SKYRIMLE aMidianborn Imperial Forts (by CaBaL)

[phryxolydian]

@Ess: Yes! I agree with all of the above. An insightful comparison, my friend. I think you put it rather nicely: while SRO took vanilla as a base and tweaked and expanded (you decide the degree) on Vanilla, Cabal's work is always done from scratch. Starac's work was also done as part of his massive undertaking of retexturing a lot in a relatively short period of time. Cabal, as I understand it, has the desire to also cover Skyrim from head to toe but he has no rush to do so and you can clearly see the effort of re-envisioning Vanilla without ever sticking to just tweaking it.

 

@Aiyen: I am using ENBoost with ParallaxBugsFixed (I think that's the line?).. I'm just not using any presets.

[DoYouEvenModBro]

I thought we had determined previously that vivid doent have interiors

[EssArrBee]

I thought we had determined previously that vivid doent have interiors

It didn't have interiors when I tested it a few months ago, but it has been updated one or twice since then. He might have gotten around to the interiors.

[DoYouEvenModBro]

Damn. I want to disable the exterior textutes for amb so that I can overwrite vivid landscapes...giving me vl for exteriors and amd for interiors. Does anyone know which textures I meed to disable?

[phryxolydian]

The thing is, as shown in my screens, some textures are used for both exteriors and interiors (like rubble). Hiding one or the other will only leave you with a mix of both in both exteriors and interiors! Tell you what, download DDSViewer and you tell us which files would need to be hidden for them to work nicely. 

[EssArrBee]

@phryxo, did you use the optional file for mossy stones on AMB?

[DoubleYou]

The wood is definitely newer looking, but it blends good with the AMB. Not sure if I like the moss so light. One issue I see:

 

Notice the square rock at top right connected by boards. It doesn't work well for the AMB because they slapped that wall texture on those. Notice how in vanilla it corresponds with where they put a big slab in the wall.

 

But then much of SRO features similar problems. I think overall this is an improvement, especially in places like the below, where blending was bad.

 

[DoYouEvenModBro]

Damn. I guess it's hard to mix and match then.

[TechAngel85]

Anyone other than me notice that Amb is a bit boring? With STEP you get varying colors and depth in the textures making the exploration an enjoyment. With Amb you get lots of brown...in various shades. The exploration loses life and becomes a bit of a bore... I mean seriously, take another long at the gallery from that perspective and tell me what you think. It boring to me. lol

[DoubleYou]

That was my initial impression too. I'm thinking, however, that the moss optional might change that.

[TechAngel85]

Maybe but would would still only cover the exteriors. The interiors would still be...boring.

[EssArrBee]

Load em up in game and they both look equally brown and grey. It is a fort retext after all, but you'll notice some errors in the way stuff blends if you go back to STEP after using AMB. Cabal tried to fix a lot of that blending that was really bad. He didn't make it perfect, but it is much better.

 

I guess I've just gotten tired of SRO, since the more I look at it compared to HRDLC, the more I like HRDLC. Some of it is just HRDLC with few layers of noise added in anyways and those layers make the texture worse. I don't get why you would want noise in the textures because they look like tiny speckle unless right up close. Some of Starac's textures look scratch made, but they are very rare.

[TechAngel85]

Some of Cabal's texture are the same in regards to the noise. I recall that I nearly started a fight when I said that about his cave ground textures, but it made him redo them and they looked much better. LOL!

[Octopuss]

Some of it is just HRDLC with few layers of noise added in anyways and those layers make the texture worse

lol you should see Skyrim Ultra HD Texture Pack (or maybe not, it cannot be unseen) - you would kill for slight noise addition over a texture after seeing that.

 

But back on topic - I don't like most of Cabal's landscape/architecture mods (he does absolutely awesome weapons and armour, but the rest is just... I don't know), but after staring at the screenshots here, it grew on me. When I first saw it back then, I was dismissive about completely new style, but now I've realized the forts look kind of nice. I mean, who says they should be weathered and half broken down?

[hauntmedoitagain]

What I like most about Cabal's fort textures (or his work in general) is how organic they look, especially with ENB.

 

There is one wall texture I'm not particularly keen on, though. It's the splotchy looking one you can see near the start of Helgen. The rest look pretty good imo.