Amazing complete mods for STALKER

[Tnecniv]

http://artistpavel.blogspot.com/

Shadow of Chernobyl:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-co...2009/downloads

Clear Sky:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/clear-sky-complete/downloads

Call of Pripyat:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/call-of-pr...lete/downloads

I've only tried the SoC mod and so far I am VERY impressed. Visuals are vastly improved and haven't ran into any weird bugs or problems so far, it's like getting a new game for free. Works perfectly with Steam. Can't wait to try the other two complete mods when I get around to installing Clear Sky and Pripyat.

For anyone else who either plan to play the STALKER games for the first time, or revisit them, these mods are highly recommended. Each even comes with a convenient exe install for super easy setup, basically plug in and play!

[Favelle]

Nice finds man! The SoC is definitely worth the download!

[Tnecniv]

No doubt! IIRC, I mentioned these mods before in the PC thread but after finally trying it out for myself, was impressed, and thought that it deserved its own thread. Was so focused on mentioning the visuals, forgot to mention that they also reworked the AI, sound, music, and basically ironed out all the bugs-- of course I've only played the game for a short while but so far so good. Game is fun to play, beautiful to look at, and no bugs encountered yet. And my rig is pretty much running it all flawlessly at 60fps. They pretty much put the same care and attention into the Clear Sky, and Pripyat mods, so those should be a treat to play as well.

For those too lazy to click the link, the SoC mod is utilizing some Crysis tech in it (graphics section):

Natural lighting, vast panoramic views, depth of field, parallax mapping, SSAO, over 900 reworked texture files, including vehicles and armor suites with manual bump editing, you won't believe it's the same game.

Summary:

Weather:

Developed by a professional art studio, the weather system in Stalker Complete 2009 is a pinnacle of visual game design. It features work by several artists including challenge winners from conceptart.org (the largest concept art community which produces works for games and movie industries). It’s based on the same elements and principles found in representational art such as aerial perspective, composition, balance, and color theory, to name a few. The key features include:

Natural multi-phase day and night transitions, based on daily observations, photographs, and studies by artists from Dolgov Studios

Vast distant views, creating large open world around the player.

New multi-phase moon design authored by Dolgov Studios.

Proper sun travel according to date (01.05.2012) and geographic location (Ukraine).

Enhanced High Dynamic Range lighting and Sun effects (including realistic sunsets and sunrises).

Increased weather cycling.

Different types of storms, both fast and slow.

Wet surfaces during rain.

High resolution nighttime constellation map.

Improved water animations.

Graphics:

This mod takes full advantage of Shader Model 3.0 and introduces advanced shader technology first seen in the game “Crysis”. This tool allows creating close-to-life illusions of true relief and depth, in addition to adding rendering techniques creating an enormous difference in the way the game looks. Improvements include:

Parallax Occlusion Mapping - Gives 2D textures the illusion of 3D geometry, most visible on surfaces such as brick walls.

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion - a shading method, approximating the way light radiates in real life, creating soft shadows in corners and hard to reach places.

Depth of Field - A shading method that approximates the way light radiates in real life, creating soft shadows in corner-type places with a difficult lighting sample.

Motion Blur - A streaking effect frequently used to show a sense of speed when the camera quickly moves around.

Particle system - Enhanced rendering of fire, explosions, smoke, muzzle, sparks, falling leaves, anomalies, fog, and more.

Water Shaders - Improved water effects ported from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky.

Fire Dynamic Lighting - Fire now illuminates the surroundings, casting dynamic shadows.

Textures:

This mod includes a texture overhaul featuring the “Photorealistic Zone”, a total rework of every texture in game by Argus over a nine month period. Special attention has been given to preserve the game’s original look while the original textures have been replaced with higher quality versions and manually bump-edited files. The textures are heavily optimized to reduce performance impact. Elements that are improved include:

Locations - All location textures have been replaced with higher quality photographs with partial use of original files and assets other games in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.

Living Creatures - Mutated creatures have soaking wet flesh showing through wounds, creating a disturbingly graphic effect. Also, all humans in Zone have been retouched down to even the finest details (armor, shoes, wrinkles, faces, even their eyeballs).

Vehicles - 20 year old vehicles in the Zone now appear realistically rusted and abandoned.

Bug Fixes:

The game’s notorious reputation of being a huge bugfest ends here. Over the past two years a joint community effort has accumulated fixes for most known bugs and crash to desktop exits left out by developers after patch 1.0005. With the release of the unofficial community patch, bug fixes and numerous positive gameplay tweaks are implemented, such as realistic weapons names, reduced head bobbing, increased actor’s height, increased inventory weight limit, extended quest times, and more.


Artificial Intelligence received major reworking:

New abilities - NPCs can avoid anomalies, remove dead bodies from camp sites, throw grenades, change armor, and even heal other NPCs. You can also give weapons and armor to NPCs by selling or dropping it near them and giving them privacy to equip them (NPC’s preferences may prevent them from accepting the items, however).

Early detection - removed the ability for NPC's to notice you at unrealistically large distances.

Stealth - Removed the ability for NPC’s to notice the player at unrealistically large distances.

Death panic - Reduced the sound distance of death cries (in the original game it caused the entire camp to alert once one member was hit, as it was set to be heard at a great distance).

Sound:

This mod replaces a massive amount of in-game sounds, including weapons, anomalies, equipment clatter, footsteps, nightlife, bullet fly-by sounds and more with higher quality versions. Also, the mod adds unique ambient sounds for each weather cycle. “Repetitive” NPCs will now only say their lines once (such as the “Get out of here, stalker” line), and hundreds of additional ambient sounds like bar kitchen cooking, nighttime horror sounds, fog sounds, and more have been added to the game, creating a more immersive audio experience.

Music:

The mod also adds a new music collection, featuring 84 new acoustic guitar compositions added to the existing set plus a few vocal songs in authentic language unique to each faction. This is the only music mod where compositions have been performed live and recorded specifically for this game by a musician (no MIDI or generic karaoke tracks were used). This is live music with human touch that blends seamlessly with the ambient soundtrack, and makes you want to spend more time by the campfire. Also, NPCs will now randomly play the harmonica in addition to the guitar. Finally, 19 authentic music tracks can be heard on the radio and from the megaphones throughout the Zone.

Localization:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is not exactly a textbook example when it comes to localization. Misspelled words, typos, grammatical errors, and humor lost in translation can be charming at times given the context, but creating unnecessary difficulty in understanding their meaning. Most of the text received a grammar-friendly rewrite, providing a much improved English localization.

User Interface:

A visual overhaul mod isn’t complete without a new, custom user interface. This is why we are proud to present our very own Main Menu, Loading Screen, and redesigned HUD. Created by our graphic design firm, the interface incorporates existing in-game art and photographs of actual Chernobyl disaster zone artifacts, adding a unique art style and authentic feel. Certain buttons have been conveniently reorganized for more intuitive access and new shortcuts added, such as ESC S which works like a “smart quick-save”, creating a separate save file with the level name, in-game date, and timestamp each time it’s used.

It truly is a COMPLETE mod in every sense of the word. To reiterate, the other complete mods for Clear Sky and Pripyat are just as awesomely detailed.

[hairlesswookiee]

Interesting. I've owned STALKER since 2008, and got a good 30 hours into it before my hard drive died on me. I've installed it several times with the full intention of completing, but just haven't been able to follow through. The original game is pretty awesome in its own rights, but these mods make it look like a fully polished perfect 10.

[Tnecniv]

Yes, I'm glad to be able to contribute these mods to those who are either long time players looking to go back, or newcomers looking to play for the first time, either way, I'm confident the mod will not disappoint. I'm a newcomer and fall in the latter category and was really happy with the results. Before installing the SoC mod, I did play the game in its original form and it indeed looked good for its age. But after installing the mod, I must say that, to me, it was a night and day difference. It was truly like playing a completely different game, I mean, the core gameplay and artwork is definitely still there, but the technical improvements are staggering and tasteful and really does make it feel like a polished 10/10 game IMO.

Also, to dive into some more technical aspects. My current rig is: gtx 570 (stock speeds), 2600k@4.5ghz, 8gb ddr3. I am running the complete mod, with everything maxed out, according to fraps, I am averaging between 70-120 fps. My monitor refreshes at 60hz so I don't see the benefits of the higher fps but nonetheless, the counter rarely dropped below 70, and hovered between 70 and 80 fps. My point is that, those with older rigs can use that as a benchmark. I'm thinking older rigs should have no problem maxing this mod out as well with very playable fps as it seems to have been coded very efficiently.

Excellent mods like this are what make me so happy I got back into PC gaming.

[Tnecniv]

Some quick rainy weather screens.

[Favelle]

Nice work man!!!

[Tnecniv]

Thanks man. Wish I could've provided some before/after shots but installed the complete mod before I could get the chance to do it.

I haven't installed them yet for Sky and Pripyat though so I'll definitely try to capture some before&afters for those two.

The weather, daytime/nightime cycles for the mod is very impressive, will also try to capture different weather, time of day caps.

Lastly, I've read that there is a new mod in the works that will recreate the game using cryengine2. Impressive feat, but these complete mods are already so good, that cryengine2 mod will have to be something really spectacular to make me want uninstall the complete mod.

Edit: Cryengine 2 mod preview plus vid:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/07/mo...n-cryengine-2/

[Favelle]

Ha ha, crazy Russians!!

[Tnecniv]

Damn, still haven't gotten around to trying the Complete Mods for Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat, lol, soon, I hope. In the meantime, here are some more nerdy Shadows of Chernobyl Complete Mod pics + custom SGSSA bits enabled:

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Maaan, Sparse Grid AA kills the framerate in this game (not to mention reached a new high of 86c!) but is oh so worth it, no jaggies anywhere whatsoever. LOL, already looking forward to gtx 770/780.

[Favelle]

That's unreal! Nice man!

[Tnecniv]

The complete mod is just a game changer, has given this game some long legs that's for sure!