Should I use AI retextures instead of manually made texture mods?

[4K_240hz_MLED]

A lot of the texture mods are barely better than vanilla on NexusMods, and while most AI retextures are boring too, I found one modder that truly made the textures look way better without it ruining the game's style nor being UE5 asset flip garbage. Sadly though, they seem to have only made retextures for Landscape and Rocks; I hope they eventually finish Wood, Clutter, Dungeon, and Architecture. They also have made AI retextures for Fur, Iron, and Dwarven equipment, but the rest haven't been done by them yet. I know they do these things for free and when they have the time, and I'm not in the best financial situation, so I can't just donate enough for them to speed up progress.

[AmaiAmai]

If you use AI you can call yourself virtuous...

[4K_240hz_MLED]

Originally posted by AmaiAmai:

If you use AI you can call yourself virtuous...

I'm only gonna use it for environmental textures (wood, rock, landscape, clutter, architecture, dungeons, vegetation), so textures meant for characters, equipment, objects, sky/weather, and effects I'll still go for handcrafted ones. Modders seem to put more effort in the latter set of textures anyways, while environmental is either an afterthought and/or changes the game for the worse.

The specific AI retextures I came across on NexusMods are an upscaling of the original vanilla, and done so in a way that is high fidelity without destroying Bethesda's vision. Other AI retextures I've come across lazily upscale it a little, yet it literally almost looks the same as the low res 2006 assets. Pretty much almost all manual environmental alternatives look so ugly to me, except for Really Textured Normal Maps.

[Lucidess]

If it was possible I would get AI to re-create everything in Oblivion, because it would be a lot better than what this 'remaster' has to offer. I'd rather not be looking at super-realistic yet wide-eyed misshapen faces that hardly look at you. I'd rather have a literal re-imagination of it, which is what AI pretty much does.

I searched 'Elder Scrolls Glass Armor' in an image search, and it shows some amazing looking Glass armor, and same goes for all the other armor.

[4K_240hz_MLED]

Originally posted by Lucidess:

If it was possible I would get AI to re-create everything in Oblivion, because it would be a lot better than what this 'remaster' has to offer. I'd rather not be looking at super-realistic yet wide-eyed misshapen faces that hardly look at you. I'd rather have a literal re-imagination of it, which is what AI pretty much does.

I searched 'Elder Scrolls Glass Armor' in an image search, and it shows some amazing looking Glass armor, and same goes for all the other armor.

well there is RTX Remix, but you obviously need a RTX GPU for that, and it'll also add path tracing which will lag the game so hard