SKYRIMLE Quality Snow HD 4K (by Yuril)

[baronaatista]

Sounds like exactly the kind of advice I was looking for.  I'm pretty solid on my personal decision here (well, very solid on Just Ice vs. Real Ice and somewhat sure of HQ Snow vs. Quality Snow HD 4K)  but I would love to contribute, so if screenshot comparisons are desired, I'd be happy to provide them.  Finishing up the last bits of an epic install tonight, I'll hit back here tomorrow with pics...

 

My one thought is that I am running Vivid Weathers and ELFX which even w/o ENB does change the lighting/color scheme from STEP fairly significantly.  I can take it out but I'd have to shut off DynDOLOD and a bunch of other mods, but as this is just a texture comparison, as long as all the lighting/coloration is consistent (even if not completely STEP) it should provide a solid base for analysis?

 

In the future, maybe even tomorrow, I will create a full STEP: Extended profile to do proper testing from.

[baronaatista]

Okay.  Comparisons incoming...

Tried to get a pretty broad range here of Ice and Snow replacers.  I'm showing off both together because these two textures have a lot of direct interaction, and it's important that they look good together.  I didn't get the final shot - pure snow for STEP textures, thought of that after.  I'm also, as I noted previously, not using STEP: Extended (at least not exclusively or specifically) - Vivid Weathers is definitely affecting colors here, but it should be affecting them largely all the same way, so they should serve as a good basis for comparison anyway.  I will absolutely install a proper STEP: Extended Profile soon, I've just been finishing up my own epic install the last bit.

 

Note that some of these shots were taken highlighting trouble areas, so they're not always the prettiest.

links;

STEP Ice - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/13268/?

STEP Snow - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/743/?

Real Ice and Snow - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/13466/?

Real Ice - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5388/?

Real Snow - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/29036/?

Quality Snow HD 4K - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49011/?

Alternative Snow - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/6086/?

Transparent and Refracting Icicle and Frost Atronach - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50316/?

 

 

 

1) STEP Ice (Ruffled Feather by OpticShooter 'Just Ice') with STEP Snow (HQ Snow Texture by goforest2011)

2) Real Ice and Snow (by grvulture)

 

 

Edited May 10, 2016 by baronaatista

[baronaatista]

 

 

3) Quality Snow 4K (by Yuril) with Real Ice (by Yuril) - Full Dull

4) Real Snow (by SkyrimENB) with Real Ice (by Yuril) - Azur Glacier 2K

 

 

Edited May 10, 2016 by baronaatista

[baronaatista]

 

 

5) Alternative Snow (by Yuril) with Real Ice (by Yuril) Classic

 

 

Edited May 10, 2016 by baronaatista

[baronaatista]

This next group pairs a couple snows we've seen (I'll indicate which) with other versions of Real Ice and one other glacier texture.

 

 

1) RIS Real Ice and Snow (by grvulture) Snow with Real Ice (by Yuril) - Half Icecube Half dull

2) Real Snow (by SkyrimENB) with Real Ice (by Yuril) - Dark Classic 

3) Real Snow by (SkyrimENB) with Real Ice (by Yuril) - Dark Azur 2K

4) Real Snow (by SkyrimENB) with Transparent and Refracting Icicle and Frost Atronach (by skysan4298) glaciers

 

 

Edited May 10, 2016 by baronaatista

[baronaatista]

I can do more if we narrow down some choices, and maybe look at some specific combinations.

 

My conclusion is fairly similar to before - honestly none of these really kill it for me, and I'd really love to see a talented texture artist do a complete northern landscape retexture, to get a little more consistency.

 

My favorite snow textures are;

Real Snow - a little overworked, but my favorite.  I can hear the sound of snow crunching under my feet when I look at it.  Wish it had some of the shine from STEP HQ Snow Texture, but it has all of the character of Quality Snow HD 4K (by Yuril) with none of the issues.  Unfortunately the textures are impractically huge for a landscape texture.

Real Ice and Snow - blending is great, has some character to it, and overall looks quite good.  It's just a little low-res for me, and also a little bland, but it does the job.

STEP - really enjoy the sparkly quality to this one, and it looks very authentic, if somewhat 'pristine'.  Again, a little bland for me - the visual variety provided by the other textures really adds something worthwhile to the Northern landscape IMO.

 - both snow mods (Alternative and Quality Snow HD 4K) by Yuril have some serious issues with road textures obviously and generally dont do a very good job of blending.

 

My favorite glacier textures are;

I'll preface by saying that I generally don't like shiny glaciers... in game the effect most often looks more like a melting ice-cube than it does a glacier.  That being said the two truly non-shiny textures I've seen so far have some issues.

Real Ice (Full Dull) - Looks more like a real glacier to me than any of the others, but doesn't seem to play as well with shadows, and it does look a bit odd having no shine at all

Real Ice (Classic) - This to me looks like a better version of STEP Just Ice.  It's whiter, which looks better in the landscape (to me) and it's shininess looks great.  Even better with parallax.

Transparent and Refracting... - I love the Icicles from this mod, which is why I got it, and will use it for regardless.  Discovered the glacier texture in the installer and I think it looks great.  Not quite as shiny as the shiny ones, nor as dull as the dull ones.  Potentially my overall favorite.

Real Ice and Snow - The actual texture here I'm not a huge fan of - it doesn't exactly look like a glacier to me; in fact I'm not really sure what it's attempting to simulate.  However it's simplicity and the overall coloration look quite good in the distance.  Again, a little low res, and again, a bit odd to be quite as dull as it is, but it does the job, and has a quality snow texture designed to work with it.

Edited May 10, 2016 by baronaatista

[baronaatista]

Well, nobody seems interested lol.  The combination I've landed on is Real Snow with Real Ice (with parallax) Half Ice-cube Half Dull.  It's the same glacier textures Neo uses in SRLE... still not ideal for me, but the closest to what I'm looking for.

 

If there winds up being interest, I will be installing a proper STEP: Extended profile and can provide more screeshots - even of additional textures if anyone has suggestions, though I've deleted the saves so it'll have to be new ones.  

[TechAngel85]

You're compares are interesting, but they're not laid out for how we compare things around here so it's rather difficult to use them for proper compares.

[Shadriss]

By which he means 'same shot/angle/location side-by-side with the other setups for direct one-button comparisons. There's a lot of work there, and I appreciate the effort - it's more than I've done - just very difficult to do the comparison we'd need to do.

[TechAngel85]

Also keeping the same options and only changing one texture at a time. Each of your compares have different texture options so it's impossible to really use. If you're comparing snow, keep the ice texture the same in all shots and only change the snow texture and vice versa. Do this until you have all compares done. For a proper compare, you'll have probably 60+ shots or more when comparing all options like you have. Landscape compares takes a lot, and I mean a LOT, of time and compares. It's the main reason we did the Skyrim HD compares behind the scene. We love the community, but some things like that need laser focus and commitment to do.

[baronaatista]

Fair enough.  I was (am still, kind of) finishing up a really big install, and my northern situation was really bothering me - the whole thing forced me to check out a LOT of options and come to some very solid conclusions.  

At the last minute actually I found this fairly new glacier mod - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62546/? and I love it, especially in combination with Real Snow.  My situation is sorted.

Edited May 22, 2016 by baronaatista