DROPPED No Stretching (by Langley)

[Neovalen]

Anyone done some research on where to place this mod in a load order? Before or after USKP, SMIM, Better Rocks/Mountains, Water?

[JudgmentJay]

I placed it after USKP but before TPC/WATER. SMIM's rocks have a higher poly count in addition to UV fixes, and WATER rocks have UV fixes as well so there's no harm in overwriting. Better Rocks and Mountains is no longer needed.

[alt3rn1ty]

Anyone done some research on where to place this mod in a load order? Before or after USKP SMIM, Better Rocks/Mountains, Water?

Better Rocks and Mountains meshes are no longer needed if you use No Stretching, see my post before yours.

 

'Load Order' is irrelevant here - No Stretching files are loose mesh files, there is no esp to 'order'

 

Because No Stretching files are loose file 'replacers' (they replace game original meshes with the same name), they will always win and end up in game (Loose replacer files win over game originals, and other replacer files contained in mods bsa's - So that also answers USKP, USKP has its files in a bsa, so No Stretching files being loose will win ... Although USKP I think does not cover these meshes yet so there is no conflict)

 

 

'Install Order' is important though, in the case of SMIM and W.A.T.E.R, which ever set of files you install last will overwrite the formers meshes with the same folder and filenames.

 

If you want SMIM or WATER files to win, install them after No Stretching, so that the files which conflict are overwritten. If you want No Stretching files fixes instead, install No Stretching last .. easy choice.

 

 

Just remember this simplification of how the game loads ..

 

Exe runs,

 

Loads its esm

 

Loads its bsa's (bsa is like a zip; full of textures / meshes / sounds etc)

 

Then depending on your load order loads your mods esp's, and bsa's

 

Then loads loose files (if they are referenced by your mods esps ... OR .. If they are replacers)

 

In all cases, Last loaded wins

 

 

So if inside one of the official game original bsa's you have ..

textures \ creatures \ monster.dds

 

And you install a mods bsa which also contains ..

textures \ creatures \ monster.dds

 

The mods texture inside its bsa (being loaded later than the games bsa) will win.

 

And then you also install a loose file ...

textures \ creatures \ monster.dds

 

The loose file texture will end up in game.

 

Same goes for any resource, including meshes.

 

 

To further complicate the above, custom replacer meshes can throw a spanner in the works

 

If you look at a mesh in NIFScope, you will find paths to textures to be applied to that mesh

 

So a game original monster.nif mesh will refer to the original texture ..

textures \ creatures \ monster.dds

 

Now you install a mods monster.nif, which has had the path of the texture changed to ..

textures \ myawesomehirescritters \ monsterpink.dds

 

And the mod comes with that texture as a loose file.

 

Even if you install a loose replacer for the original texture the game will not load it, because it will look for the texture specified in the loose mesh ...

 

Now have a look at SMIM again :), you are going to have to get detailled on what you want to win and end up in game. Read Brumbeks descriptions carefully.

 

 

Edit: Probably more info than you wanted, sorry :).

[Neovalen]

@Alt3rn1ty

Knew all that... just a poor choice of words. ;)

[alt3rn1ty]

:facepalm: Oh well, someone else will find it useful info

 

I looked at your post count and thought my answer might be a bit unnecessary .. I should have stalked checked you out first :)

[Neovalen]

Part of the confusion might be because I'm using MO, so everything has a load order (even meshes/textures). I guess it's more of a "priority order" than load per se.

[Deathwing514]

So I have been reading the previous comments and it seems alot of the post recommends the elimination of better rocks/mountains because no stretching takes care of the issue.

 

So my question is, why is the current step recommending better rocks/mountain?

[z929669]

BR&M covers several things that NS does not. Look at the conflicts in WB to see what.

[Sakedo]

This was removed from STEP because it makes a mess of mountain UVs as detailed here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nsywjjnn8bzhnil/zGQJC89B4N

 

No stretching contains many meshes other than mountains, however. Would it make sense to use it and just remove the mountain meshes?

[DoubleYou]

I personally still use this mod. I've looked at the images provided, and I still can't see why they say the mountain UVs look a mess. They look fine to me. I guess I'm not as well attuned as to what a mess looks like, but I simply cannot see the problem.

[z929669]

This mod makes the rock look scrunched up, effectively turning much of the igneous rock into some kind of metamorphic rock or even lava flows in some cases.

 

I personally think that the vanilla mountain meshes are better without the UV remapping (in most cases but not all). The meshes need way more work than just UV remapping (Brumbek knows about this and seems to be taking on small chunks here and there).

 

This post has the rationale

[DoubleYou]

Marking as dropped since it was removed with the 2.2.7 guide.

[boycad]

...perhaps some suggestions about which files to remove and disable, if we still wanted to use this mod, with a more recent STEP-type installation, circa 2.2.9.2, would be helpful.  Maybe thats something even lowly punter I could do, editing back once I get there.

[Nozzer66]

Just basically read how Neovalen does it in SRLE. It would work ok in a STEP setup as well done the same way.

[DepartedCitizen-00002]

Maybe this one could make a comeback for 2.10 with some instructions regarding the mountain meshes?