the first record posted above, and the ITMs are only for the vertex normals and height map in the header. The layers are all changes from master (for both SS and LFfGM).

I do believe that the SS changes are probably the keepers in many cases, but maybe not all.

[TechAngel85]

22 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I assume you can submit a metadata change to LOOT so that Smooth Shores overrides LFfGM.

I looked a t the first record posted above, and the ITMs are only for the vertex normals and height map in the header. The layers are all changes from master (for both SS and LFfGM).

I do believe that the SS changes are probably the keepers in many cases, but maybe not all.

In such cases for these patches, I would load up that area in the CK and have a look around to see if there are issues. If there are, fix them. If none are evident, I would likely just make a single edit to smooth something out so the record is included and merged into the patch via CK. I typically don't mess with such records in xEdit.

[z929669]

Do we agree that SS should override LFfGM? If so, then LOOT masterlist should be updated.

[Mousetick]

23 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I assume you can submit a metadata change to LOOT so that Smooth Shores overrides LFfGM.

I don't think that would be desirable. LFfGM fixes would be lost in the process, and they're deemed more important than the cosmetic touches SS provides.

26 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I looked a t the first record posted above, and the ITMs are only for the vertex normals and height map in the header. The layers are all changes from master (for both SS and LFfGM).

The alpha changes are different from master (Skyrim.esm) but they're identical to Update.esm. That's my point: there's no change from vanilla. These 'edits' by LFfGM are useless.

[TechAngel85]

12 minutes ago, z929669 said:

Do we agree that SS should override LFfGM? If so, then LOOT masterlist should be updated.

No. They just need to be patched. SS should likely be overwritten in most cases. 

11 minutes ago, Mousetick said:

The alpha changes are different from master (Skyrim.esm) but they're identical to Update.esm. That's my point: there's no change from vanilla. These 'edits' by LFfGM are useless.

Yes, from this shot, I see what you are saying. If you remove the Smooth Shores the record would be an ITM.

EDIT:
This really just needs to be reported to LFFGM author. They're active and I'm sure would remove the edits when presented the evidence of the ITMs.

[z929669]

@TechAngel85 You may want to check the SS Homestead patch against that newly provided by LaWF, as there are some conflicts. A couple are identical records and valid as such, but most are different (alpha layers and some other stuff).

SS Homestead CC Patch overrides LaWF Homestead CC Patch

I modified our LaWF mod page to install the LaWF Homestead CC Patch, since it provides some new records that don't conflict with anything else in Step 2.2.0

[TechAngel85]

On 2/26/2023 at 2:10 PM, z929669 said:

@TechAngel85 You may want to check the SS Homestead patch against that newly provided by LaWF, as there are some conflicts. A couple are identical records and valid as such, but most are different (alpha layers and some other stuff).

SS Homestead CC Patch overrides LaWF Homestead CC Patch

I modified our LaWF mod page to install the LaWF Homestead CC Patch, since it provides some new records that don't conflict with anything else in Step 2.2.0

You mean SLaWF? It'll be best to make a Bug Report on the page. Else, I'll likely forget to check it when I get back around to updating some of these mods.

[z929669]

8 hours ago, TechAngel85 said:

You mean SLaWF? It'll be best to make a Bug Report on the page. Else, I'll likely forget to check it when I get back around to updating some of these mods.

A "Bug Report" on the SLaWF page? I'm not following. There's no bug, per se, just redundancies that SS patches should take into account ... maybe in coordination with WizKid, but IDK.

[TechAngel85]

4 hours ago, z929669 said:

A "Bug Report" on the SLaWF page? I'm not following. There's no bug, per se, just redundancies that SS patches should take into account ... maybe in coordination with WizKid, but IDK.

No, on Smooth Shores Patches' page as a reminder to check the plugin in SLaWF. I went ahead and made one.