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

[Electrocutor]

  On 2/23/2016 at 8:54 PM, Darth_mathias said:

so this would your recommendation for SRLE Extended that i add FixParallaxTerrain=false to the guide?

Yeah. The visual difference of having terrain parallax is minimal, and it requires sacrificing the transparency of terrain textures on landscape objects, which causes very visible straight transition lines.

 

The catch is that the transparencies of the parallax-enabled texture packs, such as SkyrimHD Tribute are already setup for parallax and not transparency. Thus, if you use SRO, SeriousHD, Noble, Tamriel Reloaded, or CAD25 then set it to false. If you only use aMidianBorn, SkyrimHD Tribute, Tamriel ReloadedHD, or Vivid Landscapes, then set it to true. I listed the terrain textures where the transparency becomes an issue in an earlier post.

 

Terrain Parallax Enabled w/ Parallax Alpha:

 

Terrain Parallax Disabled w/ Transparency Alpha:

 

I had a forum discussion with Boris about whether there was any way except to re-task the alpha channel for parallax, and he said no. So it is an either/or deal. With landscape objects, you can just tack on a parallax map, but with terrain the only way is if you sacrifice transparency.

 

If the above mentioned incompatible-with-terrain-parallax texture packs were to get a lot of attention, you could in fact make both transparency and parallax work together; but it would require a whole of time and ingenuity. Basically, your alpha map would be restricted to about 64-ish in range (instead of 256), and you would need to change all the meshes with alpha transparency shaders to have their opaque threshold at precisely the right place per-texture.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Electrocutor]

In layman's terms:

• Download both the parallax and non-parallax versions of a texture pack.
• Use the parallax version, but copy over the contents of (merge) the \landscape folder from the non-parallax version. This will give you diffuse textures with transparency alpha along with any _p parallax maps for those textures.
• Set FixParallaxBugs=true
• Set FixParallaxTerrain=false

Edited February 23, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Spock]

  On 2/23/2016 at 8:37 PM, Electrocutor said:

The shading problems that come up are mostly caused because after you enable parallax, the parallax map has the ability to raise and lower the entire square texture; so the edges of two adjoining textures may no longer actually meet. I intend to make sure that I pay attention to this: hopefully I can simply make adjustments to the base parallax level to get things working together well.

I'm not sure we understand each other. I think the shading works fine (mostly), but I found some oddities with certain textures and tiled surfaces. SSAO darkens the joints of tiles as it should. But if the color maps are designed without SSAO in mind and are already imitating AO, the effect will be too strong if you add actual SSAO. Like adding SSAO to a light map.

[Electrocutor]

None of the textures should have any shading in the diffuse... that's the whole point of the vectors in the normal map, no?

[Electrocutor]

Quick Evaluation Update:

 

For landscape and terrain, there is absolutely no visual quality difference between 2048x2048 textures and 4096x4096 textures in a tiled model unless you have a 2160p monitor. The only time 4096x4096 shows an improvement in 1080p and 1440p is in the case of stretched textures, such as vanilla mountains.

 

There is a significant quality difference between 512 and 1024 as well as 1024 and 2048, but almost no difference in GPU/CPU requirements (fps).

 

Recommendation:

Use 2048x2048 textures for everything tiled, and 4096x4096 for everything stretched. As a general rule, even textures that are not actually 2048x2048 are marked as "2k" as a means of ppi equivalency.

 

Supposition:

I suspect that using 4096x4096 on textures that can be extremely near-field and zoomed in, such as walls will also make a significant difference; but I am not yet to the architecture portion of my evaluation.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Electrocutor

[nappilydeestruction]

You have inspired me to mix and match my own skyrim and landscape textures from nexusmods by your observations and things.  I am very amazed at your findings and such.

[Electrocutor]

Favorites Update:

 

[Volcanic]

VolcanicTundraDirt01 - Reloaded VolcanicTundraRocks01

VolcanicTundraDirt02 - Noble

MineralPoolTerrace - ReloadedHD

VolcanicTundraGravel01 - Reloaded

VolcanicTundraMinerals01- SRO

VolcanicTundraRocks01 - Vivid VolcanicTundraDirt01

 

[snow]

Road01Snow01 - Noble

DirtSnowPath01 - Noble

GrassSnow01 - Noble

Snow01 - Quality Snow HD

Snow02 - Noble

SnowRocks01 - Quality Snow HD

Edited February 25, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Electrocutor]

I think I might remove Cad25 from my evaluation completely. There are a number of textures that I wanted to use from it, but just couldn't due to low quality. Even though they are 2048 textures, they look they were originally 512 or 1024 and just stretched to 2048.

 

I think I may also remove Immersive Roads. While I like the ability to choose between different variants, the fact that they are 1024 in resolution sticks out like a sore thumb in screenshot comparisons, and I just won't be able to recommend any of them.

 

----

I've been tinkering a little with using the "shader" models to attach texture overlays, like how the mossy rocks work. I think this feature is sorely underutilized in how it could vastly improve the detail look of Skyrim. Perhaps if there are any modders out there reading this with experience in creating shader nifs, they'd be willing to bounce some ideas around.

 

----

If you want to do a little experimenting yourself; a good place to start is to find some of the architecture stone or rock walls, rename them to bridge01 and put them into the landscape\roads directory. Very few texture packs come with a bridge stonework override, but any of these architecture wall textures can be used on bridges, and make them look quite good.

 

I have decided that after I finish with both landscape and architecture evaluations, I will go back and re-evaluate bridges and roads because there a ton of non-bridge/non-road textures that can be used for them both that look pretty amazing.

 

----

I am not especially pleased with using all Noble for FallForest, but there is a severe lack of options. To you texture pack makers: Skyrim does not have Oak trees and therefore would not have Oak leaves on the ground; plus, leaves fall after they change color, so having a bunch of green leaves on the ground makes no sense. If anyone knows of any FallForest specific texture packs that are at least 2048, please let me know.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Electrocutor

[Spock]

Did you find the time for new recommendations? I'm still following this with great interest!

 

Did you try this:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71400/?

 

It contains parallax maps for Noble Skyrim. Dunno how good they are.

[nappilydeestruction]

I think he tried it but didn't like it that much.  I think he would still prefer Skyrim HD Parallax tribute with Tamriel Reloaded HD.

[Spock]

  On 2/23/2016 at 9:19 PM, Electrocutor said:

Yeah. The visual difference of having terrain parallax is minimal, and it requires sacrificing the transparency of terrain textures on landscape objects, which causes very visible straight transition lines.

 

The catch is that the transparencies of the parallax-enabled texture packs, such as SkyrimHD Tribute are already setup for parallax and not transparency. Thus, if you use SRO, SeriousHD, Noble, Tamriel Reloaded, or CAD25 then set it to false. If you only use aMidianBorn, SkyrimHD Tribute, Tamriel ReloadedHD, or Vivid Landscapes, then set it to true. I listed the terrain textures where the transparency becomes an issue in an earlier post.

 

Terrain Parallax Enabled w/ Parallax Alpha:

 

Terrain Parallax Disabled w/ Transparency Alpha:

 

I had a forum discussion with Boris about whether there was any way except to re-task the alpha channel for parallax, and he said no. So it is an either/or deal. With landscape objects, you can just tack on a parallax map, but with terrain the only way is if you sacrifice transparency.

 

If the above mentioned incompatible-with-terrain-parallax texture packs were to get a lot of attention, you could in fact make both transparency and parallax work together; but it would require a whole of time and ingenuity. Basically, your alpha map would be restricted to about 64-ish in range (instead of 256), and you would need to change all the meshes with alpha transparency shaders to have their opaque threshold at precisely the right place per-texture.

Apparently there is a fix for this: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/61452/?

[FrostByghte]

I hope this discussion picks back up.  I really enjoyed reading through it and learning.  Thank you for the work you did in testing and putting posts together in this thread Electrocutor.

[Electrocutor]

I think I will pick this back up after working on Skyrim:SE a bit. Since I found such a huge amount of problems with the normal maps and parallax maps with both vanilla and mod textures, as well as the models, I think I will need to create an imaging utility for fixing everyone's texture packs if possible and visibly marking those with bad normal maps since I can't post fixed versions of other peoples' work.

 

Until then, here is a consolidation of my previous posts for my personal preferences in textures so far:

*This requires downloading a bunch of different texture packs and also renaming files

 

[ENB]

FixParallaxBugs=true

FixParallaxTerrain=false

 

[General]

Dirt01 - Noble DirtPath01

Dirt02 - SeriousHD

Rocks01 - Vivid

DirtPath01 - aMidianBorn

DirtCliffs01 - SRO

DirtCliffsRoots01 - Vivid

 

[Rocks & Mountains]

Mountains\MountainSlab01 - Vivid

Mountains\MountainSlab02 - Vivid

 

[Water]

RiverbedEdge - Noble

RiverBottom - Noble

RiverMud - Noble

 

[PineForest]

FieldGrass02 - Amidian PineForest02

PineForest01 - Amidian

PineForest02 - SeriousHD

PineForest03 - Noble PineForest02

 

[FallForest]

Road01FallForest01 - Noble

FallForestDirt01 - Noble

FallForestGrass01 - Noble

FallForestLeaves01 - Noble

FallForestRocks01 - Noble FieldGrass02

 

[Tundra]

FieldGrass01 - Noble Dirt01

Tundra01 - SRO

Tundra02 - Vivid Tundra01

TundraMoss01 - ?

TundraMossTest01- ?

TundraRocks01 - Vivid FieldGrass01

 

[Volcanic]

VolcanicTundraDirt01 - Reloaded VolcanicTundraRocks01

VolcanicTundraDirt02 - Noble

MineralPoolTerrace - ReloadedHD

VolcanicTundraGravel01 - Reloaded

VolcanicTundraMinerals01- SRO

VolcanicTundraRocks01 - Vivid VolcanicTundraDirt01

 

[snow]

Road01Snow01 - Noble

DirtSnowPath01 - Noble

GrassSnow01 - Noble

Snow01 - Quality Snow HD

Snow02 - Noble

SnowRocks01 - Quality Snow HD

[jdsmith2816]

Have you seen what steveo has done with YALO? The fixed paralax and transitions seem solid