Sorry for the author but the original is 1000 times better that mod looks too modern (like typical english brick not enough medieval and dirty) and clean but bravo for your work !
Uhmmm hey i know this is really not related about the topic, but could you please tell me how did you get that armor and katana. Really sorry just started playing today and yeah I really love you char...... thanks
The armor is "gold-hemmed black robe" or something (not fitting to its appearance) and the weapon is the "Washing Pole."
For the robe, go past the second bell in Quelaag's domain, into the lava area (Lost Izalith). Enter the fog wall (the boss area) and walk to the end near the actual boss (Ceaseless Discharge). You will see the armor near him (he will attack once you pick it up, hidden back story: it's his sister's corpse).
For the weapon, you have to buy it from a merchant named Shiva, but gaining access to the merchant is somewhat tricky. Join the Forest Hunter covenant in Darkroot Garden (the forest area near the first bell, past the smith and the lightning demon). You will either have to buy a key (Artorias Crest 20k souls) from the smith Andres, or run past the Hydra in Darkroot basin and climb the ladder. Depending on the direction you approach the covenant NPC, you will either climb some stairs, cross a dilapidated stone bridge, then enter a broken building, or run through many NPC warriors into the broken stone building. In the window of the building is a dog sized cat (Alvina) who you can talk to. Answer "yes" to both questions to join (remove your sin with the guy near the first bell if you can't join) then join the covenant. After this, Shiva, a merchant, will spawn out front of the building (only on reloading). You can't buy from him in the forest though, you have to go to his other location in Blighttown's swamp (just before Quelaag and the second bell). He is closest to the Valley of the Drakes entrance. After going down the elevator, climb down the wooden ramp into the swamp and take a right (away from the bonfire), turn right again, back into the alcove near the elevator and you should see him there (so long as you have not betrayed the covenant. Also, you can find a half-invisible ninja near him who, when killed (sins and is a crime against the covenant) will drop a nifty ring which will change movement and rolling when at or below 25% equip burden.
Once again, just like Blighttown, nice textures, but too clean. The 1fa25d3a, 02d62ddf, and cef30a72 textures look pretty good though. Even though some of the vanilla textures can't even compete with Minecraft for pixel count, they just fit so much better with the decayed tone.
The textures are definitely better, and the colour palette is pretty true to the original, however the end result doesn't feel true. Where things seemed dilapidated and shoddy they now seem consistent, uniform and in good or sometimes perfect condition.
It's always nice seeing higher quality textures for games, especially ones that need it, but with Dark Souls I think the atmosphere is a major part of the game. It feels like that atmosphere has been compromised by replacing an ugly texture of a sordid wound with a pristine bandage.
For example, from the uploaded images, where it compares the wall textures the replacement is clearly far better quality but in the original the pillars were not of the best construction. The pillars on the right had broken bricks and rocks used as mortar, ontop of that it was cracked, old and neglected while in the replacement each brick is perfect and clean. Same with the floor in those same images, which no longer even seems dirty, infact the floor looks like someone's been taking care of and cleaning it.
The wall being faced feels more true though, giving the impression of being hastily and poorly constructed, though it could look older and unfortunately still makes the perfect construction and condition of the pillars stand out like a saw thumb.
It's great that the textures are clearly a vast improvement but with a game like Dark Souls I think atmosphere and style are a critical part of it and feel any texture improvements shouldn't come at the expense of either.
Keyword is "look" though, because the bricks are perfectly flat with sharp edges you can't get any sense of depth. If you look at a 3D cube rendered on a 2D service facing a single face you'll probably just see a square after all. It's a 2D image so you have to shove the bricks together a bit "sloppily" with one end sticking out a bit more than the other with mortar sloppily applied. In yours they fit perfectly together so there's no room for any mortar. The bricks themselves will need to look more like they're rocks that are roughly brick shaped rather than bricks that are roughly rock shaped.
Believe it or not, they're not flush in mine either. Here's a render of the model that I baked from so you can see it more clearly: http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/5963/highrender.jpg
I probably hesitated from making it as extreme as the original texture because it begins to look odd on a 2D surface as you view it from a more extreme angle.
While the new textures are higher resolution, they aren't really true to the original art style. I'm sure that's fine for people who are frustrated more with the resolution of the original, but it could be a lot better if you tried to mimic the sense of depth and texture in the original. As it is it makes the walls and floor look more like ceramic tiling than actual rock - nothing should be perfectly smooth or uniform. Notice how the bricks don't look like they're perfectly flush in the original, this goes a long way towards setting the right atmosphere.
The "messy feeling" isn't just the dirt on the stones, it's the lack of uniformity in their pattern and the varying depth of each stone, something accentuated by the low resolution colour and normal maps.
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For the robe, go past the second bell in Quelaag's domain, into the lava area (Lost Izalith). Enter the fog wall (the boss area) and walk to the end near the actual boss (Ceaseless Discharge). You will see the armor near him (he will attack once you pick it up, hidden back story: it's his sister's corpse).
For the weapon, you have to buy it from a merchant named Shiva, but gaining access to the merchant is somewhat tricky.
Join the Forest Hunter covenant in Darkroot Garden (the forest area near the first bell, past the smith and the lightning demon). You will either have to buy a key (Artorias Crest 20k souls) from the smith Andres, or run past the Hydra in Darkroot basin and climb the ladder. Depending on the direction you approach the covenant NPC, you will either climb some stairs, cross a dilapidated stone bridge, then enter a broken building, or run through many NPC warriors into the broken stone building. In the window of the building is a dog sized cat (Alvina) who you can talk to. Answer "yes" to both questions to join (remove your sin with the guy near the first bell if you can't join) then join the covenant.
After this, Shiva, a merchant, will spawn out front of the building (only on reloading). You can't buy from him in the forest though, you have to go to his other location in Blighttown's swamp (just before Quelaag and the second bell).
He is closest to the Valley of the Drakes entrance. After going down the elevator, climb down the wooden ramp into the swamp and take a right (away from the bonfire), turn right again, back into the alcove near the elevator and you should see him there (so long as you have not betrayed the covenant.
Also, you can find a half-invisible ninja near him who, when killed (sins and is a crime against the covenant) will drop a nifty ring which will change movement and rolling when at or below 25% equip burden.
Even though some of the vanilla textures can't even compete with Minecraft for pixel count, they just fit so much better with the decayed tone.
It's always nice seeing higher quality textures for games, especially ones that need it, but with Dark Souls I think the atmosphere is a major part of the game. It feels like that atmosphere has been compromised by replacing an ugly texture of a sordid wound with a pristine bandage.
For example, from the uploaded images, where it compares the wall textures the replacement is clearly far better quality but in the original the pillars were not of the best construction. The pillars on the right had broken bricks and rocks used as mortar, ontop of that it was cracked, old and neglected while in the replacement each brick is perfect and clean. Same with the floor in those same images, which no longer even seems dirty, infact the floor looks like someone's been taking care of and cleaning it.
The wall being faced feels more true though, giving the impression of being hastily and poorly constructed, though it could look older and unfortunately still makes the perfect construction and condition of the pillars stand out like a saw thumb.
It's great that the textures are clearly a vast improvement but with a game like Dark Souls I think atmosphere and style are a critical part of it and feel any texture improvements shouldn't come at the expense of either.
I probably hesitated from making it as extreme as the original texture because it begins to look odd on a 2D surface as you view it from a more extreme angle.