Detailed Terrain updates the technology used to render the game's terrain textures. The traditional shader simply fades from one texture to the next, creating ugly, muddy looking transitions in many areas. The new shader uses alpha information added to each landscape texture to mask the textures when they are blended with the textures below them, producing crisp beautiful transitions that give the illusion of much greater detail in texture application. What's more, this effect is achieved with practically no impact on performance!

http://detailedterrain.com/index.php?page=comp
http://detailedterrain.com/index.php?page=guide

Bug Reports
This is the second phase beta release of this mod. Many issues identified in the first phase of beta testing have been addressed, but more are likely to come to light with additional testing. Please post bug reports in one of our threads:

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=811706
http://canadianice.ufrealms.net/forum2/index.php?topic=8234.0
http://www.multimediaxis.de/showthread.php?t=104357

Known Issues
Issue: Blood splatters on the ground flicker in some situations.
Status: These issues should be greatly reduced in this version.

Issue: Some rocks are partly transparent when fading in to view.
Status: No practical fix is available for this issue at this time.

Texture Packs
Texture packs provide support for Detailed Terrain with mods and other optional content. These texture packs replace the textures that come with the mod in question, in much the same was as the base Detailed Terrain mod overrides the core game's landscape textures. You must have the main Detailed Terrain mod installed to use these texture packs.

Credits & Thanks
Algorithm & Textures: ChainsawXIV
Shader Implementation: Zeroed

The textures included in the core mod are based on the terrain textures in http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2363. They have been updated with alpha channels, normal maps that reduced tiling, and specular maps. QTP is not required to use this mod.

The textures included in the Unique Landscapes texture pack are based on the textures in the Unique Landscape mods: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.Detail&id=1513 by Addiktive, and http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.detail&id=3346 and http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2741 by Malachit.

The textures included in the Shivering Isles texture pack are based on http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=768108, by Bomret. They have been updated with alpha channels, normal maps that show reduced tiling, and specular maps.

Shader Patch
Some users have continued to experience issues with blood decals flickering with each other, or with the terrain itself. Zeroed has created a shader patch which may help resolve or reduce this issue. It is available as a separate download at TES Nexus and PES, and is not included in the base package. Note that this is the same patch file that has been available for more than a year, but it has now been posted with the rest of the files to make sure it's readily available for anyone who needs it.

Version Notes
Version 0.4 ? Beta II ? February 25, 2008
- Adjusted all landscape normal maps to eliminate the appearance of tiling.
- Added specular data for many textures that were missing this information.
- Fixed some missing mip-maps that were appearing as black at oblique angles.
- Blood splatters should no longer be masked by the terrain masks under them.
- Incidents of flickering blood splatters should be significantly reduced.
- The mod now modifies fewer shaders, reducing potential future conflicts.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3939
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15245
http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=285

When will be the next release?

Could be done a Reduced version?

Great work, by the way.

The next release is tentatively scheduled for Monday (February 25th). We may choose to delay that depending on out ability to resolve the known issues, and any issues reported between now and then.

So far, users with lower end hardware have reported good performance, indicating that no reduced version is needed. If further testing reveals a need for this however, a reduced version would be easy to produce.

No bugs so far for me. But I haven't had a real chance to play Oblivion since I installed this. :violin:

I read the other thread and I'm still not clear on how this will affect people that use vanilla textures. Does the following text describe the situation?



If that is correct, then you might want to add it to the opening post.

Thank you for the suggestion. While your indented statement is more or less accurate (to tell the whole truth, even if it were allowed I'd have no desire to process another 150 redundant textures ), I think it would confuse more people than it helped. The mod comes with a full set of textures for Tamriel, so there's effectively no such thing as running the mod with vanilla textures. If a user knows enough to pick the mod apart and remove the provided textures, then they shouldn't be surprised when the effect doesn't work.

But if I'm correctly interpreting what I have read in these threads so far, you simply reused Qarl's landscape textures and didn't come up with your own set of textures. Correct? If that was spelled out in the first few sentences of the mod description, then people that don't like Qarl's textures wouldn't waste their time downloading it. Just my 2 cents.

The textures used are derived from Qarl's. This is described in the credits section of the description, and that paragraph also serves to inform the small segment of the player base who find Qarl's objectionable visually. In an earlier version of the text, the mention of Qarl's was part of the main description, and generated confusion as to whether QTP was required, compatible, and so forth. I think the current arrangement is an improvement on that, but of course I'll continue to try to make things clearer.

Will this work fine with QTP3 redimized?

Yes. The same instructions listed on the download page will work for any version of QTP. Just make sure that when you install Detailed Terrain, you allow the new textures to overwrite the ones from Qarl's. The textures look basically the same, but contain extra data used by the Detailed Terrain shader.

is there a fix yet for the flickering blood on the ground that appears when I strike an opponent?

Ok, the same questions keep coming up OVER and OVER. Somthing needs to be done. I suggest adding the following to the first post to make it blindingly obvious.

"This mod comes with a full set of terrain textures based on Qarls Texture Pack 3. Qarls Texture Pack III is not needed to run this mod, it contains all the textures it needs. These new textures will overwrite any terrain textures you currently have installed (vanilla, reduced, redimized, or otherwise) with these new versions."

3 days to go! :dance:

If you're willing to test the latest version of the shader replacement, then you can get a newer version here:
http://hosted.filefront.com/Zeroed/

That should solve both blood problems (with any luck).

EDIT: I've just realised that there's a problem with that shader and so removed it. Will upload when i've corrected it.
EDIT2: fixed version uploaded. On closer inspection the flickering blood is still there slightly, but seems better. The other blood (masking) problem should be fixed, but might create further problems. Let me know how it goes.

okay ill test the new shaders for you!
Edit: Well the fix works for the most part, i dont see any blood flickering on sand or grass but it still flickers in snowy terrain. That is all that i have found so far.

I've updated the known issues listing for the rocks that fade in oddly. After thoroughly examining the issue and potential fixes, I don't think any of them are practical. Resolving the issue properly would increase the download size by around a hundred megs, and have a negative impact on game performance. It would also require including about 250 otherwise unchanged NIFs in the mod, which would increase conflict issues with other mods. Given all of that, and the fact that this isn't something anyone other than me has even bothered to mention, I've decided to let it be for the time being.

have you completely figured out the issue with the blood yet?

The Beta II version is now available and ready for testing. Given the issues that have been discovered so far, Zeroed and I both felt that further testing was in order, but we wanted to distribute all the fixes and upgrades that have been created over the past two weeks. Thus, I give you version 0.4, beta phase two.

Version 0.4 ? Beta II ? February 25, 2008
- Adjusted all landscape normal maps to eliminate the appearance of tiling.
- Added specular data for many textures that were missing this information.
- Fixed some missing mip-maps that were appearing as black at oblique angles.
- Blood splatters should no longer be masked by the terrain masks under them.
- Incidents of flickering blood splatters should be significantly reduced.
- The mod now modifies fewer shaders, reducing potential future conflicts.

I've also set up a http://detailedterrain.com/ for the mod which consolidates the comparison screenshots page and the modder's guide page, and adds a layer database which tracks the various terrain textures and assigns them sorting weights as discussed previously with ElminsterEU. I'll be adding a front page to it in the future with all the same introduction type content as the first post here.

Cool, thanks for the update. I'll switch it in right now.

The Planet Elder Scrolls file download is now updated to Beta II.

Thanks for the upgrade!

Beta 2 is looking great and seems to be smoother in operation

Can anyone confirm that this fixes the blood problem with MMM loaded...I wish I could use this but since it use qtp3 textures it put too much strain on my machine..

Will this work with Bomret Normal Maps, I assume not..?

Chainsaw - does Beta II include a fix for the tiling issue I reported with Chorrol landscapes ?

CorePC - if I understand it correctly it's replace some but not all of the QTP3 textures so there should not be too much extra load - (I'm not seeing if installed over QTP3 redimized) As for the blood problem if you mean the blood effect with MMM if never seen any problem with that - if it the blood decals (which are in vanilla ) with the old version I used to get a flicker and then it was fine , new version I'll have to report back on