[WIP] Tydz Armorz Retexez : III

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 12:37 pm

Hello, friends! Let's start new WIP thread: it all would be about my armor retexture work.

Vanilla textures were great, full of details and lovely painted objects of art... in 1999. Morrowind graphics have been looking old at 2002, and what about now?

Now we have Darknuts textures. It was a lot words about them years ago, but I'm not a judge: I just let you know, that his automated method killed details and alpha-maps.

Also, we have Morrowind Watercolored. O-ok. But it is watercolored! Don't know about you, but I like to play Morrowind full of details.

There was one man - nameless hero born by unknown (to me) parents - people of Morromod Lands remember him as "spaceinvader91" (or Saint_Jiub, but this name is boring). Like a real space invader, he invaded our Textures Folders with his gorgeous works, especially, http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/41947/?!

But hero is gone (to other mods)... I don't know, why things like this happens, but it is a sad fact - he hasn't finished HiRez Armors.

So I decide to make the dreams true - at create my own armor textures replacer mod.

Its quality is between MW WC and HANS - a lot of details, but some parts are look a little bit of watercolor.

So, no more words - just CHECK IT OUT.

http://imgur.com/a/jbfgt

https://imgur.com/a/2z0Sl

https://imgur.com/a/fBc3h

https://imgur.com/a/B30Ov

Best shots:

http://i.imgur.com/cyB6CRj.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tO9bdlr.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/cxn9Dmm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/R8GTtyM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/5VL3nu7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wrFi5dp.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NxsK5hS.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/FjYwwpJ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/K0AsOVu.jpg

https://mega.nz/#F!Ww8CBTQC!yWf817UI-hn0-SeYojcewA - use the textures before official release!

Here is also Armors list, which I will update as work move to final

Regular Armors

1. Adamantium - ready

2. Almindoril - ready

3. Bonemold - use HiRez Armors

4. Chitin - use HiRez Armors

5. Daedric - use Bahamut's port of oblivion Daedric Lord Armor

6. Dreugh - ready

7. Dwemer - it will come with FULL DWM RTX

8. Dragonscale - ready

9. Ebony - use HiRez Armors

10. Glass - use HiRez Armors

11. Fur Armors (also bloodmoon's) - in plans

12. Helseth's Guarsd - ready

13. Ice/Stalhrim - ready

14. Imperial Chainmail - ready

15. Imperial Steel - WIP

16. Indoril - use HiRez Armors

17. Iron - ready

17.a Nordic Iron - ready

18. Netch - use HiRez Armors

19. Orcish - ready

20. Silver - ready

21. Steel - ready

21.a Nordicmail - in plans

22. Templar - ready

23. Trollbone - in plans

Artifact Armor:

1. Apostle Boots - in plans

2. Auriel's Shield - in plans

3. Clavicus Vile Mask - ready

4. Dragonbone - ready

5. Eidelon's shield - in plans

6. Spellbreaker - it will come with FULL DWM RTX

7. Tenpace Boots - in plans

=================================================================

Regular Weapons

1. Adamantium - in plans

2. Chitin (and some bonemold stuff) - in plans

3. Daedric - in plans

4. Dreugh - ready

5. Dwemer - it will come with FULL DWM RTX

6. Ebony - in plans

7. Glass - in plans

8. Ice/Stalhrim - ready

9. Iron - use Real Reflective Weapons

10. Orcish - in plans

11. Silver - in plans

11. Steel (including imperial and nordic steel) - someone will make that better, than my method

12. No-class weapon - maybe

Artifact weapons - replacers are better.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:40 am

A very nice project and a definitive improvement over Darknut's textures. Are you also considering doing the weapon and creature textures? I think the creatures need them especially.

The texture do look very nice. The Adamantium and Nordic Iron armor textures are my favorite.

» Thu Mar 10, 2016 11:07 pm

Would be nice to have improved versions of the vanilla textures as well. The Daedric Lord Armor is great and all, but the vanilla design is also not bad and depending on what the rest of your game looks like the Daedric Lord Armor might stand out a little too much. Anyway, it would be great if you could also do them at some point. I agree that there is no need to do those already covered by HiRez Armors again. There is a http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1441431-relz-hirez-armors-native-styles-v2/ of them, which includes a few more textures (don't know exactly which ones, though), but for some reason most of them are uncompressed and take up eight times the memory of the compressed ones.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 11:11 am

Isnt this just upscaled vanilla textures with increased contrast and some filter similar to the sponge one I used in the watercolored mod?
The watercolor mod I made in half a day btw, its not something I am proud of and I wasnt expecting many people to use it. Also I did not intend that people take that as inspiration to slap all kinds of filters onto the vanilla textures

The artistic work on the textures is still great and much better than available replacers, that doesnt change over the years. All the textures are lacking is resolution. Also the UV mapping of course is lacking in many places and high res replacers make that even more apparent.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 9:46 am

No, I'm using Waifu2x and texture maps overlay, no sponge or watercoloring - none of photoshop filters at all.

It is looks like MW WC, cause Waifu2x use fractal technology, based on watercolor-looks brushes.

I think, I will remake some a little bit close to "paint works" textures.

» Thu Mar 10, 2016 10:57 pm

Ok thanks for the explanation! I dont trust those generators tho (especially when they are presented by some anime chick) but will give your retex a try when I can.
It would be great if there would be some magic to restore vanilla textures to full res, but those things always cause more issues than improvements imo. Good luck with it tho, I am sure people will love it.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:07 am

Yeah, well, not all textures are really that great and I doubt that there even existed full-res sources for all of them or if they did, that they looked that great. I also love MWs design, but the actual realization of it in the ingame graphics is far from ideal, in my opinion, even for the time - as can be seen on the often poor uv mapping you are referring to yourself. I wonder - early in its development it was planned to use the same engine as Battlespire and if some of the textures could still be remnants of earlier, sprite-based days of its development. But that's probably not the case. Well, I'm thinking mainly of the weapons textures, of which many are really bad in my opinion, and looking through them again I am not convinced that they could see the same improvements as the armor textures in this thread. Still, I dare you to work your magic on them as well, Tyddy!

But all in good time. First, I am looking forward to more armors!

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 8:10 am

http://imgur.com/a/fBc3h

They are already available to use in WIP-folder!

Also, I've updated Adamantium and Orcish armor textures.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 1:07 am

Dang, Tyddy! Those are gorgeous! The UV on the steel shield is kinda crappy, but the rest of the set looks good from the relatively quick look I gave it. I wouldn't mind trying to fix the edge of the UV on the steel shield. Wouldn't be hard to remove that stretching.

edit: eh, nevermind about fixing the UV. The texture and model don't really agree... it'd require a brand new one or the other to fix the issue.

» Thu Mar 10, 2016 8:19 pm

Fantastic work so far Tyddy!

» Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:26 pm

These look amazing! The only suggestion I have (it may just be the angle of the lighting in the screenshot) is that I think the orcish armor is too bright/light in color. I suggest it be darkened a bit, although I recognize this may just be my style preference Can't wait to see what else you make!

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 7:47 am

@Pherim

Spoiler

Sure many things where not idially realized, but mostly for technical reasons not because of incapable artists. The thing in that even weapons are made of many tiny textures instead of one larger one of course does look worse, but mods didnt even change that in 12+ years. That I always found very weird when people say vanilla graphics are so bad and community members do a way better job, why does everyone still work with those dated UVs which make everything look bad?

Many vanilla textures are hand painted art made by competent artists, I am not sure how many texturers in the community are able to make armor textures like these from scratch: http://www.uesp.net/w/images/c/c3/MW-item-Medium_Cuirasses.jpg
Most armor retextures are just overlayed photos or filters or some image correction, but complex textures like these are very rarely replaced by something selfmade from scratch.
For your weapons example, I would like to see you painting for example that dragon head on the silver staff from scratch, or come up with your own hand drawn nordic or dwemer ornaments

There are more such details even in the weapon textures, but they sure got downsized heavily and the dated UV mapping dont help.

I wish folks had more respect for professional artists. I for one am a complete noob at what I do and every experienced artist can see that from my current releases. People with no art competency see high resolution as the ultimate thing to rate textures by, while in my mind its all about the art. I remember the youtuber totalbiscuit complaining about bad texture work in games just because a little flower was not 8k or something - resolution and the art in those textures are two completely different things.
I think you too are talking about technical issues which are of course real in this old game, but the art in the textures and the overall design is just nice. Granted it can be done even better today by someone capable, but like I mentioned the art is timeless and will still work in the next 10 years.

Oh and I am pretty sure they worked with larger source files. Why should they paint/assemble a texture on a blurry canvas, that doesnt make sense?

Sorry for offtopic, I shut up now and invite everyone to go offtopic in my threads lol.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:04 am

Spoiler

Yes, sure, that is another aspect, of course. But the reason why nobody really changed something about the many small textures thing is probably that it also requires editing the mesh, which requires more knowledge than making textures. Besides, there are not really that many actual replacers for weapon textures that use the original meshes and uvs, besides Darknut's of course, which are upscaled vanilla ones. I made my new weapon meshes to work with vanilla textures, but with completely new textures in mind - as you say, better textures on bad meshes is not ideal. If I will do anything about the amount of textures per mesh I don't know yet - I admit I didn't do it for my iron meshes, but I was much less experienced when I made them. Then again it's not so bad that many textures are reused throughout a weapons material category - it makes for better recognition in my opinion. But anyway, as long as I don't actually make them, I can't really say. :blink: Also, the way I imagine them (the steel ones at least), they will be somewhat different from the vanilla look - as I said, I am not the biggest fan of the vanilla weapon textures.

I also agree that textures with complicated layout are rarely remade, much less from scratch. I don't doubt the artistic talent of the Morrowind designers, on the contrary, but still, there are problems with many textures that could have been avoided - for example, many weapons textures have a black background the Object in the texture (grip, pommel, blade, etc...) but the uv map does not exactly fit their shape and so the black parts can be seen in several places - this could probably have been avoided relatively easy. But I realize that we can easily talk about these things today - back when the game was developed that might have been a very different matter.

High-Res does not equal art, no doubt. Unfortunately, the appreciation for this fact has become worse, as can be seen in the commentary sections of many, many Skyrim mods. This will probably not change soon, I'm afraid.

But while I consider the entirety of Morrowind and it's design a great work of art, I don't think the same about every single mesh or texture. Some of them I find just awful, but it doesn't make the game in its entirety any less great. Of course, you are entitled to your own opinion, but hand-drawn or not, I find many of the weapon textures very poorly made. It looks like some of them were made by people with a great amount of talent and skill, but others were just quickly slapped together. The texture quality is very inconsistent in my opinion. And not everyone who is professionally involved in making the graphics of a game has to be an artist. And the actual ingame graphics are made by different people than the concept art.

I actually know someone who is working in the game industry as a concept artist, maybe I'll ask her about her experiences.

Obviously, the source files for the textures were bigger, I didn't express myself very clearly, I'm afraid. But I think they were made with their final ingame size in mind, so they were probably not that much more detailed. But they would be sharper, of course, and it would be great to have them. Yes, I realize there are many details and ornamental parts that would be difficult to reproduce, but then again retextures do not have to be completely accurate remakes of the original assets. Nobody has to use them, after all, if he doesn't like the modder's interpretation of them.

But I believe just because we modders are mostly amateurs, what we create is not necessarily inferior, just as not everything made by professionals is necessarily good. And I don't know what an experienced artist would say about your releases, but there is no reason to be overly modest.

If there is more need to discuss this, I'd say we should switch to PMs or a new topic.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:36 am

accidently clicked quote instead of edit.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:34 am

Already done this, before you ask lol

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:08 am

Awesome! Also, are you planning on doing the Duke's Guard cuirass? I didn't see in the list.

Edit: nevermind, I imagine it would be under the category "silver armor." Sorry!

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 12:33 pm

No, it does not. You can be completely talentless and learn how to edit or create a mesh, which can't be said for hand painting textures.

Anyway, Tyddyner, that looks neat, always great to have another replacer to choose from!

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 4:38 am

Alright, maybe I also did not explain this enough... but as textures are only 2d images I believe there is a lower threshold for people to mess with textures than to work with meshes because people may lack the understanding of what they are made of and how they work in the first place. I mean, if you are frequently using a computer and have something of a creative vein you probably know that digital images are made of pixels and can edit them with some program or another (how good is another question), but I believe far fewer people are used to work with 3d objects and 3d graphics programs and it is generally considered to be more difficult. I could be wrong about this, though.

Making good textures and good meshes is of course both equally demanding.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:17 am

Considering that, back in college, I traded my CS major for a poli sci major due to difficulties I experienced in working with 3D graphics, I'm inclined to agree with you

» Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:59 pm

Tyddy, why not just go through after all the textures have had a pass and touch them up by hand? You're an incredibly talented artist, so you could just refine the details that are there in vanilla. Just a thought.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:54 am

Cause I'm leaving home at the end of april to the end of october. I'm a sailor at russian riverfleet. This is the reason I will give other texture artists all psd-resources after work at armor would be done.

Thank you for warm words!

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 12:59 am

Well thank the Principalities of Oblivion that you're spending your time giving us this fantastic work!

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:51 am

Looking good so far! This waifu2x is very interesting. I wonder if there's something similar out there that isn't configured specifically for anime-style images?

Only one that felt off in-game to me was the steel set. It's a bit too much like iron, IMO. In vanilla the two are easily identifiable due to steel having a more polished and ornate "knight" look. In this retex it has lost much of its luster http://i.imgur.com/2J5aFrC.jpg.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:11 am

I've reduced luster, because:

1. Bloom shader.

2. Real regular use steel armor never was polished to mirror luster - only by nobles with many servants.

3. Now it looks good with iron armor parts- before it looked ridiculous together.

» Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:25 am

http://i.imgur.com/yAjqwZB.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Pvzb8hT.jpg (my game crashed, so there is only 1 screenshot).

P.S. Guys, anyone know, who is the author of imperial steel textures of cuirass, clavicles and helm I'm using?