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

[phazer11]

Could someone post a link to the archive please? Even with my fiber line I'm having massive load time viewing them on dropbox.

[z929669]

Just load the page and select an image. Then tick quickly through all 56 and back again. You may need to go grab a beer or something, but it should all load up within 2-3 minutes.

 

If you click on the cog in the upper right, there should be an option to download as a zip too.

[phazer11]

That's the weird thing I can't seem to get any but the vanilla compare to load all of the others do the spinning wheel. I don't have any problems with anything I've uploaded, through dropbox or otherwise.

[z929669]

That's the weird thing I can't seem to get any but the vanilla compare to load all of the others do the spinning wheel. I don't have any problems with anything I've uploaded' date=' through dropbox or otherwise.[/quote']

load the page and Ctrl+F5 to reload with cache bypass. You may have a bad route to the DB server at the moment. ... or try another browser?

[phazer11]

I refreshed my page on accident I was editing my post. I finally got the images to load after booting up my desktop they didn't want to load on my laptop for whatever reason I'm guessing it was a bad route, I even tried switching to Chrome no luck on laptop. Oh well. Anyways your Superior Rock Textures look... messed up. What resolution textures are you using? I believe I'm using the 1k version and they don't look nearly as bad as the ones in your shots.

 

Oh I can say (and it pains me) but Sparrow your textures (these only)... I can't stand looking at them they're making me sick.

[Guest]

Child please... ;) It's not that bad, and from the look of the textures up close, I would say BaB is the most detailed. It just needs new optional normals which I have just made thanks to Zed's work (bab normals.zip). I do love Superior Rocks though, that mod is damn nice. :) I'm currently working on adding moss to the water rocks so there will be options aplenty soon. If you guys have any feedback for anything (bar the now defunct normals) I can make changes. No puking involved. :p

[z929669]

I refreshed my page on accident I was editing my post. I finally got the images to load after booting up my desktop they didn't want to load on my laptop for whatever reason I'm guessing it was a bad route, I even tried switching to Chrome no luck on laptop. Oh well. Anyways your Superior Rock Textures look... messed up. What resolution textures are you using? I believe I'm using the 1k version and they don't look nearly as bad as the ones in your shots.

 

Oh I can say (and it pains me) but Sparrow your textures (these only)... I can't stand looking at them they're making me sick.

That is a bit rude of you phazer ... Please think of better ways of expressing your disapproval.

 

... and I am not sure why you think that Superior Rocks looks "messed up". I'd say it is quite possible that you are experiencing some kind of psychotic fit during this post ... ? Those textures look fine to me. Perhaps you also are not using No Stretching and SMIM?

 

Our perceptions clearly differ.

 

Screens please?

---

Child please... ;) It's not that bad' date=' and from the look of the textures up close, I would say BaB is the most detailed. It just needs new optional normals which I have just made thanks to Zed's work (bab normals.zip). I do love Superior Rocks though, that mod is damn nice. :) I'm currently working on adding moss to the water rocks so there will be options aplenty soon. If you guys have any feedback for anything (bar the now defunct normals) I can make changes. No puking involved. :p

The only input I have relates to your past insights on vertical objects and my own preferences (or perceptions of reality) regarding the variation in the appearance of mountains and rocks ... which varies quite a bit, depending on material and mode of origination.

 

You once mentioned to me that the slight size reduction of uncompressed normals of Terrain Bump (R8G8B8 to R5G6B5) might be best left to ground textures and not the verticals. It turns out that I found that the mountain normals for that mod were the only ones I didn't like using ... they made mountains too ... wrinkly ... just way too noisy. I am recommending that TB be used but without landscape/mountains/ . For similar (albeit opposite) reasons, I really like the vanilla mountains (but for the mesh-texture stretching in many areas), because they have smooth facets, deep crevaces, cracks, and other interesting features that are accurate representations of mountains and rocks that I have seen (Shasta Trinity in California, Mt. Haleakala in Hawaii, Mt. Rainier in Seattle and other examples). Vanilla mountains look mostly like water-eroded igneous with some areas of metamorphic rock or even lava flows. B&B looks a bit too dimply and uniform. It is missing cracks, facets and large, water-eroded vertical crevices, etc.

 

I'll check out the new normals though and get back ;)

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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 ;)

Just bumping these findings for comment ...

[Smile44]

As always vanilla does look accurate but is problematic due to the stretching etc.. Mountains grow through convergent tectonic plate movement which forces the ground and rocks up between them as they converge (usually). This will lead to rocks having a variety of angles and types rather than uniform positioning of the same rock and as such you are very likely to find varying rock types especially on the larger mountains.

 

BB looks a lot as if these mountains were formed from extrusive igneous rocks which is not how mountains form (volcanic ones do but not normal ones), though detailed they have far to many uniform wrinkles (a bit like bubble wrap).

 

Brown though interesting in places just looks wrong a lot of the time too soft (sedimentary looking in texture).

 

Superior does look good up close but as soon as you look further away the textures start to look painted, smudging etc..

 

Alternative look too rounded in many of the shots - erosion produces smoothness / weathering produces jagged edges (generally speaking).

 

AOF looks good but I think Rocking stones improves on it after all RS is based on AOF textures and uses SMIM and NS. With the "fixed meshes" pictures the differences between AOF and RS are minimal though visible but without those fixes there is a clear difference and you can clearly see a variety of angles and shapes and rock variation that would be visible in normal rocky / mountain landscapes, though this is not flawlessly executed it is realistic.

 

Interestingly there is clearly a different mod set up for the shots showing the "fixed mesh" rocking stones than the others, perhaps not a great deal of difference but enough to make comparisons difficult in some shots.

 

In these shots AOF and RS are on the whole consistently more realistic than the other options, though not always better. They do improve on vanilla mesh and texture wise if not on accurate / artistic interpretation.

 

Of course this is all entirely subjective - so regardless of whether or not there are mesh issues with RS it is my favourite of these options at this time.

 

:)

[Guest]

Thanks for the input Zed and Smile. I have just updated my mod (I finished it last night) and I perhaps got a bit scared with the rock depth lol:

 

 

I tried to balence it so when I fired up the game, I hoped not to see any really black streaks on the meshes from too deep normals. I totally understand what you guys mean.

 

Also this guy did a video, but it's with ENB. Still:

 

 

Thank you for everything and for the time taken here with the compares. It's fantastic. :)

[Smile44]

Wow these are a hell of a lot better. I don't have a normal STEP set up at the moment so can't do proper compares. I have downloaded it and will have a look in game shortly if they look as good in game then we may have a new winner IMO. I especially like the vanilla deep normals and wet rock textures.

 

I will report back in a bit.

 

:)

[Hein84]

Hey techangel85 :)

 

Hope you recieved the message I sent you via Nexus

[Hein84]

If there are any further questions about Rocking Stones Parallax, pm me ;)

[TechAngel85]

Hey techangel85 :)

 

Hope you recieved the message I sent you via Nexus

I did and thanks for your reply. I'll post it here for everyone to see.

Hi!

 

First I have to say, I'm very amazed and flattered you consider my mod :)

 

No Stretching AND SMIM are incorporated in "ALL in One" package.

Some of the images are showing older versions of the mod, they aren't the same as in All in One (use them to show the texture-details, I may update them^^).

Though I altered the UV-maps of many No-Stretching-meshes to make parallax-effect work proper - they may not be recognizable.

 

The textures themselves are an overhaul of AOF's great work.

I altered the normal and diffuse maps to be steeper and to show structures like lichen.

On the second texture (mostly used for trims, only on a few rocks in full cover) i placed a bigger flora-bunch :)

 

one of those rocks how it looks with actual meshes:

https://static1.nexusmods.com/110/mods/images/38004-1-1373279065.jpg

 

a brown one:

https://static1.nexusmods.com/110/mods/images/38004-2-1375537445.jpg

 

Hope I was able to clear the situation.

I will make an account soon and write to your STEP-page:)

 

[Hein84]

The only problem for now is the "extra wet rocks"-patch, I have to consult SparrowPrince again.

Parallax and Environment mapping seem not do work together

[z929669]

Hi Hein,

 

I assume that you are the mod author for Rocking Stones? I'll embellish your forum tag with mod author once tech confirms that you aren't a doppleganger ;)

 

In the meantime, nice textures BTW. As you may have read, my biggest nitpick with Rocking Stones is that they seem to be using the vanilla meshes as a source ... the ones without the fixed texture mapping (i.e., rather than using No Stretching and possibly SMIM as source). I think that this is evident if you compare your mod in the gallery of the OP. The third shot of each location is RS&M (NON-ENB) using meshes from No Stretching and SMIM ... latter wins conflicts, and the fourth set is RS&M (NON-ENB) using the native meshes that you derived. Note that all other screens in each set are using NS/SMIM as well)

 

thanks for visiting our forums!

 

EDIT: It looks like I got ninja'd by the previous two posts

 

That pretty much answers my questions ;)  To confirm: I need to download All-in-One and use those meshes ... do you have any that exclude the parallax? We are looking for options that will work well for STEP:Core, which will not use ENB. (but if the ENB meshes still look great without ENB, then we will consider those).

---

Thanks for the input Zed and Smile. I have just updated my mod (I finished it last night) and I perhaps got a bit scared with the rock depth lol:

 

 

I tried to balence it so when I fired up the game, I hoped not to see any really black streaks on the meshes from too deep normals. I totally understand what you guys mean.

 

Also this guy did a video, but it's with ENB. Still:

 

 

Thank you for everything and for the time taken here with the compares. It's fantastic. :)

The revision indeed looks very good based on the video. Are these the normals you included in your zip file above? I still have yet to prepare the new screens, and I want to be certain that I am using your latest material.

 

It looks like I will need to revise the B&B and RS&M screens in the gallery.