I'm also using Novigrad my solitude, it really makes Solitude into a masterpiece! That and redbags solitude is a subtle yet impactful solitude overhaul for me.
This is actually a bug/conflict with Vanilla Complex Parallax - Landscapes, not an SoS issue! I've been trying to solve various snow issues for literal real life days (that's on me for not enabling mods one at a time lol!) and it was actually just that mod! still figuring out if other parallax stuff causes problems, but removing VCP-L solved the problem in Riften and Solitude.
you did this the correct way. replace the grass with snow. for cobblestones i recommend leaving as is. for buildings fyi you would take and do copy their buldign record add teh win then make sure it gets teh snow shader. if you have any other questions and want to do more seasons patches your welcome to ask.
how difficult is it to do these? i have no modelling experience, but i've learned a lot of other skills while modding skyrim and other games. maybe i could work on other meshes too.
It's not really difficult, but I'm also not sure if it's the totally 'correct' approach. My process is as follows (if I recall correctly. put this on pause for a bit):
1.) Make a copy of the ground .nif from the best source I have (I got GGUNIT's permission to use split Lux Orbis ground meshes so I use those where I can) 2.) Rename to suffix with WIN and make a plugin containing this static mesh, you can check my ESP here in xedit for what that looks like. 3.) Add a single pass snow shader to it in XEdit, best guess as to which one will look good. Trial and error. Pain and triumph. 4.) Make the seasons WIN swap file to swap the new editorId for the original land static mesh. 5.) Test in game. 6.) If it still looks bad or pieces are not covered in snow, I do the following 6a.) This is where I think the process could be improved. I open the new winter mesh in nifskope and look for what texture is generally not being covered in snow. Usually it's something like grass01.dds. 6b.) Using Sniff, I replace the texture paths for stuff like grass01, grass01_n, grass01_p with snow01 etc. 6c.) If the mesh has a NiAlphaProperty (usually these do, to blend the grass with the road bricks) I play with that threshold in nifskope til it looks...passable? Then I use sniff to globally change the alpha node thresholds to that value.
I tested this out and your meshes swap in fine in winter but I'm getting a weird visual effect on the snow where it kind of looks like mist/a moving distortion.
Ah sorry - just sorted the permissions on the image for you. It's not floating it's just oddly visually distorted. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the BDS3 shader?
So that's an issue with the snow shader not matching yr snow texture. I'm looking into a better way to do these patches with BDS 3, will keep ya posted.
I applaud these efforts, but I wanted to make sure you are familiar with Simplicity of Seasons? It has a few bugs and covers rather a lot, so some users may well want to use just a few fixes for e.g. Riften and Solitude instead, but I figure there might be inspiration worth taking from how vucien modified the meshes.
I am, though I'm using BDS 3 which, while not a requirement for my patches, is the only testing I'm doing. I did try SoS though and couldn't get Riften working. Maybe I'll try it again, though...
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with VCP
without VCP
how difficult is it to do these? i have no modelling experience, but i've learned a lot of other skills while modding skyrim and other games. maybe i could work on other meshes too.
1.) Make a copy of the ground .nif from the best source I have (I got GGUNIT's permission to use split Lux Orbis ground meshes so I use those where I can)
2.) Rename to suffix with WIN and make a plugin containing this static mesh, you can check my ESP here in xedit for what that looks like.
3.) Add a single pass snow shader to it in XEdit, best guess as to which one will look good. Trial and error. Pain and triumph.
4.) Make the seasons WIN swap file to swap the new editorId for the original land static mesh.
5.) Test in game.
6.) If it still looks bad or pieces are not covered in snow, I do the following
6a.) This is where I think the process could be improved. I open the new winter mesh in nifskope and look for what texture is generally not being covered in snow. Usually it's something like grass01.dds.
6b.) Using Sniff, I replace the texture paths for stuff like grass01, grass01_n, grass01_p with snow01 etc.
6c.) If the mesh has a NiAlphaProperty (usually these do, to blend the grass with the road bricks) I play with that threshold in nifskope til it looks...passable? Then I use sniff to globally change the alpha node thresholds to that value.
I tested this out and your meshes swap in fine in winter but I'm getting a weird visual effect on the snow where it kind of looks like mist/a moving distortion.
Not sure if this image shows it really
I'm using BDS3 and Fantasia landscapes if that's relevant.