HD And Not HD

[darthsloth74]

Unfortunately at the moment there are a great many people who want to upload textures. Some of is great. Some is not so great. The problem exists that texturing is one of the most straightforward ways into modding and any enthusiastic individual can jump on the Photoshop Texturing Wagon.

 

Maybe this is because theres no CK and only the truly skilled wizards who understand hexidecimal can create their own plugin esps at present. This is one of the reasons for this large scale uploading of mods.

 

It used to be quite easy to recognise the difference between someone who was truly skilled at texturing and someone who is merely keen and just wants to get their mod out there. Nothing wrong with that lots of people just want to make fun texture mods, putting their own stamp on something in game.

 

Now we have the so-called HD replacers. Well 90% of those are a big fat lie. My monitors HD sos my TV that doesn't mean it would make a good texture. Its important that people understand the difference between High Definition and High Resolution, not the same thing at all.

 

Textures generally should be painted at the intended resolution i.e 2048x2048 High res. 1024x1024 Medium res. 512x512 and smaller Low res. Some artists prefer to work at a higher resolution and then reduce down to a smaller one, I don't but thats down to the individual really.

 

Enlarging the Skyrim textures to higher than their intended resolution and running sharpening fiters on them is not texturing. Its sloppy, lazy and to be quite blunt a complete waste of even loading Photoshop. Shaming themselves further they then proceed to upload it and convince people of its High Res nature. Stupid and annoying to say the least.

 

Also another thing to bear in mind is that people are working with DDS Textures, that is textures that have been compressed. So many people just paint over the original and then save them again causing the texture to be compressed further. Then they wonder where all the compression artifacts have appeared from and demand to know why their work looks like complete pants.

 

Once the CK comes out this trend will start to die off. Until then I will say if you are unsure check the description of the mod in question and see if it says handpainted and high res ,not HD. Also try to see if screenshots have been uploaded so you can clearly see the difference between a low res vanilla texture and a high res one.

[Galacticat42]

@MonsterMonkey

Well there is an excellent light and shade mod out there using the ENB as a base. It's called Skyrim Enhanced Shaders and it works like a charm. Unlike the FXAA, there is minimal FPS impact if none at all and lights actually matter.

[firstprice]

it's just a non sense label. Vanilla game is HD...I run at 1080p.

Skyrim is in HD, but the vanilla textures aren't.

Think minecraft, you can run that game in 1080p but the default textures are only 16x16 pixels.

[Aenigmo1]

I'm brand new to manipulating textures and have been trying to teach myself to do so using open-source tools and the well-presented tutorials I've found.

 

Most everything I've produced so far has been in the spirit of learning techniques and building an understanding of best practices as regards different texture types.

 

I've uploaded four mods...basic replacers for things I wanted to see differently in the game...personal preference mostly...but have not labelled any of them HD because I don't really think they are. I've scaled them to 2048x2048, repainted them to some extent and, through trial and error, created new normal maps that I feel have enhanced texture appearances in game but ultimately I've got a lot to learn.

 

I approach it as a hobbyist, learning at my own pace and sharing what I feel has turned out well enough. I think it's already been mentioned in this thread but the truth is there is no CK yet and texture modding is very accessible for those who are interested in learning...extract some textures, download a graphics editor, read a tutorial and off you go!

 

For the most part, I think it's great that people are taking the time to enhance vanilla textures and I havn't seen many mods that don't have screenies displaying the differences between their work and the vanilla textures.

 

I don't really care if it's labelled HD or not..if it looks better than vanilla and is a part of my gaming experience that warrants enhancing, I'm happy to use it.

 

Oh, and the sharpening filter in GIMP makes vanilla textures look worse even after scaling up.

[Blu02]

I'm sorry but i dislike 80% HD textures i download most of the time i delete them quicly, it's a question of having an artistic talent or not, to make it good you got to feel the mood of the game and its visual logic (if i can say such a thing) because a lot of HD retex are breaking the visual logic of the game.

 

And again it's like when i read people saying that they put ugridtoload at 11 with all details and all view distances full and playin 1900/1080 res, but they didn't even tried to put ugrid to 7 with medium far details (because you dont see far details on trees or grass anyway so what are they here for ?) and they dont even know either than most screens cannot display 1900/1080 resolution, they dont know that there aint no notiçable difference between high details and Ultra Details (but a great fps loss), before i was playin ultra HD blahblahblah and was around 20/30 fps, and some guys showed me the xbox version, then i understood that Skyrim does not need all these ultra settings, they dont make enough difference to sacrifice the smoothness of the game.

 

Now i run it ugrid 7, antialias 2, aniso 8 far details medium, shadows 2048 shadowblur 4, all view distance full, and 1360/780 res, the game is as beautifull as it ever been and i have 60fps nearly allways.

If you wanna have some fun make the game high settings take a screen and then take the same screen on ultra settings and you'll notice that in 80% times no differences.

 

i really think people should concentrate on improving image space effects, colour scheme and shadow:lighting effects, because they are way (and without any comparison) better at enhancing a game graphics than HD.

 

Wow that is one LONG sentence :ohmy:

 

But no, you can not compare texture-size to your screens resolution. For example, imagine yourself standing close to a shelf checking book-labels. At that point even a 2048-texture on that shelf is scaled way past your monitors HD-resolution, and you lose sharpness. On architecture it's even worse. You should also know that textures consist of lots of different pieces, often also containing pieces of other objects in order to save space. So eventhough an object is using a 2048-texture, it rarely means that the polygons/surface you're looking at is actually using all that space, but more like half of it, or even less, depending on a lot of things. You know in 3d everything has a backside as well, so to speak at least.

 

There are a lot of advantages with high resolution textures for artists, especially when it comes to almost everything BUT the colormap itself. Sure there's a sport in keeping things 110% optimized as well, but I dont see the point when computers are so overpowered for this console-game as it is already. My first thought when noticing these horribly downscaled and compressed textures of Skyrim was "If I was a texture-artist at Bethesda, I would be so damn pissed seeing how my hard work ended up on release".

 

Not saying people should exaggerate, but dont be stingy to the point where you think it's starting to mess up your art/vision. If people cant see the difference, then maybe it's time for them to buy a new monitor or glasses. Or just save some money and keep living in denial :rolleyes:

Edited December 5, 2011 by Mr. Bravo

[wesside0yes]

Unfortunately at the moment there are a great many people who want to upload textures. Some of is great. Some is not so great. The problem exists that texturing is one of the most straightforward ways into modding and any enthusiastic individual can jump on the Photoshop Texturing Wagon.

 

Maybe this is because theres no CK and only the truly skilled wizards who understand hexidecimal can create their own plugin esps at present. This is one of the reasons for this large scale uploading of mods.

 

It used to be quite easy to recognise the difference between someone who was truly skilled at texturing and someone who is merely keen and just wants to get their mod out there. Nothing wrong with that lots of people just want to make fun texture mods, putting their own stamp on something in game.

 

Now we have the so-called HD replacers. Well 90% of those are a big fat lie. My monitors HD sos my TV that doesn't mean it would make a good texture. Its important that people understand the difference between High Definition and High Resolution, not the same thing at all.

 

Textures generally should be painted at the intended resolution i.e 2048x2048 High res. 1024x1024 Medium res. 512x512 and smaller Low res. Some artists prefer to work at a higher resolution and then reduce down to a smaller one, I don't but thats down to the individual really.

 

Enlarging the Skyrim textures to higher than their intended resolution and running sharpening fiters on them is not texturing. Its sloppy, lazy and to be quite blunt a complete waste of even loading Photoshop. Shaming themselves further they then proceed to upload it and convince people of its High Res nature. Stupid and annoying to say the least.

 

Also another thing to bear in mind is that people are working with DDS Textures, that is textures that have been compressed. So many people just paint over the original and then save them again causing the texture to be compressed further. Then they wonder where all the compression artifacts have appeared from and demand to know why their work looks like complete pants.

 

Once the CK comes out this trend will start to die off. Until then I will say if you are unsure check the description of the mod in question and see if it says handpainted and high res ,not HD. Also try to see if screenshots have been uploaded so you can clearly see the difference between a low res vanilla texture and a high res one.

 

I'm getting the distinct feeling that you're implying that texturing is undervalued below hexidecimal modding. I have the ability to create an .esp without the use of the Construction Kit, does this make me a truely skilled wizard? Eventhough the modification might be below standard I just proved to be a skilled modder, did I not? These sorts of distinctions lead me to believe that you yourself are a modder with a coding background and not one to take the path of textures and perhaps models. And it is ofcourse fine to be proud of your abilities but degrading enthousiasts and disrespectfully critizising only shows signs of weakness, not talent. Eventhough what you have said may be true, your disrespecting tone makes me disregard it nonetheless. Some people tend to forget that they too were enthousiastic beginners once.

Edited December 5, 2011 by wesside0yes

[darthsloth74]

wessideOyes: I think its entirely safe to say that you took what I said completely out of context. I pointed that due to the limitations of not having the CK was one of the main reasons for the large influx of texture replacer mods.

 

I also referenced hexidecimal modding since in these early days the majority of esp modders are those who have programming knowlege. True not every mod relies on that either. Nor did I suggest that those who mod without programming knowledge are in some way lacking. I am certainly not some disgruntled modder with a coding background either since I have absolutely no knowlege of programming. I used the term "wizard" because I have the greatest respect for people who change the game mechanics in a large or small way, whether they rely on hex editing or not, clearly without a CK its all workaround methodology.

 

In regard to this comment:

 

These sorts of distinctions lead me to believe that you yourself are a modder with a coding background and not one to take the path of textures and perhaps models.

 

Is this a joke? For clarification I am a 3d and Texture artist and while my work is strictly hobby orientated that does not mean that I don't have a great deal of experience in that field. So I'm sure you'll appreciate that when I comment on Texture related work that I am only putting my own opinion across and to be frank if you disagree with it then thats entirely fine.

 

You'll also note that I stated that there was nothing wrong with hobbyists and enthusiasts who want to get into texturing. I have no objection to anyone who does something in the spirit of fun or learning. Its how every artist starts. So I really don't see how you think I'm somehow being disrespectful if you felt my tone was unjust then that was not my intention at all and you have clearly made unfounded assumptions.

 

My objection as I clearly stated is to people who advertise their mods as something they're not i.e HD replacers when not all of them are really Hi res. I have issues with that behaviour as do a lot of other fellow texture artists because its not fair to expect people to download large texture replacer file sizes only to discover that they ended up with something which was entirely different to what was being advertised.

 

Finally the OP stated to be entirely honest and I believe I was in regard to texturing so if you really took offense to that well maybe you shouldn't have read the article in the first place, though I wonder if you actually did read my comments thorougly before accusing me of disrespectul behaviour and suggesting I devalue people because in my opinion you are very wrong.

[DeadlyAzuril]

/sigh.

 

to all those that are saying 'i run the game @ hd so its all hd'.. this is off topic.

 

back ON topic there should be a hard and fast rule (or perhaps a 'tag') for actual HD textures. also about the bread - these too can be high definition. I agree that far too many people are applying some photoshop filters to a blown up image, tweaking the contrast (WAY too much) and calling it HD.

 

this should really stop. it takes all about 2 minutes to accomplish and does not in any way enhance the visual quality of any assets.

 

the main issue with these is that people continue to download and endorse said 'mods'..

 

ill put it this way - if you want to see adam sandler/ben stiller movies stop being made. stop buying tickets.

 

otherwise. to the true artists out there. really great job, the game is looking so much better already and to echo what someone said earlier, it wont be long before we see the bigger/better texture packs spring up and leave these imposters in the dust.

 

my 2c

Edited December 5, 2011 by DeadlyAzuril

[Ghogiel]

it's just a non sense label. Vanilla game is HD...I run at 1080p.

Skyrim is in HD, but the vanilla textures aren't.

Think minecraft, you can run that game in 1080p but the default textures are only 16x16 pixels.

when you have like 20 512 on your screen at one time, some of which are tiling 500 times, do the math. Unless you are constantly lookin at a single non tiled 512 texture the whole time...

 

It is completely irrelevant to call textures such, as on screen the game will only be mapping 1 texture pixel, which it gets by sampling, to the screen pixel.

Edited December 5, 2011 by Ghogiel

[firstprice]

The textures in skyrim isn't high res enough to fit to the texture of the screen.

Even tho you are several meter away from the ground, you will still see that the textures are too low res to your computers screen.

With real HD textures, you will be able to get very close to the actual texture tile without quality reduction.