sorry but dirty :shrug:

Looks like either an oil painting or bacteria, I can't decide. The vanilla texture makes me think of cinnamon sticks.

Just a pointer, but you can reply to multiple posts at once.

They look like dead palm tree leaves to me.

That is actually a pretty good idea - it is not dirt or disease - it is hackle-lo "dust"!

http://rememberthetaste.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/cinnamon-sticks.jpg
http://www.photos8.com/view/cinnamon_bark-other.html
http://kathleeniscookinginmexico.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/chocolatemousse003.jpg

Being the same scale just means the details - it just needs to have some straight but organic edges and some speckles on the "leaves" but does not need to actually be dead dirty leaves of the same size. People taking dead yucca and palm pics tend to want to get the whole plant - not just the dead leaves down by the dirt - looks like I will have more luck finding cinammon pics.

I think some of the original texture artists actually did oil paintings and down-sized the scans - not every artist a decade ago knew how to use a pressure pad and stylus. I doubt there were very good hi-rez photo texture collections back then - what was state of the art megapixels compared to now?

Yes, there is a reason why I and many others use that site. They used to ask people to provide them with pictures(still had to be good pictures tho), but now they have a select group of photographers with SLR cameras providing the pictures. And also, they wont ban you as long as you dont create multiple accounts or something, they have something to automatically limit download amounts to 15mb for basic users. Really, you are unlikely to bump against that limit unless you can work through things really fast, and by fast I mean like 5-10 images a day.



I think a good training image for this would be willow leaves or something close to that, cgtextures has similiar to that.

not finding any there...

Been a few weeks coding, did not like the oil painting look happening on the larger textures when I thought it was just bad vanilla art on the smaller textures. Been in a fix and rebuild fix and rebuild cycle as a result. Found a half-pixel phase error in the details that was causing the oil painting look, neat effect but I was wanting more organic details. Another trick was recursively upsizing the textures from a recursively downsized training image library to mitgate issues of texture scale, plus nature is often recursive in the details! Finally realized I need to pay attention to background details, even though I got rid of the diseased yucca leaves it was picking up some gravely dirt in the background. So cgtextures to the rescue and I found some great hi-rez dead yucca leaves on there. It is my first stop before googling now.

I did a lot of debugging with a new truth image - a classic of image processing papers - 1972 Swedish Playmate Lena. I zoomed into her eye and corner of the hat as there is some good details there that get really blocky and even lost when downsizing. Halfsizing then upsizing back works really well now, but for VanillaHD I am quarter downsizing and quad upsizing. This is the best it can do with such a loss of details.

Don't worry only a nvde eye is shown here...

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/4646/lenaeyetruth.jpg

Play tested latest textures this weekend, and went back and coded some more as bc_moss alpha has a grayscale alpha that needed details, while the other alpha textures just needed their outline edges dialed back a bit. While picking mushrooms in the bitter coast I lost track of time and before you know it I had detailed all the mushrooms in Sadrith Mora and the Ascadian Isles, as some of these mushy undersides needed a seamless texture fix by tiling accordingly in the proper directions before running my algo. My trip gathering mushrooms went so well I just had to change my avatar to the downsized version of the emperor_parasol. Turns out it is a real mushroom not just some painted flower landing pad for Telvanni Wizards, the real thing is just a bit grungier...and now so is Vaniila HD with little specks of french vanilla in it and no more oil paintings.

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4765/emperorparasol.jpg

Also went out for icecream today and decided to get a double scoop of chocolate and neapolitan because sometimes need something more than just vanilla... :wink_smile:

That parasol texture looks good

Nice parasol! Any chance of some in-game screenshots?

dang mushrooms, I knew I was forgetting to do something! Recompiling with latest batches of fixes so will try to remember next playtest.

While this seems like a pretty good idea, I can't help but feel that all the new textures look like they've been done with a sponge. The parasol picture, for instance, has a rather odd texture that, when looked at in a certain way, makes me think of some very worrying things. It also lacks the "shape" of the original - some of the parts seem to suggest that the parasol is slightly ridged in the areas where the material is stretched, and the process you've used turns it into something that looks vaguely like http://walkthrough.starmen.net/earthbound/image/screens/48/giygaspokey.png.

Not sure what the point of your pic link is....I appreciate constructive criticism but not snide remarks as seems your intent with that pic. I just spent several weeks for revamping the code and training pics after the feedback to the hackle-lo, and I am adding chocolate and neapolitan flavors for those that need to have more than vaniilla based on the feedback to the kreshweed.

If you are looking at the older links - you see in my most recent post I fixed an issue of oil-painting look if that is what you mean by sponge painting. If you are refering to the gray part of the texture that looks like I dabbed it with a sponge - I am not using any paint or photoshop methods - it looks like that because the source photos of the parasol mushroom looks like that.

The brown ridges and grungy texture indeed are what the real mushrooms look like - they are not a flat painted on detail like they look like in the lo-rez texture.

http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-stock-photos-1-big/objects/parasol-mushroom.jpg
http://www.itchypixel.net/photos/shaggy_parasol.jpg
http://usa.stockfood.com/images-pictures/A%20fresh%20parasol%20mushroom%20(close-up)-912366.jpg

These ones did not have the flower in the center or the gray grunge but they do exist - that brown cap in the center does shape as a flower in some of the photos I found which I found very surprising as I thought it was just a fantasy art mushroom!

It is not possible for my algorithm to change the underlaying texture or it's shape, since all I do is interpolate the original texture and add details to it that do not change the lower rez mip-maps. My very goal is to preseve vanilla and not change it in anyway other than detailing the blurriness that happens when you get close. The details come from sampling patches of actual photographs that blur in the same manner as the lo-rez texture is blurred. Have a look back at the bc_moss texture - the source pics are highly detailed curves and there is certainly no sponge painting in that one - in the original texture you cannot pic out individual strands of moss. Of course it is possible for many details that blur to the same thing - the only art involved is picking training pics that are likely the same as vanilla.

Not sure what I will do for some of the more fantasy flora though that have no real life counterpart - if I get a bad match of training pics then I just end up with an interpolated pic as I check in the code that I have a good match of the underlaying patch - do not want to add detail for the sake of just adding detail.

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/4008/txhacklelo02new.jpg

Still my longest texture to process - but I think no more oil painting or squiggly bacteria - now we have dirty spots while still having sharp edged leaves (except at the stupid alpha "edges" vanilla does hiding the fact that they realized they need to do these halfway dead leaves as a mesh sticking out over the layer of really dead leaves - the alpha is hiding a full on texture of more leaves!). And for those that have too have more detail than this even if it changes your perception of the reality - wait for my other flavors...all I want for vanilla is to focus the original texture better than the game will interpolate it. I like this better than the texture everyone else uses in their packs which appears to be the same dead corn plants for both the deader and halfway dead leaves - just colored and sharpened differently depending on whose pack it is.

looks like the old link is messed up...here it is again
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/4548/txhacklelo02.jpg

I'm gonna have to be really awkward here and say I prefer the old one. The new one looks too blurry and doesn't have as much definition, whereas I never really had too much of a problem with the old one.

The new one though is just less blurry than the interpolated original - which is my goal. Certainly oil painting brush strokes have nice sharp edges on them though and can make things look more detailed - for me that one crossed the line of changing what you perceive the spots to be. The worst was the truth image of the face which truly did look like a squiggly oil painted rendering (too embarassing to show!), and the gold kanet which had clearly defined brush strokes because the texture is painted rather than photographic to begin with. So yes the details are much less subtle now - more like focusing a lens than stroking the brush. I do notice the difference in game and can look around and see what textures I still need to do....that is how I detoured into doing all the mushrooms. Van Goghs http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/image/0612/Starry-Night.jpg is incredibly detailed and in fact a large reproduction hangs in my office - but hardly a vanilla landscape.

I do intend to blow up the contrast of the detail enhancement in the "Neopolatin" version of the libray which will make the spots more prominent - more contrast more color more details - but less vanilla less "real". But I won't be bringing back the oil painting look as that requires reintroducing that "bug" into the training images and I don't want to recompile all those. I will wait until I am nearly finished with vanilla flora before discussing how far to push the other versions as what is the reference for too much contrast and color or darkness that everyone will agree on - I suspect that will take more time for people to agree than post-processing the textures themselves.

The only reason I even intend to do the other flavours is hoping people will at least give vanilla a try first...I am finding that Morrowind has character that got lost in all the texture packs now that I have returned to vanilla textures entirely. For example scathecraw is a wrinkled leaf with interesting shades of purple, blue, green and red while the replacement texture used by all the packs is just a contrasty purple flat leaf. I was thirsty after hunting for scathecraw and hiked over to the bar in caldera and the wood is the most interesting worn and water stained texture just like you might expect to see. Like a lot of people I rushed out an installed all the texture packs so it is like rediscovering a new Morrowind.

http://www.upload3r.com/serve/300411/1304139627.png
Really, my issue is that the detail you're "extracting" seems less detail and more the result of artefacts - and that it seems to me that while using algorithms and source images to add detail to enlarged images is a good idea, the reality comes out looking more like a bunch of worms than anything resembling detail.

Much more constructive pic than your last one - thanks for pointing out what you meant

I did not use that pic for training since it is not an overhead pic - it is actually more detailed than the one I used.
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/528/txemperorparasol012.jpg

I think algo. did a good job of picking up the grunginess of the brown flower cap from this pic by enhancing the variations of brown pixels that were in vanilla- but the part you point out looks like its details came from the lower right corner of the training pic which is not as finely detailed. In fact if I simply run a GIMP sharpen filter to enhance the contrast of existing vanilla pixels (as many modders have done before), I can see similar similar squiggly detail even though unsharpened these details are below the threshold of visibility. Now I can certainly add a check that says if the vanilla variation is below the threshold of visibility to not enhance with details. But how can you say that their intent was to be a smooth texture that just got dithered a bit during processing vs. blurring details to the point of obscurity before they downsized it? When using training pics you have to normalize the details so that any level of detail has a chance of matching - otherwise nothing would happen because chances of finding a match becomes rare. This is the knob I will use in Neopolatin to crank up the level of detail, but for vanilla the knob is set to minimize the errors in the restoration of the truth image.

Usually when I see something that I think looks squiggly artifacty - I can usually see the same pattern in vanilla if I blow it up and sharpen it. And since that is my intent to enhance the small details that got lost in the blurring and downsizing of the vanilla texture - if they were actually artifacts they must came along for the ride. So in this case I get similar results to what a sharpen filter would do - but only because the training pic has similar details. On something else like the willow flower - it does not sharpen the lines in the petals at all because none of the training pics had any detailed lines - they were all naturally blurry so it remained so.

But obviously you can't please everyone - you would have me crank the detail knob back so if you can't see it in the original texture you don't want to see any details, whereas the post before you says bring back the oil painting squiggles. Never did run parasol with that "buggy" version - would be interesting to see if the result looks like Van Gogh on mushrooms painting mushrooms....

http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/6176/txemperorparasolsharp.jpg

This is not vanilla HD but instead I sharped in GIMP which just makes existing details (color and grayscale) more visible, then I used bicubic upsizing 4x then sharpened again. The sharpening level of 70 I chose was such that in the small preview window it still looked like vanilla. I prefer Vanilla HD myself...it enhances the same vanilla details but in a much more restrained way. No doubt someone else will say too release the gimpy version - that ain't going to happen but someone else can feel free to steal my filtering steps if they like it so much.

It was early dawn when I woke up in Gnisis, sore from my fight with one of my own who had killed the muck farmer and was bent on killing me. The fog had rolled in and I had already taken all the muck in the farms here hoping to earn enough to get something better than this iron axe I found in that stinking swamp they kicked me off that ship into - that golden mer at the store said it can freeze my opponent in their tracks- but maybe they like frozen rat where they come from. So since I was a little stiff yet, I figured I could get that cheating bug runner to give me a break if promised to sleep the whole way, but said he did not care if I thought I would not survive the west gash crossing since the last one of my kind he carried got into a fight so it was going to cost me more than I had left. I suppose I should not have hung out at the tradehouse drinking last nite as I found out quickly that if I wasn't making quick work of the rats and hounds just meant I was getting screeched at by cliffracers while they flap around me axe. Of course I made it to Caldera just as dusk set in and the barkeep was fair even though I would have tried to challenge that redguard to a swordfight for the room, I think the nod from the master of arms is what got me the room and he politely suggested it was best I pay if I wanted any training from him. He also suggested I not stay across the street as that gang was up to no good keeping that creepy thing they found near the ruins pumped full of everything they stole from the barkeep, and I am not about to cross someone who can show me how to smack someone upside the head with just my shield. Anyways I needed some sleep to heal my latest wounds (dang horny beast using a scrib as a gassy distraction) and had enough of the drinking last nite even though that bed took what money I had left.

Not to fear as a real warrior has fresh houndsteak for breakfast not some dried salty stuff they sell behind the bar trying to get you to drink some more so I will be fine fending for myself this morning. Luckily there is many beasts that mistook me for a simple pilgrim as I beserked my all the way down to Balmora . There I tried to get one of those pretty witches (have you seen the sows we have to mate with?) to wave me up on top of those mushroom trees so I could see into the nearby lake, but she pointed me to the Fort and said the crossing through the mountains is that way - does she even know who I am and will be - and she has the nerve telling me she does not go that way?. I stopped in at the Fort and the boss there said to take care of one of those Nords down river - but I think I saw enough of those pale weaklings yesterday to know it is just some crazy fool bewitched into loosing their drawers so did not think it would be a worthy fight. Saw a herd of guar on the pass but they did not give me any trouble and I was still full from my houndsteak - though baby guar with some comberry sauce for dinner sounds good - maybe I will run some fixings over to the tavern at Pelagaid for dinner and see if I can convince that sow at the castle to shine my sword while she listens to my epic battle adventures. Ran into that annoying lady that I was fool enough to take to her stupid shrine so she could lighten her load whatever that means, she said the muck I was looking for was on that island in the lake just up the hill. Don't these mer know we hates to swim as the scum messes with the dreads, and I hate axe smacking those dang fish that think they can sink their teeth into my hide. I made it - to my horror she neglected to mention that the muck was guarded by a cluster of fierce crabs- you laugh lilttle svckling but I have heard stories of mer crabs that can slaughter you with one swipe of those claws. All of this because some dang fool said he wanted a painting of mucksponge to hang on his wall. So much for my dinner plans...

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/750/muckinaround.jpg

So on the right is one of those mucky sponges that has been alchemized so you can see all the muckiness is covering up the sponges hairy details and bumpiness that is on it's twin to the left - who pays attention to details like that anyways. And all I get out of this trip is crabmeat to pick at with my sword while I chew on some stalks hoping to regain some health without any bloody meat to refresh my blood waiting for that little fellars useless ring I stole to work ? After this I am going to head to that stronghold up north and see if they need a good axe slinger - only reason these weak imperials hire us is anways because they are green with envy - not like they will ever knight one of ours.

Ah ha! Now we're talking. The detail is suprisingly visible on the bottom of the left one, I like it. It's a shame the texture is ruined by terrible UV mapping :tongue: .

Keep in mind also that is a 720 vertical screen for a 1024 vertical texture.

Detail should be a subtle thing - you really should only notice it when it is missing - and not when it is there. I might just leave that one in the game rather than making a mucky version so that people can compare in game - as by the time you log out of the game, remove the textures to compare to vanilla and log back in - you forget any detail you saw but did not notice!

Don't know the UV mapping as I barely can get into nifskope and assign the textures so I can see what they look like without getting into game.

My hero of course made it out of there alive despite his claiming otherwise. He did kill a baby guar on the way out - but it was feral and started the fight.

Running bittergreen now while I gather pics for all the various barks.

Weekend update - got bittergreen, ashtree, scathecraw done though my hero was unable to get a painting as always that region is either ashy or foggy (and I am trying not to cheat while texture testing!) So instead of playing I downloaded and sorted all the bark training images but I needed huge textures thus I ended up forking out for a membership which means I get 100MB a day to go crazy downloading. This first bark took almost a day to process but the different tree parts can share the training images even so it might take all week to run them all.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/2126/bcbark.jpg

Take a closer look at the squiggles - they are all different for each of the handful of moss and lichen types (naturally possible and I downloaded them all!) and two types of bark (shame on vanilla on that!). Obvious this is a composite texture - tiles with two other BC bark textures that have less lichen that are further composites from same source textures - with even more different barks though. Vanilla means vanilla so no complaints as I am bound not to change that! As this compositing is hard to find in source texture libraries and hard to do well the various mod packs either don't tile together at all, or if they do they lack the fauna variety. I especially missed the hanging moss that has fallen off the tree and snagged on the bark as that is a nice detail!

I did not like the ash tree bark as much - that one is half of an ashen board and half a licheny bark composite together in quadrants with some editing to hide the repeated texture. The problem in vanilla is the lichen part used a downsizing filter that ringed - there is a lot of horizontal/vertical lines that just do not belong. As noted in an earlier post - enhancing source details means enhancing source artifacts.

Keep in mind I have the constraint to not change lo-rez vanilla at all - I am only adding details to the interpolated pixels. Some of what you see is the interpolation filter I am using - which is a Mitchell bicubic filter that minimizes jaggies one would get with simple nearest neighbor filters, while not blurring like a Gaussian filter does, without ringing like sinc filters do; but it has corner cases that in the interest of preseving rather than blurring source details it might have a jaggy or two - subjectively it has been tested as the best compromise overall. Every texture I check against Gimps interpolators and have yet to find VHD did subjectively worse.

Another problem is I have to use even filters rather than odd filters because the engine requires even texture sizes, what that means if you have a point and upsize it once rather than a blurry point you get more of a blurry square - choosing training images carefully means VHD can detail back to a sharp point but would have to locally move the point, so it is more likely to detail it back to a sharp square so it does not move. While I could use an odd interpolation filter (center pixel is the center pixel) to get more of a point - the point cannot possibly be centered where it was before and must pixel shift to fit into the even pixel requirement (because the center pixel is in-between the pixels) - which is not a good thing when texture tiling (or not) needs to be seamless (or not). Odd texture sizes did not fit into early video cards that required power of two texture maps, but are better for sharper less blocky interpolation.

Anyways after staring at tree bark I think next my hero should head to the Bitter Coast with his oil paints after he takes care of that Nord he was trash talking, as that is the region closest to being done (for flora at least ground and towns is yet another submod!). Not exactly sure where to find the glowing pod plants though while lily pads and grass blades will be easy to find.