Graphics
updated July 3rd, 2020
Maybe you've gotten sick of textures being really blurry when you smoosh your telescopically enhanced eyeballs against your computer monitor. Maybe you think that there's not enough bloom and god rays for that "cinematic feel" you want. Maybe you think that what a small city out on the open plains really needs is more trees. Maybe Skyrim's women just don't look enough like Barbie Dolls or that one crackwhore you fapped to on Xhamster a week ago. Whatever the case, you want graphics mods! Well we've piled through the piles of alleged 2k textures (which is, honestly, just somebody resizing the existing textures in GIMP and using a sharpen filter), found the least-bad ones, and put them all here for you to peruse, choose, and relentlessly abuse. Most texture mods still work on Special Edition, mesh mods need to be updated, check this guide to see how to update meshes to work with Special Edition.
The same program used to update mesh files also has a function that tells you if texture will have any problems.
In this section, we will discuss:
-Texture Overhauls
-Nature Overhauls
-Lighting Overhauls
-Armors, Weapons, and Clothes
-Clutter and Creatures
-Atmosphere and Magic
-Caves and Terrain
-City Textures
-Maps
Before we begin...
This is not the BEST guide to having the BEST looking game. This is just a LIST of mods that will make your game look better and not a step by step modding process. The guide can be confusing for beginners because of all of the textures, meshes, and in which order you install them. We recommend you fiddle around with some of these mods first to understand the basics. I̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶-̶d̶e̶p̶t̶h̶ ̶g̶u̶i̶d̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶p̶h̶i̶c̶s̶,̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶c̶k̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶K̶n̶o̶t̶s̶'̶ ̶S̶k̶y̶r̶i̶m̶ ̶g̶u̶i̶d̶e̶,̶ ̶S̶T̶E̶P̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶T̶e̶x̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶m̶b̶i̶n̶e̶r̶.̶ Actually nevermind, those guides have not been updated in YEARS. So don't even look at them anymore.
If you read the Essentials guide (as you should have) it says that you should get an ENB. If you haven't gotten an ENB or read the ENB page, you should do that now before moving on.
Mods for NPCs and characters are located in the NPC and Players guides.
This might seem out of place, but we also recommend you to check out Hodilton's channel. He showcases many mods and ENBs. but what seperates him from every other person who does this is that his rig is AMAZING and it shows in his videos. He has one of the BEST looking modded Skyrim games out there and his videos will help find you new mods and give you inspiration to make your game look as good as his! While his videos are for the Legendary Edition, it can still be used as reference.
Texture Overhauls
These mods are MASSIVE texture packs that hold many refurbished, redone, and even reimagined textures. They can range from the smallest of things like a cup to the largest of landscapes like a castle wall! Here we have listed the best overhauls to start off with. You can customize and switch between textures to find the best looking one's that fit your taste. Don't forget that these are just general texture packs. There are smaller one's that sometimes look better than the overhaul's but don't have a lot included since the packs are only for a specific item or area. This means that these overhauls are mearly bases to cover most of the game's textures while the other smaller mods focus on improving smaller or more random objects such as only ingrediants or even just certain pieces of furniture. If you want the BEST results don't use the official 2k textures by Bethesda.
And here are some notable texture authors that either make random textures with no rhyme or reason and are not all in one pack or download link. It's recommended you download all of their works but it's not necessary.
These are non-specific collections of mods that you can use to customize your game. You can interchange these textures to make the game the way you want it to. Now for even better looking textures, you gonna have to get some specific overhauls that work on one or two aspects of the game itself.
Nature Overhauls
How your game's scenary looks is key to making the rest of your game. Sure you can have the best looking 8k textured armor, but it will look awful while your character is in an ugly looking forest. It's all about balance so that nothing sticks out too much.
Flora Overhaul
A very grand visual overhaul of Skyrim's flora. This mod adds new textures as well as more variety in trees, plants, and grass which make the game feel less copy paste. There's a regular variant, a basic variant, and a summer variant. Due to recent updates, it's recommend that you either use the older versions are don't use this mod at all since the newest versions add some really ugly plants and trees around that really break the composition.
Flora Mod Collection
Mostly plants and fauna, but there's a bunch of other random stuff too that's worth getting.
Comes in 2k and 4k
Simply Bigger Trees
Simply Bigger Trees edits all the tree meshes to be bigger.
Realistic Aspen Trees
Adds more variants and colors for aspen trees. There is a compatiblity patch with SFO but only for regular edition.
As for mods that edit grass, there are plenty of options. Try them out and see which you like best! ONLY USE ONE
Verdant Grass
Another grass plugin that adds a variety of simple looking grasses
Veydosebrom
Fill your Skyrim landscape with beautiful combinations of unique grasses.
Each region's foliage is overhauled so that it has its own distinct and natural feel.
Lighting Overhauls
Lighting is a very important part of making anything look good. Here are the two most popular ways to overhauling interior and exterior lighting in Skyrim.
Enhanced Lights and FX
Also know as ELFX. This is still a running project, but it's one of the best interior lighting mods right now. It overhauls and edits may room cells and adds new light sources and make old one's feel more realistic with smoke and shadow casting. Many of the vanilla cells are almost done, and now the author is working on Dawnguard and Dragonborn lighting!
There's also a new performance patch if you're using both ELFX and SMIM.
