Fallout 4: High Resolution Texture Pack (Free DLC) Is Now Available [Notification]

For those that haven't heard yet, as mentioned last week at their site here, Bethesda has released a High Resolution Texture Pack, that is now available for free, downloadable via Steam.

The graphic 'upgrade' includes 'native 1440p' textures [which means the textures themselves are 2560x1440 pixels in size - but remember, textures usually aren't displayed at Full Size, they are squished into say, the sides of a gun, or a sign or other things in the world - even if they cover a large wall in the game, they will usually not display 'at full native size' - and even if they do, they can be repeated ("tiled") to fill in the space of objects needed, in the game world - basically, 1440p textures should make the game look great]. It also includes Enhanced Draw Distancing and God-Ray tweaks [those glow-y, streaks of light, showing up especially when a source of light is behind something, such as the sun behind trees or buildings].

Now, up until this release, I personally was playing with SweetFX a lot in FO4, having fun increasing Sharpness and Shading, dealing with the Aliasing, taking Screenshots and 'Realistic Photos' and 'Close-Ups' (with Depth-Of-Field, etc) of some of the Characters in the game. These can be found here, at a slowly-growing Flickr page I started for The Blog. A couple examples of these, taken with 'SweetFX in ReShade' are just below - I look forward to what the entire game could possibly look like with the new High Resolution textures!

Fallout 4 - Mrs. Nordhagen, Settler I - SweetFX in ReShade
(GTAMblog7Photo SweetFX Preset, made available Soon™)
Click to see Full Size

Fallout 4 - Mrs. Nordhagen, Settler I - SweetFX in ReShade
(GTAMblog7Photo SweetFX Preset, made available Soon™)
Click to see Full Size

ReShade by Crosire (reshade.me)
SweetFX by CeeJay.dk (ceejay.dk)
Game Material by Bethesda Game Studios (bgs.bethsoft.com)
Captured by Troy from The Game Tips And More Blog

Since I don't actually have room for it on any of the drives I have Games on at the moment [which seems to always happen when something cool comes out, of course], I will be moving some things around and uninstalling other games I am not playing at the moment, to make room for this big fella...

It is an optional/separate "DLC" download, weighing in at a hefty 58GB installation through Steam. Once I get it going, I will be working on a QualityTest for it, comparing the graphic look between the two versions and what they really look like in-game - as well as the Performance Hit the Texture Pack creates - look for that coming post Soon™ if you are waiting to see what they look like or if it is 'worth the download'; but if you can't wait and want to get started seeing it yourself, go get it via Steam for free now, here.

This free download, by the way, is - in Bethesda's own words, "...a love letter to our amazing PC fans that have supported us – not just with Fallout 4, but across multiple decades and games...". 

Right back at ya', Beth! 

"Thank You" ~ Sincerely, The Game Tips And More Blog

Header and Footer Images captured by Bethesda, from their example screenshots of the High Resolution Texture Pack

GTAM Minute Tutorial - Editing Textures (Repairing A Deleted Branch In Leaves) with The GIMP

Playing around with editing textures for Minecraft (Tutorials on how to do that Coming Soon!) something happened that I think others would run into - it was a pretty minor/specific thing, but I'd like to share what I did and how I fixed it, just in case anyone ever runs into this little problem.

The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program, changed from General Image Manipulation Program) is a free editing application that is quite capable to stand up against most of the functions of Adobe's Photoshop and similar programs. Using it to edit the general Leaf texture portions of Minecraft's texture source, I accidentally selected and deleted a section of branch. Wanting to change the colour anyway, I replaced it but then thought that this might be something that could happen to other people, especially those new to graphic editing. I wanted to erase it again and record what I had done to repair the poor deleted branch and share it.

Perhaps for you it was deleted and then the file was saved, or perhaps you didn't notice it until a later step, where it was then inaccessible as a layer or similar problem. No matter what the situation, if anyone happens to run into this specific minor misfortune or even similar, it has spawned what will now become the first in a new series of videos I'd like to start, called Game Tips And More Minute Tutorials.

GTAM Minute Tutorials will be very short (60 seconds or less!) instructions showing how to do something very specific. I don't mean completing a quest or mission, I mean one thing, or at least a small number of steps, that complete one specific task. It may be editing or troubleshooting (the "And More" portion of this blog's namesake) or it may be how to jump high or shoot something in a specific game. Whatever it may be, in this time of short attention spans (who doesn't get crabby when the computer takes more than a second to do what you just told it?), all the tutorials/walkthroughs will be less than one minute. Really. Guaranteed! Not really.

In this tutorial, I show how to easily replace a deleted branch in a photo of leaves. That is something pretty specific; but the concepts presented, such as shading, blending and some general GIMP usage can be applied to many other situations and projects as well:

It is played back at 4x speed and states the steps being taken and basic concepts behind them. Being very specific in nature, not a lot of extra information is given, but this video is targeted towards people already editing [Minecraft textures for instance] and familiar with programs and games such as GIMP and Minecraft.
(I would like to do a full tutorial on how to extract, edit, import and save your own textures for use in Minecraft in the future)

Recorded with: Bandicam
- 'Rectangle On A Screen', 'For Edit Premiere/Sony Vegas' Preset
- 1280x720 (720p HD), 60fps, no Audio
- compressed to 720p, 30fps, 10Mbps, h.264/AVC for smaller upload size


Check back for more Game Tips And More Minute Tutorials in the future and See you in the games!