SKYRIM MODDING GUIDE Chapter 3: Graphics and Visual Skyrim Mods
One of the most impressive aspects of Skyrim is its beautiful and immersive world. However, the vanilla game's graphics and visuals can be somewhat lacking in modern standards. Luckily, the modding community has created an abundance of graphics and visual mods that enhance Skyrim's aesthetics to a breathtaking degree.
First and foremost, an ENB (Environment Not Included) mod is highly recommended for enhancing Skyrim's lighting and overall visual fidelity. ENBs are complex mods that require a bit of tweaking to find the perfect balance between performance and visuals, but the results are truly stunning.
In addition to an ENB, texture mods can provide a significant upgrade to Skyrim's visuals. The Skyrim 2020 Parallax mod overhauls almost every texture in the game to include 3D parallax effects, adding depth and immersion to everything from walls to grass. The Noble Skyrim Mod is another popular texture overhaul that provides a more realistic and detailed look to the game's architecture and landscapes.
One of the recommended mods is FN ENB, which is a fantasy-realism ENB preset built off of Suki's ENB for LE, ported and tweaked for NLA SSE. It is the author's personal ENB preset and aims to retain some of the high fantasy/realism achieved in the original mod while also having its own unique look.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/43998
Skyrim also benefits from mods that add new visual effects to the game. The Realistic Water Two mod improves Skyrim's water, making it appear more realistic and visually stunning. The Vivid Weathers mod adds a wide range of weather effects to the game, including blizzards, sandstorms, and rainbows.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2182
Cathedral Weathers and Seasons is another mod recommended in this chapter. It was founded on Obsidian Weathers and Aequinoctium, which are Skyrim's two most prolific weather authors. Cathedral Weathers is a demonstration of what can be achieved when the modding community cooperates and shares openly with each other. It is a comprehensive weather mod that features realistic weather patterns, lighting, and environmental effects.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/24791
Another mod recommended in this chapter is CleverCharffs All in One Texture Pack Skyrim. This texture pack is a subscriber request that includes everything Clever Chaff has done, including textures for cities, farmhouses, dungeons, mountains, castles, and miscellaneous items like lockpicks and smelters. The texture pack is designed to improve performance and viability by lowering the original resolution while maintaining the same quality.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/44650
Folkvangr is a mod that overhauls the game's grass and landscape textures. It adds new grass for each hold, as well as leaflitter in realistic places such as sticks, pinecones, and pine needles. The mod also includes matching landscape textures to provide better transitions. It is designed primarily for use with ENB, but players using the vanilla game may notice some grasses that look slightly out of place in terms of brightness.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/44899
Veydogolt Trees is a mod that replaces all the vanilla tree models with 278 new tree models. The aim is to provide a more immersive experience while exploring the woods and wilderness. The mod also includes an optional file that adds hand-placed new modeled trees throughout Skyrim. The 3D full models provided can be used for DynDOLOD3 3D tree LOD generation. For players who cannot or do not want to generate 3D LOD, ready-to-use 2D Tree Billboards are provided as an optional file. It should be noted that using this mod may result in a slight performance hit of 2-3 FPS, depending on the player's system and load order.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/62414
Finally, NPC overhaul mods can provide a much-needed upgrade to Skyrim's character models and appearances. The Bijin NPC mod improves the looks of many of Skyrim's female characters, while the Pandorable's NPCs mod enhances the appearances of both male and female NPCs.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/11287
Overall, graphics and visual mods can significantly enhance Skyrim's immersive world, making it feel more realistic and stunning. However, it is important to remember that installing too many graphics mods can impact game performance, so finding the right balance is key.
