ACCEPTED Highland Cows More Wooly - Cut Content Restoration (by Exalderan)

[D1Z4STR]

Discussion topic:
Highland Cows More Wooly - Cut Content Restoration by Exalderan
Wiki Link

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SCREENSHOTS

[TechAngel85]

I like! There have been a few of these mods trying to make the cows look better, but all sort of deviated from vanilla. This one is one that looks like it would work well.

[z929669]

I will not be testing this one, so if it's wanted, people will need to advocate using it versus not. Otherwise, it should be removed from testing.

[Eliian]

The cows always bug me haha. I personally prefer Rally's cow. It is quite the deviation. I'll post some compares today.

[Eliian]

The third option is what I use. It has a plugin. Rally's Shaggy Cows of Skyrim at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Both overwrite Fixed Mesh Lighting.

STEP (Bellyache's) > this mod's improved mesh with Step > Shaggy

[z929669]

31 minutes ago, Eliian said:

The third option is what I use. It has a plugin. Rally's Shaggy Cows of Skyrim at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Both overwrite Fixed Mesh Lighting.

STEP (Bellyache's)>w/ improved mesh>Shaggy

Thanks ... we'll obviously also need to look at this mod in the compares as well. I will get to it eventually if nobody beats me to it. Rally's is pretty far from vanilla but looks good.

EDIT: Is the middle one with this mod's mesh? If so, strike my comment above.

EDIT2: yeah, it is ... I think this mod is a no brainer as long as you don't notice any clipping or other oddities in game.

[Eliian]

21 minutes ago, z929669 said:

Thanks ... we'll obviously also need to look at this mod in the compares as well. I will get to it eventually if nobody beats me to it. Rally's is pretty far from vanilla but looks good.

EDIT: Is the middle one with this mod's mesh I assume. If so, strike my comment above.

Yes, the middle one is from this mod's mesh.

[Eliian]

44 minutes ago, z929669 said:

EDIT2: yeah, it is ... I think this mod is a no brainer as long as you don't notice any clipping or other oddities in game.

I am not sure if the defined lines are normal or slight clipping. It is not very noticeable from a distance only up close. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Eliian

[z929669]

Well there are definitely some UV issues with stretching. Higer-res texture would also help once the UV issues are fixed. I'll look at the mesh.

EDIT: The UV layout looks good, but it needs to be relaxed in a 3D program. I will play with that when I have some time. The original mesh has the same issues for the nodes in common. The textures are only 1024/512, and for a mesh this size, it makes sense to use 2048/1024, IMO. Hmmm ... cow textures.

[Eliian]

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

Well there are definitely some UV issues with stretching. Higer-res texture would also help once the UV issues are fixed. I'll look at the mesh.

EDIT: The UV layout looks good, but it needs to be relaxed in a 3D program. I will play with that when I have some time. The original mesh has the same issues for the nodes in common. The textures are only 1024/512, and for a mesh this size, it makes sense to use 2048/1024, IMO. Hmmm ... cow textures.

Cows indeed lol. This mod Holy Cows - 4K and 2K Textures at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) does have 2k textures and looks more vanilla than Rally's. I have not looked in game yet. 

[z929669]

Step (Bellyache's)  >>  This mod (Bellyache's)   >>  This mod w/Bellyaches Animal and Creature Pack Revamp (2k) >>  This mod w/Holy Cows - 4K and 2K Textures (used 2k/1k version)

I think this mesh is much better, and even better with the textures Eliian suggested. Vanilla friendly, too.

I looked at the mesh in 3Ds Max, and while it is possible to fix the UV stretching, it would be way too much work for the marginal gain. Three separate meshes to fiddle with, and relaxing alone causes the UV to map outside of the bounds of the atlas textures, so I would need to spend a good chunk of time UV mapping manually. Maybe some day but too many more important things to get done now.

@Eliian If you drag/drop your images directly into the post, they paste as thumbs. You will want to convert to JPG beforehand though. Try to keep them under 500k by resizing. It's a pain, I know. Otherwise, you can upload to postimage into a gallery to make compares simpler.

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EDIT: added Bellyache's upscaled textures compare (thanks Tech)

[Eliian]

This mod with Holy Cows looks good to me. It looks better without going in a different direction with the texture and pattern of the fur. 

[Eliian]

27 minutes ago, z929669 said:

 

@Eliian If you drag/drop your images directly into the post, they paste as thumbs. You will want to convert to JPG beforehand though. Try to keep them under 500k by resizing. It's a pain, I know. Otherwise, you can upload to postimage into a gallery to make compares simpler.

Ah ok, Thanks! I've been struggling today with the best way to post the screens. 

[TechAngel85]

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

Vanilla friendly, too.

Google 'highland cow' and tell me the last shot's color is vanilla friendly... 

[z929669]

29 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

Google 'highland cow' and tell me the last shot's color is vanilla friendly... 

Well the color isn't as orange, but compare it to the other replacers out there (e.g. Rallys). The texture is vanilla friendly, and the color is just muted and more on the brown side.

If you upscale Bellyache's texture, i will shut up

EDIT: And Bellyaches horns are not true to the highland cow, but the Holy Cow version's horns are.