I've been a fan of your textures for a long time but always generally preferred other packs in overwrites to get the look I wanted. With your latest re-workings most of your textures are the sole overwrite. My game has never looked so lovely in the decade it has existed. Your art has improved in realism and aesthetic so much. Even with mostly 2K textures your artwork is sharper and better defined than most others'. Your normal maps have gone from average to pretty much the best out there. Your color choice is spot-on. Thank you for your continued effort and dedication. You are wonderful!
My favorite Skyland textures are the ones for those really high, imposing walls - like these right here, or the ones in Raven Rock. For a person that is a bit scared of heights, it is thrilling and awe-inspiring to look up these massive stretches of wall, touching the sky, and these textures give them even more of that feel. Somehow futuristic, but not out of place. A little bit similar to the appeal of the Soul Cairn.
I think the "monotony" is exactly right, it gives them something calm and out-of-time, both ancient and outlasting the future. More towards magic realism and surrealism than traditional medieval fantasy. Besides, the even coloring is very pleasing.
Definitely not criticizing because I love the work you've done. That's why I'm running your AIO.
The doors... stellar. It always annoyed me that other texture mods had older looking textures but the wood or doors looked brand new.
But that grey just seems kind of... drab... to me for someplace that's supposed to be magical. Plus, while it took me a while to warm up to your "old" textures style for textures in certain cities I now find myself looking for it. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but in this particular interpretation I think that style might have looked better here. I see it as an ancient, imposing structure since its been through an earthquake, etc. Something that shows history. This just looks too new/pristine for me. Maybe it is because I was looking at your Markarth shortly before this. Or maybe the mages 'magic' it new on a regular basis. But that style or something like it (maybe just adding moss) would have been more appropriate. At least to me. Your vision. You get to say what goes and what doesn't.
But I'm probably being difficult this morning. One of those days I really have no idea what I want. Great work. I finally FULLY gave up on Noble as my base and use Skyland now. Its aesthetic just seems to fit the mood of Skyrim better. Plus, my load order was just getting too difficult to keep up with all the changes.
I always felt since it's ran by magical folk, they use magic to keep it brand new. That's my lore. But I feel you and I've gone back and forth. I just wanted a clean city and show the split between the town and the college. The town is run down and destroyed and the college is nice and clean.
Well... In a way. As a base pack. For instance, I install Noble... Then I overwrite it by everything Luxor has retextured. Skyland overwrites everything else for a final product. Then the environmental mods (mathy's trees, signs, objects, etc), then miscellaneous stuff that nobody else has done. But for quite a few months now, Skyland has been my go-to look as I find the definition in the textures to be superb while everything looks very natural AND it doesn't kill performance. So, in terms of a base pack, Noble is still it simply it because covers almost EVERYTHING. But in terms of quality and look, I'd say Skyland is the best available collection of graphic mods at the moment.
I do the same thing but skip Luxor. Been using Noble since day one and was actually not going to do architecture because I found Noble was great and one mod covered EVERYTHING.
I run literally every single thing released under the Skyland name (as well as the guard shields...) Those signs are phenomenal. In general, the best thing about Skyland are the wood textures, so anything that employs them is gorgeous. I have to use Luxor's textures for a few reasons:
His Solstheim Landscape Overhaul covers the Telvanni architecture on the island. It IS a little bit misleading, but... regardless. I tried an installation without it and everything in Tel Mithryn is god-awful looking. I also find that Noble does architecture really well - I actually prefer Noble Windhelm to Luxor's, I think, but Luxors' Solitude TO ME looks better than Noble. Luxor also has a pretty stellar Whiterun retexture, and his Riften looks nice, but I don't run those since Skyland offers those textures. Noble also doesn't seem to cover in sufficient quality anything in High Hrothgar (low res), Sky Haven Temple, Sovngarde, or Soul Cairn. Noble also doesn't provide good Ancient Falmer ruins. Those looked vanilla to me until I sought alternate textures.
I also CANNOT run my game with anything BUT Skyland Nordic ruins... It's the interiors. They completely change the atmosphere of the game and make it way more immersive for me. Prior to trying Skyland Nordic Ruins (first Skyland mod I ever installed), I was running Rudy's and I STILL really love it, especially the exterior, but his product (or anyone else's so far) just does not come up to what you offer with Skyland.
Skyland Markarth was a bit of a shock at first, but again... the interiors of the Dwemer dungeons totally sells it for me. All of the metal doors and pipes look the best out of anything currently out. The lightness of everything takes a bit to get used to, but once you do it for a while, it sets in and doesn't seem so shocking.
Another impressive Skyland moment for me is stepping into the Riften Ratway for the first time... Superb atmosphere! It makes the Thieves' Guild experience really feel good.
The ONLY Skyland stuff that gets overwritten is snow and ice with RIS (Real Ice and Snow) - I love the icebergs and ice caves to provide the wet shine that that mod does (Just Ice also does a phenomenal job with that)... The snow in RIS is like a toned-down version of Fluffy Snow, which is exactly what looks great to me... But otherwise, Skyland is literally the ideal look for my game. I hope eventually we will get High Hrothgar, Solitude, Windhelm, Raven Rock, Tel Mithryn, Skyhaven Temple, Sovngarde, Soul Cairn, as well as the Falmer ruins architecture (the Chantry etc)... That would complete and unify the art style for the game... It's a lot of work, but you have already done so much of it.
TBH, it would be better, if it would not be stupid 4K for almost everything. Its also close to vanilla, so if you want some change, then you have to look somewhere else.
Really like these mods, and don't use any other mods that modify textures and so on, as I don't want to run in to compatibility problems that might cause the game to crash.
Exactly what I am doing right now! Half way through playthrough... Luxor released a bunch of new ones so I want to roll with that for a while to see what everything looks like when ALL of his stuff is installed. When I get tired, I will overwrite everything with Skyland again. It takes like 10-15 mins and the game looks completely different. No effect on saves or any of that other stuff... It's just textures! They are fun to change once in a while. =)
AAAAAND I am back to 100% Skyland (with exception of mountains, snow, and ice). I still think Skyland stuff is the best collection on the Nexus at the moment. Combined with Mathy's photogrammetric textures for various things as well as trees and plants, it's an unbeatable combination.
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More towards magic realism and surrealism than traditional medieval fantasy. Besides, the even coloring is very pleasing.
The doors... stellar. It always annoyed me that other texture mods had older looking textures but the wood or doors looked brand new.
But that grey just seems kind of... drab... to me for someplace that's supposed to be magical. Plus, while it took me a while to warm up to your "old" textures style for textures in certain cities I now find myself looking for it. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but in this particular interpretation I think that style might have looked better here. I see it as an ancient, imposing structure since its been through an earthquake, etc. Something that shows history. This just looks too new/pristine for me. Maybe it is because I was looking at your Markarth shortly before this. Or maybe the mages 'magic' it new on a regular basis. But that style or something like it (maybe just adding moss) would have been more appropriate. At least to me. Your vision. You get to say what goes and what doesn't.
But I'm probably being difficult this morning. One of those days I really have no idea what I want.
Have you tried Skyland signs?
His Solstheim Landscape Overhaul covers the Telvanni architecture on the island. It IS a little bit misleading, but... regardless. I tried an installation without it and everything in Tel Mithryn is god-awful looking. I also find that Noble does architecture really well - I actually prefer Noble Windhelm to Luxor's, I think, but Luxors' Solitude TO ME looks better than Noble. Luxor also has a pretty stellar Whiterun retexture, and his Riften looks nice, but I don't run those since Skyland offers those textures. Noble also doesn't seem to cover in sufficient quality anything in High Hrothgar (low res), Sky Haven Temple, Sovngarde, or Soul Cairn. Noble also doesn't provide good Ancient Falmer ruins. Those looked vanilla to me until I sought alternate textures.
I also CANNOT run my game with anything BUT Skyland Nordic ruins... It's the interiors. They completely change the atmosphere of the game and make it way more immersive for me. Prior to trying Skyland Nordic Ruins (first Skyland mod I ever installed), I was running Rudy's and I STILL really love it, especially the exterior, but his product (or anyone else's so far) just does not come up to what you offer with Skyland.
Skyland Markarth was a bit of a shock at first, but again... the interiors of the Dwemer dungeons totally sells it for me. All of the metal doors and pipes look the best out of anything currently out. The lightness of everything takes a bit to get used to, but once you do it for a while, it sets in and doesn't seem so shocking.
Another impressive Skyland moment for me is stepping into the Riften Ratway for the first time... Superb atmosphere! It makes the Thieves' Guild experience really feel good.
The ONLY Skyland stuff that gets overwritten is snow and ice with RIS (Real Ice and Snow) - I love the icebergs and ice caves to provide the wet shine that that mod does (Just Ice also does a phenomenal job with that)... The snow in RIS is like a toned-down version of Fluffy Snow, which is exactly what looks great to me... But otherwise, Skyland is literally the ideal look for my game. I hope eventually we will get High Hrothgar, Solitude, Windhelm, Raven Rock, Tel Mithryn, Skyhaven Temple, Sovngarde, Soul Cairn, as well as the Falmer ruins architecture (the Chantry etc)... That would complete and unify the art style for the game... It's a lot of work, but you have already done so much of it.
Its also close to vanilla, so if you want some change, then you have to look somewhere else.