Feedback for Grassias Fixas - Whiterun

[TechAngel85]

SP, did you use the USKP as your base files or at least forward an fixes from them first? Just curious because this overwrites a lot of those files.

[TechAngel85]

Normal grass version in the OP.

 

Have some critiques for you...

 

Here is my main issue with this...well, since I got rid of the grass:

These walls are bad. They reflect too much or have far too much shine in them. They really stand out.

 

This part of the wall is really bad. These are the "guard stations" along the wall:

 

Here the rock is overlapping the wall around the statue:

 

Here the grass is overlapping the "curb":

 

Finally, there appears to be a plant placed below the mesh plane (not this mod but it's an issue I wanted to state so that it can be reported to how it needs to be...USKP since it appears in vanilla game?):

[Aiyen]

This is why I think the best solution to whiterun is to add in additional clutter meshes that could cover up most of those issues. It is not like the locations offer anything of gameplay relevance, they just stand out in a bad way. Adding in a bush or a rock or something would solve most of the clipping issues. 

 

As for the specular on the wall. Make sure to test it on more than one type of weather. It could just be an image space issue for that particular weather, if not then a new normal map alpha for that particular texture is most likely preferred. 

[Guest]

@Kelmych

 

Thank you. Pleasing you is nice.

 

@SpiffyMan

 

That is the only downside of this technique. When you are above it, it looks pretty good. You are at eye level, it is not the best. Most of the grass sits low down though, so it is not a issue unless you meet a few of these places with your head like you say. Thank you.

 

@Tech

 

All of those are seperate meshes from the terrain (maybe bar that grass overlap). If they wanted fixing in the meshes I fixed, they would have been fixed. I used USKP meshes, yes. I could not really see what they fixed to be honest anyway, lots of bad issues everywhere. Thank you for the optional file, my tutoring prevails again. Haha.

 

Edit: On the wall, I used a smoothed vanilla normal map as my texture was traced nearly to the same design on that. I then overlayed my custom detail and saved it. I feel I did not make it too shiny, but if you feel I did, that is a easy fix.

 

Edit 2: Can anyone get a comparison of the flipped road grass, I think, next to Breezehome? I thought I included that GIF, but I didn't. It must be on my friend's laptop. That one is a real doozy by Bethesda.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Guest

[TechAngel85]

@Tech

 

All of those are seperate meshes from the terrain (maybe bar that grass overlap). If they wanted fixing in the meshes I fixed, they would have been fixed. I used USKP meshes, yes. I could not really see what they fixed to be honest anyway, lots of bad issues everywhere. Thank you for the optional file, my tutoring prevails again. Haha.

 

Edit: On the wall, I used a smoothed vanilla normal map as my texture was traced nearly to the same design on that. I then overlayed my custom detail and saved it. I feel I did not make it too shiny, but if you feel I did, that is a easy fix.

 

Edit 2: Can anyone get a comparison of the flipped road grass, I think, next to Breezehome? I thought I included that GIF, but I didn't. It must be on my friend's laptop. That one is a real doozy by Bethesda.

Hey, you started this overhaul on whiterun...I'm just pointing out a few things that could use fixing.

 

As for the wall, I'll check again in a few different weathers and time of day...but it was really standing out from the rest of the features. It should blend in rather than standing out. Any issue that draws your attention away from the gameplay is an issue that needs to be fixed, imo. This goes for all of Tamriel.

 

I can report these issues to Brumbek and the USKP team. That plant is their territory anyway.

[Guest]

Your thoughts on the wall are obviously right, it was probably just me focusing on other things. I will fix the issue in a few days if I can. Thanks for your help.

[Nazenn]

 I was invited to do some patching for this mod when it released by SparrowPrince and thought that I would also test it out as I love this false 3d concept for the furs and grasses and think that it adds a lot of depth to the world. I did find a few visual problems with it though that I will detail below. I look at things very much from a design perspective less then a technical one so if you guys feel I'm totally wrong just let me know, thats fine :)

 

This method is not going to work well with more detailed textures. The 3d grass ends up looking distorted like a visual glitch instead of 'fluffy', for lack of a better term. Patching for it is going to be limited to very soft and undetailed textures in order to minimize this distortion.

 

There is a very visible line where the 3d grass stops and the grass texture on a new mesh takes over, as seen on the left of this image. This should probably be minimized in some way as right now it creates a very clear boundary between two meshes.

Similarly in the picture above, something should possible be done to help minimize the hard edges on the texture of the path if possible. It actually removes some of the 3d appearance from the texture because you can tell that it ends in a hard line with no proper depth. The textures from Skyrim HD 2K textures do this well as a comparison.

 

The 3d grass is amazing, I love having it in game, but it is very obvious where it isnt applied, such as the two strips of grass either side of the stairs from the market to the gildergreen, the grassy tops to the rocks beside the bannered mare, and around the base of the gildergreen itself. The 3d grass makes these other areas look additionally flat so if possible it might need to be applied to more meshes to help minimize this.

 

This may not be something you can fix, but additionally there is some collison bugs around whiterun especially at the back of arcadias cauldron where you dont actually stand properly on the ground and actually stand slightly above it. Now in the base game this isn't so much of an issue as its only noticable if you look for it, but with the added depth from the 3d grasses, it makes it look like you are actually standing on top of the very fragile grass blades which is actually the only reason I noticed it in the first place.

 

But I really do love the concept, puts a lot of depth into these areas, especially when used with a city overhaul that has additional things and creatures in the grass showing off the effect properly.

[Guest]

Hey my friend, thanks for the feedback.

 

Other grass: Well you are probably right with other hard-looking grass. To be honest though I am not stuck on that texture in terms how busy it looks. The repetition is too obvious. Maybe editing these sort of textures to be less repetitive might be an answer for users. When I applied my texture, without the matching trim, it actually blended really well with vanilla. I was quite happy about that as that never usually happens when creating a texture from scratch.

 

Grass edges: The reason I did not apply it on the wall trim was for performance reasons. I also created the grass with gaps between it so it does not always just lay across in a perfect row. If you want to look into it and make the grass slightly more sparse, but softer, I would welcome that. If you wanted to of course.

 

Collision: I noticed this. I think they had planned to put plants or rocks there, but never did. This was something I wanted to fix ~ I was not planning on having to fix all this other stuff though, so it took all my available time up. I will have a look at it, perhaps for a later update.

 

Thank you.

 

Oh and I will be able to look doing some small fixes tomorrow night, which will probably mean it will be uploaded in the afternoon for some of you.

[Nazenn]

No problem, happy to have helped.

 

That just happened to be the texture that I have on hand, but a lot of the whiterun texture overhauls make the grass texture a lot more detailed, in fact almost all of them so far as I know, so it will be a problem that the majority of texture packs will run into with the visual glitching. I can try and look at softening them, but I really don't feel as though it will work well. A better option might be to just make a greener version of your existing texture to blend with those other texture packs without relying on the originals.

 

I might look into refining the alpha map when I have time, but I fear that the edge of the grass just won't be able to be avoided easily due to the fact it does indeed follow the line of the mesh as expected. Even if you were to take the layered meshes from where the 3d grass is applied and slope them down at the sides so it blends and looks as if the grass is getting shorter before dissapearing into the normal texture it might work a bit better, although I know thats a pain.

Theres also a mesh you might want to look at applying the 3d grass onto, if you walk out between arcadias cauldron and the bannered mare, just on the right theres a bit of grass mesh between two rocks, near the collison bug, that stands out the most as appearing 'flat' amount the 3d stuff. Sorry I couldn't get a picture, currently testing something with a load order that results in that area being covered.

The best quality fix though at the moment would be to clean up that road texture so it doesnt end in such a harsh line on the sides.

[TechAngel85]

No problem, happy to have helped.

 

That just happened to be the texture that I have on hand, but a lot of the whiterun texture overhauls make the grass texture a lot more detailed, in fact almost all of them so far as I know, so it will be a problem that the majority of texture packs will run into with the visual glitching. I can try and look at softening them, but I really don't feel as though it will work well. A better option might be to just make a greener version of your existing texture to blend with those other texture packs without relying on the originals.

 

I might look into refining the alpha map when I have time, but I fear that the edge of the grass just won't be able to be avoided easily due to the fact it does indeed follow the line of the mesh as expected. Even if you were to take the layered meshes from where the 3d grass is applied and slope them down at the sides so it blends and looks as if the grass is getting shorter before dissapearing into the normal texture it might work a bit better, although I know thats a pain.

Theres also a mesh you might want to look at applying the 3d grass onto, if you walk out between arcadias cauldron and the bannered mare, just on the right theres a bit of grass mesh between two rocks, near the collison bug, that stands out the most as appearing 'flat' amount the 3d stuff. Sorry I couldn't get a picture, currently testing something with a load order that results in that area being covered.

The best quality fix though at the moment would be to clean up that road texture so it doesnt end in such a harsh line on the sides.

This is why I wanted the no-3D Grass version. It was looking nice and glitched with aMedianBorn Whiterun since that is what we use in STEP. I'm thinking we might not be able to use most of the fixed meshes anyway as I can see some issues here and there from using CaBaL's textures on top. I still need to check out the areas more closely though.

[Guest]

Tech, so you would want to get rid of lots of mesh fixes, over not being able to use 3 textures out of cabal's pack? I am not sure I understand your logic.

 

There would be no problems at all with cabal's textures, using the no grass meshes anyway. You would just have to do a quck extend of the grass over the top of the wall trim. One edit and it is perfect.

 

Nazenn, you may just have to make a pack for the no grass versions. Maybe then add your own grass texture or something for the 3D grass, as a nice optional choice?

 

I will look into adding it to the trim soon, you are right. I originally did tests with that (but scrapped it, as I said) to try and think towards performance.

 

By the way here is that update:

 

Grassias Fixas - Update 01.7z

 

I'll have the hardware until tomorrow, so I will try and look into the collisions and trims later as I am not going anywhere tonight.

 

Love ya all. ;-)

Edited May 6, 2015 by Guest

[TechAngel85]

There is one major issue that appears, but I just figured out it's CaBal's textures. I'll send him a PM.

 

Note the line that goes across the wall. This appears nearly everywhere this texture appears. It's cabal's mistake on his texture so I'll PM him about it.

 

As for yours, I found another issue that was probably being masked by the 3D grass:

You can see the area of stretching right next to the bolder wall. That whole area is a rather shape transition.

[Guest]

Tech, that wall bug is not really a bug. It is the sharp edge of the mesh. Bethesda never beveled it. Mesh edges do not flow consistently unless they are connected. In this case, the wall stone, and the wall top are separate meshes.

 

I fixed the other bug as I made my final pass, along with the overlapping grass mesh on the stairs. My final pass has fixed many more bugs I initially missed.

 

On top of the above, I have improved the lighting by adding to the slopes around many wall top edges. I have also increased further out, the area of the 3D grass. I tested having it right up to the edge, but I was not happy. The further forward it goes, the bigger loss of visual quality at head height.

 

Tech if you did not notice, I fixed your towers. All the latest fixes, along with options are here:

 

Grassias Fixas - Whiterun - Version 1.0.7z

 

Oh and I almost forgot, but I fixed the worst collision errors too. Just do a test behind Breezehome and you shall see.

 

I think this is ready to go now. I cannot do much more to it to be honest. Tech, do you think a separate file would be better, or shall it be included in the main file? You are the Fomod ninja.

[Nazenn]

Sorry for disappearing on your all for a while. I ran into major tech problems and my skyrim, xcom, and several other programs all broke so I had to go sort it out and I haven't been able to test anything, and then I totally forgot that I hadn't replied here at all.

 

I'm more a texture editor then a texture artist but I can have a look at it all and see what I can do when I test out the new version later today. I might see if I can make a greener option of your original texture to fit in with those who originally have it and see if that's better, but that will have to be tested before I can say if its a viable idea or not.

[Guest]

No problem, I just thought you might be having a nice rest or something. If you want to tell me the outcome of your tests, I can point people in the right direction when you are ready. Your input was quite valuable, and whilst some bugs may remain, most of them are fixed. Just drop into the comments on Nexus or something if you like.