Help Me Understand Weather Mods VS ENB's and Let's Keep it Simple, Please.

[Karl the heretiK]

I haven't played Skyrim in 4 years, so I bought a good, gaming rig and Skyrim SE and want to make another, more pretty go of it on Ultra High settings. So here's what I understand so far...

~Weather mods make the outside world look different with lighting effects AND manipulate the weather patterns themselves, but they don't affect how the inside world looks.

~ENB mods are essentially re-textures of the vanilla textures applied to the outside and inside world, but they don't affect the actual weather. So you end up with vanilla weather patterns with re-textured effects that look better (to me, anyway).

~I really liked the Silent Horizons ENB, but it seems like all of these ENB's have other stuff you have to d/l... at least the ones I liked.

~I really liked the Vivid Landscapes weather mod... despite it being, possibly, too tweakable in-game. I'm from a time when we didn't have too many choices... too many choices confuse me. But I can just ignore the menu in MCM if I have to.

So...

I want to pretty-up my game, but I'm a 51-year old, neo-luddite. If I can just use Vortex to install stuff, or extract directly to my Skyrim folder, I'm ok. When I start having to use Wrye Bash or installing manually, I shut down. I want the best looks for the least amount of hassle.

Thanks!

[Wolfpack]

I think of ENBs as more like additional light and shading that can enhance the textures and weathers you've already got. It's a layer over the baseline textures that can subtly or dramatically improve the look of the game. When they play nicely, you can get a truly beautiful look.

I've been using Silent Horizons with the Cathedral series and very happy with it so far.

[Karl the heretiK]

Sounds good, but how easy are they to load up?

[Wolfpack]

It's a bit more involved than a standard mod install but not that difficult. You'll need to get the enbseries binaries and place in the game directory then add the enb you want to try. The instructions on the Silent Horizons description page on Nexus give a good step by step.

[Wolfpack]

Originally posted by Karl the heretiK:

Sounds good, but how easy are they to load up?

Also, see:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=653119731

[Vlad 254]

You could always try a mod called "Imaginator" for simplicity

[corbinb.21]

"I want to pretty-up my game, but I'm a 51-year old, neo-luddite. If I can just use Vortex to install stuff, or extract directly to my Skyrim folder, I'm ok. When I start having to use Wrye Bash or installing manually, I shut down. I want the best looks for the least amount of hassle."

This made me laugh. I can't handle all of the choice either and I'm only 18. I like the simple mods that just make little tweaks to make the game a bit better. For mods to pretty up the game I suggest total character makeover (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1037) improve the face meshes and textures. It's very simple and doesn't deviate extremely from the original game or make extremely unrealistic characters, it just removes the blocky vanilla faces.

[Doom Sayer]

ENB is mostly easy to install and maintain on Skyrim SE even though it is manual. Bigger issue is ENB uses user generated presets that vary greatly in performance, quality, etc. Another issue is presets have varied versions for performance sake.

I will say if you have a god PC.... As in 2080i + some high end cpu then ENB can be installed with little to no regard for performance.

Now weather mods are simpler. Pick what you think looks the prettiest. (Skip to comparison to avoid his blabbering.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7JuV3S01Cs
Grass mods can sometimes be a tad too much for a pc but other than that are preference based.
https://youtu.be/0E1HFStbQsE
Another thats up to preference is lighting. (Also note weather mods are technically a exterior lighting mod while pretty much all lighting mods are interior exclusive)
https://youtu.be/f4yHwyC81IU
If you wish to pretty up the characters... solution to that is mixed bag. There are some wonky issues with skin color of head not matching body etc... with mods/mixes of mods. I dont know enough to give a guarantee in that category.
I will say my favorite all in one solution has been WICO. (VNL version would be best)

[J0ust]

Something to consider; depending on what other mods you download, certain ENBs can cause incorrectly displayed effects; water reflections, particle effects, light sources, godrays, and nights can all appear too shimmery, blinding, dark, or washed out, depending. There's no such thing as a "plug and go" ENB, it all depends on what you're using and you typically have to configure to get everything to look good together. Someone above recommended Imaginator and honestly this is your best bet for simplicity/grab and go. it doesn't sound like you want to tweak things and getting the best out of any ENB requires this - anyone telling you different is doing it wrong.

[Doom Sayer]

Originally posted by J0ust:

Something to consider; depending on what other mods you download, certain ENBs can cause incorrectly displayed effects; water reflections, particle effects, light sources, godrays, and nights can all appear too shimmery, blinding, dark, or washed out, depending. There's no such thing as a "plug and go" ENB, it all depends on what you're using and you typically have to configure to get everything to look good together. Someone above recommended Imaginator and honestly this is your best bet for simplicity/grab and go. it doesn't sound like you want to tweak things and getting the best out of any ENB requires this - anyone telling you different is doing it wrong.

Not sure if thats the case. Almost any enb is a rendering jump compared to any other mod. The only tweaking I see as being a concern is performance since a lot of effects are a bit excessive. DOF and indirect ambient occlusion.

[J0ust]

Originally posted by Degeneracy:

Originally posted by J0ust:

Something to consider; depending on what other mods you download, certain ENBs can cause incorrectly displayed effects; water reflections, particle effects, light sources, godrays, and nights can all appear too shimmery, blinding, dark, or washed out, depending. There's no such thing as a "plug and go" ENB, it all depends on what you're using and you typically have to configure to get everything to look good together. Someone above recommended Imaginator and honestly this is your best bet for simplicity/grab and go. it doesn't sound like you want to tweak things and getting the best out of any ENB requires this - anyone telling you different is doing it wrong.

Not sure if thats the case. Almost any enb is a rendering jump compared to any other mod. The only tweaking I see as being a concern is performance since a lot of effects are a bit excessive. DOF and indirect ambient occlusion.

I'd like to hear your recommendation for a plug and go ENB. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely interested as every one I've used has required tweaking to play nice/look good with my other installed mods.

[StreamWhenGuy]

I feel like performance/quality-wise ENB is simply not worth it. It's too intense on the system and on the engine most of the time. You'd be better off looking for some nicely tweaked ReShade preset if you want any sort of color correction. The only option you might want from ENB is probably detailed shadows, but again, I think it's not worth the performance hit for just having one feature you won't even notice while just playing normally and not staring at every corner that now has an extra shadow.
I personally use ELFX Weathers with some performance patches and with no any post-processing injectors whatsoever. There are plenty of other good looking weather mods out there.

[DEAD RaNgEr 888]

Originally posted by Degeneracy:

ENB is mostly easy to install and maintain on Skyrim SE even though it is manual. Bigger issue is ENB uses user generated presets that vary greatly in performance, quality, etc. Another issue is presets have varied versions for performance sake.

I will say if you have a god PC.... As in 2080i + some high end cpu then ENB can be installed with little to no regard for performance.

Now weather mods are simpler. Pick what you think looks the prettiest. (Skip to comparison to avoid his blabbering.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7JuV3S01Cs
Grass mods can sometimes be a tad too much for a pc but other than that are preference based.
https://youtu.be/0E1HFStbQsE
Another thats up to preference is lighting. (Also note weather mods are technically a exterior lighting mod while pretty much all lighting mods are interior exclusive)
https://youtu.be/f4yHwyC81IU
If you wish to pretty up the characters... solution to that is mixed bag. There are some wonky issues with skin color of head not matching body etc... with mods/mixes of mods. I dont know enough to give a guarantee in that category.
I will say my favorite all in one solution has been WICO. (VNL version would be best)

those 2 videos are outdated. the weather mod video have excluded cathedral weather (so i cant take it seriously) and there have can a few new weather mods this year. thre are some new grass mods too.

[Sabaithal]

I know that, in terms of observable in-game effects, Vivid Weathers does much the same thing that an ENB preset does by itself. And the two are not really compatible. I mean, they technically are, but after installing an ENB, I noticed that the vivid weathers changes had little to no noticable effect anymore. I'd say, vivid weathers for casual user, ENBs for advanced users who know what they are doing when it comes to configuring an ENB preset to their tastes.

The reason being, with Vivid Weathers, you can change the overall lighting, coloring, saturation, etc, in game, and directly observe the effects from the change. More difficult to do that with an ENB.

No clue about other weather mods though.