GUIDE [WIP] DDSopt & Texture Overhauls

[z929669]

Discussion thread:
DDSopt Guide by STEP
Wiki Link

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GET DDSopt:
Github Pre-release versions
Official Nexus versions (select pre-release update 4)

[Vond]

I have skipped Cloaks of Skyrim when running DDSOPT on all my mods (I do it one mod at a time, unpack to a backup location, optimize, pack a new .7z etc) for these very reasons, can't believe I forgot to post about it. Cloaks would turn "plastic" etc. The difference in filesize was quite huge too, from the standard of ~11 (off the top of my head) to ~3.

[z929669]

I don't know if this is the thread but when I used DDSopt one file from cloaks of skyrim got corrupted twice and another one time.

 

...\Textures\clothes\cloaksofskyrim\

Cape_n.dds

sagecloak_n.dds

 

First time I used DDSopt both these files where corrupted, all the cloaks where very shiny and plastic. I later had to reinstall the project and when I ran the optimizer then only sagecloak_n.dds was corrupted.

 

 

Also the mod Kaw Claws-Colored Long Nails have all it's textures re-sized which makes the nails pink

files found in:

...\Textures\NailColors\

aqua.dds , black.dds , blue.dds , brithred.dds , darkred.dds , gold.dds

green.dds , NailColors_n.dds , pink.dds , Purple.dds , silver.dds

 

 

Please confirm that the settings used were identical to those in the DDSopt guide. Will add these textures to the list of known issues. Ultimately, these normal maps must include unexpected information based on their naming convention. We can either compile a list to skip or to properly handle. Please keep posting problem textures on this thread. Full path names please.

 

 

 

Vond (and anyone else), if you wouldn't mind, please keep running list of mods and full texture paths for textures borked by DDSopt using default settings. Post list on this thread or on the wiki at:

 

https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide_talk:DDSopt_%26_Texture_Overhauls

[z929669]

That is the normal map (it would look weird in compressonator). The actual texture is "treepineforestbranchcomp.dds", and it also is missing the 12th mipmap, which is just a single pixel (so it makes sense that the normal is missing this as well). That could account for all of the missing 'filler'. There are definitely diffs in the lower mip levels as well (everything under the 1st). That is why close trees look identical, but they begin looking different farther away. The DDSopt versions actually DO have more detail (I measure detail by the steepness of the palette gradient, and DDSopt definitely has a steeper gradient :P ) How to recapture that lower mip is now my question. Will work on this later tonight.

 

 

So is that missing mip accounting for the distant, but near trees as well? What's strange is that I'm seeing a very few select trees that look normal, but far too many regardless of distance (except those you are up against) have missing information. I don't know how to do any real comparison, but I believe you that what DDSopt has processed has good detail. Just have to figure out how to get the missing information back.

 

Confirmed that the ONLY problem is that missing mip level.

 

These are 2048x1024 textures, and this gives 11 mip levels down to equal aspect ratio of 2:1. However, this particular example includes a 1x1 mip level by default (the 12th level), and DDSopt gets rid of this since it is not instructed to allow this final mip level due to the diff in aspect ration. Turns out Skyrim graphics uses this last level as a sort of "edge filler" for mid-distant trees. I have not been able to get a hold of Ethatron to fix or comment on the prevalence of this problem on any texture with non 1:1 aspect ratio.

 

For now, I will add the following to the skip list for DDSopt (and examine other 2:1 ratio textures ... could use help on this if anyone comes accross stripping of 12th mip level on 2048x1024 textures!):

 

textures\landscape\trees\treepineforestbranchcomp.dds

textures\terrain\deepwoodredoubtworld\trees\deepwoodredoubtworldtreelod.dds

textures\terrain\skuldafnworld\trees\skuldafnworldtreelod.dds

textures\terrain\sovngarde\trees\sovngardetreelod.dds

textures\terrain\tamriel\trees\tamrieltreelod.dds

[Vond]

Aha, nice find! Not sure what other type of objects besides trees would be using non-1:1 aspect ratio textures. Any clues?

[z929669]

Aha, nice find! Not sure what other type of objects besides trees would be using non-1:1 aspect ratio textures. Any clues?

 

 

hands and many more. not sure if this phenomenon applies though. This could be a weird implementation by Beth... using the 1:1 for "filler" in some but not all or to varying degrees. Need to look into that. (look in you output logs for strings like "12 to 11 levels" or "10 to 9 levels", etc)

[Vond]

Sadly I haven't kept most of my logs, only a few. But I do know I've seen that a lot, but I'd wager in most situations it doesn't actually remove anything noticeable. Will have a look though for sure.

[stoppingby4now]

That is the normal map (it would look weird in compressonator). The actual texture is "treepineforestbranchcomp.dds"' date=' and it also is missing the 12th mipmap' date=' which is just a single pixel (so it makes sense that the normal is missing this as well). That could account for all of the missing 'filler'. There are definitely diffs in the lower mip levels as well (everything under the 1st). That is why close trees look identical, but they begin looking different farther away. The DDSopt versions actually DO have more detail (I measure detail by the steepness of the palette gradient, and DDSopt definitely has a steeper gradient :P ) How to recapture that lower mip is now my question. Will work on this later tonight.[/quote'']So is that missing mip accounting for the distant, but near trees as well? What's strange is that I'm seeing a very few select trees that look normal, but far too many regardless of distance (except those you are up against) have missing information. I don't know how to do any real comparison, but I believe you that what DDSopt has processed has good detail. Just have to figure out how to get the missing information back.

Confirmed that the ONLY problem is that missing mip level.These are 2048x1024 textures, and this gives 11 mip levels down to equal aspect ratio of 2:1. However, this particular example includes a 1x1 mip level by default (the 12th level), and DDSopt gets rid of this since it is not instructed to allow this final mip level due to the diff in aspect ration. Turns out Skyrim graphics uses this last level as a sort of "edge filler" for mid-distant trees. I have not been able to get a hold of Ethatron to fix or comment on the prevalence of this problem on any texture with non 1:1 aspect ratio.

For now, I will add the following to the skip list for DDSopt (and examine other 2:1 ratio textures ... could use help on this if anyone comes accross stripping of 12th mip level on 2048x1024 textures!):

textures\landscape\trees\treepineforestbranchcomp.dds

textures\terrain\deepwoodredoubtworld\trees\deepwoodredoubtworldtreelod.dds

textures\terrain\skuldafnworld\trees\skuldafnworldtreelod.dds

textures\terrain\sovngarde\trees\sovngardetreelod.dds

textures\terrain\tamriel\trees\tamrieltreelod.dds

I can't help but now ask the question, what other textures is DDSopt doing this to? Not a totally big deal for me personally as I don't play with the DDSopt version.

[stoppingby4now]

Aha' date=' nice find! Not sure what other type of objects besides trees would be using non-1:1 aspect ratio textures. Any clues?[/quote']hands and many more. not sure if this phenomenon applies though. This could be a weird implementation by Beth... using the 1:1 for "filler" in some but not all or to varying degrees. Need to look into that. (look in you output logs for strings like "12 to 11 levels" or "10 to 9 levels"' date=' etc)[/quote']Completely cleaned my install and tested with the DDSopt DLC2 textures (which has the trees) and for the closer trees, the transition is fairly smooth now. Before, the missing detail was popping in.

 

Upon closer examining of the Bethesda versions, I'm not seeing any change in the shape of the trees, just an increase in detail.

[z929669]

 

Aha' date=' nice find! Not sure what other type of objects besides trees would be using non-1:1 aspect ratio textures. Any clues?[/quote']hands and many more. not sure if this phenomenon applies though. This could be a weird implementation by Beth... using the 1:1 for "filler" in some but not all or to varying degrees. Need to look into that. (look in you output logs for strings like "12 to 11 levels" or "10 to 9 levels"' date=' etc)[/quote']Completely cleaned my install and tested with the DDSopt DLC2 textures (which has the trees) and for the closer trees, the transition is fairly smooth now. Before, the missing detail was popping in.

Upon closer examining of the Bethesda versions, I'm not seeing any change in the shape of the trees, just an increase in detail.

 

sorry s4n, I am lost. Can you be more specific? What is DLC2? Only STD vanilla has

textures\landscape\trees\treepineforestbranchcomp.dds (HRDLC does not, only the normals... I still have to test the normals BTW)

 

Increase in detail of the DDSopt versions?

[stoppingby4now]

 

Completely cleaned my install and tested with the DDSopt DLC2 textures (which has the trees) and for the closer trees, the transition is fairly smooth now. Before, the missing detail was popping in.Upon closer examining of the Bethesda versions, I'm not seeing any change in the shape of the trees, just an increase in detail.

 

sorry s4n, I am lost. Can you be more specific? What is DLC2? Only STD vanilla has textures\landscape\trees\treepineforestbranchcomp.dds (HRDLC does not, only the normals... I still have to test the normals BTW)

Increase in detail of the DDSopt versions?

 

Sorry, I always name my directories DLC1 and DLC2 (for downloadable content 01 and 02).

 

You're right, I was referring to the normal "with _n", but it's interesting to note that only applying my DDSOpt'ed textures folder for HRDCL02 (which only contains the normal), I still get the same behavior where trees have missing information. When I remove them and everything is vanilla, the information comes back.

 

For the detail, I meant to say that using the non-DDSopt textures there is no change in definition of the tree as I approach them, just that the detail level increases (normal behavior).

[Vond]

 

 

 

Aha' date=' nice find! Not sure what other type of objects besides trees would be using non-1:1 aspect ratio textures. Any clues?[/quote']hands and many more. not sure if this phenomenon applies though. This could be a weird implementation by Beth... using the 1:1 for "filler" in some but not all or to varying degrees. Need to look into that. (look in you output logs for strings like "12 to 11 levels" or "10 to 9 levels"' date=' etc)[/quote']Completely cleaned my install and tested with the DDSopt DLC2 textures (which has the trees) and for the closer trees, the transition is fairly smooth now. Before, the missing detail was popping in.Upon closer examining of the Bethesda versions, I'm not seeing any change in the shape of the trees, just an increase in detail.

 

 

sorry s4n, I am lost. Can you be more specific? What is DLC2? Only STD vanilla has textures\landscape\trees\treepineforestbranchcomp.dds (HRDLC does not, only the normals... I still have to test the normals BTW)

 

Increase in detail of the DDSopt versions?

 

Skyrim Flora Overhaul has it aswell btw, worth mentioning as it is in STEP. All files you mentioned above are there actually.

[z929669]

OK, to finalize this, my next step will be to test the DDSopt'ed normal map with/wo the DDSopt'ed color map (there will be four combinations, two of which will be new to me).

 

I do assume that this will affect certain of the 2:1 textures, depending on implementation of those textures, and the prevalence of 12th mipmap usage in mid-distance.

 

(I added this as a bug on the DDSopt bugtracker at Github .. also posted this as a bug on the DDSopt dev forum ... more of a feature request than a bug though maybe)

[z929669]

My findings confirm that ONLY

textures\landscape\trees\treepineforestbranchcomp.dds affects this mid-distance tree fill effect. I will add this one to the exclusions list in the DDSopt guide.

[Spiffyman]

I have an issue with ddsopt. I ran the 101Bugs mod through ddsopt and got back an interesting result. The original texture was 267kb and according to Irfanview is 640x620 pixels in size. The result of ddsopt is a 683kb file with 1024x512 size. What seems strange to me is the original wasn't in normal size formats I'm used to seeing (128,256,512, etc) so maybe ddsopt fixed it, but I'd like to make sure because that's a big change.

Here are screens of both the textures to show what I mean

 

Original: https://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo351/Spiffyman777/Wing-Original.jpg

DDSOpt'd: https://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo351/Spiffyman777/Wing-ddsopt.jpg

[frihyland]

the 101bugs dont include the full mipmapping, thats why the size is changed.