Graphical Enhancement 3 - updated 13/12

[Zaro]

This mod has not yet been released. All graphics are a work-in-progress and in somewhat of an alpha state, if that.

The plain is to change most to all textures (terrain, buildings, armours etc), to modifying battle and campaign maps, map icons, scenes and meshes (vegetation, map icons, buildings) to produce a more visually interesting environment.

Done + to do:

World Map

Textures barely touched, and need to replace all map icons. At some point, I'll also redo the map itself.

Scenes

Town scenes: Most of the building meshes are mostly complete (details still to be added), but only have placeholder textures. I'm going for a different look to native (and far larger), so I'll have to do towns from scratch. There are 19 towns and I'm not going to do them all, so I might do 4 or so towns between the non-Khergit factions. The clones will have adjusted layouts, features etc to significantly lessen the clone effect.

Castle scenes: Barely started. I'd like to keep castles unique, and since there are 40 or so of them I might just adjust the native scenes.

Village scenes: Not started. These will have buildings specifically for villages. Like towns, these also need to be done from scratch, but since there's over 100 of them they're not going to be unique (I don't think villages need to be). I'll create about half a dozen versions.

Interior scenes: Mostly finished layout and item palcement, but the textures are mainly placeholders or need a lot of work.

Landscape

The ground textures need adjustment and polishing. The vegetation is still only basic and needs variation (different plants, colours and height), plus bushes to break up the grass more. The backdrop (outer terrain) hasn't really been started, as the one I've shown previously was just a placeholder. The skyboxes haven't yet been touched (except in the shots from the original game).

Items

Generally darker and dirtier. Metal will be darker (which I think is more realistic - mail didn't shine like stainless steel), clothing will show wear, etc.

Indoor textures: barely done. Placeholder textures mainly.

UI/menu

These will be redone in something more suitable for this mod and at a higher resolution.

Other

Faces need polishing.


Some early work in Warband

Landscapes:











Faces will be redone:



Unfinished town scene:



Castle:



Some work on the Hall scene (still a work in progress):



Tavern. Again, still a work in progress. Note that the lighting here is an issue with Warband, not with the mod.



Dungeon. Mostly done I think.





Early building + town work









Some work on the original game (so no HDR):











Old work from '08:

I'll redo map icons, for now here's something I did ages ago. Imagine a western medieval equivalent.

[Muglos]

Nice.

[HokieBT]

very nice

[Omzdog]

Nice nice... is this without photoshot touch-up?

[Justiciar]

Good job, as ever. I'm glad to see you're still applying your skills to this game, even if your interest is ebbing.

[Ruthven]

[Pali Gap]

Ah, man.  Ah, man.  This is good stuff.  Truly.

[Zaro]

Nice nice... is this without photoshot touch-up?

No, except the armour with the surcoat. That one had a filter put through it which gives a bloomy-type effect. The screenshots here won't include touching up or HDR unless I state otherwise.

even if your interest is ebbing.

Not so much for the graphical side of things.

[Nekrid00]

Zaro you over pass the expectations!
Your mods should come packed together with the game; like some sort of high-end quality official add-on. Beautiful.

[atolest]

wow it's a perfect work

[Gerin]

I really need a dual core with a ton of RAM and a nice Nvidia card.  Your GE package murders my frame rates, but it's beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, the females really are nice.  Is there any chance that you'll be redoing their panties to include thongs? 

[RobinHood]

The games been so much more fun to play with your GE.
No more auo-generated maps with high and low hillpoints.
Still the'res many maps that can cause trouble to cavalry, if
infantry are stationed correctly.
Graphics are also so much better, but liked it best without HDR.
It looks really beutiful in HDR on those battlefields, but the interface is
blinding my eyes, and inside places are dark as hell.
I can adjust settings, but either it gets to dark one place, or to light another.
Should work different dependent on where you are, to make it look realistic.

Another thing is, There seems to be extremely dense layers of grass some places.
I can easily play on the same map with several hundrer people, but when I go close to special places with much grass it lags
alot, also if there's only 10 people.
I have 3gb ram and geeforce 8600gt 256mb.
Maybe it's my processor, it is 1.86gHz dual core.
Other than the to dense grass a few random places, my comp runs it fine, usually (it lagged in 1.003 with very big numbers, but haven't noticed it now, still haven't played with more than 300 or something).

Still awesome work.

[D'Sparil]

I'm particularly impressed by this pic, great work.

[Zaro]

Is there any chance that you'll be redoing their panties to include thongs?

Maybe, if I'm really struggling to find things to do .

No more auo-generated maps with high and low hillpoints

I haven't done anything to change that (it requires some editing of a file), but it might be something for me to include.

I don't use HDR myself, and haven't bothered to keep up with the thread that discussed settings. I haven't been offering full support for it, i.e. making sure the settings are properly balances. I might take another look at it for the next version, but my main aim is to get the game looking good without needing the hdr mod.

There seems to be extremely dense layers of grass some places

Yes, which is why the thick grass is optional.

I'm particularly impressed by this pic

The normal map is pretty rough (look at the arms and legs - ugh) but it shows the potential. I've still got to figure out how to add the custom shaders as none of the native ones support normals and alpha/specular.

[grailknighthero]

Amazing work Zaro, as usual.