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About this mod
A rustic hi-res retexture of NewerMind43's ESO Nord Armor mod. Designed for the best appearance/ performance combination.
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ESO NORD ARMOR - RUSTIC EDITION is a retexture of NewerMind43's excellent mod which brings the Nord hero's armor from the ESO cinematic trailer to Skyrim. Like many on Nexus, I was a fan of the cinematic trailer, and was happy to see that NewerMind43 used his considerable talents to bring this epic armor set to Skyrim. There aren't a lot of cool new armors for male characters, but this certainly is one.
Like the majority of my retexture mods, I wanted to bring out the "rustic" appearance I saw in the cinematic trailer. This was a Nord hero who had seen a lot of action, and his armor was dirty and battle scarred. That's the feeling that I wanted to bring to my retexture, and I wanted it to be as detailed as possible, while still maximizing performance where I could. This armor is comprised of many individual pieces, so you need a large texture to bring a good level of detail to it.
For the main body armor, which is split into upper and lower body textures, I saved VRAM by eliminating the 2nd lower body diffuse texture that added the fur trim to the midsection of the armor. I felt that the armor looked better without it, since it obscured the waist area details, and the cinematic trailer armor lacked this addition. Since the body diffuse textures are 4K, that eliminated one 4K texture from the set (not an inconsiderable VRAM savings). I had to edit the meshes because of this, so only the one lower body texture is used. That's why both the meshes and textures are included with this mod.
I wasn't content with just eliminating the one 4K diffuse texture though. I also optimized the alpha masks of the upper and lower body textures to allow me to save them in DXT1A compression, which cut their file sizes in half. That's the equivalent of eliminating two single layer 4K textures, or one double layer one. The only downside is that the masked edge of the fur trim and scale sleeve are a little rougher than what a DXT5 compression would give. But, for cutting the file sizes in half, the slight loss of quality is well worth it.
To save even more VRAM, I made the normals in 2K for the body, and 1K for the helmet. The diffuse texture for the helmet is 2K to keep the level of detail consistent with the body. The emittance textures are 2K, which handle how the cubemap interacts with the textures. The cubemap is responsible for the shine effect on the metal pieces of the armor.
CREDITS
A special thanks to NewerMind43 for allowing me to post my retexture of his most excellent creation. I couldn't have made this retexture without his kind generosity. If you like this mod, please endorse the original mod as well. They go hand in hand.
Also, thanks to Kajuan and fadingsignal for allowing me to adapt their textures for this mod. From Kajuan, I took a small piece of fur from his excellent GIANT mod to make the fur trim. From fadingsignal, I took the cubemap that he had made for his retexture of the ESO Nord armor as a base for my new version.
INSTALLATION
It's pretty simple. If using a mod manager, first download NewerMind43's original mod, and then place my textures and meshes after, to overwrite the originals. If doing a manual installation, just overwrite the meshes and textures in the data folder.
I think that pretty well sums things up. I tried to capture the feeling of the cinematic trailer as best as I could, making a gritty and worn set of armor from NewerMind43's recreation of the ESO Nord armor. I hope people like the result, as it took me quite a bit of time to refine this latest "rustic" retexture.
If you like this retexture, you might also be interested in the one I made for the NewerMind43's ESO Altmer Armor, which you can find on his mod page. It's also a 4K/2k blend for the best appearance and performance combination.
Cheers,
Gamwich
Like the majority of my retexture mods, I wanted to bring out the "rustic" appearance I saw in the cinematic trailer. This was a Nord hero who had seen a lot of action, and his armor was dirty and battle scarred. That's the feeling that I wanted to bring to my retexture, and I wanted it to be as detailed as possible, while still maximizing performance where I could. This armor is comprised of many individual pieces, so you need a large texture to bring a good level of detail to it.
For the main body armor, which is split into upper and lower body textures, I saved VRAM by eliminating the 2nd lower body diffuse texture that added the fur trim to the midsection of the armor. I felt that the armor looked better without it, since it obscured the waist area details, and the cinematic trailer armor lacked this addition. Since the body diffuse textures are 4K, that eliminated one 4K texture from the set (not an inconsiderable VRAM savings). I had to edit the meshes because of this, so only the one lower body texture is used. That's why both the meshes and textures are included with this mod.
I wasn't content with just eliminating the one 4K diffuse texture though. I also optimized the alpha masks of the upper and lower body textures to allow me to save them in DXT1A compression, which cut their file sizes in half. That's the equivalent of eliminating two single layer 4K textures, or one double layer one. The only downside is that the masked edge of the fur trim and scale sleeve are a little rougher than what a DXT5 compression would give. But, for cutting the file sizes in half, the slight loss of quality is well worth it.
To save even more VRAM, I made the normals in 2K for the body, and 1K for the helmet. The diffuse texture for the helmet is 2K to keep the level of detail consistent with the body. The emittance textures are 2K, which handle how the cubemap interacts with the textures. The cubemap is responsible for the shine effect on the metal pieces of the armor.
CREDITS
A special thanks to NewerMind43 for allowing me to post my retexture of his most excellent creation. I couldn't have made this retexture without his kind generosity. If you like this mod, please endorse the original mod as well. They go hand in hand.
Also, thanks to Kajuan and fadingsignal for allowing me to adapt their textures for this mod. From Kajuan, I took a small piece of fur from his excellent GIANT mod to make the fur trim. From fadingsignal, I took the cubemap that he had made for his retexture of the ESO Nord armor as a base for my new version.
INSTALLATION
It's pretty simple. If using a mod manager, first download NewerMind43's original mod, and then place my textures and meshes after, to overwrite the originals. If doing a manual installation, just overwrite the meshes and textures in the data folder.
I think that pretty well sums things up. I tried to capture the feeling of the cinematic trailer as best as I could, making a gritty and worn set of armor from NewerMind43's recreation of the ESO Nord armor. I hope people like the result, as it took me quite a bit of time to refine this latest "rustic" retexture.
If you like this retexture, you might also be interested in the one I made for the NewerMind43's ESO Altmer Armor, which you can find on his mod page. It's also a 4K/2k blend for the best appearance and performance combination.
Cheers,
Gamwich