Any good graphics mod to suggest?

[vese91]

Hello guys. I'm new to Skyrim and I was wondering if there exist some graphics mods to improve textures at least. Any suggestions?

[sdack]

There are a lot of those. Best you get yourself a good mod manager, and do not use the in-game mod manager. I.e. Vortex or Mod Manger 2.

You can search Nexusmods.com for all kinds of mods. It has a seperate category just for graphics mods:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/categories/29/

My personal favourite is the "Project Clarity AIO - Skyrim Textures Redone". It uses an AI upscaler to increase the resolution of the vanilla textures. Such AI upscalers can avoid upscaling artefacts and can add details that were not in the original textures, because AIs can "hallucinate" details into a texture, which can be considered a form of artistic freedom. It stays close to the original Skyrim textures:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/45306

If you rather like hand-crafted textures of higher resolutions, the ones with human artistic freedom, then there are plenty of those, too. There are too many to list any specific ones.

Then there is DynDOLOD, which adds more detail on the global scale to the game:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/68518

There are also weather mods, which in a sense give better graphics, too. I.e. Obsidian Weathers and Seasons, but there are many more such weather mods:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/12125

One note, make sure to check whether a mod is a pure texture mod or if it adds more than just textures to the game. Pure texture mods can be removed at any time and allow you to play with them for a while and to remove them again later. Other mods will require you to start a new game once you remove them, or there is a good chance your game starts to crash, because whatever the mod added is now missed by the game.

[Singh]

Zerofrost's Amors add a lot of visual punch:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/45145?tab=files
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/37878
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/8463

Same for this dagger package:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/917

[Fear2288]

For something simple and straightforward, Skyland AIO is worth a look - it’s considered to be one of the best all-encompassing retexture mods out there. High quality, good details, and just improves everything without straying too far from the aesthetic that BGS intended for the game.

Noble Skyrim is another worth mentioning. It covers all the architecture (not nature) textures and it’s an old mod, but it’s quality has remained pretty good and a lot of people use it as a base for other more specific texture packs. It probably still has the best Windhelm textures out there as many texture-makers choose to pass on trying their hand at re-doing that city. But if you’re looking for something that looks good despite its age and won’t kill your frames, Noble Skyrim is probably the best for cities and towns.

For weapons and armor I would’ve continued to say aMidianborn Book of Silence as I usually do…that’s another old one but somehow remained easily the best weapon/armor retexture mods in regards to its quality…but Xavbio’s more recent series covering all vanilla, CC, and some select major mods gear is king now. Amazing detail and quality that brings all this stuff into the 2020s visually speaking.

Beyond that, it’s all individual sets/packs from different authors.

TB, CC, FrankBlack, Cathedral, El Sopa, CleverCharff, and JohnSkyrim are all accomplished, proven texture/mesh/model modders who’ve released a ton of high quality visual content over the years.

For your character and NPCs?

CBBE remains the most popular female body mesh replacer, and HIMBO is up there for males.

Others exist, but aren’t nearly as widely supported in regards to armor/clothing.

Skins can come down to personal preference. Bijin skin for females is pretty good, but I prefer the UNP series of skins for females and males. Specifically, I use the Race Based Textures version (RBT) that can be a little confusing to set up but once you do you won’t ever want to change from it - it assigns different skins to each human/elf race with different, sometimes customizable, features. Bretons will look soft and kinda pudgy, Nords will look cold and rugged, Imperials have a healthy look but sport scars, etc.

Hair, brows, and eyes are done well by SG, KS, Kallilies, and The Eyes of Beauty.

The High Poly Head mod is also more-or-less a must at this point.

As for NPC replacers, that’s definitely personal preference.

If you’re looking for “better looking but pretty close to vanilla” then Modpocalypse or the High Poly series are for you.

If you want total glamazon babe females then it’s definitely Coldsun or Dibella’s Blessing.

If you want generally better looking but not at Coldsun or DB’s level, the Pandorable, Bijin, and Kallilies series is it (and all three are made to be used together - no overlap).

And if you want distinct and realistic you can’t go wrong with the Northborne and/or Refined series.

[vese91]

Thanks you all guys! I was looking into some of the mods you mentioned so far and Christ some of them are INSANE!

[Sairek Ceareste]

I like Enhanced Lights and FX: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2424

No performance impact, but it makes a huge difference on the game's lighting. It also makes dark areas actually dark. It's nice to require a torch when dungeoning in my opinion, instead of every interior being lit up like it's persistently day time.


I use the "Skyland texture pack" for 2K textures. My GPU isn't the greatest and my monitor is 1080p, so anything above 2k for me starts looking "crunchy". There's no specific reason I use it other than preference of how it looks, and that it's an all-in-one package for a pretty consistent style across the entire world: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3820


Children in Skyrim look incredibly ugly and not fit the art style at all. RS children help make children not look like potatoes. There's also a playable child version: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2650

Skin textures for children are unfortunately very rare (for obvious reasons). Those that do exist tend to unfortunately beautify them to the point that the children look cartoonish or like plastic dolls.
BNP - Child skin is the only skin texture mod I've found that actually gives children a realistic look, which helps match Skyrim's more realistic and grittier art-style approach. Not only that, but the textures are in 2K, so they look very clean.
I'll use my own character I'm running with as an example: https://i.imgur.com/7hFLZZB.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/wXgcPdG.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/r9FSvMf.png
https://i.imgur.com/CwDmEtW.png

And of course, you can get the mod here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/78536



While not a texture or graphic mod in its own right, Cloaks of Skyrim makes characters look nice. The amount of people wearing so little clothing or warmth in this allegedly cold region where you can freeze to death very quickly in survival mode always irked me. Besides, capes are cool.
...Or, warm. Whatever floats your boat: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6369



Finally, while I'm not using any so I can't suggest anything specific, I'd recommend getting an LOD mod. The pop-in when the game loads stuff into your chunks is really obvious, and even more obvious when you're using a high-res texture pack. You should pick an LOD mod you think will work best with whatever texture pack you end up choosing to run with, as just like with texture packs, LOD mods can alter the art style - just for things far away, rather than things that are immediately around you.

[Bad Behavior Defender]

There's plenty of mods list on Wabbajack that auto install the mods, although a lot of them also bring gameplay changes. Nexus also have mod lists that can be installed with vortex, some of them might be Visual only improvement with 4k textures.

If you don't feel too confident making your own mod list of course. It also is a lot less time consuming depending on how much time you are ready to spend on this. It's not far-fetched to spend numerous hours on a modlist.

[sdack]

And one more... The Community Shaders have been given a well-deserved update for 1.6.1130 and all mods depending on it should hopefully work again.

Community Shaders - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/86492

Light Limit Fix - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/99548
Vanilla HDR - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/76521
Screen-Space Shadows - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/93209
Auto Parallax - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/79473

[Fear2288]

@sdack

I’m still confused about this, I recall hearing somewhere that Community Shaders (and mods made for it) and not intended to be used with ENBs, is that actually true?


Also, I forgot to mention in my TLDR post, clothing and creatures…

Rustic Clothing remains one of - if not the - best retextures for the non-armor clothing in the game. Keeps the vanilla designs/colors but makes them far more high quality. The vanilla clothing are assets that usually don’t get touched very often by modders, so while RC is old it’s probably still the number one.

The Rustic series also touched some of the creatures, but IconicDeath and Kanjs’ creature/animal retextures are also very high quality.

If you want “fluffy” animals then definitely check out Fluffworks, it uses a technique called shell texturing to create the illusion of animal fur. Personally, I’m not a fan of how it makes horses, trolls, and Sabre cats look so I don’t use it but people created offshoots of it for bears, wolves, and foxes. I highly recommend Bears of the North, Wolves of Skyrim, and Photorealistic Foxes.

[sdack]

Originally posted by Fear2288:

@sdack

I’m still confused about this, I recall hearing somewhere that Community Shaders (and mods made for it) and not intended to be used with ENBs, is that actually true? ...

It states under compatibility in the mod's description:

Not compatible with ENB. This mod disables all features if ENB is present, otherwise the game will crash.

I do not use ENB myself and prefer the Community Shaders, because these are so easily integrated into the rest of my mods simply by using my mod manager and not having to work out ENB.

[vese91]

Thank you so much everyone, I've installed Skyland AIO with MO2 and I noticed a huge improvement ... now I'll try some other mods