Happy Little Trees (by T4gtr34um3r)

[z929669]

7 hours ago, Mousetick said:

Bark bark bark bark bark bark. HLT and nothing else. No comparison shots, no time for that, sorry. As you can see there are 2 types of bark: smooth and scaly.

Unique HLT marsh tree (left), which seems to be simply a taller/thinner version of tundradriftwood (right):

As I alluded previously: I'm fine with this bark. I think it is an accurate representation of many conifers (if not necessarily the 'species' depicted by HLT). Most tree mods are not true to natural morphology but rather are --more often than not-- good or passable approximations (e.g., I doubt any tree mod gets leaf/branch/bark morphology exactly right with respect to the intended species).

[Mousetick]

I'm fine with it too. I'm not familiar with the specific type of scaly bark that was used, so it looks a bit strange and foreign to me, but it looks very much like conifer bark, so doesn't feel out of place. I like that 2 types of bark are used. Again it makes the world feel more natural and less like artificially carbon-copied objects to me.

What bothers me (a little) is that for some reason the mod replaces the wood texture (firewood01.dds) of the firewood logs, but not their bark texture (treepineforestbarkcomp.dds). As can be seen in the previous screenshots, the firewood logs bark is the vanilla one, with a greenish tint. This inconsistency is jarring, since there are no trees in the game with this bark once HLT is installed.

[z929669]

7 hours ago, Mousetick said:

What bothers me (a little) is that for some reason the mod replaces the wood texture (firewood01.dds) of the firewood logs, but not their bark texture (treepineforestbarkcomp.dds). As can be seen in the previous screenshots, the firewood logs bark is the vanilla one, with a greenish tint. This inconsistency is jarring, since there are no trees in the game with this bark once HLT is installed.

I would post it as a bug report. I never noticed it, but it's expected to use local trees for wood.

[Mousetick]

18 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I would post it as a bug report.

Ok, will do then. I saw someone made the same remark back in Nov. about the firewood texture in the comments section:

Quote

Do you have any plans to apply your excellent textures to firewood? They still has that low-res greenish vanilla textures, sadly.

 The MA didn't respond. Another user did respond, suggesting to use another mod for the firewood logs, with yet a completely different look 

[z929669]

10 hours ago, Mousetick said:

Ok, will do then. I saw someone made the same remark back in Nov. about the firewood texture in the comments section:

 The MA didn't respond. Another user did respond, suggesting to use another mod for the firewood logs, with yet a completely different look 

Yeah, bug reports keeps it on the radar, whereas old posts get lost. I think it's a 'bug' though, since it's not expected.

T4 is taking a break I suspect. he hasn't been very active in the past couple of months after releasing HLT. There are several fixes cropping up, and he recently posted that people should have been submitting these reports in the past 6 months

I may address some of them on his behalf. This one is really simple, but it would be good to combine everything into a single patch update.

[Mousetick]

One detail that I hadn't been paying attention to has become a big issue: the snow texture on the snowy "pines". It doesn't match whatever snow texture may be used for landscapes, unless one uses Majestic Landscapes from the same MA. I experimented with only using the snow and snowy textures from Majestic Landscapes, but the snow style is too strong for my taste: it's very bright and very "cyan".

First, to eliminate any doubts about possible setup mistakes on my side, a simple comparison between vanilla snow and ML snow in a vanilla game:

Vanilla > Majestic Landscapes Snow

 

Now switching to a fully modded game, using STEP as the base, with HLT snowy "pine" trees replacing EVT. Hyperborean Snow is included in the comparisons because that's what I'm using. It's slightly brighter and shinier than Cathedral.

Cathedral Snow (from Cathedral Landscapes) > Hyperborean Snow > Majestic Landscapes Snow

The snowy pine trees jump out and look completely wrong unless ML snow is used.

 

So why not keep and play with ML snow? It's very nice, but it's too far from vanilla, too bright and too cyan for me, and it gets worse when used with weather mods which alter the light. I've been testing RAID Weathers, so it's used in the comparisons:

Hyperborean Snow + RAID Weathers > Majestic Landscapes Snow + RAID Weathers

Under a clear blue sky, some light cyan tinting can be seen on the Hyperborean snow but it's very subtle. But look at the ML snow - it's almost solid cyan! Not good...

 

I managed to hack the HLT snowy pine texture in Paint.net and replaced the large snow coat by cutting and pasting Hyperborean's snow01.dds texture, which gives pretty good results:

Hyperborean Snow, Hacked HLT, No Weather > Same + RAID Weathers

 

It's not perfect though, there remains bits of snow textures in the HLT atlas that would need to be replaced as well. They can be seen in the previous shots by looking closely. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to fix that with my very limited skills and tools. I may have to live with the remaining defects.

 

---

On the matter of mixing HLT and Aspens Ablaze, there are no major issues. If both the HLT full set and AA plugins are used, LOOT sorts HLT after AA, so the resulting conflicts need to be resolved either by a small patch or by manually re-ordering the plugins so HLT is loaded before AA.

[z929669]

2 hours ago, Mousetick said:

One detail that I hadn't been paying attention to has become a big issue: the snow texture on the snowy "pines". It doesn't match whatever snow texture may be used for landscapes, unless one uses Majestic Landscapes from the same MA. I experimented with only using the snow and snowy textures from Majestic Landscapes, but the snow style is too strong for my taste: it's very bright and very "cyan".

Oh my, don't get me going on snow in Skyrim.

My opinion is that and CL snow is gray and always have been. I absolutely hate it. It looks like ash/ass to me, and vanilla coloring is only slightly better. ENB effectively resolves for the most part, and HLT snow trees match better that way under CL (but I wasn't focused on snow matching snowy pines in HLT when I was modding with it).

I don't see ML snow as blue/cyan. I see it as white like snow should be, and the 'cool' bias that you are seeing as cyan is realistic to me on a sunny, clear day. Those ML+HLT screens look much better, IMO. That said, I think it would also look as good and increase compatibility with just a touch of warmth to the snow textures. I wish ML had been around two years ago when I was painstakingly (and futilely) trying to get 'matching' white snow in all snow landscapes of Skyrim (including on glaciers and mountains) without ENB :/

The blue sky may bias your eyes, drawing out the cool tones in the brighter snow, particularly in game. Easy enough to test with overcast weather though.

That last compare of yours with the hacked HLT snow demonstrates how gray the snow is in Skyrim (particularly with CL). It looks 'OK' with vanilla cloudy weather, but the clear weather under RAID really shows the grayness of the snow. Appearance of snow in real life is highly influenced by sky lighting, because it is bright and reflective. Not gray. Even with a half moon, the night glows after a fresh snow.

PS: This reminds me of why I haven't really played Skyrim for real since 2014. It must all be fixed for me to re-engage. Changing landscape mods is a major PITA, but I may play with ML in Step at some point. There are a hundred ways it may not be compatible though. Just thinking of it makes my head hurt.

 

[Mousetick]

48 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I don't see ML snow as blue/cyan. I see it as white like snow should be, and the 'cool' bias that you are seeing as cyan is realistic to me on a sunny, clear day.

You're probably right. I don't know much about snow and I rarely see it in reality. So I wouldn't disagree.

If I had been using ML all along I'd have been accustomed to it and I might have found that the snow on HLT trees looked fantastic, seamlessly integrated into the landscape.

I could still keep CL and overwrite it with ML's snow I guess. But it's so blue in places sometimes depending on the light... My eyes are used to looking at "white" vanilla snow, so it's quite a shift.

Nevertheless the issue remains: the snow on HLT snowy pines, as good as it may be, doesn't match any Skyrim snow other than ML snow. That severely limits the appeal and compatibility of the whole HLT mod as a result. Unless patches are made for the most popular snow mods, or unless users don't care about the mismatch, it's going to be an obstacle.

It's easier to mix and match varying shades and brightness of white than to mix and match tints 

Shouldn't snow on its own be a neutral white, and change color depending on thickness, temperature, light and other environmental factors? The problem with T4's snow as I see it is that it's already intrinsically colored. When viewed in an image editor, the texture has a teal tint.

[z929669]

44 minutes ago, Mousetick said:

Shouldn't snow on its own be a neutral white, and change color depending on thickness, temperature, light and other environmental factors? The problem with T4's snow as I see it is that it's already intrinsically colored. When viewed in an image editor, the texture has a teal tint.

Yeah, I agree that some alternative branch textures would be ideal. Otherwise, this mod does have limited compatibility. Even better would be if they could be affected by BDS.

[TechAngel85]

6 hours ago, z929669 said:

My opinion is that and CL snow is gray and always have been. I absolutely hate it. It looks like ash/ass to me, and vanilla coloring is only slightly better. ENB effectively resolves for the most part, and HLT snow trees match better that way under CL (but I wasn't focused on snow matching snowy pines in HLT when I was modding with it).

That last compare of yours with the hacked HLT snow demonstrates how gray the snow is in Skyrim (particularly with CL). It looks 'OK' with vanilla cloudy weather, but the clear weather under RAID really shows the grayness of the snow. Appearance of snow in real life is highly influenced by sky lighting, because it is bright and reflective. Not gray. Even with a half moon, the night glows after a fresh snow.

The snow is not pure white because you'd have nothing but blown-out white due to lighting. Adding a touch of grey is an easy way to reduce the effect, but it still happens even with the grey tinted snow. The game is just old and can't adjust the lighting based on the material being lit so everything is just blasted with the same amount of light. Thus you have great looking dirt and rocks with white-clipped snowy landscape. Like everything in this game, it's a balancing act.

Personally the ML shots above are far too blue-shifted. It looks fake.

[z929669]

30 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

Personally the ML shots above are far too blue-shifted. It looks fake.

A touch of warmth would correct that. It's far better than the absolute gray of CL snow. It looks like ash as I mentioned. When you are near ice and glaciers, it's comical.

Real snow is bright white on a sunny day and very slightly blue shifted. In cloudy weather, it's white. Never gray though except at night, but it doesn't look gray at night due to relative brightness.

[TechAngel85]

35 minutes ago, z929669 said:

A touch of warmth would correct that. It's far better than the absolute gray of CL snow. It looks like ash as I mentioned. When you are near ice and glaciers, it's comical.

Real snow is bright white on a sunny day and very slightly blue shifted. In cloudy weather, it's white. Never gray though except at night, but it doesn't look gray at night due to relative brightness.

I'm all for an alt for snow that matches the rest of the landscape textures. I know you and I have both done testing in this area, though, and nothing really checked all the boxes (main issue being blending LOD because none of them provide files for generating).

[DoubleYou]

I think the Cathedral Snow page snow might have brighter snow than the snow texture included in Cathedral Landscapes. 

[z929669]

On 2/8/2022 at 3:42 PM, DoubleYou said:

I think the Cathedral Snow page snow might have brighter snow than the snow texture included in Cathedral Landscapes. 

One of the HLT users commented that the CL brighter snow option matches well. That wasn't among @Mousetick's compares, so curious to know if he tried that. i suspect that the CL brighter version is brighter but without the blue shift so is likely better but still a bit off.

I think HLT will need two options for snowy trees:

• one option with a touch of warmth added (red/green) without lowering brightness and
• another with the same but a decrease in brightness to better match the dreadful ash color of vanilla and most snow mods.

Do we have the same mismatch between other snowy trees and snow (i.e., not just the heavy, snow-piled trees but the ones that just have snow painted on the limbs)?

[Mousetick]

46 minutes ago, z929669 said:

One of the HLT users commented that the CL brighter snow option matches well. That wasn't among @Mousetick's compares, so curious to know if he tried that.

No I didn't try with with CL brighter snow because at the time I wasn't aware of its existence. I shall try it when I get the chance.

47 minutes ago, z929669 said:

Do we have the same mismatch between other snowy trees and snow (i.e., not just the heavy, snow-piled trees but the ones that just have snow painted on the limbs)?

Any tree that have snow on them, painted or piled, or on the trunks. Look at the texture atlases in textures/landscape/trees/Northern Hemispheres, e.g. DeadAtlas.dds, PineAtlas.dds, SnowBark_Atlas.dds.