SR:LE, Extended, and Beyond; An Attempt to Understand and Improve

[Electrocutor]

Tamriel Reloaded HD has a lot of good textures, but their included ESP causes havok with other mods. Using the pack without the ESP seems to be fine, but would require more testing to make sure that there are not any broken Mesh/Texture relations.

 

TRHD adds a lot to the old look for Skyrim, but I think the moss and overgrowth is a bit over the top in some places. I mean, this is supposed to be a pretty frigid place. I think that using parts of the pack would add a great deal to being immersive though.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Electrocutor

[nappilydeestruction]

Tamriel Reloaded HD is my second fave texture pack.  But I still prefer NobleSkyrimHD as my number 1 in choice for texture overhaul.

[Electrocutor]

Okay... A little more info on roads...

 

Tamriel Reloaded HD.esp

- I need to do further testing, but I believe you must not overwrite any of the textures that are in the Texture Set section if they include a Height parallax file.

- For the sake of sanity, at the moment I have disabled Tamriel Reloaded HD.esp

 

[ road01 ]

1. You MUST include either SkyrimHD Tribute - Roads.esp from Hein84 or EpisodeParallax.esp from Project Parallax. They both do the same thing and are required to make road parallax work right.

 

2. You MUST include road01_p.dds, road01_n.dds, and road01snow01_n.dds from SkyrimHD Tribute. No other texture pack has made these three files correctly.

 

3. You may use any texture pack's diffuse texture (road01.dds), but keep reading because you may want to be selective.

 

[ dirt02 ]

1. dirt02 is a secondary file that is mixed in with the road01 all over. This means that if you choose a dirt02 that does not mesh well with the road01.dds that you chose, it will stick out like a sore thumb.

 

2. You must choose a dirt02.dds that supports parallax (the file is made differently). You should keep the dirt02.dds and dirt02_n.dds from the same texture pack. Here are the ones I have tested so far:

• Vanilla + Project Parallax = Not compatible with parallax
• Skyrim Realistic Overhaul + Project Parallax = Not compatible with parallax
• Noble Skyrim + Project Parallax = Not compatible with parallax
• Tamriel Reloaded Textures and Parallax = Not compatible with parallax
• Pfischer's Parallax Textures = Not compatible with parallax
• SkyrimHD Tribute = Compatible
• aMidianBorn Landscapes = Compatible
• Tamriel Reloaded HD = Compatible

*Note that your choices for dirt02 are fairly limited, so unless you manually fix a texture from a matching texture set to fit well with road01, you will want to choose both a road01 and dirt02 from the same texture set that has a parallax-compatible dirt02.

 

- rock01.dds, rock01_n.dds

- riverbededge01.dds, riverbededge01_n.dds

 

----

I have just started testing, so there are likely other terrain-textures that mingle with roads in other areas I have not yet checked. I will post an update if/when i find them.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Electrocutor]

[ Road Parallax ]

• SkyrimHD Tribute - Roads.esp or EpisodeParallax.esp required
• road01_p.dds from SkyrimHD Tribute required; road01_n.dds and road01snow01_n.dds recommended

 

[ Terrain Parallax Textures ]

• dirt02.dds
• rock01.dds
• riverbededge01.dds
• tundra01.dds
• tundrarocks01.dds
• volcanictundradirt01.dds
• volcanictundrarocks01.dds
• volacanictundragravel01.dds
• snowrocks01.dds
• coastbeach01.dds
• reachmoss01.dds
• reachmossyrocks01.dds
• fallforestgrass01.dds
• fallforestleaves01.dds

 

[ Terrain Parallax - Compatible Texture Packs ]

• SkyrimHD Tribute
• aMidianBorn Landscapes
• Tamriel Reloaded HD
• Vivid Landscapes
• Tamu75 Parallax Textures
• Pfusher's Parallax Textures (individual files)

 

[ Terrain Parallax - Incompatible Texture Packs ]

• Vanilla + Project Parallax
• Skyrim Realistic Overhaul + Project Parallax
• Noble Skyrim + Project Parallax
• Tamriel Reloaded Textures and Parallax
• Pfusher's Parallax Textures (full pack)
• CAD25 Landscapes & Roads (dirt02 is compatible)
• SeriousHD

 

* Noting that a texture pack is compatible is not to say that all of its textures actually have parallax, just that all of its textures are compatible with parallax and will not appear corrupted in-game.

 

*Pfuscher's stuff requires DDSopt and has several tiling issues where one edge of the texture does not match perfectly with opposite, causing a visible seam.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Electrocutor]

My favorite road01 by far is Tamriel Reloaded HD 4k, but I do not like that its dirt02 contains green moss.

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

Edited February 10, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Electrocutor]

does anyone why the bridge endcaps always look funny?

[Electrocutor]

I think I need some input from people...

 

I have a 3930K @ 4.6GHz with 2x GTX 670 4GB SLI.

 

Using the Shift+Enter GUI from ENB, I have absolutely no difference in fps between using the stock DLC 512 diffuse, 512 normals, and 512 parallax (self-made) from when I am using 4096 diffuse, 2048 normal, and 1024 parallax. The only difference I can see is that when walking into new areas (hence loading new textures) the movement seems to surge a bit instead of being buttery smooth like it is with the 512, but the actual fps is identical.

 

Does everyone else see this same behavior?

[darkside]

This behavior is normal from my experience. You have 4GB VRAM which is enough to hold all 4K-2k-1k textures. Lower texture resolution is not necessarily improve FPS.

Edited February 13, 2016 by darkside

[Electrocutor]

Okay... I've been spending too much time learning about how textures and shaders work, and then applied that to fix a bunch of things in certain texture packs that were very wrong. I'm getting back on track now, though.

 

Tamriel ReloadedHD is a mod that adds a ton of variation to existing static objects as well as details and other things; however, it also gives the feeling that it changes the climate zone. I've started to tinker with overriding the new textureset textures that it uses in order to utilize all the work they put into it without having to use all of their textures. For example, Vanilla Skyrim has 4 types of roads: normal, reach, fallforest, and snow. Skyrim ReloadedHD, on the other hand, has 7 types of roads, any of which can be overridden with the road textures from other texture packs.

 

Ideally, I would want to create my own mod that would break Skyrim up into its different natural regions, and then allow a simple selection of texture pack per region. Unfortunately, this would take a great deal of time. Using Skyrim ReloadedHD as a base, while not perfect will still allow a degree of regional texture setting; and by choosing my own textures, I won't have to worry about green mossy roofs in Winterhold for example.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Electrocutor]

Quick tidbit of useful information:

 

Nifskope will corrupt certain nif meshes, such as dirtcliffs (even if you just open/save without touching anything), so be very careful and pay close attention to anything you try to change with it.

[Gutmaw]

Quick tidbit of useful information:

 

Nifskope will corrupt certain nif meshes, such as dirtcliffs (even if you just open/save without touching anything), so be very careful and pay close attention to anything you try to change with it.

How does it corrupt them?  How can you tell...CTD in game?  Seems strange that Nifskope would corrupt...if so there's got to be some kind of noticable setting change right?

[Electrocutor]

An example: by simply opening one of the dirtcliff nifs, and saving; I didn't even touch any of the expanders on the data, the dirtcliffs within the Tundra region showed the fieldgrass02 texture on top, when before they showed fieldgrass01. I have no idea how that can happen since the actual nif is set to fieldgrass02 and an esp record is what changes it to fieldgrass01; unless perhaps the flag for overriding the textures within that nif do not get set right during a save in certain circumstances. After some quick poking around, I also noticed that the specular color will change value even if you don't change it: simply by clicking on it to see the value will cause it to change.

 

There are probably other nuances as well, but for now I am just ignoring that part: I will address meshes after I have finished everything with textures.

[Electrocutor]

After I am completely finished, I intend to build an application for viewing and selecting from all the possible options and allowing people to build their own composite texture set, but in case any one is interested, here is what I chose for my favorite Tundra textures (still working on other regions):

 

FieldGrass01 - Noble Dirt01 (parallax alpha needed or alpha set to 128)

Tundra01 - SRO Tundra01 (parallax alpha needed or alpha set to 128)

Tundra02 - Vivid Tundra01

TundraRocks01 - Vivid FieldGrass01

RiverbedEdge - Noble RiverbedEdge (parallax alpha needed or alpha set to 128)

Dirt01 - Noble DirtPath01 (parallax alpha needed or alpha set to 128)

Dirt02 - SeriousHD Dirt02 (parallax alpha needed or alpha set to 128)

DirtPath01 - aMidianBorn DirtPath01

Mountains\MountainSlab01 - Vivid MountainSlab01

Mountains\MountainSlab02 - Vivid MountainSlab02

DirtCliffs\DirtCliffs01 - SRO DirtCliffs01

DirtCliffs\DirtCliffsRoots01 - Vivid DirtCliffsRoots01

Rocks01 - Vivid Rocks01

RiverBottom - SeriousHD RiverBottom (parallax alpha needed or alpha set to 128)

*TundraMossTest01 undecided until custom alpha and mesh changes

I am also thinking of changing bridges: after doing so much close inspection on things, it doesn't make any sense that a bridge made of solid stone has a dirt and rock path across it instead of just being the same stone that its entire foundation is made from.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Electrocutor]

Does anyone else think that bridges look a whole lot better being made of the same material that their foundation is built from?

[GrantSP]

Does anyone else think that bridges look a whole lot better being made of the same material that their foundation is built from?

 

From an engineering view point I don't think it matters too much. I can see two logical choices made by bridge builders of a period similar to that depicted in Skyrim:

• Choose a material that is easy to work with and use that regardless of the underlying bedrock
• Choose what is readily available to save on transport problems

So it all depends on how the player can justify the look in their own mind. I can't ever recall looking at a bridge in Skyrim and thinking it looked out of place.