Skyrim Special Edition

About this mod

Skin and armor texture overhaul of all the Trolls, including the dlc01 armored trolls

Permissions and credits
Donations


This is a skin and armor texture overhaul of all the Trolls, including the dlc01 armored trolls. This doesn't mean you need the dlc01 anyway, these are just textures, the ones you don't use will not load. This mod doesn't take any slot in your load order.


For reference, these are the folders:

textures\actors\troll (Full, less the tone maps - four files)
textures\dlc01\actors\armoredtroll (whole - four files)

Trolls look like gorilla, sort of ape mainly anyway, with some grafts similar to the crocodile and snake's skin. A hybrid, a mix between gorillas and reptiles. They have three eyes. I know this isn't new to you, what it's new is that they have three pupil iris now too. This is my main "poetic license" this time, the simple whole black vanilla tint wasn't bad and did its job, but those eyes that look at you are more scary now, to me.



I was inspired by the unique troll inside the game, the Uderfrykte. He was the only one to have pupils, but were really badly made to me (he is really ugly, the head look warped) and I tried to make them more realistic; I liked how they come out, so I have reported the same change to all the other trolls.
They also have new furs, fingernails, skin, tongue, etc... even eyebrows and hair inside the ears they didn't have, as well now. 
The furs were the most complicated things to make and I'm still not satisfied. The bad part to work on this kind of "animals" indeed, it's that this game uses some additional meshes along the body to simulate the fur fringes in some areas. Have you ever seen an original highland cow model inside the game were the fringed furs look real? They never didn't look really good to me, they create seams, bad crops, and really noticeable fakes visual. Making the furs, like for my Giant (but he didn't have those additional parts of the cloth), consistency between the alpha and the new fur I made, to match, isn't an easy task at all, I have to say. They are also slight different, the Trolls of the dcl01 have indeed another, similar but not the same, alpha diffuse channel. I made one for them all, mixing and editing both. To avoid some more of its many original seams I have done the barber this time, shaving their furs in some places. He's now less hairy, like the foot and around the... butt. What? They sit all the time when you're not playing! I put a little topsoil "there" (like bottom the foots), avoiding so other couples seams. But to avoid all the seams and the mismatch in these additional meshes I'm talking above, it is an impossible task to my infinite patience, because it's not even clear and immediate to understand from where those pieces of meshes take which part of the textures and how they are cropped (I edited the alpha channel, but I'm afraid they are not just cropped, but being stretched by the meshes too). If someone knows just let me know, please. So there still some parts were the fur doesn't match exactly in the fringes, and the crops left still look as bad as the vanilla ones.
Cause those hells of a furs, the diffuse maps of this character were and have to be DXT5 and there are a lot of Trolls. Ghost and frozen apart, indeed they are five trolls. Three of the base games (cave, frost and Uderfrykte) and another two within the dlc01, the ones you can use as followers, the armored cave and frost trolls. These last ones, not less, came with a separated armor, composed of many, many pieces, that I edited as well, making it even more rugged (they live in a stable), like all the armors I edited till today. So the whole thing it is heavy, also to work them all on 4k was hard, even if they are almost clones. But this was a job I started some time ago, left and now taken back.

Luckily the troll uses the same identical shape of the vampire Falmer teeth, that I had worked deeper in my Falmer mod, so I had just to report it and adjust the size, jumping at least a couple hours of work.

You can preview the results by looking at the screenshot. Some are about a first stage, I indeed changed the cave iris from red to grey in the release. All of them do refer to the 4k version, the only one I had the time to test. They could look different to you, it depends on your setup and the ENB you have installed. In the screenshot I do use "RealVision ENB" (by SkyrimTuner) without any light or weather mod, it has a high tonal contrast.

I want to say thanks in here for once, not just at the bottom far away credits: the biggest THANKS to those few who have donated (John, Steven, Mike, Robin, Florian, Chison, Michael, Mitchell, Erik) and the ones who have endorsed or at least just left a comment. To the ones that make the videos or the reviews. These peoples are the only incentive for my efforts and the only reason I spent my time trying to do my best by making and sharing these mods, of course. They are indeed the only clue I have to know if my efforts are appreciated or not. Thank you all of you.


Have fun!

Kajuan




Video to the left side by Hodilton - Video to the right side by Nozi87


Video on the left by VatiWah - Video on the right by Merkcy



DOWNLOAD:

This mod comes in four packages

  •     4k compressed diffuse and normal skin and armor's maps.
  •     4k compressed diffuse and 2k normal skin and armor's maps.       
  •     2k compressed diffuse and normal skin and armor's maps. (Vanilla size - Underfrykte apart that was 1k)
  •     1k compressed diffuse and normal skin's maps.



INSTALL and UNINSTALL:

As usual, anything you like, they are 7z fomod installers.


COMPATIBILITY:

They could not work as intended if you installed some different meshes then the vanilla ones.


THANKS and CREDITS:

Bethesda.
Nexusmods.
ENBseries by Boris Vorontsov.
The whole modding community.
Hodilton, Nozi87 and VatiWah for the Youtube video/reviews.

The biggest thanks to those few who have donated so far (
John, Steven, Mike, Robin, Florian, Chison) or who have endorsed or at least just left a comment. These peoples are the only incentive for my efforts and the only reason to my share.


TOOLS USED:

DDSopt (by Ethatron) to extract the files.
Photoshop to work on textures.
NifSkope to extract the UV map and quick preview the textures over the meshes.


PERMISSION NOTES:

If you show in same way my assets in public places you must and should always credit the author.These files are Nexusmod exclusive right now. My files follow the Nexusmods rules.Users cannot upload my files to other sites, any type of sites, included file sharing host (unless I give specific permission and instructions). Users cannot modify my file; including releasing bug fixes or improving on the features my file adds to the game, and upload it as a separate file. Users cannot use my assets in any mods/files that are being sold, for money, on Steam Workshop or other platforms. Users cannot use assets contained in my files in their own files without my permission.

I saw someone breaking every rule. So if I'll give the permission to release my mods now on, I'll report bottom here the site name that had my permission, about each mod, for real, automatically all the others have to be considered cheating and will be reported:





MY RELEASES:







____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________