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Hectrol CAVES DELUXE HighRes Retex (by Hectrol)


thalastwon

What set of cave textures (in post #30) look the best?  

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  1. 1. What set of cave textures (in post #30) look the best?

    • Vanilla + HRDLC
      2
    • Snow and Rocks Textures HD (current STEP)
      3
    • Beauty of Skyrim
      10
    • Hectrol Caves Deluxe
      3


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Looking good. I can't set up the poll right now, about to head off. But, in the meantime, you could tackle the optional request of all three mods together using the same comparison locations. Seems the best order for having all three mods is Snow and Rocks first, then have Beauty overwrite it, and have Hectrol overwrite both.

 

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actually the Hectrol screenshot in my Comparison Set 2 is set up exactly like that since i didnt deactivate S&R or Beauty after their second shots and just overwrote them.

 

However, Ill try to find a spot that shows a part of each of the three mods at the same time

 

EDIT: so it looks like the only significant part of Beauty that will be active (from the 'caves' part) is the cavebaseground textures. Snow and Rocks will have quite a bit more active, but most of it is ice/frozen textures. cavemossshader and caverocktile01/02 are the non-frozen/ice textures that will be active from S&R after being overwritten by both Beauty and Hectrol.

So basically we need to find a place that uses these specific textures (from S&R and Beauty) alongside the main wall textures from Hectrol. cavebaseground01/02 are easy to include because the ground texture is everywhere. However, Im not as familiar with the caverocktile01/02 and will have to do a bit of searching to see where it gets used.

In short, finding a good shot that includes Hectrol and Beauty components should be pretty easy, but finding one that also includes active texture(s) from S&R is going to more challenging (i think).

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These are a good start; however, when you do texture compares the order should always be:

 

vanilla >> pure mod 1 >> pure mod 2 >> pure mod 3 >> combo of mods >> etc

 

This way we'll be able to compare against vanilla which is the original art style and intent of the game designers. I think it would also be best to take a couple shots up close and then a couple from an open space within a cave. All shots from each compare should be the exact same angle/view and without any lighting mods since they are not included in STEP and including them in shots might skew the outcome. Also, use the 1k or 2k version for each mod as STEP will never include an 4k version of any mod and including this in the shots could skew the outcome as well.

 

From your provided shots, I can already say I'm not going to like Hectrol. The walls look like they've been "scratched" out instead of naturally formed and even if the caves are man made Hectrol is just too far from vanilla. Personally those couple shots of Hectrol are ugly, IMHO.

 

I'll provide some shots in a bit so you'll know what we're looking for too. (Visuals are always better than text IMO)

 

EDIT: I did a mass uninstall in WB and now my saves will not load (which is to be expected) so I'm going to take some time to set up MO for testing purposes using it's profiles to easily revert back to vanilla. I don't like the idea of SIS for some reason...probably because I prefer all-in-one tools.

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These are a good start; however, when you do texture compares the order should always be:

 

vanilla >> pure mod 1 >> pure mod 2 >> pure mod 3 >> combo of mods >> etc

 

This way we'll be able to compare against vanilla which is the original art style and intent of the game designers. I think it would also be best to take a couple shots up close and then a couple from an open space within a cave. All shots from each compare should be the exact same angle/view and without any lighting mods since they are not included in STEP and including them in shots might skew the outcome. Also, use the 1k or 2k version for each mod as STEP will never include an 4k version of any mod and including this in the shots could skew the outcome as well.

 

From your provided shots, I can already say I'm not going to like Hectrol. The walls look like they've been "scratched" out instead of naturally formed and even if the caves are man made Hectrol is just too far from vanilla. Personally those couple shots of Hectrol are ugly, IMHO.

 

I'll provide some shots in a bit so you'll know what we're looking for too. (Visuals are always better than text IMO)

 

EDIT: I did a mass uninstall in WB and now my saves will not load (which is to be expected) so I'm going to take some time to set up MO for testing purposes using it's profiles to easily revert back to vanilla. I don't like the idea of SIS for some reason...probably because I prefer all-in-one tools.

Sounds good. Thanks for the pointers. I guess my logic behind including shots with lighting mod is that, while not recommended by STEP (yet), most people do use them in some form or another. But I see your point. They have the potential to seriously skew results, which we dont want. 

 

Its funny you mentioned switching over to MO.. Since our discussion about it a few days ago I've actuallly started getting MO set up again on my system.  For some reason every time I switch installations using the Install Mgr i was talking about, I receive a whole lot of errors. Now it seems that they were all handled properly and everything gets transferred like it's supposed to, but it just makes me nervous that eventually it's not going to work. So I just decided to go against my original instincts and start using MO again. Ive got it all set up with several different profiles configured for personal and STEP testing, now i just need to get all my mod packages installed.

 

Also, I agree with you that hectrol caves are too far from vanilla

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From the current screenshots, I like Beauty of Skyrim the best. Hectrol seems to clash with the art style of the rest of the game. Beauty, to me, makes the cave look more like, well, a naturally formed cave.

 

I'll set up the poll once michaelrw sets up more screenshots.

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From the current screenshots, I like Beauty of Skyrim the best. Hectrol seems to clash with the art style of the rest of the game. Beauty, to me, makes the cave look more like, well, a naturally formed cave.

 

I'll set up the poll once michaelrw sets up more screenshots.

ok what screenshots do you want exactly? You want me to re-do them all using 2k version of hectrol (and of course only with vanilla lighting)? Ive already got the one set of shots posted that were using vanilla lighting, and even though i was using hectrol 4k they should be sufficient for a general comparison to be made. As far as the combined screenshots, Im not sure of a location that will properly show us all three mods.

Im in the middle of getting my mod organizer set up for STEP testing but will get whatever screenshots you want as soon as im finished.

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Well IMO from the shots Beauty of Skyrim beats the other two out for texture one. The Beauty of Skyrim and Hectrols caves are my choices for texture two they're both equally good imo.

 

However didn't someone want more compares? I think the person who did these compares did a no no and for shot three combined mods? My thread for compares is over here.

Post anything texture related that you want tested there and/or via pm with location ideas, which mods you want compared and if you want some shots with combined textures and I'll get to it as soon as I can since the Mod Testers seem spread thin as of late.

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Hectrol does look a little carved but then from my RL experience caves formed by water erosion tend to look that way.

yeah i know what youre talking about ive seen caves look that way too, almost similar to rock caves where you would find stalagmites. With that said, the real question is whether the textures accurately represent that which we'd expect to find in Tamriel, as opposed to our real life Earth.
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