SKYRIMLE Bigger and Boulder - Mountain and Wet Rock Customization (by SparrowPrince)

[z929669]

OP updated with compare screens. Vanilla is not ready yet, but will be up shortly I think.

 

EDIT: DropBox is really slow right now, so uploading will take a couple more hours from time of this post.

[Smile44]

Boo! Not one stands out in all the pictures, they all have plusses and minuses in different shots. Not an easy one. Rock patterns vary alot in some shots, any geologists about?

 

:)

 

P.S. Great shots Z.

[TechAngel85]

I'll check back when compares are completely uploaded because some scenes don't have all the covered mods yet.

[Guest]

Just want to say that nothing in my mod is technically core. It's more up to the user. The custom normal is actually sorced from some small cliffs right near me where some old railway tracks used to be. Thanks for the compares Zed. It's weird though that your normals for my mod seem more condensed. Running vanilla lighting, slight sat. boost I get this:

 

 

There are big smooth parts along with the more condensed detail. Also if you have the time, can we get some close-up detail compares as I'm curious about that. Cheers!

[TechAngel85]

From these compares, so far Rocking Stones & Mountains is my top pick.

[z929669]

Just want to say that nothing in my mod is technically core. It's more up to the user. The custom normal is actually sorced from some small cliffs right near me where some old railway tracks used to be. Thanks for the compares Zed. It's weird though that your normals for my mod seem more condensed. Running vanilla lighting, slight sat. boost I get this:

 

 

There are big smooth parts along with the more condensed detail. Also if you have the time, can we get some close-up detail compares as I'm curious about that. Cheers!

I think the problem is the bad vanilla meshes. This is one reason why I would NOT recommend Rocking Stones & Mountains. This one appears to have based all of its meshes on the vanilla source ^$!#@-up meshes. I think that this one also used AOF textures as a source as well. If he could fix his meshes, I'd be pretty game for that one.

 

B&B is a stylistic deviation, IMO. That rock texture seems less like granite (same goes for Brown Mountains, which looks like porous volcanic rock or something).

 

Superior Rocks does a great job though. In many shots, I prefer this mod. It really makes the mountains look like granite rock. My favorite is still AOF with Superior Rocks coming in at a close second. Note that if vanilla were higher resolution, I would definitely prefer it. Vanilla is by far the best interpretation of a realistic rock texture, IMO. But it has issues close up.

 

.... although, after comparing further with vanilla, Alternative Mountains seems the most true to vanilla, and I really like that style. Just need to determine if Alt Mountains looks good close up, but it seems to from some of the foreground rocks in the screens ...

 

OP screens updated with vanilla (including No Stretching, SMIM and SRO for fairness)

[Neovalen]

Rocking Stones is my current SR choice as well and it only gets better with ENB.

[z929669]

Rocking Stones is my current SR choice as well and it only gets better with ENB.

but ... I'm pretty sure that it uses the broken vanilla source meshes. That is a deal breaker, IMO.

[TechAngel85]

Rocking Stones is my current SR choice as well and it only gets better with ENB.

but ... I'm pretty sure that it uses the broken vanilla source meshes. That is a deal breaker, IMO.

Vanilla is just okay for me... Superior is too smoothed out in most places making it the second farthest from vanilla, IMO, and it's too light for me. BB being the farthest from vanilla. Alternative is okay too. Brown Mountains...eh.

 

If you look at the first compare from Vanilla to Rocking Stones, you see a good bit of change in the meshes so I'm not seeing the vanilla mesh you're talking about. Rocking Stones seems to blend in the best with the rest of the environment, IMO, so it'll remain my top choice for now.

[Neovalen]

Rocking stones uses a combo of SMIM, vanilla, and author edited vanilla mesh sources...

[z929669]

 

Rocking Stones is my current SR choice as well and it only gets better with ENB.

but ... I'm pretty sure that it uses the broken vanilla source meshes. That is a deal breaker, IMO.

Vanilla is just okay for me... Superior is too smoothed out in most places making it the second farthest from vanilla, IMO, and it's too light for me. BB being the farthest from vanilla. Alternative is okay too. Brown Mountains...eh.

 

If you look at the first compare from Vanilla to Rocking Stones, you see a good bit of change in the meshes so I'm not seeing the vanilla mesh you're talking about. Rocking Stones seems to blend in the best with the rest of the environment, IMO, so it'll remain my top choice for now.

Read the compare notes ... vanilla uses No Stretching and SMIM for "fairness".

 

The vanilla mountain meshes are broken, and No Stretching fixes. Only Rocking Stones & Mountains uses the problematic vanilla meshes. Everything else uses the fix by proxy. Rocking Stones needs to update with fixed meshes before we consider.

 

It is also very clear to me that Rocking Stones either uses AOF mountanin textures as a source, or it has tried very hard to mimic the AOF result.

 

AOF is the "best", IMO, but Alternative Mountains is clearly the most consistent with vanilla.

 

Also, Superior Rocks has a couple other color options, but the Light Gray is definitely closest to vanilla. The Default option is way too dark, IMO.

[TechAngel85]

Or...we can put the load order to where No Stretching overwrites the messed up meshes in Rocking Stones (if that is possible).

 

EDIT:

Will contact the author tho.

[z929669]

Or...we can put the load order to where No Stretching overwrites the messed up meshes in Rocking Stones (if that is possible).

Totally possible, but it breaks many features of the mod ... and it would look identical to AOF, so why bother?

[TechAngel85]

From the author's page:

 

"Better Rocks and Mountains - UV Tweak", "No Stretching", "Static Mesh Improvement Mod" INCORPORATED

I contacted the author for commit.

[z929669]

From the author's page:

 

"Better Rocks and Mountains - UV Tweak", "No Stretching", "Static Mesh Improvement Mod" INCORPORATED

I contacted the author for commit.

OK, I'll add No Stretching and SMIM underneath that mod to lay an speculation to rest ;)

---

OP/gallery updated with the corrected meshes with Rocking Stones ...

 

First image is vanilla ... focus on the second, third and fourth of each compare. These are AOF / RS&M (with No Stretching & SMIM) / RS&M with native meshes

 

I think that it is very clear that the native RS&M meshes were not sourced using the mesh fixes from either or both No Stretching and SMIM. Furthermore, I think it is a safe bet that the textures were sourced from AOF ... or it is a very good independent copy of AOF ;)