Complete HighRes Retexture Project

[dreigen]

If you made a profile for this in Nexus it would be much more known to people and easier to locate.

[Oomo]

Just because somebody claims their work is "Hi res" that doesn't mean it is.

 

90% of the so called "Hi res" mods are not really hi res at all. They just add noise or are complete texture replacements that clash with the rest of the game's art direction.

 

I'm not gonna trash anybody's work so I'll just post an example of who I TRUELY think made a hi-res mod that looks like the original artwork:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=955

 

Spartan VI and Fhaarkus did this and they are not in that 90% ;-) In my honest opinion of course.

 

My point is I'd only want a complete highres retexture project if the quality matched the link above and does not clash with the original art direction. Staying true to the art direction is more important to me than texture replacements.

[Witcher79]

Improved textures tiling and blending. The worst problem was with grass to dirt to road transition. I know that my version isn't 100% identical with vanilla textures but it was impossible to achieve without changing the textures altogether. I've used 3x3 internal multi-tiling of 1024x1024 textures so there's better blend and overall quality without any performance drop. Also mipmaps with colour-blending to get better distant landscape view and to get rid of those awful tiling rows. I'll drop full pack and a tutorial talking about idea and execution Sunday evening CET.

 

Anyway - waiting for any opinions what to change/improve. Small example below:

 

 

 

BEFORE:

http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g400/Marteen_Dee/Skyrim%20Modding/ScreenShot6.jpg

 

AFTER (changed grass, road, rubble and dirt texture)

http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g400/Marteen_Dee/Skyrim%20Modding/ScreenShot5.jpg

 

[Blu02]

Nice! Downloading pack now.

 

I just released a new version of Tobes Highres Textures that you can check out whenever you find the time. I decided to cut out noble furniture and chests for this version after all, eventhough I spent almost all yesterday trying to finish them :wacko: Hoping to have them done next week instead. Here's what's new for now;

 

*color-tweaks to lowclass furniture & barset

*Remade firewood textures

*Various specular-tweaks

*Added 10 new textures and 10 new normals/speculars (middleclass furniture, barrels, axe, dead animals, ironpots, ladle)

 

 

 

Just because somebody claims their work is "Hi res" that doesn't mean it is.

 

90% of the so called "Hi res" mods are not really hi res at all. They just add noise or are complete texture replacements that clash with the rest of the game's art direction.

 

I'm not gonna trash anybody's work so I'll just post an example of who I TRUELY think made a hi-res mod that looks like the original artwork:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=955

 

Spartan VI and Fhaarkus did this and they are not in that 90% ;-) In my honest opinion of course.

 

My point is I'd only want a complete highres retexture project if the quality matched the link above and does not clash with the original art direction. Staying true to the art direction is more important to me than texture replacements.

 

Was that a comment related to this texture-pack or what? It's funny how you say this and worship a mod that is mostly just upscaled and blended with a highres image and some added adjustment-layers, not so much differently as that 90% you're talking about :rolleyes:

 

Personally I'm not very fond of using a base of low resolution, even if it's well done as that tree stump. If you're putting work into recreating a texture in high resolution, you can just as well do it properly from scratch. But there's a lot of work in finding matching images to work with, and the end result is hard to predict. Many details of lowres textures are often practically non existent or too blurry to understand, so this is added by the artist as he/she imagines it and sees it fit. This is where ones work often gets criticized for not being true to the original, even if all the original details have been recreated correctly. Everyone seems to have their own vision of how Skyrim should look like when adding tripled amounts of details to the textures, and it's impossible to please everyone, no matter how skilled you are.

 

I think people should just stop being so obsessed about how identical things should be to the originals. The fact is that most highres-textures contain so much more information it easily illustrates a completely new looking object ingame. The whole point is to get rid of that blurry mess you're comparing with and add something that actually looks like something. "Staying true to the art direction" isnt about these tiny details, but the whole picture. A rock is a rock and wood is wood. As long as you stay fairly true to the material, color and brightness, I see no problem here.

 

This is the art direction of Skyrim. And as you can see the actual surface details is quite moot in this matter, as long as it blends in with the rest.

 

http://elderscrollsfive.com/sites/elderscrollsfive.com/files/images/skyrim-crypt-concept.jpg

[nandchan]

Just going to hop in and mention that this is what I envision as “staying true to the art direction”:

 

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=114

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2051

 

As long as you stay fairly true to the material, color and brightness, I see no problem here.

 

My problem is not so much changing the details, but changing the color/brightness - most HD mods I dislike because I think they change the apparent color ingame too much, which changes the flavoring of a scene. Or stuff like the infamous “2K” mod which does crap like replacing cobblestone roads with dirt roads.

Edited December 3, 2011 by nandchan

[Ghogiel]

it's over contrasted, over saturation and overly noisey texture when viewed as a complete piece is where it can break down. You can get in there and add new detail, some new rusts, a bit of moss or something. If you are trying not to change the look. a new tiling pattern for the brick is probably not the best way to go either.

 

Varying the tone IN the map works fine, just zoom way out and do a side by side, and you'll see if your new variance is impacting the overall picture. Hue is something that does have to be matched at the overall zoomed out level as well.

 

zoom out and view. Squint your eyes to let less light in to pick up brightness changes better, open them really wide to gather more light to spot any tone and hue changes. Yeah I do that and yeah you look like you have really bad eye strain. :thumbsup:

[Sabatasso]

I would be willing to contribute.

 

I have 1 to start with, bare in mind my goal is to keep true to the original textures as closely as possible.

 

 

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/209926-1321517190.jpg

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/209926-1321517251.jpg

 

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/209926-1321517371.jpg

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/209926-1321517421.jpg

 

This is a good, and sensible post. Keep it as close to the original as possible!

And anything above 2k textures is just pointless, because it gets so crisp that it hurts the eyes, and a full HD pack of 4k would burn the computer, eyes and souls of anyone. Stick with sensible resolutions, 1024 and 2048, or even 512 on really small objects, and the game will become stable, beautiful and can be played on any decent computer.

Edited December 3, 2011 by Sabatasso

[darthsloth74]

I think in principle this is a very good idea. I do agree that its very important in many ways to stick to the vanilla style, however I don't think in all cases its neccessary to embrace tunnel vision either especially if an artist reinterpretes something in a new way that would potentially have widespread appeal.

 

A personal irritation of mine is the new Daredevil costume wannabbe wearing Dark Brotherhood, I don't care for the look at all, personal preference true but a lot of people feel they should look more Oblivion in style.

 

Of course on the other hand texture sets such as Chris2012's awesome reworking of Whiterun has much love and appeal because it sticks so well to the original style albeit it in a new remastered format.

 

Hopefully as a group you can come together and make informed decisions going forward with this. Sounds a very worthwhile concept. I for one am getting rather tired of texture enlargers and sharpeners its seriously going out of fashion its dissapointing because it tars all "HD" textures with the same brush in a lot of cases due to people having poor experiences with those not as advertised sets.

Edited December 3, 2011 by darthsloth74

[nandchan]

I think in principle this is a very good idea. I do agree that its very important in many ways to stick to the vanilla style, however I don't think in all cases its neccessary to embrace tunnel vision either especially if an artist reinterpretes something in a new way that would potentially have widespread appeal.

 

A personal irritation of mine is the new Daredevil costume wannabbe wearing Dark Brotherhood, I don't care for the look at all, personal preference true but a lot of people feel they should look more Oblivion in style.

 

Of course on the other hand texture sets such as Chris2012's awesome reworking of Whiterun has much love and appeal because it sticks so well to the original style albeit it in a new remastered format.

 

Hopefully as a group you can come together and make informed decisions going forward with this. Sounds a very worthwhile concept. I for one am getting rather tired of texture enlargers and sharpeners its seriously going out of fashion its dissapointing because it tars all "HD" textures with the same brush in a lot of cases due to people having poor experiences with those not as advertised sets.

 

The problem is, if you start re-envisioning things, you'll always end up with differences of opinion. I personally think that any HD “pack” should stick to vanilla as close as possible - re-envisioning should be left to individual mods, for example in this case a “Dark Brotherhood outfits re-envisioned” mod.

 

Otherwise, you're always going to end up with situations in which you like about half of a mod, and can't simply easily pick out the bits you want to keep, as I've experienced with a number of other HD packs.

 

But vanilla is a common denominator - it's a style that everybody can reference to. If you can live with playing Skyrim, you can live with vanilla style or you would be playing a different game - after all, what are they going to do if they don't like it? Uninstall your mod and get the exact same (but worse)? There are some situations in which I'd rather have a low-res vanilla texture than a high-res modified texture since I prefer the style of the original. But the choice between a low-res vanilla texture and a high-res vanilla-style texture is a no-brainer.

 

I'd also like to reinforce my advice to make things modular, it's a great concept to follow (as long as you make it easy to combine sections without needing to download 30 files off skyrimnexus). Once Skyrim gets its version of OMOD, such choices can even be presented (with screenshots) during the installation process, thus removing any last bit of effort.

 

Ps. If you, darhsloth74, would join this project, it would certainly make all clothes beautiful. :)

Edited December 3, 2011 by nandchan

[darthsloth74]

nandchan: True you make a very good point for not renvisioning things. Modular is also good because it allows people to be flexible with select things for example a complete vanilla overhaul but still leaves an option to download an alternate DB set , steel plate set from elsewhere if the individual user wishes.

 

Also I noticed the rather sly comment in regard to clothing. ;) You'll know doubt be pleased to know that I've started my clothing high resolution mod. Unfortunately theres so much to do its going to take time and I don't neccessarily want to do stuff like beggar and chef clothes because they seem raher irrelevant. Plus I have some outfits to finish for the Mage and Monk robes mod.

 

My texturing work is distinctly average and I know some whizz kid is going to have every clothing item reworked at master level within the next fortnight because this always happens when I start something.

 

Sorry to go off topic. However this combined mod idea sounds very good and I wish you all well with your endevours.