JS Shrines of the Divines SE (by johnskyrim)

[DoubleYou]

Discussion topic:
JS Shrines of the Divines SE by johnskyrim
Wiki Link

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Ren's HD Shrines has transparency issues with ENB.

I decided to test this competing mod to see if it provides a viable replacement. Compares:

Vanilla --> Shrines of the Divines UD SE --> Ren's HD Shrines --> JS Shrines of the Divines SE

 

 

 

 

[z929669]

Thanks for posting the compares ... I recall not liking Rens so much due to some stark changes relative to vanilla for some shrines. On the other hand, some of the vanilla models and textures were hastily done or made by different artists. Like Ren's, JS Shrines takes some liberties with the models rather than trying to reproduce a better vanilla look.

All have their issues, but I think JS Shrines is the highest quality. I just wish the models were a bit closer to vanilla. Shrine of Stendarr is the biggest offender, but overall, it's still the best overall, IMO.

[Eliian]

I have never liked ren's for the same reason mentioned. The deviation and color choices bother me. These are quite nice. I remember awhile back I posted compares for Remiro's Shrines. It ended up being somewhat of a shrine by shrine choice which may be too complicated for STEP.

This mod is a good next step or compromise between quality and complete vanilla reproduction. I would say to replace Ren's Shrines with JS shrines.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Eliian
typo

[Mercury71]

I like the little cute sledge hammer on the anvil in JS.

I vote for JS.

[TechAngel85]

JS takes far too many liberties with the mesh changes and texture designs to be fit the Mandate. I hate (and I don't use that word much) what they did to the Akatosh shrine in JS. I love dragons and he turned the dragon into a snake...that's just wrong...

With that said, I agree that we'd never had good replacements for these.

[z929669]

  On 12/3/2021 at 5:37 PM, TechAngel85 said:

JS takes far too many liberties with the mesh changes and texture designs to be fit the Mandate. I hate (and I don't use that word much) what they did to the Akatosh shrine in JS. I love dragons and he turned the dragon into a snake...that's just wrong...

With that said, I agree that we'd never had good replacements for these.

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Then as I mentioned in our Ren's debate long ago ... if you feel JS takes it too far, then I say we go back to vanilla. Ren's takes too many liberties as well and it has ENB issues to boot (even with mesh patching, its still unacceptable, IMO).

I cannot believe nobody has done a vanilla retexture and mesh fixes. I see no conflicts with these meshes outside of the USSEP and Unofficial Material Fix with Ren's installed (Step 2.0.0 with all of the meshes we are testing). Amazing.

EDIT: Do note that if JS is out of bounds regarding the Mandate, so is Ren's. It is not acceptable to retain Ren's in that case. If you disagree, then majority favors JS for this.

[TechAngel85]

  On 12/3/2021 at 7:15 PM, z929669 said:

Then as I mentioned in our Ren's debate long ago ... if you feel JS takes it too far, then I say we go back to vanilla. Ren's takes too many liberties as well and it has ENB issues to boot (even with mesh patching, its still unacceptable, IMO).

I cannot believe nobody has done a vanilla retexture and mesh fixes. I see no conflicts with these meshes outside of the USSEP and Unofficial Material Fix with Ren's installed (Step 2.0.0 with all of the meshes we are testing). Amazing.

EDIT: Do note that if JS is out of bounds regarding the Mandate, so is Ren's. It is not acceptable to retain Ren's in that case. If you disagree, then majority favors JS for this.

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I agree. The Mandate was bent a bit for Rens in regards to the textures back in the day.

[z929669]

  On 12/3/2021 at 7:42 PM, TechAngel85 said:

I agree. The Mandate was bent a bit for Rens in regards to the textures back in the day.

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OK, so I am reading: "don't consider JS Shrines for Step, and drop Ren's". We both seem to be in favor, so that's enough, but ...

I'd like to hear what DY and Greg have to say as well as anyone else.

[DoubleYou]

I like this mod, but I agree that the artistic liberties taken with some of the meshes don't mesh well with the mandate (pun intended). I considered it because Ren's HD Shrines was similarly in violation. I have added another mod into the compares, which I have added to testing: Shrines of the Divines UD SE

[TechAngel85]

Honestly I don't think the upscale was very successful for Shrine of the Divines. Seems to have somehow lost some all the micro details making everything look smoothed out.

[Greg]

I'm not a fan of the Shrine of Divines either so I'm guessing this means it's back to vanilla unless someone has a miracle up their sleeve.

[TechAngel85]

I spent way too much time play around with this today, but my upscale results:
Vanilla > Shrine of the Divines > My Upscale
    

[z929669]

Your upscale is definitely better. Did you upscale normal and diffuse?

[TechAngel85]

  On 12/4/2021 at 3:59 AM, z929669 said:

Your upscale is definitely better. Did you upscale normal and diffuse?

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Yes, both. I tried to retain the metal texture through the upscale. The normal was broken down into channels and each one upscaled, then reassembled. The red channel in vanilla is horribly artifacted so I attempted to remove most of it, which added noise to the channel. I decided to keep the noise to add more "texture" from the normal. Likewise, the alpha is a bit noisier too, but still nicely detailed. It wasn't easy finding the right combination of models to use to fix all of this and still retain vanilla style.

Edit:
I'll going through the rest of these and see how they turn out.

[TechAngel85]

Vanilla > Shrine of the Divines > My Upscale