Beautiful Skyrim

[ElioraArin]

Is anyone else becoming increasingly appreciative of how Skyrim has become such a form of creativity & self expression? Looking at some mods, & specifically the user uploaded screenshots in the image sections, it is an enjoyable activity just viewing the highly personalised characters & world spaces that people have been able to create with the mods that are available to them. Honestly some peoples games look like works of fantasy art that I just want to jump into & explore!

[fi5h1fishy]

I've been playing Skyrim for 4 years and I still appreciate how sexy it looks even to this day. I tend to swap texture overhaul mods and ENB's every once in a while just to ensure I don't get bored of the same visuals! ;) But yes the game is beautiful all thanks to our favourite modders. Going back to the vanilla game makes me cry to myself. I doubt the next Elder Scrolls game is going to be able to match the visuals of some of the mods produced for Skyrim ;)

[twiztedmongoloid]

It is amazing period what you can turn the game into with mods.

[Brataccas]

I think people are too harsh on vanilla Skyrim. I run it with an ENB (currently SnowFall - stunning!), Enhanced Blood, Relighting Skyrim/ELE Lite, WATER and KS Hairdos Lite and that's it for the visual mods - I've tried Noble and Skyrim HD and they're great but not a significant enough improvement from the Bethesda High-Res textures for me to consistently keep them in my load order.

 

Same goes for aMidianBorn and other texture replacers - I really respect the quality of the work but then I also respect the quality of the originals.

 

In my opinion, the biggest visual issues with vanilla Skyrim are the lighting (which makes the texturing look far worse than it actually is), the hair (which looked dated when the game came out) and the water (which was shockingly bad for a professional developer even back then) - fix those issues and the game looks a thousand times better.

 

But that's the best thing about modding - everyone has their own idea of what the 'perfect' Skyrim should be and thanks to the mod-authors there's a good chance you might just be able to build your own perfect Skyrim :)

[Boombro]

While base skyrim has bad visuals, the landscaping is dame good.

 

And yeah, Tetrachromatic ENB is my drug. If you rig is good, you have to try it.

 

 

 

 

I doubt the next Elder Scrolls game is going to be able to match the visuals of some of the mods produced for Skyrim :wink:

Since the next TES may not come out for a very long long while, I guess it a safe bet that it will look better than base skyrim.

[twiztedmongoloid]

I think people are too harsh on vanilla Skyrim. I run it with an ENB (currently SnowFall - stunning!), Enhanced Blood, Relighting Skyrim/ELE Lite, WATER and KS Hairdos Lite and that's it for the visual mods - I've tried Noble and Skyrim HD and they're great but not a significant enough improvement from the Bethesda High-Res textures for me to consistently keep them in my load order.

 

Same goes for aMidianBorn and other texture replacers - I really respect the quality of the work but then I also respect the quality of the originals.

 

In my opinion, the biggest visual issues with vanilla Skyrim are the lighting (which makes the texturing look far worse than it actually is), the hair (which looked dated when the game came out) and the water (which was shockingly bad for a professional developer even back then) - fix those issues and the game looks a thousand times better.

 

But that's the best thing about modding - everyone has their own idea of what the 'perfect' Skyrim should be and thanks to the mod-authors there's a good chance you might just be able to build your own perfect Skyrim :smile:

 

Noble skyrim looks 10X better than the HI RES DLC. The difference is huge. The base game textures are awful especially in comparison to anything from amidian and noble skyrim. Vivid landscapes is fantastic as well.

 

SMIM + noble skyrim + Vivid landscapes + majority and gamwich and amdianborn stuff make up the vast majority of the textures i use in all my mod setups for skyrim. HUGE difference compared to the vanilla textures. saying otherwise is complete nonsense.

 

Agree with you on the water and lighting tho. ENB with new water textures alone can make skyrim look A LOT better.

[Moksha8088]

I have been playing both Fallout 4 and Skyrim. I wish the NPCs could look as good in FO4 as Skyrim. The landscape never will be as good due to it being a post-apocalyptic ruin, but it does look much better with both tree and grass mods.

 

I am hoping that SkyrimSE will look good, but without sufficient mods, it probably won't be as beautiful. At least we can improve it by turning off the unnatural cinematic god rays from the start.

 

I have favored the Imaginator, Ultra Realistic World Lighting, ELFX, Pure Waters and Waterfalls, Skyrim HD-2K, Sexy Solitude, Sexy Whiterun, Sexy Riften, Beautiful Whiterun, Beautiful Riften, CBBE, SG skin, Eyes of Beauty, True Brows, Xenius Character Enhancement (for the guys) Rustic Clothing, and many others. Eat your heart out FO4, most of these are Skyrim only mods!!!

[ElioraArin]

I have a terrible PC so there is a limit to what graphic enhancing mods I can use (& how much of an impact they will have anyway). I pretty much have to stick to NPC & clothing/armor texture enhancers as my computer struggles with any more, but I have to agree with twiztedmongoloid - the ones I do use are a vast improvement on vanilla, for example I couldn't bear the thought of playing again without "Amidian Born" & "Rustic Clothing", vanilla outfits are literally blurry in comparison! I even find testing a mod without my hair, body & NPC mods installed grossly unattractive now - the game is just way too ugly if you are used to a modded Skyrim!

[Brataccas]

Heh! I can see we're going to have to agree to disagree - I'm certainly not suggesting that there isn't room for improvement (especially 5 years on from its release) but I still think some aspects of the original assets look great *if* they're well lit - these are crops from 1080p frames - all original assets/textures barring the hair (click the images for full size):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2016 by Brataccas

[Boombro]

 

I have been playing both Fallout 4 and Skyrim. I wish the NPCs could look as good in FO4 as Skyrim.

You mean with mods right?

 

Since F4 npcs have much better hair, skin and way more face variety. Even clothing is more varied.

 

 

The landscape never will be as good due to it being a post-apocalyptic ruin, but it does look much better with both tree and grass mods.

If you like grassy landscape, that is true, but there is many areas in fallout 4 that are quite amazing, like the boats area, the flooded houses with grassy roof tops, the huge beached ship etc. If they are not pretty, they are way more detailed.

 

 

 

eh! I can see we're going to have to agree to disagree - I'm certainly not suggesting that there isn't room for improvement (especially 5 years on from its release) but I still think some aspects of the original assets look great

Some models do look good, like the buildings, some clothing etc. But overall it it just ok at most.