Tales of the novice texture/mesh "artist"!

[Aiyen]

This is meant to be a little bit of random banter, about what I am doing with this skyrim hobby that I keep spending time on! Let us begin! 

 

It is 4am in the morning, and I am a bit dismayed! 

 

As part of my ever ongoing project to fix various textures that does not fit in with my ENB settings I have recently come across blackreach! 

I was going there to produce some nice screenshots with my new bloom settings, since I know it has a unique atmosphere! And in general its an interesting place that I cant wait to explore properly someday! 

 

 

Yet I come down and my eyes are met by .... well in lack of a better word, radioactive rocks, and plants. 

So the first thing to do is ofc. to identify the meshes and in turn the textures that needs to be edited! 

This is done quickly enough but I find out the plants do not even have a texture responsible for glowing! So then I have to learn to dig into the intestines of the mesh to figure out why it glows! 

 

 

After a bit of trial and error... and realizing that the color in nifskope is not what you see ingame.... I succeed in making radioactive plants into red glowing branches from hell! 

But well at least I know how to edit the meshes now, so I can return to the glowing rocks! 

 

 

These rocks do have a texture applied to them! A crystal texture no less! After a few attempts at color adjustment I just realize that the texture itself is just bad... an entirely new one is required! 

I thought.... I just finished messing with Ice textures... the guy who made those did a good job, perhaps they would be easy to adjust the colors for! 

I put them in and I get..... well something that looks like someone puked up a ball of dirty ice in the middle of my fungi cave! 

This does not work either! 

 

 

So this night I have been learning how to do crystal textures from the ground up... I have tried to do them using some of the very good mountain textures as a base.... but without much luck! I then decided it was time to do something more basic and just try to do it all from the very start... an entirely clean canvas! 

 

After a few hours of finding awkward old tutorials, and doing multiple layers of weirdness and combining them again I produce something that actually does look like a crystal layer. I put it in, and it does look.... crystalline! A bit too crystallized, but something to work with.... BUT!!!

 

Before I leave I turn about and behold the giant glowing fungi...... made of crystal! O_o 

I look the other way.... some other weird thing hanging down from the roof.... also made of crystal! WTF. 

 

Apparently Bethesda thought that everything in this damn cave should have an overlay of this particular crystal layer! So now not only do I have to create a decent looking crystal texture that fit on a rock.... I also have to either fix all the fungi, or remove the effect from the mesh entirely! 

 

Like a famous guy once said........ Its never easy! 

[phazer11]

Aiyen... I just don't even know what to say...

[TechAngel85]

Sounds like many of my trials and errors!

[Aiyen]

Ah yes the project continues!

 

Nothing like watching the Starcraft 2 WCS and making textures at the same time!

 

Finally figured out a few ways to create realistic and artistic crystal formations!

God bless all the various filters!!!!

 

While this can produce some cool looking fungi, then sadly the rocks looks like they are all polished and shiny...

The next step is to find some realistic rocks textures and use as a base, and then go layer crazy with blending in the crystals so it looks good! Then hopefully I will be able to create a rocky looking crystal so that the crystals shine though on the fungi, making them look cool, and the rocks look like a rock with crystals in them!

 

Alternatively then I guess I could make new textures and edit every mesh to use new textures..... but that just seems so much work!

 

Also in other news, then Rootsrat seems like a man on a mission with finding flaws in CoT that I can correct!

This whole thing with getting to play the game seems further and further away every day!

[TechAngel85]

Ah yes the project continues!

 

Nothing like watching the Starcraft 2 WCS and making textures at the same time!

 

Finally figured out a few ways to create realistic and artistic crystal formations!

God bless all the various filters!!!!

 

While this can produce some cool looking fungi, then sadly the rocks looks like they are all polished and shiny...

The next step is to find some realistic rocks textures and use as a base, and then go layer crazy with blending in the crystals so it looks good! Then hopefully I will be able to create a rocky looking crystal so that the crystals shine though on the fungi, making them look cool, and the rocks look like a rock with crystals in them!

 

Alternatively then I guess I could make new textures and edit every mesh to use new textures..... but that just seems so much work!

 

Also in other news, then Rootsrat seems like a man on a mission with finding flaws in CoT that I can correct!

This whole thing with getting to play the game seems further and further away every day!

I think you've earned your full fledged modder's and STEPper badges! Join the rest of us that only mod and never play! Haha!

[rootsrat]

I've actually managed to get my character to level 10 before ILS killed my game last time. I'm now recreating my set up again...

 

Sometimes I think this is a form of hell we're all in. You get a very good game. You're given tons of excellent mods for it. You're want to play a moded game but you can never mod the game and the modding becomes the game eventually. Game that you can never win. Ever. Forever! MwahahahahaHAHAHAHAAAA!

 

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