Could it be that you forgot to properly compress the textures you're using? For example, your tx_lava_crust.dds is around 21.3 MB, but it could be ~5.3 MB with DXT5 compression.
Yes! good catch! Kudos given, my friend! It is not that I forgot: at the time of the upload I was not fully aware of how compression worked so I decided to skip it. I could compress this even more with DXT1 but I would lose some colors and I don't like it because lava would not be so bright anymore so I'll go with your DXT5 suggestion and upload a version 1.2. Thank you!
You're welcome! I'm not a professional 3D art person either, but as far as I know: DXT1 struggles with textures which make use of an alpha channel, so it probably look bad for your tx_lava_crust.dds texture. I think you either need DXT3 or DXT5. When I was messing around with Morrowind texture modding, I noted down this:
DXT3 is for high frequency alpha (masks, patterns)
DXT5 is for low frequency alpha (clouds)
if you use DXT3 for clouds, you’ll see banding, because of the 4 bit resolution
if you use DXT5 for patterns, the shape is not preserved inside a 4x4 pixel block
I honestly have no idea which one would be appropriate for your lava. I only tried compressing it with DXT5 and it looked great ingame, so let's hope it's this. Anyway, thanks for sharing this mod with the community :)
thank you guys for the support. Another thing I find pretty difficult is control over normal maps, so I decided to remove them to not "ruin" textures underneath.
In my modlist I installed normalmaps practically everywhere (considered them necessary for upscale the graphics) and recently I tried disabling completely in openmw (switch off auto enable), and to my surprise I found that bad normals (and speculars) are quite diffuse. They make everything crispy or shiny, often distorting good quality textures, darkening in unexpected points or sometimes breaking them completely! Good normals can give a sensation of depth and make me scream out of joy, but bad ones.. To not mention the smoothness of stable fps without them (but this was a little bit more expected).
Now I'm seriously thinking of playing without them... But maybe I'm the strange one...
hey, looks good! the seams or other stuff like miss placed tiles are more obvious with those textures but i don't think that's fixable... overall the textures are great, the crusted i really like, the molten i think also is great but i don't like that it's mirrored, this makes tiling even more tiled =D
and since the molten is "only" 1024x1024 i'm currently up-scaling it, if you want the textures for a higher res version let me know. the crusted will end up 8192x8192 which i will downsize to 4096x4096 ... using lots of different models for up-scaling and in case you want the files, also let me know if you want all to decide for yourself which is the best up-scale.
glad you like it yes in fact crust is from OAAB I did molten texture since I didn't like "orange juice effect" in the RED mountain crater, mirroring the texture was an easy way to get rid of side seams because in this way where the right side ends then begins the left side, but I did not fully get rid of the seams on top and bottom: It is not easy to fit each side with the opposite on 4 sides effortless and in a short time
tiling is way better, and my fucked up lava placement in my mod also looks better xD
edit: oh and up-scaling didn't do much, with ingame screenshot comparisons i don't think i could tell which is which... but maybe i chose the wrong model...
Yes standalone. Obviously since it is a pluginless mesh and texture replacer, you want that after other lava replacers in your load order, or use only this and have no problems.
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I'll soon give another update.I worked on that and also on lava falls in general.
(update done: version 1.5) thank you again for your comment.
Kudos given, my friend!
It is not that I forgot: at the time of the upload I was not fully aware of how compression worked so I decided to skip it.
I could compress this even more with DXT1 but I would lose some colors and I don't like it because lava would not be so bright anymore so I'll go with your DXT5 suggestion and upload a version 1.2. Thank you!
DXT1 struggles with textures which make use of an alpha channel, so it probably look bad for your tx_lava_crust.dds texture. I think you either need DXT3 or DXT5. When I was messing around with Morrowind texture modding, I noted down this:
DXT1 no alpha
DXT3 explicit alpha (black and white)
DXT5 interpolated alpha (grayscale)
Another thing I find pretty difficult is control over normal maps, so I decided to remove them to not "ruin" textures underneath.
In my modlist I installed normalmaps practically everywhere (considered them necessary for upscale the graphics) and recently I tried disabling completely in openmw (switch off auto enable), and to my surprise I found that bad normals (and speculars) are quite diffuse.
They make everything crispy or shiny, often distorting good quality textures, darkening in unexpected points or sometimes breaking them completely!
Good normals can give a sensation of depth and make me scream out of joy, but bad ones..
To not mention the smoothness of stable fps without them (but this was a little bit more expected).
Now I'm seriously thinking of playing without them... But maybe I'm the strange one...
and since the molten is "only" 1024x1024 i'm currently up-scaling it, if you want the textures for a higher res version let me know. the crusted will end up 8192x8192 which i will downsize to 4096x4096 ... using lots of different models for up-scaling and in case you want the files, also let me know if you want all to decide for yourself which is the best up-scale.
yes in fact crust is from OAAB
I did molten texture since I didn't like "orange juice effect" in the RED mountain crater, mirroring the texture was an easy way to get rid of side seams because in this way where the right side ends then begins the left side, but I did not fully get rid of the seams on top and bottom: It is not easy to fit each side with the opposite on 4 sides effortless and in a short time
Thank you for your useful comment.
edit: oh and up-scaling didn't do much, with ingame screenshot comparisons i don't think i could tell which is which... but maybe i chose the wrong model...
Obviously since it is a pluginless mesh and texture replacer, you want that after other lava replacers in your load order, or use only this and have no problems.