PART1: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1271620-aageons-hq-texture-pack-wip/

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 more detailed and 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.

14/11 Teaser 2 Video 1080p:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khIjs3nYE8s

10/12: Mountains (AGAIN ): Due to requests for vanilla: Combined my view on the mountains and took the vanilla design as a reference: added bigger cracks and mountain veins, lowered the brightness, took some detail out of my texture to make it a little smoother. So it's now a little of both worlds
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TESV2011-12-1022-35-41-24.png
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TESV2011-12-1022-35-59-75.png
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TESV2011-12-1022-38-08-98.png
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TESV2011-12-1022-40-51-20.png

10/12: Mountains: Smaller update: --> Decreased the brightness a bit, added a bit of color, removed some detail, cracks are now darker.
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TESV2011-12-0923-36-32-59.png
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TESV2011-12-0923-35-29-38.png
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TESV2011-12-0923-35-53-83.png
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/TESV2011-12-0923-36-16-37.png

9/12: Stone Texture Update (Big One): --> Softer "Stone Layers", added more details and added shadows, reworked the texture so it blends a lot better with the mountain models and creates the illusion that the stone is rounder on the edges, redone the normals and now offer better depth and much smoother top snow to create that realistic feel. --> Note: I'm going to trim the details down a bit.
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/stu9-12-1.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/stu9-12-2.jpg

8-12: Update: Texture Progress:
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/tr8-12-2.jpg --> Still needs a few tweaks. (note: Still working on the Rocks/Mountains normals)
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/tr8-12-1.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/130layer.jpg ---> 130 layers: hand drawn texture: total time: 2 days of work

7/12 - Bridge Preview:
UPDATE:http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/te7-12-1.jpg
{OLDER} http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/te7-11-1.jpg --> Need to add a little fake depth to it.

4/12: 1080p Teaser Vid!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMO605s8SPA

3/12 Quick Peek: (1920x Comparison) (Updated)
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/stprev-1920-1.jpg --> Snow Beach Texture: Added wet stones, lesser wet layers and created an artificial depth for the stones
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/stprev-1920-2.jpg --> Improved snow and footsteps now face the correct way
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/stprev-1920-3.jpg --> Original Glacier texture was bland and didn't illuminate like real glaciers (a bit too much depth atm): http://files.sharenator.com/Margerie_Glacier_Winter_A_Beauty_Of_Earth-s2000x2000-36883.jpg

22/11: Water Update Screens + Vid:
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/wat-test1.jpg --> little note: the bridge texture is a placeholder ;p
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/wat-test2.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/AaGeOn/wat-test3.jpg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPKS_WxixAQ

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 - ETA: When It's Done

Nice, looking good. Loved your minecraft work !

Video uploaded of the water and welcome to Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPKS_WxixAQ

woops all 3 water images was linked to the same image: fixed now

not really digging the water, man :\ I don't know what. just doesn't seem wave like enough, as in it looks like it's barely moving/calm river. it needs to be more ferocious (imho)
i'm trying to find a good HD video of what I mean.

all i'm getting is tacky rock ballads and religious stuff. and twilight....

even google doesn't come up with anything decent. if only we had full on proper 3D waves. Some of the rivers in this game need to be edited, made wider and or shallower/deeper.

I love that water, for the exact reason stonesour seems to dislike it. All the water textures out now make everything look too turbulent, imo.

it would look nice in the lakes/resevoirs as they'd be relatively calm. I wonder if we'll be able to change the speed of some areas of rivers when the CK is released.

Good work, it looks amazing !

looking really good, I like where it's going, great job.

Sweet. I'm not big on water (not your replacer, I just don't care about water in any game, how they come in vanilla, as long as it doesn't look very very svcky), but I do enjoy the terrain and other object textures. Skyrim should look magnitudes better than Oblivion, but it's not, so I'm glad you're doing a HQ texture pack.

I've seen another water texture replacer and the same effect happened. I think the larger texture makes the ripples smaller which makes the water look a lot calmer. Maybe Im wrong? I think I also like the bigger ripples in the original. Waters a tricky one to tweak I think.

That place has less ripples than the lakes, the lakes have larger ripples, I'll make a small video later on. (fixed that with the overlay normal and water effects)

Of all the texture WiPs, this is the one that is most appealing to me and the one I'm probably going to use.

Good work!

Great work. If I can give a suggestion, Imho the meshes mostly in need of retexturing are objects, apparel and houses. Landscape texture are bearable because you're not going to look up at them from close distance. Weapons, armor, clothes... I think textures are actually worse than in Oblivion while you spend most of the time looking at them

I will get to them eventually Well I'm more of an exploration type of gamer and the first thing I noticed was the outdoor textures, that's why I began with those

Your new textures look really nice, I have bookmarked this thread and Im looking forward to the release and the point when most of skyrim is updated to your high res textures

Once again big big kudos

Imo, in a game like TES, the outdoor textures are even more important.

Yeah, and some outdoor textures are really low res, like some rocks.

Keep up the amazing work! Following this thread every day!

A true fan ;p

Awesome job so far! looking forward to the release.

As much as the outdoor textures are in major need of an overhaul (some of the rocks and trees up close are appalling) I really hope you dont get burnt out and do get the chance to rework the interior (dungeons/housing/etc) textures. The dungeons, caves, dwemer ruins, etc with these types of textures will be amazing.

Great work, keep it up!

are we in for any update pictures tonight Aageon? : )

maybe/maybe not, depends if I get the texture finished. It was kind of a busy day today irl.

Ahh there's already a very nice water mod so I'm afraid I won't be able to choose! The rest are a no brainer since yours are far and above. Off the record, what's your opinion of Realistic Water Textures on the nexus?

So when this comes out, will I be able to use it instead of all the various ones that have been released (Whiterun, HQ Water, Vurts Flora Overhaul, etc.) or will this work with them?

Hey AaGeOn!
It's XSSheep from the minecraft forums, not sure if you would recognise me or not... Anyway, this is looking really good and I'll certainly try it out at least. I'm looking forward to it!

PS: Never knew you made texture packs for more... 'proper' 3D games either... Nice surprise.