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2011-11-19													 http://www.hard-light.net/
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HLP Night Sky v.2.0 HIGH/MED/LOW 			A modification for Bethesda Softworks Game 		The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim


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1. CONTENTS


-starfield replacement			/data/textures/sky/skystars.dds				2048 x 2048 

-constellation texture replacements	/data/textures/sky/skyrimconstellations01.dds		1024 x 1024
					/data/textures/sky/skyrimconstellations02.dds		1024 x 1024
	
-galactic plane texture replacement	/data/textures/sky/skyrimgalaxy.dds

					either 	HIGH						8192 x 4096
					or 	MED						4096 x 2048
					or 	LOW						2048 x 1024

-readme.txt


___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. INSTALLATION



-Pick the version with desired detail level:

 * We recommend the Medium version for most users.

 * Low version is recommended for people with low amount of graphics memory

 * High version is recommended for people who are running Skyrim at very high resolution, such as with Eyefinity multi-monitor setup.

 * High is also recommended for adventurous people who just want to see if it actually improves the appearance of the galaxy at all.


- Extract "data" directory from the archive into your Skyrim installation directory.


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3. Issues


Texture shimmering

	Symptoms: 	High level of twinkling (or scintillation) present on the starfield, especially when panning the view.
	
	Cause:		FXAA (Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing) is disabled, the starfield texture is optimized for use with FXAA

	Solution:
			a) Enable FXAA from Skyrim Launcher's Advanced display settings
			b) Enable Supersampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) in GPU driver options

			c) Download and install HLP Night Sky SHIMMER FIX (contains a modified starfield that looks better with FXAA off)



Blurry starfield texture

	Symptoms:	Starfield is blurry and dim.

	Cause:		You are likely using FXAA with the starfield optimized for use without FXAA.

	Solution:	Disable FXAA, or revert to the big default HLP Night Sky starfield texture.




___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. PURPOSE OF MODIFICATION


To increase the visual quality of night sky starfields. Original resolution for starfield and constellation textures is 512 x 512, and the 
original galaxy texture is only 512 x 256 texture. It is probable that the original game assets have been optimized to look good with 
console displays, ie. televisions.

Televisions typically don't have quite as high resolution or pixel density as computer monitors, and therefore require quite large stars 
to remain visible. It is quite understandable that Bethesda has chosen to optimize the textures for the lowest common denominator, as the 
night sky textures don't exactly look bad on PC displays per se.

It's just that it can look so much better when taking advantage of the high resolution PC displays and using high resolution textures. 
Stars become crisp and more akin to point light sources they appear as on the night sky. There is also significantly more detail now on 
the galactic plane texture.


___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Information about assets


Constellation starfields have been re-built at higher resolution based on the retail constellation maps from retail Skyrim.

Starfield texture is entirely new, procedurally built starfield calibrated to blend well with the constellation textures.

Non-FXAA compatibility starfield is a smaller (cropped, not resized) version of the original starfield (and sans some of the brightest stars). It is also slightly different considering alpha channel management.

Galactic plane texture is based on Gigagalaxy Zoom / Astronomy Picture of the Day 2009 September 26th. Local stars as seen from Earth have 
been removed from it, along with certain other conspicuous bright objects, and the original texture was used as a mask and colour layer for 
an RGB noise layer, to construct a generic galactic plane texture that shares certain characteristics with Milky Way as seen from Earth, 
but then most spiral galaxies share those characteristics, and it seems Nirn is located in one such galaxy.



___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Changelog (integers denote releases, decimals denote test versions)




v.2.0	Fixed the streaks caused by the galaxy texture mapping

	Changed alpha channel management for starfield texture

	Changed alpha channel management for constellation textures	

	Reduced constellation textures to 1024 for improved constellation visibility and better VRAM usage

	Added optional starfield texture (separate download) for reducing the shimmering while not using FXAA




v.1.0	Initial release

	v.1.01	Scintillation reduction test with mip mapping

	v.1.02	Scintillation reduction test with a smaller starfield texture

	
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6. CREDITS


Constellation texture re-makes			Herra Tohtori

General starfield				Herra Tohtori

Galactic plane texture				Herra Tohtori

Upload and QA					Turambar




Source imagery for the galactic plane		European Southern Observatory / Serge Brunier, Frederic Tapissier

						Available at:
									http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0932a/
									http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090926.html




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