SKYRIMLE Vanilla Reduced Textures

[alt3rn1ty]

Reference conversation starting here

 

Looks like the mesh path will be changed in UDGP, so either way my mod has it covered when the next UDGP comes along, because the two textures are in both locations as of this v3

[z929669]

Thanks for the updates alt3rn1ty.

 

We will definitely be using this formally in the upcoming Performance option for STEP:Core.

[alt3rn1ty]

 Many thanks Z

 

Just a few notes from experience using it .. And lots of monitoring with Skyrim Performance Monitor v3.4

 

With the 256 option installed, the most VRAM I have seen being used is 235mb

Does not give much leeway for modding, but I manage to use my body mod ( Severe Option ) plus a fair selection of mods including all the UnOfficial patches ( except any hires or Hearthfire ) and a few other replacers as loose files and never go over 240mb VRAM use now ( But thats also with windows Aero disabled, Classic theme ). 16mb VRAM to spare just in case :)

 

Having upgraded to have 512mb VRAM on my laptops Graphics Daughterboard, I have extensively tested the 512 option too

Most VRAM being used with this option I have seen is 315mb, which gives a fair bit more leeway for modding and adding other replacers without going too daft, and also gives enough spare VRAM to turn windows Aero back on ( which takes circa 80mb VRAM on my laptop, although I understand that is variable per machine and can range between 70-150mb VRAM - I guess it also depends on other windows settings like Performance Options / Visual Effects / Fade or Slide menus animations etc etc, and probably also varies between OS Vista/7/8 )

Certainly enough gain there though to run slightly higher res body mods for example

 

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OT/:

Speaking of body mods, you have probably seen Calyps and Nuskas Heroic Form ( CNHF ) - Keep an eye out for v2 ( although I think its going to be v2.5 ) - Apparently its imminent. The new textures are done ( I think Nuska finished those a couple of weeks ago ), and the hold up has been a bit more work on meshes weight painting.

 

Lower poly use than either UNP or the heavier poly count CBBE in the meshes department ( with CNHF v2 I understand they are going to be only slightly more than vanilla meshes )

 

And the new Textures which Nuska has done for v2 I have no doubt will be amazing and seamless, she works as a commercial game artist, and her Tips and Observations for Modding blog is spot on . So glad she allowed me permission to rework one of her Real Skin for Women textures in Alt Navetsea UNP Seamless.

 

Anyway, CNHF is definitely one to look forward to.

/EndOT

[Aiyen]

I am almost sure that I can make it have a seam if I want too :P

 

Making a body/head/hand texture seamless for vanilla lighting have been done.. the trick is doing it for a wide range of ENB´s, heck just doing it for all of CoT would be nice.

 

But most certainly looking forward to that! Thanks for the info!

[z929669]

I personally know next to nothing about body replacers for Skyrim (except by inference from past TES games and what I hear on Neo's threads); however, I do know enough about texture optimization to be impressed by this mod.

 

Definitely, it will be a challenge to develop a STEP:Core solution that minimizes the VRAM as you have managed. Maybe that will be something to which you could contribute once we open up this site to make guide construction simpler. (It can be done now, but it is almost purely ad-hoc like Skyrim Revisited.)

[alt3rn1ty]

Definitely' date=' it will be a challenge to develop a STEP:Core solution that minimizes the VRAM as you have managed. Maybe that will be something to which you could contribute once we open up this site to make guide construction simpler. (It can be done now, but it is almost purely ad-hoc like Skyrim Revisited.)[/quote']

 

To be honest I dont think I could. In the early stages of over a years worth of doing this mod, I made bat files with frequently used sets of commands to run on folders and separate out different texture sets.

That led to a series of folders on my HD at different texture types and sizes, and the same for each DLC

And a lot of a guide I would put together would end up being :

 

A) A tutorial on using GIMP

B) A detailled collection of custom GIMP filter settings

C) My batch scripting collection for GIMP and how to use them for each set of batches

D) Just a final pass on everything to remipmap the lot with DDSOpt, and pack them up with BSAOpt

E) Making a simple dummy esp

 

Theres a lot of the above that is second nature for me to use, but a lot of skill fade in the detail of what / how I set it all up :)

And no doubt some of it would have to be setup individually for anyones OS

 

I use DDSOpt for remipping because including that in GIMP batch scripts makes the time to process everything ( sets of batches to do on over 9000 textures ) .. Ramps up the process time

Whereas DDSOpt munches through remipping all of them veeery fast, and is optimally better at doing that than anything else.

 

I would also have to detail every single special case texture, a few examples : Theres an arrow texture, which is actually a quiver texture, and it differs in its size to other similar quiver textures so cannot be included in a batch ..

Bethesda does a lot of that where the artist has saved an individual texture, say an armour texture at 1024, when the rest of similar armour diffuse textures are at 512 .. and then there is the odd one which is 256 to start with so no point reducing it - But if you batch reduced everything then that one file would become worse quality ending up being at 128

Same for normals, speculars etc etc - They are not consistent at all.

 

I did have a special needs 512 folder, and a special needs 256 folder, but once they were done to satisfaction without any need to redo them .. Deleted the folder setup.

 

You also have to do the whole process in one pass for each texture - All filters and resize applied to each texture and saved .. Once. Because DDS textures are lossy. Hence the GIMP batch scripts so you end up with the best quality you can and not saving and resaving losing some detail at each save.

Having a second run with DDSOpt to do the remipping for me was a necessary evil ( DDSOpt is not evil, but having to do a second pass and resave on all of them was )

 

And unfortunately life has got busy with my career, I will be moving house and job location very soon, so I am slowly stepping away from modding, and trying to finalise everything I feel I have a duty of care to. Just popping in periodically to see if alls well. Now that Bethesda have moved on its a done thing really. Still going to be interested obviously but not so involved.

[z929669]

Yep, that is understandable. I have experienced many of the same woe's in dealing with Beth textures, although not at the same level of detail as you.

 

Regardless, we'll inevitably create a performance version of STEP:Core once we situate everything.

[alt3rn1ty]

Notes: VRT / DG / DB - v20

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Final version ( I know, said it before, but I reckon this is it )

 

A few more normal maps worked on / redone. I cant find anything else to make this better at what it does. This update might save you a few bytes of VRAM in a few places, but not much.

 

This version also includes new textures ( reduced as needed ) from the UnOfficial Patches v2.0 ( currently in beta, but you can start using my files now because until you install the new UnOfficial patches any new unique textures will not be seen by the game, when you do install them .. You already have the textures the game will look for. So its okay to use this version of VRT with or without the new UnOfficial patches )

Also modified my description for load ordering, as the new UnOfficial patches will be fake esm.

 

I'll leave you all to play 'spot the difference' with the trees :)

Vanilla distant trees were horrid previously, I made an attempt at doing an Alt exclusive retexture, but was not happy and I haven't the time to dedicate to doing them from scratch, so did a scout around for something better out there which does not deviate from vanilla too much but addresses the glaringly clashing tree LODs ( especially the ones around Riften which just stand out like a sore thumb in the distance ).

I settled on reworking Rennn's Detailled Terrain and Tree LOD https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17984//? files, which include Dawnguard and Dragonborn aswell as vanilla trees ( placed them in VRT / DG / DB appropriately ). And are free to rework so long as credit is given.

I like these ones ( much better than my attempt ). There are others to choose from out there you could use as replacers.

 

I did change them a bit though : Rennns originals add a little detail to the base of the trees, so it looks like there is a bit of foliage and / or rocks on the ground close by to the base of the tree trunk. Good idea by Rennn and they were really well done, but there was a problem .. If you see a tree on the side of a steep hill, that bit of extra LOD sticking out at the base of the tree is floating out in fresh air. So, regrettably I removed those bits.

Rennn also did an accompanying noise.dds, which is a little too heavy - Looks great when you are not moving, it makes the middle distance landscape look like it has further away detailed Grass LOD .. but sort of makes the distant ground shimmer when you are moving, so I reworked this a little also to still look like distant grass noise better than vanilla does, but without the shimmer effect.

Couple of screenshots uploaded to show the difference why I did this.

Have a look at Rennn's mod page also for more comparisons.

 

Maximum VRAM being used with V20 I have seen :

With all 256 options installed = 228mb VRAM.

With all 512 options installed = 325mb VRAM.

 

I believe I have achieved the aim, enabling lesser machines to run the game, without deteriorating the graphics too much, and leaving a little overhead room for a few mods textures to replace these.

[Aiyen]

LOD´s just.... well suck. There is not much that can be done about it, especially not if you only have low resolutions.

And yes the riften area is really hard to make decent! Also it is really difficult to make those decent for all weathers. The difference in applied lighting between clear and overcast is rather large in vanilla.

 

So I would not knock myself out over those.

 

Other then that, then nice work on the latest update!

[alt3rn1ty]

No Stretching has had a recent update, Langley02 has also included a USKP compatible option ( carried forward conflicting USKP meshes as a base to edit, and where needed applied UV Scaling as per the rest of No Stretching files ).

 

And I included reduced files for Arissa on Vanilla Reduced Textures ( similar to Vilja files )

 

Along with a reduced version of the Hair replacement installer I did on Arissa mod page, theres a reduced version of the same on VRT mod page.

[keithinhanoi]

No Stretching has had a recent update, Langley02 has also included a USKP compatible option ( carried forward conflicting USKP meshes as a base to edit, and where needed applied UV Scaling as per the rest of No Stretching files ).

 

And I included reduced files for Arissa on Vanilla Reduced Textures ( similar to Vilja files )

 

Along with a reduced version of the Hair replacement installer I did on Arissa mod page, theres a reduced version of the same on VRT mod page.

 

Thanks for helping Langley out, and for pointing this out over here - I had already downloaded the update yesterday, and the USKP-compatible option having the same version number, I would never have known it was added...

[alt3rn1ty]

:) No problem, I just realised at one point through the history of Vanilla Reduced Textures I dropped recommended mods out of the description ( I was trying at the time to make it less of a wall of text ), and since re-introducing the recommends .. I forgot to include the best recommend I ever put in the description, which was No Stretching.

 

Edit : I also found out via PM ( and a bit of google translate help in speaking Russian ) that Langley uses NifSkopes UV Edit ...

 

 

I was going to help do the USKP files in the same manner, but Langley had already used the list and extracted the necessary files, and set about doing them :)

Which is probably for the best, especially if Langley does not apply the same scale setting across the board for all Nifs, and additionally select parts of the Nif to scale as opposed to the whole Nif .. I would have had to extract all of the games original textures into data aswell so that NifSkope would load them onto the Nif to visualize the effect of the scaling ( NifSkope will not load textures associated from the BSA, but it will load them if they are loose, and in the same path / filename as defined in the Nif )

Edited June 10, 2014 by alt3rn1ty

[keithinhanoi]

Which is probably for the best, especially if Langley does not apply the same scale setting across the board for all Nifs, and additionally select parts of the Nif to scale as opposed to the whole Nif .. I would have had to extract all of the games original textures into data aswell so that NifSkope would load them onto the Nif to visualize the effect of the scaling ( NifSkope will not load textures associated from the BSA, but it will load them if they are loose, and in the same path / filename as defined in the Nif )

 

So.... (gear whirring hard in the head on your explanation here) ...does that mean any 3rd party created replacement textures will or won't get used by Langley's new meshes?

[alt3rn1ty]

:) Sorry, I should have explained that better

 

Having loose textures is just something that you need to do if using NifSkope, the game can still decompress textures from the BSA as required by the mesh .. NifSkope cant do that yet.

 

So if you are working with NifSkope, you need to provide it with loose textures in the expected path as defined by the mesh

 

tl;dr = Will get used

 

Edit : I am hoping the UPP team will accept some edits I did last night - Note on the screenshot of NifSkope it is loading the texture now that I have installed the original vanilla ones as loose textures for this mesh, which is not the case on the screenshot I put in my previous post here on step forum

Edited June 11, 2014 by alt3rn1ty

[alt3rn1ty]

Notes: VRT / DG / DB - v21

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Final version :)

 

Gamwich gave me permission to use some of his textures and reduce them for VRT.

 

There are a few textures which always annoyed me because I need better textures to start with before reducing .. Dragons textures from BPT AC will be giving us a little more detail up close ( after my reduction of these textures they end up having more detail than the vanilla textures similarly reduced - See the new screenshot images on Nexus ), and I have also used Gamwich's Mountain or Molehill textures and LODs which closer match adjacent vanilla textures than the ones I previously used, and look better in the distance.

Just in case anyone does not agree with using these, I will be leaving the old v20 files up on Nexus aswell indefinitely, personally I think v21 textures are much better, and do not veer away from the vanilla artistic design.

There has also been quite a few other textures tweaked since last upload, and inclusion of a couple more textures from the Unofficial patches which have been reduced for VRT.

 

 

Note :

 

Download v21 at either Skyrim Nexus, or the new location at AFK Mods

 

I only wish to support two sites, so unfortunately dropping the files at Dark Creations.