ACCEPTED Gemling Queen Jewelry (by Saerileth)

[TechAngel85]

Saerileth is already working on the amulets, I think so that shouldn't be an issue.

[Neovalen]

Jewels of the Nords still has amulets though, and neither SMIM or Gemling Queen have those (yet).

Give it a few days... ;) lol

[Saerileth]

Haven't quite started on the amulets yet, but I shall. Soon... ish. No promises, as always :P

 

Jewels of the Nord meshes actually have higher poly-count than SMIM's, with visually almost no difference. You really shouldn't let them overwrite the SMIM rings, it's wasted performance. Personally I feel the SMIM meshes are already over the top, especially the equipped mesh - roughly 1200 triangles is quite a lot for an object you can't even get close enough to take screens of (and that's using tfc, they're hardly visible normally). Personally I have never noticed a performance drop though, been using Jewels of the Nord for ages now and never even noticed how insane it is until I opened a ring in NifSkope. But it might matter a lot to players with older hardware, so I've been trying to somewhat reduce the polygon madness.

 

My inventory meshes have roughly the same poly-count as original SMIM (1160), this is because I lost most of what I gained on the metal band by duplicating the gems. The equipped mesh is down to 1002 triangles, but I'm pretty sure I could push it even lower and you wouldn't notice the difference.

 

The question is, should I? It's a lot of work, and as of now I don't have good info on whether or not it really makes a difference. I want to be as performance friendly as possible without losing visual quality. I don't know how STEP handles this, should I include a seperate lower quality option?`Or just leave it as it is?

[rootsrat]

Haven't quite started on the amulets yet, but I shall. Soon... ish. No promises, as always :P

 

Jewels of the Nord meshes actually have higher poly-count than SMIM's, with visually almost no difference. You really shouldn't let them overwrite the SMIM rings, it's wasted performance. Personally I feel the SMIM meshes are already over the top, especially the equipped mesh - roughly 1200 triangles is quite a lot for an object you can't even get close enough to take screens of (and that's using tfc, they're hardly visible normally). Personally I have never noticed a performance drop though, been using Jewels of the Nord for ages now and never even noticed how insane it is until I opened a ring in NifSkope. But it might matter a lot to players with older hardware, so I've been trying to somewhat reduce the polygon madness.

 

My inventory meshes have roughly the same poly-count as original SMIM (1160), this is because I lost most of what I gained on the metal band by duplicating the gems. The equipped mesh is down to 1002 triangles, but I'm pretty sure I could push it even lower and you wouldn't notice the difference.

 

The question is, should I? It's a lot of work, and as of now I don't have good info on whether or not it really makes a difference. I want to be as performance friendly as possible without losing visual quality. I don't know how STEP handles this, should I include a seperate lower quality option?`Or just leave it as it is?

If the performance impact is near zero than I think you shouldn't. IMHO the amount of people with PCs that would be affected is very small and you would spend your time on something that wouldn't benefit many people. 

[z929669]

Agree with roots. I'd vote you do it if having, say, five or more of these meshes loaded in a given scene saves on average 3 or more FPS or 50 MB VRAM overhead. If this cannot be assessed or the difference is not perceptable between loading five or more or loading only one or even zero, then it is not important enough if it is a lot of work.

 

that said. It would obviously be beneficial to optimize the poly count of ALL skyrim meshes

 

I vote to accept this into STEP:Core, particularly when it is completed with all proposed assets covered. We need to determine exactly what mods may be obsolete with this mod installed and remove them ... simplicity rules the day.

[Saerileth]

Then I guess I'll put off the optimisation for now, I sure as hell don't see much difference on my system. I may consider doing it if I decide to go over the gemstone shapes (give individual cuts to the different gems to distinguish them better), I'd have to re-rig the whole thing again anyway so it wouldn't be that much more work.

 

About the amulets, I'm kind of torn. I don't really like the vanilla meshes, they look like keepsake lockets... it's not just the texture that irks me, the entire shape just isn't pretty. It's too clunky for my tastes, I prefer jewelry that is more subtle. Then again I don't know how people will like a replacer that completely changes the vanilla feel, plus it's very hard to get a design that will look nice on females and not stupid or girly on males. So I'm curious, would you guys prefer a completely custom, new design? Or should I just touch up the lockets (make them actually round) and do my magic with the gems? I've never actually modelled anything from scratch before, I'm curious what I can do.

[z929669]

Definitely improve on the vanilla style if you are so inclined ... that is a no-brainer for STEP ... then if you create something custom, we'll have a look

[DoubleYou]

Make the variation, and if someone no likey, simply tell them to use old version ;)

[TechAngel85]

Yeah, why not make both? STEP would used the vanilla friendly ones and anyone that has your same points of view would most likely use the custom option or if they don't like the custom...at least the vanilla option is still available. This choice can easily made by a user if installed via a FOMOD.

[Crimson13]

I think making an improved version first would be best, then if you wish to make the custom ones. That way people have a choice.

[rootsrat]

I second all the above posts :) 

[Saerileth]

Ok, improved vanilla it shall be first, then. Thanks for the feedback! :)

[Saerileth]

Amulet teaser:

 

Improved the vanilla geometry by quite a bit, now the amulets are actually round. Also flattened the pendant out a bit, doesn't look half bad now, especially with the Jewels of the Nord textures. Poly-count is around 850, I think I'll leave it at that... I could smooth out the chain a bit, but I don't think it's really necessary.

Edited April 12, 2014 by Saerileth

[torminater]

Looks awesome!

[Noobsayer]

:D Those look fabulous, can't wait!