SKYRIMLE Detailed Terrain & Tree LOD - aka: Illuminated Tree Lod (by Rennn)

[ivactheseeker]

Original mod found here. This is a mod that aims to improve the quality of the tree lod textures. It was originally intended to be used with FXAA, ENB etc but works fine with vanilla also. I tested it for a few minutes and i really like the change; finally some color in those white tree lod textures!

 

Staynd provided some pictures with ENB on the Nexus.

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Mod Testing

• Please ignore 1.1 screenshots posted in the thread.
• Test with the newest 2.1 version; providing new comparison shots.
• Shots should be: Vanilla >> Core without mod >> Core with mod
• Shots should be in Vanilla lighting only! No ENBs or lighting mods active!

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Created a compare gallery for DTTL ( Vanilla > DTTL+vanilla > DTTL+SFO 181b Basic ):

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sso3ux0a26acn3m/VL_MJOixUz

[Staind716]

Lol. I was just coming here to recommend this too. I agree completely. This does make a very noticeable difference in the distant tree lods. It makes them look a lot more like trees than ugly half-rendered garbage. I always hated that. Anyway, great mod and most definitely worth a try.

By the way, nice pics ivactheseeker. :)

If anybody wants to see how this looks with ENB I posted a few pics in the user section of the mod's page.

[frihyland]

I like it, good candidate for base STEP

[TheCompiler]

Agreed, great catch ;)

[z929669]

IMHO, I prefer vanilla without ITM, as ITM adds clarity to distant trees that is out of context with other distant terrain. In RL, particulates in the air translate into gradual decay of "crispness" and color saturation. Vanilla does a good job making the distant terrain look far, far away. Just looks weird to me when those trees suddenly pop out.

 

Totally different story with RCRN though, as that mod washes out distant trees and makes them look too bland in context with other distant terrain. In this case ITM is a great correction; however, these screens with RCRN confirm for me that I am not a fan of that mod (at least with the settings I have tried and are demonstrated here). I prefer the very first vanilla shot over the others by a long shot. :(

 

I humbly submit that ITM be an optional Pack add on along with other post-processing solutions rather than Baseline STEP.

 

I respect the majority though.

[frihyland]

I see where your coming from Z but to me the effect is so subtle that many people won't even notice it, it just adds a small amount of detail to distant area's, it looks great with vibrancy enb btw.

[TheCompiler]

IMHO, I prefer vanilla without ITM, as ITM adds clarity to distant trees that is out of context with other distant terrain. In RL, particulates in the air translate into gradual decay of "crispness" and color saturation. Vanilla does a good job making the distant terrain look far, far away. Just looks weird to me when those trees suddenly pop out.

Totally different story with RCRN though, as that mod washes out distant trees and makes them look too bland in context with other distant terrain. In this case ITM is a great correction; however, these screens with RCRN confirm for me that I am not a fan of that mod (at least with the settings I have tried and are demonstrated here). I prefer the very first vanilla shot over the others by a long shot. :(

I humbly submit that ITM be an optional Pack add on along with other post-processing solutions rather than Baseline STEP.

I respect the majority though.

 

Yeah, watching them agaim makes me realise that they differ too much with the non-lod textures. But even using the default SFO lods the problem persists, so it seems to be a Skyrim Flora Overhaul issue. Clearly, ITM needs to tweak the colors expecially the yellow to make it more suitable for SFO, but the details gained are still awesome.

[z929669]

Yep, I don't want to rush to judgement based on the screenshots. Perhaps it will look better in-game with in the broader context of STEP and certain PP solutions.

 

Definitely not putting the mod down ... just the examples I am seeing here :P (no disrespect ivactheseeker!). I'll give it a try someday when I finally get STEP updated.

[TheCompiler]

The author released a less yellowish version, with imho looks better and matches better the SFO textures. Definitely better than standard SFO lods.

[ivactheseeker]

@ TCdoh, that was fast! I took screenshots with different lighting mods to test ITM and now they are outdated :confused: . I'll post them anyway but remember that the yellow from the lod textures can be removed. @ z929669

 

about IMT looking better with RCRN than with vanilla - you're right, in fact the author wrote in his description that was originally intended for post processors. I included vanilla for comparison and because i think that overall is still an improvement.

 

about how in RL saturation and detail decrease with distance - if i understood correctly, you're saying that in RL,because of the air between the observer and the object, the farther away the object is located the more desaturated you see it, wich is absolutely right. Altough

- Skyrim is a fantasy videogame after all, with magic, dragons, werewolves and huge moons :D located in an immaginary world; my point is, shouldn't we favour "better looking" and "more balanced\greater gameplay" over "more realistic"? Of course skyrim was developed to be highly realistic for a game but great immersion doesn't necessarly equal great realism ( this is just a personal opinion though).

-Even if you try, you can't be completely realistic in this case. That's because the map of skyrim is huge but is nothing compared to earth (who actually want's a game that big, it would be gameplay breaking).This imply that all the distances are compressed and even distant objects like trees in the pictures posted above result pretty big. As you can see from the picture below in RL what you describe happens, but when the objects are so distant they are almost indistinguishable.

 

 

As a result, in the game this effect seems unnatural and the weather looks hazy even if is supposed to be clean (fw 81a on the console).That's probably why a lot of mod authors remove the hazy when editing light. Of course if you "unreveal" the landscape you show all the low quality lod texture, that's why this mod is so important.

no disrespect ivactheseeker!

How, i just found this mod on the nexus and uploaded some screenshots :) . And, besides that, i'm always open to discussion and constructive criticism

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Another reason why i think this mod can be great is the difference between the lod texture and the actual texture, wich is big in the first case and small in the second.Here some screenshots taken with diffrent lighting mods in a position and few steps farther away

 

vanilla

 

without ITM

first position few steps forward

 

with ITM

first position few steps forward

[ivactheseeker]

RCRN legacy

without ITM

 

first position few steps forward

 

with ITM

 

first position few steps forward

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ENB unreal vibracy v1.1

without ITM

 

first position few steps forward

 

u]with ITM

 

first position few steps forward

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RLwC

 

without ITM

 

first position few steps forward

 

with ITM

first position few steps forward

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URWL

 

ITM

 

first position few steps forward

 

less yellow ITM

 

first positionfew steps closer

 

and in the same place as before with the remaning mods

 

ENB

 

Default less yellow addon

 

RLwC

Default less yellow addon

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URWL

Default less yellow addon

 

As you can see there isn't a massive difference between the lod and the normal textures, but in this case the ITM are a bit too dark and saturated. I'll ask Rennn if he wants to join us in this tread.

 

EDIT: i had to cut the message in 4 parts because of the image upload limit

[Rennn]

I just thought I'd chime in to say that I'm here. :)

[Spiffyman]

eird. On the post 2 above by izactheseeker, the first position ones make me think this mod adds a lot. However, on the 'few steps farther back' I much prefer the vanilla stuff....

[z929669]

woops, I believe in ivac's second couple of posts, the "first position" and "few steps further away" are reversed.

Confirm?

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Assuming that I am correct...

• I like RLwC best (URWL would be best if it was a bit less color saturated, but light level is great).... not a fan of the EMB, as it is way "overexposed" and has way too much HDR
• ITM far-close (non-LOD) has more haze than short-mid distant (near-LOD). This causes mid-distant ITM trees (the first effect as you back away) to be much too prominent in relation to farther AND closer trees.
• Distant ITM (distant-LOD) is much better, but maybe just a wee bit too crisp. I have not made up my mind yet.
• ITM has potential to be a great improvement IMHO after just a couple of small tweaks to address this.
• Tree LODs leave very little to work with, as they are so crappy in some cases (with respect to shape alone)[/list/

Anxious to see this as it evolves though ;)

 

[stoppingby4now]

I still have a hard time liking RLwC in some cases, and these screenshots reveal a lot of the initial problems with the current releases. Shadows too uniform and far less depth, sky oversaturated and unrealistic (can be tweaked but I have yet to be able to get anything I would call realistic without causing other problems in the scene), and distant fog removal too much.

 

The biggest problem though with lighting mods is that regardless of which one you try, you can't judge them entirely by screenshots. You have to play the game for awhile to take in various weather effects, lighting conditions, etc.

 

With that said, I really like what ITM is offering. Definitely adding this to my list of mods to use.