This mod will degrade your gradients. There's no reason to use any AI upscaling on gradients. You can simply denoise, upscale it with bilinear filter in Photoshop in 16bit then add gaussian blur and get much better results than this. Compressing to DXT5 further degrades the quality. Anyway I haven't yet seen any proof that upscaling gradients gives better quality in game so better leave them as they are in vanilla.
It's an experimental mod, but I made it under a guess that resolution would help more than texture quality (similar to how shadows worked in LE). This is going back a while now. I thought I could see a difference, so I rolled with it. I could be wrong. Anything else is a matter of opinion, so I'll leave it at that.
It should be noted though, that the finished textures in this mod aren't DXT 5. That was done in the original upload to ensure compatibility with Oldrim. I know the description page is a wall of text, but I tried to be very transparent about the process used to create this mod.
xyloritus would be cool if you could upscale and clean at least fogs / dust / mist textures/gradients, I mean, like make them really good resolution and maybe smooth a bit. many mods make them look very bad
Is this compatible with "Skyrim Particle Patch for ENB"? Or, at least, should I keep the gradient changes from this mod in favor of the gradient changes from "Skyrim Particle Patch for ENB"? I intuit that I should replace these gradients with the other mods, as these are vanilla upscaled and I'm not sure if the others are.
warning, few gradients are 20mb - 90Mb ? if you stutter in some situations, it could be the loading of texture from your hard drive :) the 2K version seems to be safier to use ;)
On the 16x version, the file sizes do get pretty large. I figured people with lots of ram and good gpu's might be able to get some use out of them (I am not one of them).
The majority of lighting mods don't seem to touch the gradient files too much, so they should be compatible. There are some mods that do have custom gradient textures (Enhanced Blood comes to mind), so in cases of overwritten files, I recommend this mod be installed before all others with conflicting files, that way you get improved vanilla files without altering the custom work of the mod in conflict.
Sorry for the wait, I'm not on very often! I would load this before ALL conflicting mods, even/especially the particle patch. These are enhanced textures, but they're still vanilla. Any custom work done by modders probably has a specific reason for being that way, so I would go with that.
I'm finding that the magic glow around hands in first person doesn't work correctly. Frost and shock spells have a spherical glow but with this mod installed the glow doesn't fade out anymore. This can also be seen in your comparison screenshots. Although I am finding these problems there is a definite improvement so far, but it is hard to put in to words. Will keep playing and post if I see any other issues. Thank you for making this. *Edit: I found another couple with issues. Outside High Hrothgar there are snow particles blown across the ground which kinda phase in and out. Additionally there are snow particles in the air that are also a bit odd, they look like they no longer have a gradient, like the frost and shock magic hand glow. Found another issue with fire from braziers. I deleted a single texture from the mod "gradflame01.dds" and it returned to normal. I don't use ELFX, only Obsidian and Rudy ENB. I load this mod before mods that would overwrite it. I use the 8x version and check issues with ENB off and on. Will keep investigating as I feel an obsessional need to keep your mod :) Good work.
Thanks for the tip. I'll have to double check, but EFLX might have custom gradients for at least a few types of magic which had always displayed as I put this before ELFX in load order, which is why I never noticed it. I'm obligated to say that because these are just textures, any offending files should be able to be removed safely, returning things to proper order and so on and so forth, but the gradients folder is a little less straightforward in identifying specific textures (I think the magic ones are clearly labelled though). Anyhow thanks for the thanks and hope you have fun with it.
*EDIT* I'll do my best to get a list of spell types and associated gradients up to make texture removal easier. No ETA, but hopefully sooner rather than later. Or later rather than never. Something. It's late. :P *EDIT EDIT* Still working on the list. Found a bunch of gradient info in the effect shader section, not sure it's all of it though. It's a lot of info to consolidate though. (Shout out to SSEdit development allowing me to avoid CK so far! You done good.)
Hey! I just saw you had edited your post. I owe you one for the bug reports, those will come in handy. I stepped back from this to try and polish up my Pretty Animated Potions ports, as that has an esp and the thought of someone with malfunctioning potions baked into a 1000 hour save bothered me. Once I'm done with those, I'll be able to work on this full time though, so hopefully this weekend there will be more progress here. I hear you about not wanting to give up on these though, it's like night and day for me. I reached out on the forums for technical advice, but to the best of my knowledge there's never been a full gradient overhaul before, so it might be an uncharted waters kind of thing. Thanks again for the reports!
I had noticed the same as well; for now I removed gradflameench, gradflamethin01, gradfireexplosion and gradflame01; fire appears normal again. As for the blowing snow effect, remove gradsteamthin. Aside from these minor graphical anomalies, this is great, thanks BRSullivan86.
After looking at the centurion meshes, it seems gradsteamthin is also used in some of the effects.
I found these files to be the ones causing the lack of gradient with glows around 1st person hands when using certain spells: gradbluebright.dds gradviobright.dds In addition to the problem caused by gradsteamthin.dds there are large snow particles used around high hrothgar and also used in Dragon frost breath that lacks a gradient, it is harder to notice through. Finally there is also a hand glow missing a gradient for the ward spells. If I find out what the file is I'll post it . I have found that a lot of the graphical anomalies caused by this mod can be seen when looking at the spells and shouts in the magic menu. By removing the files the problems go away but I would ultimately like to see these files working in the mod, I feel the visual improvement this mod brings is worth it.. @ossum - Thanks for the heads up on those other files. I'm trying to solve the water phasing file now but the trail and error is soul destroying but somehow addictive :)
Don't try too hard now! I case you haven't noticed, I have been keeping an updated list of solutions in the known bugs on the description page. I haven't caught every one one you have mentioned, but phasing water is in there.
EDIT: I didn't have gradbluebright.dds yet though, and due to effort alone, thanks are again in order. I do hear you about wanting to get things working on the technical side of things though. I can't give an ETA as I've been spending an awful lot of time on Skyrim lately already, but moving ahead I do plan on making this mod my main focus, and I will probably open up the CK to see if there is anything missing on the technical level.
EDIT EDIT: And yes, soul-destroying but addictive sums it up well.
What this mod does in theory is increase the sharpness and fineness of light and effect sources by increasing the resolution of their associated color gradient file. Not the flame of a torch per say, as those already have retextures, but the light given off by that torch itself. This is not a lighting overhaul. The difference you may notice here is far more subtle than say, switching from ELFX to Luminosity. Asking for examples has long been a requested thing here, and I have previously posted images giving people a heads up of what to look for, but the effect of this mod is hard to capture in images. A direct side by side comparison will show differences sure, but they are minute enough where it can't just be ruled out as a difference in frames. I don't have the hardware to attempt a high resolution video comparison and convert it to GIF. As this is essentially a texture replacement, it adheres to the rules of being addable and removable at any time. My best advice if you're interested would be to try it. If you notice a difference, great. If not, that's cool too.
Ha ha ha. Sometimes it can. I think it looks pretty good in caves and stuff, but it doesn't do my PC any favors. May you find an option that suits you.
Nah, the 8x is fully upscaled just like the 4x (upPhoto, like the 4x). There might be some potentially misleading information in an earlier update post- the testing 8x version had been done using that method (you can still find it under the 'old files' tab). The current main 8x file is a full work, just like the other.
an excellent idea, gonna try the beta until i notice an oddity, then i will cry like a mad man and jump in the addiction train :) Thx for yours tears, and mines!
Ha ha ha, Spongeman131 has been helping me out a bit on the technical side as I am an amateur, so hopefully instances of errors will be greatly reduced. The beta state exists more due to potential manufacturing errors than game-technicality-errors (not saying there couldn't be any), so while it already looks good, it might end up looking better (sorta kinda).
55 comments
It should be noted though, that the finished textures in this mod aren't DXT 5. That was done in the original upload to ensure compatibility with Oldrim. I know the description page is a wall of text, but I tried to be very transparent about the process used to create this mod.
many mods make them look very bad
Is this compatible with lighting mods? Do lighting mods affect this? Or vice versa?
Is this compatible with "Skyrim Particle Patch for ENB"? Or, at least, should I keep the gradient changes from this mod in favor of the gradient changes from "Skyrim Particle Patch for ENB"? I intuit that I should replace these gradients with the other mods, as these are vanilla upscaled and I'm not sure if the others are.
Again, thank you for your work.
the 2K version seems to be safier to use ;)
edit, seems to be conflicting/overwriting a few mods in my load order... what should win/lose?
http://icecream.me/uploads/f0b7f18842f5abdff09d4b9e9ad8bb58.png
Immersive armor will lose no matter what because it is BSA
Although I am finding these problems there is a definite improvement so far, but it is hard to put in to words. Will keep playing and post if I see any other issues. Thank you for making this.
*Edit: I found another couple with issues. Outside High Hrothgar there are snow particles blown across the ground which kinda phase in and out. Additionally there are snow particles in the air that are also a bit odd, they look like they no longer have a gradient, like the frost and shock magic hand glow.
Found another issue with fire from braziers. I deleted a single texture from the mod "gradflame01.dds" and it returned to normal.
I don't use ELFX, only Obsidian and Rudy ENB. I load this mod before mods that would overwrite it. I use the 8x version and check issues with ENB off and on. Will keep investigating as I feel an obsessional need to keep your mod :) Good work.
*EDIT* I'll do my best to get a list of spell types and associated gradients up to make texture removal easier. No ETA, but hopefully sooner rather than later. Or later rather than never. Something. It's late. :P
*EDIT EDIT* Still working on the list. Found a bunch of gradient info in the effect shader section, not sure it's all of it though. It's a lot of info to consolidate though. (Shout out to SSEdit development allowing me to avoid CK so far! You done good.)
After looking at the centurion meshes, it seems gradsteamthin is also used in some of the effects.
gradbluebright.dds
gradviobright.dds
In addition to the problem caused by gradsteamthin.dds there are large snow particles used around high hrothgar and also used in Dragon frost breath that lacks a gradient, it is harder to notice through.
Finally there is also a hand glow missing a gradient for the ward spells. If I find out what the file is I'll post it .
I have found that a lot of the graphical anomalies caused by this mod can be seen when looking at the spells and shouts in the magic menu.
By removing the files the problems go away but I would ultimately like to see these files working in the mod, I feel the visual improvement this mod brings is worth it..
@ossum - Thanks for the heads up on those other files. I'm trying to solve the water phasing file now but the trail and error is soul destroying but somehow addictive :)
EDIT: I didn't have gradbluebright.dds yet though, and due to effort alone, thanks are again in order. I do hear you about wanting to get things working on the technical side of things though. I can't give an ETA as I've been spending an awful lot of time on Skyrim lately already, but moving ahead I do plan on making this mod my main focus, and I will probably open up the CK to see if there is anything missing on the technical level.
EDIT EDIT: And yes, soul-destroying but addictive sums it up well.