Fabulist961 wrote...
Dead_Meat357 wrote...
That's the old version. Here is the newer one. The new one actually has normal maps and light maps included. The texture is a little different as well. The main fix, being that with the scope's numbering being made clearer and consistent between the two rifles still exists. Most importantly though, the regular M-98 Widow in the new version is better than the last one. (I think anyway.) It saw the most changes.
I followed the link posted by smarteck in the main page - I should have looked in the Texture Mods Group.
The Widows look fantastic and the missile launcher looks fantastic too, I do not know if a "darker" version will look better, but this one is amazing.
Thanks for all your hard work, I will be impatiently waiting for more goodies!
@ smarteck
The N7 special looks 
However, the size is significantly reduced; did it suffer any quality loss?
@ GoldenSkans9
Really looking forward for a Geth HD pack!
Smartek can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he uses smaller light maps and smaller normal maps than I do. Loss of quality is debatable. Some see it, some don't. But with .DDS files cutting the resolution of a texture in half cuts it's size in half. I believe his normal maps and light maps are 1024x1024 and 2048x2048 or 512x512 and 1024x1024 respectively. I'm not sure which. I don't go pulling apart all his mods. In fact I use most of his mods as they are.
I use light maps which are the same size as the texture as I feel that yields the best quality. Normal maps I tend to increase to 4x their original size, but that varies. Some, like Shepard's armors seem to look better to me with 2048x2048 normal maps. But then again that varies. I'd say it's true of the Collector Armor and the N7 Defender, but not true of the Blood Dragon armor and some others. In fact, using the N7 Defender in a .TGA version instead of .DDS still yields higher quality as it always has. That texture is very sensitive to changes. But I opted for .DDS for performance reasons.
You can take my mods apart with .TPF extractor and reduce their file sizes if you want to, if you feel that the higher quality isn't needed. On 1920x1080 setups and lower, that might actually be the case. I make everything look good at 2560x1600 for me. But it is easier to take a higher quality image and reduce it, then to take a lower quality one and increase it. Hence the reason we go to such great lengths making these textures. The pitiful 1024x1024 (or worse) textures with their 512x512 (and sometimes worse) light maps, and 256x256 (or worse, yes there is worse) normal maps the game uses by default are just sad. They should have used 2048x2048 or higher textures and then scaled them back for the console releases. Seriously, you can use a batch program to do that. Not a lot of work at all.
Of course the actual main texture is the most important factor in making the objects in game look good. Secondly is the light map, thirdly is the normal map. In fact many textures still look pretty good with stock normal maps. But the light map differences can obscure detail. Especially in the more complex textures like my Ashley and Liara mods which have a lot of little surface scratches on their armor. I sort of backed myself into a corner with those as the base textures I've chosen to use for modding are often quite sensitive to changes. Or maybe it's just that I see things looking at them all the time. One thing is for certain, Ashley and Liara's mods look a lot better with proper light maps and normal maps.
And yeah, I'm surprised no one tackled the Geth before now. I've thought about it and even pulled some of the textures to do it, but I haven't got around to it yet.
Updates:Oh and separation of the Black Widow and M-98 Widow did the trick. I also improved the M-98 Widow's texture again. Just keep in mind that using both of them effectively cancels out the lower priority one in the list as BioWare has them using the same file. I figure most will use the Black Widow over the M-98 as I do, so I've named the files to automatically create priority for the Black Widow if you ever load both.
Screenshots of the improved widow rifles is incoming. The Black Widow is essentially unchanged in texture and light maps, but it now has a normal map of it's own. So it should look a little better than it did though I don't expect the difference to be earth shattering. The M-98 on the other hand is substantially improved again.
I've also now updated Ashley to 1.4 with much improved shoulder texturing and I did a bit of work on the chest plate making the same improvement where the shoulder texture was used. I have also done the same with Liara's armor. Both have had their forearm textures redone. That protective pad never looked right to me, so I've fixed that for both.
I updated my earlier post with new screenshots and download links to the new versions. Now that I think I'm happy with what I've done so far, I'll move on to other mods. I'll probably finish the Collector armor first, then anything else I've got going.
Modifié par Dead_Meat357, 19 juillet 2012 - 05:27 .
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