SKYRIMLE Texture Pack Combiner

[PsyKo]

Regarding the screen shot your provided and without looking wich was TPC or RDD. I choose screenshot of TPC because they look better.

[frihyland]

In those screenshots tpc is the clear winner in every case.

[JudgmentJay]

+1 for TPC being the clear winner. I was always iffy about re-defined dungeons.

[Cestral]

Yes, I agree, and this is why I have refrained from supporting RDD in the TPC.

 

I can tell you though that the work is pretty much complete already to combine RDD with the TPC. I have picked out the goodies, which excludes all the floor textures and the majority of wall textures. My video card broke when I was putting the final touches on it.

 

I was also looking at adding Dragon Glyphs HD from STEP recommendations since it's pretty easy to do without a video card, as it only has 2 textures. I noticed though that the 4 files it has adds up to an enormous 84 MB in size! There's no way I will add this into the TPC. I have every intention of making things look as great as possible in the non-light version of the TPC, but not at any cost. 84 MB is just silly for two 2048x2048 textures.

 

EDIT: To clarify "without a video card". It works fine as long as I don't do anything 3D-related. As soon as I turn on Windows Aero or load up a game I get artifacts and crash immediately.

[skwareballz]

I thought TPC was quite better, I did not like those roots in the first RRD comparison, the brown is way to saturated. The walls in that first pick, RRD has a bit more definition to the etchings which is the only thing in all three comparisons I saw RRD had that I liked more.

[Kelmych]

I prefer the pictures with TPC like everyone else.

 

If it's any help, I ran DDSopt over the 4 Dragon Glyphs files which reduced their combined size to under 20 Mb. DDSopt changed the type of compression used (to DXT1 or DXT5) which provided a 4x decrease in file size.

[Cestral]

That sounds really good, Kelmych, but I'm afraid the average user isn't going to resort to DDSopt their textures, hence my reluctance to add it to the TPC.

[z929669]

That sounds really good' date=' Kelmych, but I'm afraid the average user isn't going to resort to DDSopt their textures, hence my reluctance to add it to the TPC.[/quote']

True enough. The mod author needs to be politely asked to DDSopt his/her textures according to the settings and info located in the DDSopt thread OP.

 

Then the mod itself will be fixed :P

[freche]

From the Dragon Glyphs HD @ nexus

Note: Due to other engagements (and other games) I do not plan on updating this or any of my other mods, indefinitely. At a later date, my interest in Skyrim may come back but until then, please do not leave impatient comments about updates or fixes.

However, checking the Permission and Credits, I think it's ok to do an DDSopt on the preferred textures and upload it on the Nexus giving the original author all the credits.

[Besidilo]

We are comparing dungeon textures from TPC to those of Re-Defined Dungeons (RDD). TC has provided some screens:

 

 

I prefer TPC, as I think that the textures are generally more consistent with vanilla and a bit more realistic (although both have merit). Mostly, I don't like the over-use (IMO) of stone wall carvings in RDD, but there are other subltle diffs I like better as well. However, texture blending among adjacent rock textures seems to be better overall in RDD (esp in the first set above)

 

Other opinions?

https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/140751/picture:0

[Neovalen]

Well, assuming nothing goes horribly wrong with DDSOpting the TPC you could add it to the install instructions as an optional (recommended) final step... just throwing it out there. Assuming the DDSOpt wiki gets updated you can just link people there.

 

Actually in the process of DDSOpting them now.

[Cestral]

I got a brand new, crappy video card in my computer! Yay!

 

Let me give you my take on RDD:

 

- Most of its textures look sharper when viewed closely, i.e. 2-3 meters distance. Anything beyond that and it will look worse than the textures the TPC currently uses.

- RDD's stone textures look a little too neat and clean, and has the tendency to look slightly plastic in some places. They are also much brighter.

- The texture detailovergrowth01 contains dirt among other things. This dirt is put onto the bottom of walls in particular, and with RDD, there's no transition effort whatsoever to this texture, so you'll end up with band-aided pieces of dirt along the bottom of the walls. The SRO textures the TPC currently uses are created with this dirt in mind, and blends seamlessly with a much more natural look.

- RDD's wall stones are extremely stripy. It doesn't look or feel right.

- RDD's wood texture is much, much sharper, and even though it feels less worn and slightly less fitting than the TPC version, it's still an overall improvement because the TPC version is way too grainy.

- Some of these dungeon textures are used around the world as well, and not only inside dungeons. Certain mossy stones in particular come to mind. These look sharper and better with RDD's textures with one exception: They're a little too bright. Since these stones use the same textures as the floors, it will not be the primary reason to base a selection on however.

- RDD's moss in particular looks much sharper. The moss in the TPC has a tendency to look very pixelated.

- RDD's textures in general have been blurred/smoothed which removes pixelation when viewed closely, but has the tendency to remove detail when viewed a few meters away.

 

The next version of the TPC will add support to combine RDD, but there will be very few stone textures taken from it, and about half of its textures in total have been cut.

[Cestral]

Someone should ask the author of Dragon Glyphs HD if they could DDSopt the textures and send them back to him just to have them uploaded on his page.

[Kelmych]

I ran DDSopt (the most recent version, v80pre3) on TPC (and all the other textures I use). With TPC I didn't see many notable changes noted in the DDSopt log. There were some additions (and removals) of mip levels, but I didn't see any compression type changes. I've seen a lot more compression type changes on weapon/armor mods than other mod types, by the way.

 

I mentioned that there wasn't any significant compression on the Dragon Glyphs to suggest some hope for improving the size of these textures; I realized it would likely be difficult to do so it would require author permission or changes (which could be quite difficult for this mod) and because the process for individual users to run DDSopt isn't quite as well documented yet as it is for tools like Optimizer.

[Kelmych]

It would not be difficult to write the instructions for using DDSopt on the TPC textures since TPC has loose files; it would require fairly minor editing of the steps on the STEP Wiki for vanilla textures. The comments in the DDSopt thread suggest the prerelease version (which I used) is much better than the one on Nexus, so I'm not sure whether Ethatron and the STEP group prefer we reference the Nexus one (as we did on the wiki) or the prelease version. It certainly seems to work well on the TPC textures, although I admit that I haven't done a visual comparison of many of the DDSopt versions vs. vanilla versions of the TPC textures.