SKYRIMLE Real Roads for Skyrim

[dukefx]

I've registered just to shed some light on how this actually works. It's easy to criticize without knowing what someone has to deal with. Having to work on an existing mesh with UVs and textures is something totally different than designing everything from scratch. Let me show you how a vanilla road looks like:

Here it is with no modifications: https://i.imgur.com/KG7Eozt.jpg

Looks alright, doesn't it? Well, it's far from alright.

It's "stitched" together, and by that I mean they simply placed elements next to each other without actually combining them properly.

https://i.imgur.com/NYBsm46.jpg

This is where the seams come from.

But wait, there's more..... https://i.imgur.com/ShelkAN.jpg

The red lines display open edges. Open edges on the inside? Unacceptable. Every mesh, except the chunks contain these.

 

I'm all ears when it comes to constructive criticism, but when I get hit by random numbers out of thin air... well, you can imagine I'm not happy about it. Stuff like "50% less polys would be enough" and the like.

Also, in regards of performance: at first I haven't actually looked at the frame rate, but I didn't feel any difference. After some feedback I tested it myself and my frame rate is totally the same. There are people with worse PCs than mine and report zero performance loss. Others who experience this on far, far better PCs than mine probably push their game beyond reasonable limits. I'm not saying that they are using 8k textures for a tiny mushroom and such, but they sure don't optimize their game well.

 

Back to the road meshes... those seams need to go (they are all the exact same spot where the different elements where stitched together + the outter borders where boundaries needed to be preserved at all costs), but everything else is just the way I want it. I've done a lot of tests and there's a huge noticeable difference in shading. Test it on snowy roads and it'll be even more visible.

Edited July 4, 2014 by dukefx

[Aiyen]

First all the formalities I guess. Welcome to the forums, you can get your fancy yellow mod author bagde by contacting Z929669.. if you so wish. 

 

As for the mod itself, then thanks for making it! Always nice to see people make detailed mesh replacements.. considering all the issues that it entrails! 

 

As for the performance, then as I said earlier then this mod on its own should most likely not affect performance in a noticeable way, but when mixed with other mods that also increase the poly count then you might start to notice it. Afaik then performance/poly count does not scale linearly, and depends on GPU model etc. hence it stands to reason that on some systems it will just be the proverbial drop that cause a noticeable impact. Even more so if they also got some weird lighting mods in that alters stuff. 

 

I will just leave the specifics on how to optimize the mesh further in the hands of people who have actually worked with altering meshes in the game! 

 

And once again welcome, nice to have another mod author comment here! 

[dukefx]

Thank you for the warm welcome. :)

[Guest]

Hi again!

 

Just a quick post before I have my dinner, but could you have not stitched the dirt together into one lump and then placed the individual stones over the where the textures were as separate pieces? I would have reckoned that using your own stones texture might have been preferable because it is not 100% compatible as it is. You can already see the entitled crowd saying they won't use the mod because it is not compatible with X mod. They can go to hell, but you could have just forced your own textures perhaps saving you much of a headache.

 

If any of that would not be possible please say as I am looking at the pictures only at the moment. 

[dukefx]

That was the first thing I tried, believe me. I made the rocks use the road texture and the ground was replaced by dirt01.

Here's how it looked like: https://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3278934346190871927/139E09BD6807D0731DE79A45961FEA4233D26A5E/

The first thing my "lab rat" (one of my best friends) noticed was the high contrast between the rocks and the dirt and I had to agree with him.

 

Next try: lets set the ground to use the road textures as well.

Results: mismatching UVs in some places, but only in SOME places. I have absolutely no idea what caused it, but even if it wouldn't suffer from this issue, the results were still displeasing.

https://i.imgur.com/8Gvud7e.jpg

 

The meshes are compatible with most mainstream textures. My policy for those whose textures do not work: take it or leave it! It's simply impossible to please everyone.

[Guest]

Yeah I thought it was obvious, but the first image looks alright to me... You could have just vertex painted them a slight grey colour and it would have probably fixed it right up. I am just testing the road optimization right now. The reduce slider kept all the UVs intact and I reduced it by 25%. The delete feature on Maya has always preserved the UVs so MAX must be terrible in this area. I'll export it in when I can and post it here for testing. I had a to do a cleanup though before it would let me edit as it complained of non manifold geometry, but it does do that sometimes. Cleanup can be destructive, but it still looks okay to me at the moment.

[dukefx]

There shouldn't be anything like that. I sliced and patched the original mesh. These here (the ones I posted already): https://i.imgur.com/ShelkAN.jpg (that face was folded onto others >.

 

I'm quite curious what Maya can do. I checked ZBrush and Blender as well. Their better optimization tools do not preserve UVs, and those that actually do are far worse than Max's ProOptimizer.

[Guest]

I wouldn't bother, you will have an even bigger headache getting stuff into Skyrim at least. The support from Niftools is virtually non-existent. Have you tried MeshLab? I had a quick look ages ago, but it seemed really robust. If you can learn that it will probably trounce any of these programs anyway. 

 

Anywho, here is a road piece from 19k polys I think to 13k polys. If I had the time to manually fix the seams and delete the edges we are probably looking at another 5% there:

 

road mesh 25% reduction test.7z

[dukefx]

I tried Meshlab as well and it gave me an error. I used an OBJ. After some research a guy found a workaround: importing it as PLY. I couldn't find any plugins for Max that'd export as PLY. I'm gonna have a look at your work, but I have to take a shower and leave soon.

[Guest]

I found .DAE is brilliant for Skyrim at least. The .OBJ format is the crappiest format ever invented in my opinion. It always messes up somehow. Anyway, it was a very quick few clicks procedure, but the UVs certainly seem intact and I could not see any holes after a quick look.

[dukefx]

A quick comparison: https://imgur.com/BzYjpaS,PLBE7dL,jf2ahEA#0

 

From left to right: original, prooptimzer set to 75%, your version

4k quick renders and 1 with viewport shading.

 

No time for in game tests now.

 

Edit: unfortunately your optimizer did not get rid of the seams either :(

Edited July 4, 2014 by dukefx

[phazer11]

Interesting. The one on the right was Sparrow's? Either way it has much more depth, not sure if the detail is any better but the depth is definitely better. Of course looking at it in the modeling program doesn't give a true representation.

[Guest]

That could be the shine making it look better as I smoothed the surface after I reduced it. As I said, removing polys from the seams is a manual job, although I got it to improve in a semi auto way with MeshLabs "Merge T Vertices" or whatever it is. Duke could try it with a .DAE as he said .OBJ messed up. I don't expect him to do it manually as it would be so tediously boring he would probably die. 

[dukefx]

Edit: I'm going to remove the seams by hand (removing edge loops won't kill the UVs, what a miracle). Will take quite a lot of time tho. Until then lets suspend the auto-optimization. 

Edited July 5, 2014 by dukefx

[Nearox]

Finally got to try this mod out. Simple conclusion for me: these roads look better than SRO +Parallax or HD2K+Parallax. Really liking this a lot. Thanks for the mod dukefx!

 

Can't wait to see even more improvements coming up.