Keeping to the aesthetics of the Skyrim art style

[Tyen]

Hi everyone,

 

The other day I released a mod that brings Zelda weapons into Skyrim, if you are interested in that you can find it here. Shameless plug, I know. But it links into the topic of this thread.

I originally was going to post this into the thread above, but I realised that this may spawn into a bigger discussion and decided to split it up.

 

 

To get to the point. As I have been working on my own mods I have started to notice that I am leaning towards the look of the Skyrim's art style in my own assets as I personally like keeping the look of the game consistent as I play through it with custom assets.

 

So, I pose the question; should the modders and artists that are working out there try to stick to the design and art style that Skyrim abides by?

 

 

That is, there are many different things that make up how the look of the final asset, such as the edge of a blade's contrasted jaggedness in it's diffuse and specular, how the colour style of the bone armour or inlay of the ebony looks or how the designs of the inlay are created. These things and more together make up the final look of the asset looks and how well it fits into the game.

 

I know for some modding theme things, like Zelda. That it would be a little odd to see Nordic designs replacing the inlay on Hyrule emblem, or to replace the Triforce with the Imperial Crest. And that it makes sense to keep the designs as they are, but I feel that when it comes to making a custom Ebony helm, it would be nicer as a user for it to match the original Ebony plate. So that I can wear it in-game without worrying that it is not matching. ( I know right, fashion nightmare. Gotta look good when you are slapping a dragon around with the sharp end of your greatsword )

 

 

My opinion is that the artists, modders or teams themselves should be able to choose their own art style. And I know it's ridiculous to expect everyone to stick to it, like it's some overarching rule that must be stuck to.

 

But on the other hand... creating assets as you see fit can cause some serious discrepancy in how the game looks when you start playing with a large number of mods.

 

So I thought I would pose this question to the mod scene at large and see how you all felt.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Tyen

[Redwood36]

i like a good out of character mod, like the link additions that have sprung up recently. they have been nice. however I would only use those kinds of assets in a dedicated play-through. for my general purpose i wont download mods that either take inspiration from outside sources, or are too real as in they used a real photograph to put in textures (more so for environmental stuff) or dont have the livelihood or variety of the original. as an example of the later, ive seen a lot of nice clothing texture or wood texture mods, however they frequently are plain and take out the value and saturation shifts that make the original have depth and shape. basically things become far too flat,especially at any reasonable distance. that has put me off a number of mods that ive seen, where maybe i will like one aspect, but another outfit looks flat and totally out of place. my 2 cents.

[jimhsu]

As far as the texture/mesh work is good (yours certainly is), I don't mind at all. It's those people that think resizing something by 400% in photoshop, applying Unsharp Mask, and then using the Hue tool consitutes a good retexture that I'm worried about. (Cue oblivion and the 5000 variations on glass armors that do just that).

 

I really like the subtle wear that you updated the mod with. Not so much as adhering to Skyrim's art style (personally, that's just boring) but rather something that can belong in Skyrim, as in a real, tangible object.

Edited December 11, 2011 by jimhsu

[Ghogiel]

Don't know myself. I'm a lore mod lover. Yeah I know, says the one who did loads of star wars for f3 and random stuff like that. And like when something fits seamlessly into the game, assets included.

 

I don't think many people can really even match the art style very well. I think even less going to really try to match anything to the art style. I'm probably not going to all that much myself, think about it this way, many cases that would mean I would shift to a production method that would be the faster, but not as good way to achieve the effect. Also texture resolution and poly counts would have to match more, hell yes that is a huge factor to final look of an asset. Just lots of little things I don't care to do.

 

That said I am going to say: yes, keep to the art style as much as possible. Might as well say it, no one is going to listen to me anyway. :biggrin:

Edited December 11, 2011 by Ghogiel

[severian1981]

It depends on what the mod is.

 

The modder does what he wants in the end, the person can choose to download it or not.

 

Personally I will try to keep my mods in line with the theme... So my dwarven katana will "match" the other dwarven weapons etc etc

[huntsman2310]

Its up to them on what they want to do.

 

Its also up to the downloader if they want to use it or not.

 

Honestly I tend to go towards mods that keep the look and feel of Skyrim.