Finding a Cave Texture

[Gygaxxor]

Currently at work so I am a little limited on what I can access at the moment. 

 

Re-installed Skyrim/S.T.E.P. over weekend, first foray into Bleak Falls Barrow I am noticing some odd textures for the cave walls, possibly floors too.

 

I did use DDSopt on the vanilla, hrdlc and dlc textures (only the textures for the DLCs).

 

Not sure if I screwed that up somewhere, or missed a step in Environments or Conflicting Graphics (I did grab the SRO 1k-2k torrent).  

 

Also tried following Aiyen's advice for locating a missing texture. 

The most obvious texture is almost the entire cave wall behind the Word Wall in Bleak Falls Barrow Sanctum. 

Hopefully we all know that place well. ;)

 

The formID I get when I step up to the the cave wall is: 000037848

However, that didn't lead me anywhere conclusive.

 

Here are a couple screenshots:

 

A: 

 

B:

 

 

Any ideas are appreciated!

 

If I have to, I will just go through and re-install any mods that affect cave/dungeon textures.

Although I am fairly confident this is a cave specific texture.  

 

Thanks to all for your hard work and testing!

[mothergoose729]

That texture isn't missing, just bad. Install amainborn caves and be happy. Overwrite all when preompted.

[Aiyen]

Yeah there is no missing texture there. You can use my guide to get the exact texture in question if you want to only replace one or two textures.

But like its been said, then it just looks like you have a low quality texture, and the best course would be to use a higher resolution version.

For caves you can use higher resolution without any issues, since the VRAM load inside caves etc. is not super high.

[Gygaxxor]

Your guide has worked for me in the past, but this time I wasn't able to find the exact texture in question.

I know it's not exactly a missing texture, but something is not right.

It was my first time through DDSopt so I assumed I screwed something up. :P

 

And thank you specifically Aiyen, your guide not only helped me in the past, but also others when they called me about "purple blobs"!

 

@mothergoose, I will try replacing aMidianBorn Caves first, thanks!

[Aiyen]

Well the guide does not cover the more ... advanced meshes and how to navigate them. Since experience show that most of the time these does not provide issues, since hardly any mods touch them.

 

Certain meshes have the main texture applied to them... but then have other textures applied on top. These textures are normally not touched by texture overhauls, and hence will look out of place.

The best example of this is moss on rocks outside of whiterun. You can get a 4k rock texture, and then when you go look at the awesomeness you get rocks with a 128x128 texture on top.... and that will be noticeable.

 

When you have the mesh then you can try to check the BSEffectShaderProperty if it has a node named that. It should include any overlay textures that might be applied. Unless I recall something entirely else... been quite a while since I did it in detail. :)

 

But glad that you like the guide! :)

[Gygaxxor]

No luck so far.

 

I replaced aMidianBorn Caves but I still have the same textures in above screenshots.

 

So I re-installed Skyrim HD, SRO, and Redefined Dungeons WIP (Redefined has some cave textures too).

 

Also with no change.

 

Next, I replaced all my DDSopt files with the original BSA files.

 

Still no change! (Really hoped that would work).

 

Not sure what to try next!

 

Been going through TES5Edit, I keep coming back to the following:

 

Dungeons\Caves\Green\Epic\CaveGECornerUp02.nif

 

Which is part of the Skyrim.esm.

[Gygaxxor]

In addition, I re-installed SMIM and as a last resort, I used Steam to "verify integrity of the game cache".

 

Still no change.

 

Stumped.

[Gygaxxor]

Went back through all Mods in Conflicting Graphics and Environment mods, and anything that might touch cave textures and meshes.

To do so, I opened Mod Organizer and went through each mod one-by-one checking the conflicting files.

If I saw anything with cave textures, I re-installed the mod using the replace option (making sure I followed S.T.E.P. instructions).

After I replaced a mod, I would start Skyrim, load the save in Bleak Falls , and check the cave textures.

If that doesn't work, I move down the list.

 

As far as I know, I have exhausted the list of logical mods that could affect the texture/mesh in question.

On a whim, I even replaced the Unofficial Patches with no luck or change.

 

Never had this problem before.

 

Would really appreciate any ideas or insights.

[DoubleYou]

Does it happen in vanilla Skyrim? If so, you'll have tough luck fixing it.

[Gygaxxor]

That's a good question and probably one of the first things I should have tried...

 

Are you saying something might be corrupted if the issue is present in Vanilla?

It would be far easier and take less time to re-install Skyrim than S.T.E.P.!

 

Wait, then my DDSopt stuff would be useless too... right?

[DoubleYou]

Basically, if it is a vanilla Skyrim bug, just run the game without using Mod Organizer. Go to the location, see if it is the same. It seems likely to be a vanilla Skyrim problem. If it is, either you will have to mod the thing into submission, or just go kill some draugr and forget about the glitchy graphics.

[Gygaxxor]

Haha, will try Vanilla and see what happens.

 

I've installed this game countless times and modded it like crazy, never had this issue before.

 

If I could just kill draugr and forget about glitchy graphics, I wouldn't be in this forum, and I would just play the xbox version!

[Aiyen]

Or just use your vanilla MO profile... There is nothing... absolutely nothing MO could ever do that would cause texture issues (By itself on a clean vanilla profile that is!)... it simply makes no sense!

 

Also since the textures are displaying then it is also a kinda waste of time going about reinstalling the game, and verfiying it etc. Like we already said, it just looks like its a mesh/texture issue. These kinda things happen around the game world.

 

If you can give me the precise location I will go test it out on my build later today, and see if I cant nail it down for ya.

[Gygaxxor]

It's in Bleak Falls Barrows, the Sanctum, where you get the Dragonstone.

Behind the "word wall" there is a little stream, it's the entire back wall of that cavern.

Also when going up the stairs to leave the "Sanctum" (after you fight the Draugr Overlord) the entire wall to the left of the stairs same weirdo texture.

 

I'm sure you don't have the issue, but it would be nice knowing what SHOULD be there.

 

I did a clean install and update when STEP was last updated (August or September), and I didn't have this issue then.

There are differences between the STEP process between now and then, but I don't think any of those would affect this texture issue.

My SRO pack is the exact same I downloaded then, so I think I can safely rule that out.

 

If it was bad update somewhere since then, I would expect others to have the same issue...

 

Sorry, thinking out loud!

 

 

 

And I do have a Vanilla profile in Mod Organizer that I will try out as soon as I get home.

[Aiyen]

Present with me as well and the cause is quite simple.

 

If you look up from where it is you will most likely be able to see some white lines etc. that are caused by the meshes not being aligned perfectly hence you get to see the sky that makes up the background of any level.

Its the same for this.. the meshes are shifted just a bit which causes the textures to overlap.

And since the mesh is already rather large.. hence stretching the texture by quite a bit, then the effect gets even more noticeable.

 

However since it is in such a closed of and not really visible location unless you go looking for it then I guess that is why they never fixed it.

[Gygaxxor]

Dungeons\Caves\Green\Epic\CaveGECornerUp02.nif

So, turns out this *might* be a part of the USKP.

Or at least, someone else noticed the same issue with the same meshes. 

https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/12969-stretched-blurry-textures-for-green-cave-walls-and-others/#

From the post:

All walls using textures\dungeons\caves\CaveBaseWall05.dds suffer blurry and stretched textures effect.

All nifs in

 

meshes\dungeons\caves\green\epicmeshes\dungeons\caves\green\epicwall

 

meshes\dungeons\caves\green\largewall

 

meshes\dungeons\caves\green\rocks

 

and some inmeshes\dungeons\caves\green\pillars

are affected. Setting UV Mapping size to 1.0 --> 4.0 or 5.0 cures the issue.

Pictures are included if you follow the link.

 

It's not being considered a bug... so I guess I am going to learn how to set UV Mapping sizes?

Which I have no idea how to do, but whatever!

 

So, any advice on changing UV mapping sizes would now be appreciated!  :P