Jump to content

Retexturing as many of Skyrim's textures as I can


KeeperFiM

Recommended Posts

Definitely agree about the normal map problem. Shoddy normals can really drag down the whole package no matter how high-res and pretty the diffuse is. And I find this to be about 10 times worse when it comes to Oblivion textures, so I just play using the vanilla ones instead.

I think aMidianborn's environmental textures have made the best impression on me thus far. They sometimes deviate a bit but the general tone of the originals are always preserved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Oh gosh... There's no way correct normals could ever be generated?

 

If the elements used to generate the normals are intact, there's nothing stopping them. Convincing normals have to be essentially handcrafted, and by far the best examples of such handcrafting available in Skyrim are the vanilla specimens - which they then scuttled to some degree with overcompression. But all of the texture mods I've mentioned have had at least some good, handcrafted specimens. With HD 2K, it's not so easy to tell since each normal is a bizarre merging of the vanilla originals and their own efforts (one has to view individual channels from within PS or GIMP), but I did get the impression that some handcrafting was attempted. That said, HD 2K has been around for something like two years, bugs and all. There's absolutely no reason to expect a fix. And the particularly crushing fact is that because HD 2K exists and is filling the "more or less complete texture overhaul" void in its dubious fashion, who knows how many similar projects never even got started (or will ever) because such a mod already exists. :/

 

If the author of HD 2K were to fix it, what would he have to do?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the author of HD 2K were to fix it, what would he have to do?

 

Depends. If the author actually has all of the elements (all four channels), they'd only need to redo the process of creating normal maps from them. (And not mess it up. ;p ) The few specimens I looked at, however, only had one usable channel and the hint of a second. The third vector channel and the reflective channel were both copies of the vanilla originals. So one of two things happened: Either the author legitimately screwed up, and then ultimately either never noticed or never cared enough to fix it, or they never actually created usable normal map elements in the first place, and their hybridization effort was in fact deliberate (and effective) subterfuge. In the latter case, "fixing" the problem would require nothing less than starting from scratch and handcrafting every single normal map, as should have been done in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

If the author of HD 2K were to fix it, what would he have to do?

 

Depends. If the author actually has all of the elements (all four channels), they'd only need to redo the process of creating normal maps from them. (And not mess it up. ;p ) The few specimens I looked at, however, only had one usable channel and the hint of a second. The third vector channel and the reflective channel were both copies of the vanilla originals. So one of two things happened: Either the author legitimately screwed up, and then ultimately either never noticed or never cared enough to fix it, or they never actually created usable normal map elements in the first place, and their hybridization effort was in fact deliberate (and effective) subterfuge. In the latter case, "fixing" the problem would require nothing less than starting from scratch and handcrafting every single normal map, as should have been done in the first place.

Yo, do you know how I can learn to make proper normals? I've been wanting to try my hand at retexturing some things and I don't want to make the same mistake :'D
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yo, do you know how I can learn to make proper normals? I've been wanting to try my hand at retexturing some things and I don't want to make the same mistake :'D

 

Not really. I do know enough to be able to say that it's more of an art than any kind of precise process. Lazy jobs tend to use nothing but cues from the starting texture (areas of relative brightness, for example), but the best efforts combine this with a painstaking 3d construction. I don't know what software or plugins are used to achieve this but there are surely countless guides sitting around on Google.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Yo, do you know how I can learn to make proper normals? I've been wanting to try my hand at retexturing some things and I don't want to make the same mistake :'D

 

Not really. I do know enough to be able to say that it's more of an art than any kind of precise process. Lazy jobs tend to use nothing but cues from the starting texture (areas of relative brightness, for example), but the best efforts combine this with a painstaking 3d construction. I don't know what software or plugins are used to achieve this but there are surely countless guides sitting around on Google.

Welp, to google I go~
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

How about Texture Pack Combiner?

I would but many texture packs it supports have been updated since it was last updated...

 

Look in the comments section or the link on the main Page to Driggers app. It has been updated quite often. Bear in mine that if you use all of the optional files, the game will not blend well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

How about Texture Pack Combiner?

 

I would but many texture packs it supports have been updated since it was last updated...

Look in the comments section or the link on the main Page to Driggers app. It has been updated quite often. Bear in mine that if you use all of the optional files, the game will not blend well.
I'll try that, thanks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...