Thank you! I didn't like how Guard Armor Replacer replaced vikings with knights, but loved the shields.
This is a brilliant compromise! The city guards aren't landed knights with high-end armor; these are the men and women that keep the peace and occasionally wipe out bandits. Likewise, the Stormcloaks are supposed to be scrappy rebels, not a proper army.
What about Whiterun urrrgh always reminded me of a smiley face at a distance, and the flickering too has stopped a nice bonus thanks ElSopa you patched the Shields as well. : )
thanks for making this just a straight replacer - I used to use Shields of the holds but he has a new mesh which then breaks a number of mods that use shields as a clutter item - most famously Convenient Horses but there are a number of others. This mod is far superior.
I noticed that you compressed your textures with BC1/BC3. They are old formats that have the advantage that they are supported by DX9 games like Skyrim LE, but since Skyrim SE is based on DirectX 11 it supports newer formats like BC7, which offer much better quality at the same size as BC3.
At the moment the textures are compressed like this:
dawnstarsymbol.dds mipLevels = 12 format = BC1_UNORM falkreathsymbol.dds mipLevels = 12 format = BC1_UNORM hjaalmarchsymbol.dds mipLevels = 12 format = BC1_UNORM markarthsymbol.dds mipLevels = 12 format = BC1_UNORM riftensymbol.dds mipLevels = 12 format = BC1_UNORM solitudesymbol.dds mipLevels = 12 format = BC1_UNORM stormcloaksshield.dds mipLevels = 1 format = BC1_UNORM stormcloaksshield_n.dds mipLevels = 1 format = BC3_UNORM whiterunsymbol.dds mipLevels = 12 format = BC1_UNORM windhelmsymbol.dds mipLevels = 1 format = BC1_UNORM winterholdsymbol.dds mipLevels = 12 format = BC1_UNORM --------------------------------------------
As you see some textures are missing mipmaps, that leads to slightly smaller files, but at the cost of more VRAM. If you still have the originals consider releasing them compressed with BC7 for better quality or at least releasing the textures uncompressed so that we can recompress them ourselves. In case you no longer have the originals, we can reconstruct them using ESRGAN. So if you need them I can give you the reconstructed files, but the originals are of course always better.
Thanks Weltcombi, I'll consider that format next time. I do these textures for LE originally and post them here mostly because they also work just fine. I'll take a look at BC7, thanks
ElSopa's textures are as always awesome templates, which can easily be changed by personal taste. In that context the mipmaps can be standardised as you like. I am using e.g. GIMP 2 (which shall meanwhile enable BC7, too - but not yet tried myself) and export as DXT1 with mipmaps. As always ElSopa's textures are a bit too bright by my taste and I changed some symbol colours very slightly e.g. desaturated the way too intense blue of the Windhelm symbol. But that is personal taste and others may prefer the complete opposite.
Anyway, all thanks and thumbs up to ElSopa for providing such great and easy to change textures.
Here some examples of mine - you can easily change by your own taste via Gimp 2, which is freeware: https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/1704/38410720-1559729160.jpg https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/1704/38410720-1559729266.jpg https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/1704/38410720-1559728729.jpg https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/1704/38410720-1559728818.jpg
A darker version of the ElSopa 2K Guard Shields is available here: https://gofile.io/?c=bnwW2Y
I found an option to enable BC7 for GIMP 2 and tested it on these shields. The results are disappointing when consuming DXT1 sources. If I enable Gimp 2 to consume DDS in BC7 format via DirectXTex and a phyton script named ‘file-dds-texconv.py’, the import of all DDS formats does not display layers anymore, which is essential to verify given mipmaps. Also converting the Guard Shields with given DXT1 resolution into BC7 doubles their size without any gain of quality. I therefore decided to leave the above provided darker version of ElSopa’s Guard Shields as DXT1 format but ensured that all have now mipmaps. Only the ‘n’-file is in DXT5 to enable display through all mipmaps, therefore this is the only file of larger size. I darkened the shields by personal taste and modified the colouring slightly. If you like neither the Guard Shields as bright as provided by ElSopa nor with the colours as provided by me, I highly recommend to use the freeware Gimp 2 yourself, add the DDS plugin, which is also free – and modify the Guard Shields by your very own personal taste. It’s actually quite easy.
BC7 is a compression method, just like BC3 and BC1. BC3 (DXT5) is BC1 (DXT1) for RGB and 8Bit for Alpha. BC3 takes twice as much space as BC1 does. BC7 takes exactly as much space as BC3 does. Recompression an already compressed file, is a bad idea. You only loose more detail. You either need to compress the original file with BC7, or try to reverse the BC1 compression with a tool like ESRGAN. Just in case you haven't seen them, here are some examples by intel for BC3 and BC7 (fine) compression.
So we can come to 4 conclusions: 1. resaving a lossy compressed file in any other lossy format including itself makes no sense and will degrade the texture further. 2. Saving a modified version of the BC1 compressed texture can make sense to reduce further degradation. 3. Try to use a modern compression method if possible in the first place, since it preserves image quality a lot better. 4. Ideally keep a lossless compressed version of each texture, so that if a new algorithm comes out that provides better results, you can come back to it later. Also, if the lossless version gets published, people who want to edit it will have an easier time. (Tools like CAO (Cathedral Asset Optimizer)) are able to make good choices depending on the game given a lossless file. CAO v5 will support LE and SE by the way.
48 comments
This is a brilliant compromise! The city guards aren't landed knights with high-end armor; these are the men and women that keep the peace and occasionally wipe out bandits. Likewise, the Stormcloaks are supposed to be scrappy rebels, not a proper army.
Bottom line: You're awesome! Thanks big!
I like this insight into who the gaurds really are:))
I noticed that you compressed your textures with BC1/BC3. They are old formats that have the advantage that they are supported by DX9 games like Skyrim LE, but since Skyrim SE is based on DirectX 11 it supports newer formats like BC7, which offer much better quality at the same size as BC3.
At the moment the textures are compressed like this:
dawnstarsymbol.dds
mipLevels = 12
format = BC1_UNORM
falkreathsymbol.dds
mipLevels = 12
format = BC1_UNORM
hjaalmarchsymbol.dds
mipLevels = 12
format = BC1_UNORM
markarthsymbol.dds
mipLevels = 12
format = BC1_UNORM
riftensymbol.dds
mipLevels = 12
format = BC1_UNORM
solitudesymbol.dds
mipLevels = 12
format = BC1_UNORM
stormcloaksshield.dds
mipLevels = 1
format = BC1_UNORM
stormcloaksshield_n.dds
mipLevels = 1
format = BC3_UNORM
whiterunsymbol.dds
mipLevels = 12
format = BC1_UNORM
windhelmsymbol.dds
mipLevels = 1
format = BC1_UNORM
winterholdsymbol.dds
mipLevels = 12
format = BC1_UNORM
--------------------------------------------
As you see some textures are missing mipmaps, that leads to slightly smaller files, but at the cost of more VRAM.
If you still have the originals consider releasing them compressed with BC7 for better quality or at least releasing the textures uncompressed so that we can recompress them ourselves.
In case you no longer have the originals, we can reconstruct them using ESRGAN. So if you need them I can give you the reconstructed files, but the originals are of course always better.
Thank you for reading this.
I do these textures for LE originally and post them here mostly because they also work just fine.
I'll take a look at BC7, thanks
I am using e.g. GIMP 2 (which shall meanwhile enable BC7, too - but not yet tried myself) and export as DXT1 with mipmaps. As always ElSopa's textures are a bit too bright by my taste and I changed some symbol colours very slightly e.g. desaturated the way too intense blue of the Windhelm symbol. But that is personal taste and others may prefer the complete opposite.
Anyway, all thanks and thumbs up to ElSopa for providing such great and easy to change textures.
Here some examples of mine - you can easily change by your own taste via Gimp 2, which is freeware:
https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/1704/38410720-1559729160.jpg
https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/1704/38410720-1559729266.jpg
https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/1704/38410720-1559728729.jpg
https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/1704/38410720-1559728818.jpg
TBH your Solitude looks better
https://gofile.io/?c=bnwW2Y
I found an option to enable BC7 for GIMP 2 and tested it on these shields. The results are disappointing when consuming DXT1 sources. If I enable Gimp 2 to consume DDS in BC7 format via DirectXTex and a phyton script named ‘file-dds-texconv.py’, the import of all DDS formats does not display layers anymore, which is essential to verify given mipmaps. Also converting the Guard Shields with given DXT1 resolution into BC7 doubles their size without any gain of quality.
I therefore decided to leave the above provided darker version of ElSopa’s Guard Shields as DXT1 format but ensured that all have now mipmaps. Only the ‘n’-file is in DXT5 to enable display through all mipmaps, therefore this is the only file of larger size. I darkened the shields by personal taste and modified the colouring slightly.
If you like neither the Guard Shields as bright as provided by ElSopa nor with the colours as provided by me, I highly recommend to use the freeware Gimp 2 yourself, add the DDS plugin, which is also free – and modify the Guard Shields by your very own personal taste. It’s actually quite easy.
BC3 takes twice as much space as BC1 does. BC7 takes exactly as much space as BC3 does.
Recompression an already compressed file, is a bad idea. You only loose more detail. You either need to compress the original file with BC7, or try to reverse the BC1 compression with a tool like ESRGAN. Just in case you haven't seen them, here are some examples by intel for BC3 and BC7 (fine) compression.
BC3:
BC7 (fine):
BC1/3 images are always compressed in blocks of 4x4 pixels, but what differentiates BC1 and BC7 compression is that for BC1 each block is compressed the same, while BC7 chooses different bit ratios to compress each block. If you want more, here is a detailed explanation for each block compression type for DDS files by Microsoft.
So we can come to 4 conclusions:
1. resaving a lossy compressed file in any other lossy format including itself makes no sense and will degrade the texture further.
2. Saving a modified version of the BC1 compressed texture can make sense to reduce further degradation.
3. Try to use a modern compression method if possible in the first place, since it preserves image quality a lot better.
4. Ideally keep a lossless compressed version of each texture, so that if a new algorithm comes out that provides better results, you can come back to it later. Also, if the lossless version gets published, people who want to edit it will have an easier time. (Tools like CAO (Cathedral Asset Optimizer)) are able to make good choices depending on the game given a lossless file. CAO v5 will support LE and SE by the way.
(and I never really understood how the update system works tbh)