Part 2: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1286852-aageons-hq-texture-pack-wip-part-2/

Hi all,

First message on this forum. Well I'm making a texture pack for Skyrim. I've been modding games for years now, so Skyrim is my new victim.

AaGeOn's HQ Texture Pack:
This texture pack will cover most of Skyrims current textures with a much higher resolution textures(4-8x bigger). No stock photo's or any other photographic material will be used (only used for reference and inspiration ).
I create everything from scratch and hand edit all the Normal maps until the desired effect is reached. I sketch out every texture and build it layer per layer, so it takes a little more time than editing photo's,
but the result is total freedom in creating the textures. I want to keep the Skyrim feel alive, so I will mostly use the same Hue/saturation, almost the same color pallet to create all of my textures and will use the original textures as my reference..
I strive to deliver the same or better art quality like Bethesda gave us.


This texture pack will not come in one resolution like: only 2048x or 1024x, I look closely to where a texture is used and decide the resolution from there. There will be textures included of 4096x+ and the min. will be 1024x.

Video + Pics:
All shown textures below are WiP and not final, it doesn't represent the final version of the texture and are texture progress pictures.
Comments and suggestions are welcome, just remember the WiP screenshots do not represent the final version quality.
Final versions will end up in it's own section. Textures can change at any time.


Well here is my first texture Preview video and comparison (It's far from done and a lot is still a placeholder.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4bwneonB8k (15/11) --> OUTDATED

21/11 Update 2-3 (added more screens) :
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/snowtest1.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/snowtest2.jpg --> I didn't like the original at all, so it's a bit different.
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/snowtest3tree.jpg

21/11 Update Screens! (Also working on better texture blending so the transitions are smoother than the original textures):

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TEST20-11-0-1.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TEST20-11-1-1.jpg --> yellow leafs need a bit more saturation
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TEST20-11-2-1.jpg --> Big white flowers aren't finished yet, need detail.
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TEST20-11-3-1.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TEST20-11-4.jpg --> base texture, needs further detailing: yes it's going to be more wet
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TEST20-11-5.jpg

20/11 Update:
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/test20-11-0.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/test20-11-1.jpg --> leafs will be less saturated.
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/test20-11-2.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/test20-11-3.jpg --> Highly experimental --> might be edited and used elsewhere.

19/11 Update (More to come today) HQ Screens:

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/barkbark2.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/barkbark.jpg


Progress Update: 18/11 (More Screens to come):

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/barkev3.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/barkev3-close.png

Birch Update 17/11: --> Still needs Fine Tune

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/birchupclose.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/birchfinal.jpg

Comparison 16/11:
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/ncom1.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/ncom2.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/ncom3.jpg

Comparison 15/11:
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/com02.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/com03.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/com05.jpg

Preview release - 1/1.5 weeks! -- > Make that 2/2.5 weeks

Looks awesome so far. When do I get to use it?

Oh wow. Never expected you'd jump on Skyrim.

Great work on Bumpmaft, and good luck with SK. So far it seems you've stayed very true to the original style of the game and that is something I can appreciate.

Well I think a first preview release will be in 1/1.5 weeks.

Just had an eyegasm. Looking forward to being able to use this. Also, I loved your Minecraft work.

I applaud you on your work and I am sure the end product will be great and well worth a download, but am I the only one that can hardly notice a difference in the comparison pictures?

Never the less, great work mate and looking forward to full release.

Oh wow a Bumpmaft fan ;p. It's my goal to stay as close as possible to the original textures hue/saturation. They will be different without a doubt, but it will still have the Skyrim feel

Thanks, well this is just the beginning so there are still a lot of the original textures left, the most noticeable texture changes are those of the mountains (almost polished and complete).
I'll update this thread with some updates, it'll become more noticeable when it's more complete.

Is it possible to create the textures at 4x resolution and just downsize? If you are going to put in that kind of work might as well keep the source files huge. Also some textures ( actually many ) would benefit from a 4x increase.

Well I create all my textures (most of the texture) in 4096 x 4096, after that I downscale and create some extra details in the resolution I want, so yes it's possible. Well all the textures are 4x increased 1024x1024 original -> 2048x2048 texture pack. I should edit that in the OP.

Thank you, they look awesome.

I look forward to this!

Nice job. Those rock textures look very very nice indeed.

excellent! could you also comment on performance impact for those of us with ageing PCs? thanks

very cool

Nice work!

Forgot to mention that unless the texture has transparency like tree leaves you get the same results with DXT1 without the bloated file size.

VERY good work on this. Looking forward to this also.

Looks fantastic. I like that you're trying to keep true to the originals.

Would you mind sending me a PM when the beta is out? I want to make sure I don't miss out!

for those of you having performance probs, this game only uses 2 gigs of ram, theres a way to enable more if you google top 10 skyrim mods you'll find it.

Oh, sweet jebus, I love your stone textures. God, I can't wait for your first release!

giving my moral support, texture and UI modders will turn this game from a 9.0 to a 10 on the PC.

Good job!

I think the meshes in greatest need of retexturing are clothes, armors and house interiors... most of them seem to have texture of lower resolution than Oblivion

Clothes are somewhat of a different project, granted, but definitely interiors and structure stuff (wood planking, cabinet textures) are really appallingly awful as is.

Actually, are the Oblivion textures compatible (save file names, obviously)? I wonder if I can ninja some from Qarl's texture pack.