Poll: retextures or new models you decide

[Peregrine]

I'm a little annoyed with this concept also. Since I can't afford Max - and by the way, many student versions have disabled export and can't be used for modding; or perhaps that's just Maya -

 

It's just Maya. The student versions of 3dsmax are fully functional, the only limit is your license agreement prohibits you from using it for commercial purposes. Of course it's still about $500-ish, but compared to $10,000 a year in tuition bills...

[Birdcatmeow]

I vote Yes, New models r sorely needed

 

Yes, Retexturing is cheap Unless it is trully very good , and so far ive seen one very good retexture out of 100s. Im still trying to figure out how to do either... when i do ill go staight to new models

[Vagrant0]

I think the main thing that's bugging people about retextures is the lack of imagination. You have 18+ colors of glass armor, 27 different colors of robes, some with various insignias, 4 or 5 recolors of various things to black... The only place where there is any decent variation is with all of growlf's stuff, and that's only of use if your PC happens to be female, and likes running around half nude. There are so many other things people could do with just retextures, and so many more places where variety or change is needed. Do you realize that there are only a few mods that actually add any clothing that you'd actually see people wearing? Do you realize that you can do more than just change the coloring to armor to make it look different?

 

*edit*

attachment removed, was a nifscope picture of a curiass.

*end edit*

 

Was one I did just by chopping up the standard imperial watch curiass to fit the dimentions of the female version of the legion curiass. I havn't uploaded it or anything mostly because I used that as my tutorial for how to use Nifscope to add textures to stuff. As such, the normal maps are a bit funky, and I havn't had any interest to go back to it. I have partial work on trying to make a slightly better looking set of fur armor too, but havn't had any interest for that one either.

[SickleYield]

I think the main thing that's bugging people about retextures is the lack of imagination. You have 18+ colors of glass armor, 27 different colors of robes, some with various insignias, 4 or 5 recolors of various things to black... The only place where there is any decent variation is with all of growlf's stuff, and that's only of use if your PC happens to be female, and likes running around half nude. There are so many other things people could do with just retextures, and so many more places where variety or change is needed. Do you realize that there are only a few mods that actually add any clothing that you'd actually see people wearing? Do you realize that you can do more than just change the coloring to armor to make it look different?

Was one I did just by chopping up the standard imperial watch curiass to fit the dimentions of the female version of the legion curiass. I havn't uploaded it or anything mostly because I used that as my tutorial for how to use Nifscope to add textures to stuff. As such, the normal maps are a bit funky, and I havn't had any interest to go back to it.

 

Actually, Growlf's are new models, not retextures, and as far as I know he's made them mostly for his own body mesh, not the default game ones.

 

I've done what you describe with nifskope chopping and pasting and some photobased stuff, but nobody seemed interested. It's called the House of Philemon, it's a shop with six full new sets of armor, and it's got 220 downloads over on Elric Melnibone (can't upload to this server, some screenies and links are at www.tescreens.be/oblivionmodwiki/index.php/House_of_Philemon ). Making a brand new texture from a UV map is fairly hard to do - the shapes are utterly counterintuitive - which is why you see mostly color tweaks.

[WarKirby3333]

It's probably because of the name that no-one's interested. 'House of Philemon' sounds like a housemod or a dungeon. As crude as it may seem, your mod would get a lot more attention if you called it "6 new suits of armor".

[lyth]

While I think more unique models would by nice, I'm not voting yes for many reasons. First, Texturing and Modelling are two different arts. To say stop doing textures and do models is like telling an artist to stop painting and do sculpture. It is true that many artists have exposure to both, but not necessarily that being good at one indicates even meager talent at the other. I used to be somewhat decent at modelling with a couple tools, although I don't have the tools or the drive to focus on reacquiring that skill at the moment. However, I've always been terrible with colour, and that means I can't texture worth crap. It's also the reason I quit modelling, since I never ended up with something that looked like I envisioned in my mind.

 

Also, as indicated above, the tools used really are quite a bit different. Do you use windows? Does that give you the same mastery over MAC OS or Unix?

 

Furthermore, due to a result of having so many 'basic' retextures, it's become increasingly tedious to dig through modding sites to find what you would be interested in actually using. It's not that there are too many retextures, or even that there's no need for retextures. There's still a lot of room to improve Oblivion.

 

Frankly, there are more than a few really good retextures out there, but they're so intermingled with the mediocre that it's difficult to go through and find what you like. It would probably be helped a lot if the mod categories were broken up into subcategories and if the categories borders were more clear to uploaders. As an example, take the textures & models, category.

 

[Don't get me wrong, I've been on a lot of sites far more difficult to navigate than TESSource. It's really my preferred site atm.]

 

But take the following example:

One person wants to find a model, a second wants to find a tile, a third wants a landtexture, a fourth want a retex for glass armour, and finally a fifth wants a new set of armour produced by retexing Dragon Armour.

 

The first 3 are clearly in the right category, yet how much fun is it to go through the list, item-by-item looking for just those things that might qualify. As with 'House of Philemon', it's hard to tell exactly what a mod includes without opening the description link for it. And how many mods can you have name '6 new suits of armor' before people just give up.

 

The fourth item may be in textures, or it may be in items. I've seen examples in both. More often such things are in items, although retextures should probably go in the texture category. Consider that almost all textures made are made to go on a specific mesh. Now, if the mesh is brand new (created by you), then it's clear that you've got a whole new model. If the mesh is someone else's and you're creating a texture for an untextured mesh (modellers resource) it's definitely in this category too. How many textures fall under those two categories though, particularly on TESSource? The remaining textures are retextures, they could be used as a modders resource, depending on what the producer allows, but regardless, the actual file is the same thing, a texture, not a complete set of clothing or such. Thus, a lot of what ends up in items, for example, belongs here.

 

The fifth is even more difficult - while it is clearly a new item, there's no way to throw it in items and differentiate from any item that is just attribute-tweaked. (One persons Iron Short Sword of pwnage vs anothers [Completely Original] Gladius of Slaying) However, while it contains a new texture, it is intended to be a part of that mod - therefore clearly does not belong in models & textures as much as it does in weapons & armour.

 

Even a little link from the uploads page describing what dominant characteristics prescribe what category the item belongs in would significantly help this issue.

 

However, I think that having a checklist of search 'properties' to mark when uploading would be much more useful. Combined with a little more defined or broken up categorization, it would certainly ease the trouble of searching through the mediocre to find the excellent. To clarify, lets use the following example:

 

The following is a bit sketchy since I'm making it up on the spot, but it will give you an idea.

Assume the the models & textures category was broken up into the following subcategories:

-Models/Meshes

+ Actors

+ Gear

+ Other

- Tiles

+ Tilesets

+ Additions

+ Retextures

- Retextures

+Actors

+Armor

+Weapons

+Tiles

+Other

 

Now a few example uploads and the properties selected:

1. Glass Armour Retexture

- Category: Model & Textures [Required]

- Subcategory: Retextures/Armor [Required]

- Mirror Categories:

+ Categories/Items/Retextures [will show up browsing Categories/Items/Retextures]

- Properties:

+ Is a Rextexture [result of subcategory]

+ Is an Armor [result of subcategory]

+ Is reusable/modders resource [selected by uploader - indicates that an idividual does not have to contact the author for explicit permission to use for their own mods]

+ Is a mod/player resource (selected by uploader - means the mod can be implemented for end use)

(That is to say, as a texture replacer you can install and play with it 'out of the box')

+ Contains:

-- readme

-- Texture File (.dds)

+ Format: 7-zip Archive

 

2. New Creature Mesh and Texture for a Winged Twilight, no stats

- Category: Models & Textures

- Subcategory: Models/Meshes

- Mirror Categories: None

- Properties

+ Is an Actor

+ New Model

+ Is a modder Resource

+ Contains:

-- Texture File

-- Model

+ Format: Rar Archive

 

3. A Completed New Creature (perhaps even based on the winged twilight model above)

- Category: Actors

- Subcategory: Creatures/New

- Mirror Categories: None

- Properties

+ Is an Actor [Result of Category]

+ New Model (not Bethesda's work)

+ Is a modder resource

+ Contains:

-- Readme

-- Texture

-- Model

-- .ESM

-- New KF (Animation File)

+ Format: 7zip

 

4. A Plugin inserting the above creature as well as other creatures into levelled lists in the game and perhaps rebalancing them, but not containing the esm file above.

- Category: Rebalancing Mods

- Subcategory: Creatures

- Mirror Category: Actors/Creatures/New (It does add new creatures)

- Properties

+ Is an actor (contains new actors)

+ Is a mod/player resource

+ Affects/adds levelled lists

+ Contains:

-- Readme

-- Texture

-- Model

-- .ESP

-- KF

+ Requires:

-- ESM from completed Winged Twilight [add link]

-- Other ESMs

+ Format: Omod

 

 

Now assume that when you search you could select to find only files with, without, or ignoring certain properties, such as searching for omod format, mods, armor, not a new model, (so a retex or modified suit from vanilla oblivion) and ignoring all other properties one way or the other. You'd come up with a much shorter and easier list to search through. Arranged by date, you now have a manageable list if you wanted to find a good set of retextured armour. And considering that taste varies, this is probably more likely to result in you getting what you want than even reorganizing by popularity or rating.

 

Browsing would be handled pretty much the same way with everything in the subcategories of a category showing when that category was selected. This would also ease the necessity of the site webmaster from having to resort things into subcategories. By adding a link to relocate the mod (and set the properties) to the uploaders page, a lot of manwork could be offloaded to the users as well as insuring that the mod is attributed the properties the creator sees it as having. (Which may not be fully correct, but better than having the administrators go through them one-by-one) Older mods that were not 'updated' could be left as they were - searching with property selections would fail to find them, but if all properties were set to ignore, they'd still be possible to locate. (Browsing would work too, of course.)

 

However, most modders who care about having their mod downloaded and used would probably make the effort to update the property data and apply it as accurately as possible to new mods.

 

Admittedly, that might take awhile to set up, but I would think it worthwhile. The real problem, is how to set it up efficiently such that it doesn't place much more load on the server than usual. Although, with people finding what they want more quickly, and not downloading as many 'unsatisfactory' mods, there's a (possibly significant) decrease in load from given individuals, but consequently probably an increase due to the number of people visiting.

 

I hope this isn't seen as going too far off-topic, but I think it addresses the real problem related to the poll, that being whether there's already enough textures, but practically no models, or whether it's just difficult to find what you want in both categories. Although, I would like to see many more quality models released, the problem isn't solely one of them not being produced. Nor is the problem with retextures that they are 'overdone' or all mediocre. (Mediocre textures are kind of a necessity, because they pave the way to learning how to do good textures.)

[SickleYield]

Wow, this is a really old poll. I've been doing new models and textures for months now and I'm just getting around to redoing House of Philemon and Syntyche's Cavern with new meshes. :lol:

 

The new NIF scripts are a tremendous help in making it easier to create new meshes using Blender.

[Septim741]

I don't really want to get into this dispute, I want to put in my two cents.

 

Personally, this is a silly topic. A balance of new models and retextures/textures is good, and I see nothing wrong with the current ratio of new models to retextures.

 

Even if we decided there was a problem, there's probably nothing we could do about it. which makes this poll that much more useless.

 

No offense to anybody intended.

 

Later.