TechAngel85

As for your other questions, I'm not all the familiar with WB myself. I haven't been using it that long. As long as your mods are saved on your computer, it should be fairly easy to port them over to WB from NMM though. As for BOSS, it's load order is pretty much spot on. The only reason to change the load order BOSS sets up is if a mod author specifically says to do so. A lot of authors will state, "load my mod last"; however, that rather bad advice because not all mods that state this can be last in the load order. I've never had an issue using the load order BOSS sets up.

If you're just talking about cleaning mods of ITMs and UDRs with TES5Edit, the automatic process is actually quite fast. I can clean a mod within 2 mins. Simply load the mod and it's dependent (usually just skyrim.esm), click a few buttons, and you're done.

I really think you need to read the STEP Mandate and what STEP is about. Copied from the Mandate: All the body mods you just listed (UNP or CBBE and Apachii Hair) break vanilla Skyrim and thus breaks the STEP Mandate. With that said, you can use them personally as much as you like, but they won't be included in STEP. I actually use ApachiiSky Hair myself (these are textures copied from The Sims), but I realize something like this mod will never be in STEP because it goes against what STEP is all about.

So I'm just curious on this... How much time does the STEP team (admins, mod testers, wiki editors, etc) actually get (or take) to actually play Skyrim for the enjoyment of the game and not just for testing purposes? I, personally, since joining the team as a Wiki Editor have only played Skyrim once or twice for my own enjoyment. The rest of the time I am editing, comparing mods, testing mods, confirming/disconfirming issues, creating new wiki content, replying on the forums, out in real life (ew ), etc etc etc.

I made a big edit to the Configuration tab on the guide explaining the enbseries.ini file settings to some degree for customization purposes. https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:ENB#tab=Configuration_-_Enbseries_ini

RCRN plus is ridiculously beautiful, but it has a few things that are downright weird. Â The sunglare and enormous sun in the sky is great for the lighting (it makes everything so crisp -- perhaps a little too crisp), but is totally distracting when you actually look up.I had issues with black colored smoke (should be fog-white), black colored "snow wind" while up on a mountain (should be white), and performance hits (probably was the SMAA). Other than that it was great, but because of those issues I had to got back to regular RCRN.

RCRN works with just about any ENB very well. I don't know about Enhanced Lighting though. I have not tested it. @Admin These last several post have gotten off topic for this thread. Feel free to move them.

I meant comparison screenshots between the two mods I mentioned and yours. Though some in-game shots of any of your mod's eyes would be great too!

Yes, that's where you have to get it from. ;) https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:ENB (I'm currently updating it but it's still good for use!)

I personally prefer the third shot over (All in One?) in nearly all the shots. I use: Ethereal Elven Overhaul by nuska https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24273 Fine Face Textures by Urshi by urshi https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27815 I don't play female characters so I haven't really looked any retextures for females.

Are you using an ENB? I use SkyRealism with the Cinematic preset. My nights aren't "pitch black" but they are pretty dark. Dark enough you have to have a lantern or torch or get around; running around without one or the other will get you lost. :P

Some of the human and altmeri eyes are okay, but the rest are over saturated (unnatural). The eye mods we compared for the upcoming STEP version are Natural Eyes and XCE. Your eye mod would have to be agreed upon by the community as superior over these to be included. If you would like to provide some in-game screen shots using all three we'd be glad to check them out. ;) I particularly like the orange and purple eyes (my current mage has purplish eyes). Also, don't forget about the STEP Mandate when suggesting any mod.

First, I'd recommend you dropping NMM and start using Wrye Bash. NMM will no longer be supported in the upcoming version of STEP. I've never used the Customizer; however, here is a breakdown of the settings: Presets selector: This will switch between the Legacy, Classic, and Pure night presets. FXAA Antialiasing: This will switch the custom FXAA Injector on and off. FXAA is a form of post-processing antialiasing. FXAA isn't as good as SMAA or regular AA but it's light on resources and almost no performance loss. In essence, this reducing the jagged outline edges. Sharpening: This turns sharpening on and off. This has to do with the HDR technology in RCRN. I'm not too familiar with it. Volumetric Fog: This switches the volumetric fog off, subtle, or heavy. Volumetric Fog adds density to the fog in Skyrim; making it feel denser, thicker, and heavier. I'd suggest using Subtle less you have a good system. Heavy will bog an average system down in the Riften area.

They conflict mainly due to their weather changes. CoT by itself doesn't do much for lighting. RCRN adjusts default lighting as well as weathers (they're not as dramatic as CoT). You can't use both. If you like RCRN, I'd recommend uninstalling CoT. I used CoT for a good while too...until I discovered RCRN and I haven't looked back.

On another note, some of your lower FPS averages could be caused by your settings. High screen resolutions combined with high games settings will most defiantly cause lower FPS averages. Considering you were running 50FPS in vanilla Skyrim I would say this is one issue. With your hardware you should be running 60FPS or higher if you uncap the default. I max my game out in vanilla settings on my laptop with lower hardware specs than you have. You have to find a balance between "quality" and "performance".

Nicely done, but these are too bright and unnatural to be included in STEP.

Not sure if this is lore friendly... People really paint their nails (much less toenails) in this time period?

Looks like 3.0 is officially out of beta now.

There is no penalty to wearing armor regarding magic use in vanilla Skyrim... Quote from Balanced Magic on Nexus: That's what I was referring to. I'm relying on the mod authors on this as I've never dove into the magic/armor/cost/ in Skyrim. I'm assuming they have and know what they're talking about.

I noticed this. I'm already using the low-res version for my system and was curious about the med-res and some of those changes he made. According to him it's more stable now. I've never had any issues with the low-res version though so I don't think I'd be any good in testing out that stability.

Haha! Issue: Snowberries look aweful and distorted. Solution: Shrink the entire plant! I personally prefer Vurts. It might be a little too green for the winter, because real snowberries don't have leaves in the winter, but he had the same idea. He just shrunk the berry and not the entire plant.

S4N totally gets what I was trying to say because he just said the same thing in a completely different wording. My point was that mages who train in armor aren't going to be affected by that armor. Heavy armors might be a bit much for the mage class and should, as S4N pointed out, affect strength and speed; not casting cost. Medium armor less so than heavy armor and light armor should have no effect at all as it wouldn't be much heavier than the cloth clothes. Most D&D games I've played labeled cloth clothes as light armor anyway. Elder Scrolls breaks that model a little bit from past games like Neverwinter Nights by distinguishing between the two. A better balance, IMO, would to have the cost effect the strength and speed. I don't know if this is possible to do in Skyrim so a good alternative would be to have light armors not have any casting penalty, medium armors a slight penalty, and heavy armors up to a 33% penalty. This would, at the very least, encourage the mage class to stay within their armor classes (light to medium) or suffer a heavy penalty as a result. The whole thing came about because I have been using Balanced Magic which removes the armor penalties. I guess he was thinking along these same lines that S4N and I have pointed to. I'm planning on switching to Balanced Perk Trees due to it balancing more than just magics.

I'm curious how this would look in-game. From the looks of the screenshots the author used real life snow photos for the textures. These cases should always be tested in-game as the vanilla textures are painted and sometimes these two styles collide. I'm also curious from the shots if there are any clipping issues like the shot from Bleak Falls Barrow(temple). Anytime you start mixing dynamic and static there is potential for issues.

If you were a master alchemist, having spent years learning your trade, how likely is it that you will ever have had the want or the need to equip a full suit of armor? :o_O:Â ... or the chances that you would have a squire on hand to maintain it for you and assist you with equipping it? A warrior fluent in the art of alchemy might have light armor, but rarely medium and almost never heavy. Let's say just for kicks, you happen to be a mage that happened upon a squire and a battery of weapons and armor ( :? ). Why on Earth would you sacrifice your stealth and speed for this? And if you did, how do you think the extra 60+ pounds, heat and discomfort would affect your concentration ability? There is no way that a suit of anything but the most pleasantly comfortable, airy and light armor would not affect the concentration of anyone other than a hardened warrior that has grown used to wearing such attire and dealing with such discomfort in the heat of battle and the tedium of travel and the boredom of standing watch. When you say "alchemist" I think "potion maker". Most alchemist wouldn't be in battle. When I say "mage" I think "magic welder". I'm assuming you're using them interchangeably when I write this reply. Let me give you this real world scenario. I'm a martial artist. Been in martial arts for most of my life. During my years and years of training in my art, one thing that I have developed is very keen concentration. This is naturally developed over time. We don't train with sparring gear on (light armor); however, while in tournaments and sparring one must wear this gear. In no way does this gear affect my concentration during fights. The same goes for samurai whom wear much heavier armor who train for years. Most of their training isn't done while wearing armor, yet they dawn it during battles with no break in their concentration. Forget about the body training here... The point I'm making is not the body training, but rather the training of the mind for concentration. Anyone's concentration, who trains for years, is not going to have that concentration broken so easily as something by armor. I can tell you from experience, when you're trained and you're in that fight you are completely focused on the task. I see a mage as having this type of concentration from training. So to provide both side of this coin... A mage that trains in armor or with the idea of wearing armor isn't going to be distracted by that armor; however, I mage that only ever wears light clothing as you suggest would most likely be affected by armor because that mage has never wore armor before. I don't know why any mage training for battle would want to go into a battle without some type of armor for protection. I hope I have efficiently described my thoughts on this.