Mod to enhance armors and faces textures?

[Siegfriedm]

Without changing it? Just a retexture/enhancement of default armors and faces.

[Enkida]

I may come in and add links to these later on if I have some time, but nexus searching or google searching these exact names + dragon age origins should get you to them safely. The vanilla improvements that I've found (that will not leave you a havering mess to install because of the need to hunt down additional assets) are here. Note they're not necessarily the best, they're just in my opinion the easiest to install and least buggy for the lay non-modder gamer. They also stick most closely to vanilla Dragon Age and/or the Dragon Age universe lore.

 

ENVIRONMENT

Mesh Lightmap Fixes
Unified Ferelden Architecture

Theta HD Texture

Hazy Sun

 

* HDR Textures - I put this in tentatively because it retextures everything, but is a pain in the butt to download / install, some of the files are corrupted, the file download names may be corrupted, and you need to delete quite a lot of textures from it too, or your game will not always look "better." See the Nexus discussion page on that mod if you use it. If you use any other texture improvements, let them all overwrite whatever you find in here.

 

Note JB3 textures is very popular, but not on my list. Besides the permissions thing, it's really unoptimized. Also, "upgrading" texture quality by liberal use of your sharpening tool /bump mapping is not necessarily a visual improvement. If you have a roaring good computer you might not care and can still grab these, though.

 

CHARACTERS / NPCS

SJC's Vanilla Face Textures + Dark Skin Patch - default skin texture replacer

 

Eyebrows Plus - default eyebrow replacer

 

Lord Spartan Full Stubble - default stubble replacer; conflicts with the eyebrow replacer though

 

Pretty Faces Preset Heads - covers every race, every gender, but can look a little same-y. Arguably better than vanilla though.

 

Cute Dwarf Presets - let these overwrite the dwarf Pretty Faces presets they conflict with

 

Natalie Portman - er, what it says on the tin, if you want that. Let this morph overwrite the Pretty Faces human head morph it conflicts with

 

Dracomies Tranquil Brand (part of the Mages of Ferelden, under optional I think) - adds the DA2 tranquil brand texture to DAO and the files to replace the NPCs who use them

 

Dragon Age Redesigned - includes your joinable companions, Awakenings, and Leliana's Song - use the Lore version. I think you do need to download one or two additional assets to make this work, see the description of the mod.

 

Qunari Update + Sten of the Beresaad

 

HighRez Shale Retexture (Lightweight) + Resized Shale

Shale is an FPS killer, so it might be worth your time to investigate ways to optimize her, like removing her VFX using Lemming's Refined Restriction and VFX removal. But if you don't want to get rid of ALL VFX in the game, you have to tweak that mod to only use files with the name "shale" in them.

 

Mabari Madness - rolls almost all of the Mabari graphical updates into one convenient place. You have to choose what you want to use though.

 

There's a ton of other individual character head morphs that are all a matter of personal taste, so I would encourage you to search by character name on the Nexus if you don't like the prepackaged defaults in DAR. I highly recommend Justice for Justice as it makes a significant lore-friendly change to that character and doesn't require any additional asset hunting, Healthier Loghain as it doesn't change his appearance, just removes his purple eye bags, and Cullen by Xonan as it's the only mod I know of that comes close to making Cullen look like he does in DA:I without giving you a headache to install.

 

ARMOR

Pants - Light Armor Retex - gives the men (and women if you use a unisex mod) in leather armor pants - actually this one's a bit harder to find as I remember it was only available on a Russian site. It's a nice mod though. :sad:

 

More Covered Female Chasind Robes + Chasind Robes Retexture (chest covered) - makes female and male versions of the Chasind Robe cover more (and arguably look better too). You can take one or both versions as you like.

 

Dall's Chainmail - a chainmail retex that comes in several varieties

 

There's quite a few mage robe retextures that are also pretty good; I don't use most of them, but I remember there's one called "no boob patch mage robes" or something similar, as well as Tommy I.'s "Mages of Ferelden" which just gives them ranks by color or something - they stay true to the vanilla DAO mage robe style.

 

WEAPONS

Bow Replacer - makes the bow meshes slimmer, which automatically makes all bows look better

 

Slim Dalish Daggers - part of the Phoenix Armoury suite, it can stand alone and makes Dalish dagger meshes look better

 

Shield Scale Mod - changes the default size of shields

 

There's also a weapon resizing mod on the Bioware Social Network by tmp7704 but I don't use it because I think it causes clipping issues

 

"BAD" GUYS

Blighted Darkspawn - warning, changes Ogres to a sickly green, so you may want to add

Ogre HD Retexture - put these files in a folder called "toolsetexport" and then stick them into the Blighted Darkspawn to fix the green ogres, I think. Will be testing this shortly in my own game.

 

Lady of the Forest HD Retexture - there are a couple of these, the only two I've found still on the Nexus are one that makes her more nude, and one that make her more "woodsy" (not covered, just more branches / leaves etc) though.

 

Hi-Rez Demon Textures - you may want to also overwrite the files in here with

Pride Demon Retexture - which makes Pride Demons look like they do in DA:I

 

OTHER

Female Proportions fixes - especially the dwarf one. Also fixes the armours if you take the optional downloads.

 

Improved Underwear - works with the Female Proportion Fixes, if you're not using a total body replacer

There's also an Underwear - pants mod for men, if you're not using a total body replacer

 

Select Portraits Improved - improves the default portrait icons / adds colored backgrounds to joinable NPCs like Jowan

 

The Icon Project - improves weapon/armor icons in your inventory

 

DA Gore Adjustment - changes the gore to not cover the face and teeth; comes in a few different how bloody do you like it varieites. There's also one on the Nexus to make default gore MORE gory than ever before, if you like that instead.

 

Combat Animations - not a texture improvement per se, but still a graphic one

 

WTF Lyrium Dust - changes lyrium dust icons from red to blue. Not on the Nexus.

 

hope that helps!

Edited May 4, 2017 by Enkida

[Siegfriedm]

Wow, awesome! Thank you very much for this list.

[Enkida]

Hey, this JUST got uploaded for the companion NPC morphs, and it's the most pretty but still true to vanilla one I've ever seen anywhere:

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4666/?

 

Check that out :)

[Siegfriedm]

Hey, this JUST got uploaded for the companion NPC morphs, and it's the most pretty but still true to vanilla one I've ever seen anywhere:

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4666/?

 

Check that out :smile:

Yup, I already saw that. thanks.

[Enkida]

One more enhancement that doesn't fall under graphical but you may want it anyway, as it seems to get little mention: restoration of the game's default female player cocky voice

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/1677/?

 

 

And HD retex of the Blood Dragon Armor special content, in case you DON'T want to look like you ported it out of Mass Effect:

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/183/?