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Skyrim only has a few rock meshes but each is placed at hundreds or thousands of places. Certain rocks like those built into cliffs and terrain are quite high quality. However, the single rock meshes that are placed to fill in holes and spice up the landscape tend to be quite blocky, with very sharp edges.
This is unfortunate since rocks are very high exposure assets - the player will see them face to (rock) face literally thousands of times. The fool says rocks are blocky and boring so who cares. The trained artist knows rocks are actually extremely nuanced. A well-made rock model is a glorious site. A poorly-made rock model crushes immersion.
One reason bad rocks break immersion is because all of us know what rocks should look like. Unlike dragons or dwemer ruins, nearly every person has first-hand experience with rocks. Hence, when we see a crude blocky approximation of a rock, we either consciously or sub-consciously remember Skyrim isn’t real. Only my therapist thinks this is a good thing.
I’ve wanted to improve the appearance of Skyrim’s rocks for some time, but to do so by hand would take ages. Using automated methods, it is pretty easy to go from a high-polygon asset to a low-polygon asset since it is mathematically easy to do so. Going from low-polygon to high-polygon is always error-prone and inefficient since the computer can never know the desired edges of the high-polygon version. It has to guess and errors on the side of over-smoothing usually.
SMIM’s rocks introduced in version 1.26 use an automated system of smoothing, using Max’s MeshSmooth modifier with custom settings. There’s no question this method balloons the poly-count, is imprecise, and can expose questionable UV mapping of the low-polygon asset.
About the polycount, MeshSmooth creates hundreds of unnecessary triangles. The good news is modern PCs can push literally 20 times more polygons than Skyrim uses. About the imprecision, MeshSmooth can cause you to lose defining edges resulting in overly smooth models. This is why I used a lesser smoothing setting and manually adjusted some edges here and there.
The UV mapping errors are more concerning. I’ve carefully fixed many default UV mapping errors and put the fixed meshes in the “00 Core” folder to benefit people who don’t want my smoothed rocks. And after smoothing, I’ve tried to catch all UV mapping stretching.
Still, the perfectionist in me hates MeshSmooth. But the realist in me understands it allows me to improve the appearance of about 15 rocks in only 1 day instead of the roughly 150 hours it would take to do manually.
So given the realities that exist, the end result of MeshSmooth is still superior to the original meshes. For the record, SMIM only uses MeshSmooth on a handful of meshes: the rocks, the bread, and the Whiterun door handles. Everything else in SMIM is 100% manually crafted.
On the subject of rock texture seams…I did not attempt to remove texture seams. The only true way to remove seams would have been to have each and every rock use its own texture.
Making each rock uses its own texture would have allowed me to use a 3D painting program to remove all seams. The downside is I’d have to use custom textures and all those rock texture replacers mods wouldn’t work with SMIM. So I’m stuck between a (seamless) rock and a hard (compatibility) place. Hence, the seams persist but at least you have slightly more rounded rocks.
So what’s the moral of the story? Well, Bethesda should have kept the high-polygon assets they presumably originally crafted. But hopefully SMIM’s rocks are an improvement, albeit an imperfect solution.
11 comments
No. You are so wrong. Some people don't ahve the bloody money to pay for a new rigs every time a new game comes out. I'm with Oblivious Particle's boat. My laptop doesn't meet the minimum requirements, but with some tweak to my system, I can enjoy the same game my friends spent 5 6 or 7 hundred dollars on buying a whole new rig, for only 60. It's not in Bethesda's best interest as a company to make games that are reliant on the latest technology. IN fact it's better for them to make them on slightly dated technology, because more people have it.
If Skyrim was made with the best possible PC specs in mind, it would have probably not been released on console and surely would not have gotten the same amount of sales that it did.
And also i have a pc between minimum and recommend and I absolutely see no perfomace issues with the mod and I only don't use the 3D chains on the buttons and on the whiterun bridge...
great job, waiting for more updates, if I knew how to do this could I help you
If you don't wan tto spend money to PC game then get a console. They make great games for consoles and you don't have to worry if your system will run it. Part of th efun of PC gaming is being able to push the boundries of your machine i am all for accesablity but not to the point of over doing it, i remember when PC versions of games automaticaly were higher quality than a console even if it was multiplatform release, but devs don't want o cut into thier profists to make that happen these days
It appears to me that's a system not designed for gaming. What gets me are individuals who expect to run games on a system thats below even recommended spec of a particular game. Skyrim isn't by any means pushing any boundries graphically (We can thank outdated consoles for that) and it's recommended specs are thus surprisingly low, so i fail to understand what you're point is.
Because of consoles and devs aiming for mass appeal, PC hardware hasn't been fully utilized for quite some time. Those of us who have spent the hard earned money building mid to high end rigs are not seeing them to their full potential because people like yourself expect to play games for little to no investment or effort. I think they have every reason to be a bit upset.
How would you play if we had our way? well you'd have to earn some money and buy upgrades, like everyone else. You may actually find it's worth it.
I’m sure you strive to upgrade your PC as soon as possible. That same striving for improvement is what I encourage for the developers. Anyway, when you do upgrade your PC, you can use my mod and enjoy the game even more. You are welcome.