Cathedral - 3D Sword Ferns (by Dr Jacopo)

[TechAngel85]

Discussion topic:
Cathedral - 3D Sword Ferns by Dr Jacopo
Wiki Link

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Step v2.2 (vanilla) w/ENB  >  Cathedral 3D /ENB
  
  
  
  
The last compare here is simply without ENB to show the color.

The animation on the Cathedral ferns is more wavy vs vanilla's more rigid ones. It's not natural looking because the stem would be woody on this plant, meaning the the stems wouldn't "wave". That my (Tech's) only real complaint about these. They are a bit dark vs vanilla, however, vanilla is too shiny. As is the case with a lot of vanilla textures, it has too much specular for a plant...especially one that is brown and dying.

[z929669]

I think that's Cathedral ferngrass01 and ferngrassff, which is provided by Complex Grass for Cathedral Landscapes and would have some lighting discrepancies under our ENB.

[TechAngel85]

17 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I think that's Cathedral ferngrass01 and ferngrassff, which is provided by Complex Grass for Cathedral Landscapes and would have some lighting discrepancies under our ENB.

These are not grasses. They are individually placed objects. There are no conflicts in the Guide so we're using vanilla.

EDIT:
Actually the textures are custom with the mod. I'll have to hunt the vanilla ones down.

EDIT2:
I have confirmed these textures are vanilla in our Guide. They are using a texture found in grass (SwordFern), however, that texture is not included in any of the mods in the Guide; including Cathedral Landscapes.

[DoubleYou]

I didn't think that fern's stems were woody? I'm not sure about the "sword" fern if there is a specific variant, but the ferns growing in my area are always green and just enough to hold the weight of the leaves.

Color looks much better in the non-ENB version interestingly.

[z929669]

Got it. I like them but think the totally dead/dried variants are a bit unrealistic. Same for vanilla though. They look healthy but brown/yellow. In my experience, ferns in an area all look pretty similar rather than some totally dead and some flourishing.

As DY states, ferns are pretty much always green and when they start dying back, it's the lower leaves. Then they curl up a bit and actually look dead. This captures it nicely

All said and done, this replacer is better than vanilla, IMO

PS: I think the color in the ENB shots is a bit better, but for the dead ferns. It's mostly just brighter everywhere without ENB (even shadows). We can raise vegetation > SSS to improve the color and maybe tweaks to environment > colorpow (as long as doing that doesn't muck up other things).

[TechAngel85]

I didn't mark it for testing as I just wasn't sure about it, myself. I think I'd need to play with it installed for a while. The color could be a bit more saturated, but overall they blend well with the environment. The movement on them is just a bit odd...they almost look like tentacles moving...you just have to see it.  The meshes are also a bit higher vs wider than vanilla. I assume that was done so they don't clip into things as badly, but that also means they don't look as lush as vanilla because they're not spread out as much.

[z929669]

1 hour ago, TechAngel85 said:

I didn't mark it for testing as I just wasn't sure about it, myself. I think I'd need to play with it installed for a while. The color could be a bit more saturated, but overall they blend well with the environment. The movement on them is just a bit odd...they almost look like tentacles moving...you just have to see it.  The meshes are also a bit higher vs wider than vanilla. I assume that was done so they don't clip into things as badly, but that also means they don't look as lush as vanilla because they're not spread out as much.

Looked in game, and these are definitely better, but that animation is very strange. It's like an undulating sea anemone (tentacles, yeah) ... or what a fern might look like on LSD.

It's odd enough that it should be fixed.

[TadasTalalas]

That would change the atmosphere substantially... Looks like completely different plant.

[z929669]

I like these a lot, but both the color and the vibrating/squiggle animation are a bad fit, IMO. Worse than the meh vanilla ferns we have now

[TechAngel85]

22 hours ago, z929669 said:

I like these a lot, but both the color and the vibrating/squiggle animation are a bad fit, IMO. Worse than the meh vanilla ferns we have now

I agree.