ACCEPTED Static Mesh Improvement Mod - SMIM (by Brumbek)

[TechAngel85]

As for May 2017 @Brumbek has officially resigned from modding. This means this and the SSE version will be the last.

Sad day, but good for him!

[TechAngel85]

I'm just letting everyone know that asset use permissions are wide open for SMIM now. Authors can freely use the assets for their mods without needing to seek permission. Just be sure to give Brumbek credit for his amazing work!

[Shadriss]

I feel a disturbance in the force... as if a major modder had suddenly relaxed, and let go of his powers...

[TechAngel85]

I feel a disturbance in the force... as if a major modder had suddenly relaxed, and let go of his powers...

Well, while you were away he's basically retired.

[Shadriss]

I know a bit about retirement, both RL and modding community. I was a semi-major modder for the Quake 3 engine back in the heyday of Jedi Knight II/Jedi Academy until I retired after seven years of working with it, and now I'm retiring from the USN. Both were/are a relief and a bit of sadness.

 

Though he'll likely never see this, best of luck and all success in the future, Brumbek... or as we put it in the Navy, "Fair Winds and Following Seas."

[GrantSP]

... and just like that... he's back.

Posted today on both the standard and Special Edition pages:

 

 

Hello SMIM friends!! It's me!! I've returned to finally update SMIM! I just couldn't let myself abandon SMIM. I love working on SMIM, and I love seeing all of you enjoy SMIM! So after way too many months here's an update with some good new stuff and improved prior SMIM'd stuff. The main addition is I finally SMIM'd the hideous Imperial Jail cell meshes used in hundreds of places. Now they are quality with real locks. Plus, the mesh with the cell door now as REAL collision so you can shoot through the bars! The default game has mocked me for years with it's lame single rectangle collision that bounces arrows right off mid-air.

Hopefully the new file works fine for everyone. I'm a bit out of practice with updates. Lastly, thank you SO much for all the kind souls who have donated over the last months! Getting a donation every week or so has REALLY motivated me to not abandon SMIM! More SMIM to come I hope! 

So maybe the last niggling issues with meshes etc. will finally be looked into.
 

[alt3rn1ty]

... and just like that... he's back.

Posted today on both the standard and Special Edition pages:

So maybe the last niggling issues with meshes etc. will finally be looked into.

 

I ran all of the SSE 2.05 SMIM meshes through Ousnius SSE NIF Optimiser v2.7, and it found a lot of corrections to make, similar amount as to the SMIM 2.04 meshes.

 

Beermotor took the new full BSA option apart and checked out the meshes in there, and it looks like those were actually taken through SSE NIF Optimiser, so that was probably done after the loose file setup.

 

 

Anyone needs a SMIM wizard installer for Wrye Bash - See Mertz WizBAIN Thread, where you can download a wizard for it (unpack SMIM to a folder, rename the "SMIM SSE or LE Wizard" to just be called "Wizard", put it in the root of the unpacked SMIM package, then zip it all up again so that the wizard ends up in the root of the archive .. Drop it in Bash Installers and choose wizard in Wrye Bash to install it.

 

Mertz (AKA Beermotor) has been doing some amazing work recently.

[TechAngel85]

I ran all of the SSE 2.05 SMIM meshes through Ousnius SSE NIF Optimiser v2.7, and it found a lot of corrections to make, similar amount as to the SMIM 2.04 meshes.

 

Beermotor took the new full BSA option apart and checked out the meshes in there, and it looks like those were actually taken through SSE NIF Optimiser, so that was probably done after the loose file setup.

Most of the stuff that NIF Optimizer removes is harmless and will not hurt anything if left in. I've verified this through a couple different well-respected authors and it seems most authors are using the program simply because they are getting the s**t bugged out of them by misinformed users who are saying  "your mod wasn't ported correctly" or "your meshes still have issues". This really annoys the crap out of me, to be honest, because I've gotten the same rabble from users. Therefore, anytime I see someone post NIF Optimizer this, NIF Optimizer that...I have to follow up with a disclaimer post similar to this to try to spread the word that NIF Optimizer is not the "god" among conversion tools. In fact, most of the mods I've ported for SparrowPrince we didn't run through that program and they work just fine. My mod Jaggarsfeld only had a single mesh in the whole mod that actually needed conversion due to missing tangent data and I used NIF Modify for that (which Brumbek pointed me to). So that mod hasn't been ran through NIF Optimizer either. Very few meshes from classic Skyrim actually need to be ran through it as most will simply work out-of-the-box.

[alt3rn1ty]

~ My mod Jaggarsfeld only had a single mesh in the whole mod that actually needed conversion due to missing tangent data

If thats the same as "Add Tangents to shapes" .. There were 16 meshes corrected for that in SMIM 2.05

 

There were probably a lot of the corrections done which are not needed

I did not say they were needed.

 

But are we also saying that a lot of what Ousnius SSE Nif Optimiser does is not needed ?

 

Removed vertex colors from shapes = 595 of those, redundant data

Skinned mesh: Cleaning up skin data and calculating bounds = 53 of those

Add Tangents to shapes = 16 as already mentioned

 

Personally I would rather they are optimised for the updated game.

Is carrying out the above operation a bad thing in any way ?

[TechAngel85]

If thats the same as "Add Tangents to shapes" .. There were 16 meshes corrected for that in SMIM 2.05

 

There were probably a lot of the corrections done which are not needed

I did not say they were needed.

 

But are we also saying that a lot of what Ousnius SSE Nif Optimiser does is not needed ?

 

Removed vertex colors from shapes = 595 of those, redundant data

Skinned mesh: Cleaning up skin data and calculating bounds = 53 of those

Add Tangents to shapes = 16 as already mentioned

 

Personally I would rather they are optimised for the updated game.

Is carrying out the above operation a bad thing in any way ?

Only some of what it does is needed because some of it's functions are simply "cleaning house". It's similar to having an ITM in a plugin. It's completely harmless, but users think it's harmful so they report it. This becomes slightly annoying after the tenth user comes to you thinking your meshes haven't been converted properly because they used NIF Optimizer and it cleaned the junk data from the meshes. News flash! Most my meshes are vanilla assets with only a single change. This is why I am consistently saying that NIF Optimizer will even find "issues" with the vanilla assets, which work perfectly fine in the game. This is my side and feelings, as an author, in regards to NIF Optimizer. Honestly, I don't use it. If I've ran one of my mod's meshes through it, it's just to satisfy users annoying me about it. My mods work either way.

• The vertex colors aren't going matter. This is just cleaning/optimization (...whatever word you want to use for it).
• I'm not sure what the skin data this is referring to. I've always wished his log was more precise.
• Missing tangents may or may not cause issues. I've found it true both ways. For Jaggarsfeld the missing tangent was on a custom mesh and was causing it to render in black or multicolor. The vanilla meshes that I've found it adds the tangent data to were never an issue in the first place, though. They rendered just fine before the tangent data was added. So that one seems to be a hit or miss whether or not it's needed.

 

Of course it's not a bad thing to run NIF Optimizer, just like it's not a bad thing to remove the ITMs from mods. In most cases from my experience with it, it has mainly just performed house cleaning duties. This, to me, is nothing more than peace-of-mind for users. With that said, there are certainly some meshes from mods that do need conversion. Unless you just prefer your files as clean as possible, users really don't need to run NIF Optimizer unless they run into a problem with any given ported mod. On that note, public announcement: users should be testing their ported mods, not just porting in mass and calling it good as I've seen some do and then complain about issues... .

 

This is all just my opinion, of course.

[locthebard]

Minor comment. Certain users may not be able to justify the expenses in new hardware (picture a 10-year old mid-range system), and for them, removal of 20 triangles every mesh adds up to a fairly solid vRAM saving and CPU freeing. It then becomes an art of both improving on the vanilla experience but also preserving the STEP "HD" feel/experience, within the constraint.

Today's child with a questionably sourced game copy may be tomorrow's top coder or art director â¤.

 

"Brumbek" 's modding approach is/was great, maybe we can all learn from him.

Edited August 22, 2017 by locthebard

[alt3rn1ty]

Only some of what it does is needed because some of it's functions are simply "cleaning house". It's similar to having an ITM in a plugin. It's completely harmless, but users think it's harmful so they report it. This becomes slightly annoying after the tenth user comes to you thinking your meshes haven't been converted properly because they used NIF Optimizer and it cleaned the junk data from the meshes. News flash! Most my meshes are vanilla assets with only a single change. This is why I am consistently saying that NIF Optimizer will even find "issues" with the vanilla assets, which work perfectly fine in the game. This is my side and feelings, as an author, in regards to NIF Optimizer. Honestly, I don't use it. If I've ran one of my mod's meshes through it, it's just to satisfy users annoying me about it. My mods work either way.

• The vertex colors aren't going matter. This is just cleaning/optimization (...whatever word you want to use for it).
• I'm not sure what the skin data this is referring to. I've always wished his log was more precise.
• Missing tangents may or may not cause issues. I've found it true both ways. For Jaggarsfeld the missing tangent was on a custom mesh and was causing it to render in black or multicolor. The vanilla meshes that I've found it adds the tangent data to were never an issue in the first place, though. They rendered just fine before the tangent data was added. So that one seems to be a hit or miss whether or not it's needed.

 

Of course it's not a bad thing to run NIF Optimizer, just like it's not a bad thing to remove the ITMs from mods. In most cases from my experience with it, it has mainly just performed house cleaning duties. This, to me, is nothing more than peace-of-mind for users. With that said, there are certainly some meshes from mods that do need conversion. Unless you just prefer your files as clean as possible, users really don't need to run NIF Optimizer unless they run into a problem with any given ported mod. On that note, public announcement: users should be testing their ported mods, not just porting in mass and calling it good as I've seen some do and then complain about issues... .

 

This is all just my opinion, of course.

One thing we tested over on AFK Mods was the Dwemer lifts which were conspicuous by their absence from the SSE installation, but included in the LE installation.

 

After Mertz redid the BAIN Wizard for both LE and SSE, it was found that if we also run all meshes through SSE Nif Optimiser, the Dwemer Lift animations worked correctly again for SSE.

 

So aswell as correcting a load of meshes for those of us who prefer employing every technique to optimise the games resources as much as is valid to do making for an overall better gaming experience (as you say, not needed, ofc) - In this case it actually got an animation working correctly again for SSE.

 

Mertz also found that pre-optimisation of SMIM meshes, running around in Riften, compaired with post optimisation = Better FPS experienced. Mertz does not exaggerate and would not mention something that could be interpreted as hoping it was better, but actually was not ( yes I have temporarily gone senile on the word I am struggling to remember :P ). SMIM I believe in this case ( conversion to SSE ), is lots of little bits which add up to a not insignificant amount of optimisation. Brumbek is proud, and would probably prefer not to run an automated tool on his hand crafted meshes ( wanting of course not to provide a bunch of meshes which would crash peoples games which corrupted meshes are renowned for doing ). But Ousnius has a sound track record of producing tools, who is imho on a par with such stars as Zilav, Sheson and the Script Extender team (to name but a few).

Edited August 24, 2017 by alt3rn1ty