ButchDiavolo

I have stopped checking for updates. I rolled back to 640 and am not going to bother until the BGS "diarrhoea" of updates is done again.

ACE is a sorta-kinda addon of WACCF, in fact the plugin is called WACCF_Armor & Clothing Extension. Since WACCF is mandatory for the STEP Patch WACCF, you have to install ACE as well. And as you said, if you don't want to use the STEP WACCF Patch, you will have to install all the krypto patches for WACCF to get the same effect. @z929669 perhaps a red bar should be added to ACE as well?

I am glad that my post was helpful to you STEP is aimed at keeping Skyrim as close to vanilla as possible, while fixing things that need fixing. So unfortunately parallax is not part of it. But as we said before, we can add parallax mods and whatever you want on top of a STEP installation. STEP is the best basis to have. And the community is also helpful and awesome. As for the torch and meshes/ textures in general: a lot/ most mesh/ texture mods don't have a plugin associated with them, so the game won't know where a particular mesh comes from (I learned this just the other day). The way those mods work is by using the same names and file structure as Skyrim itself. So they overwrite the original game assets. The mods that do have a plugin file, like SMIM, can use that plugin to tell the game where to use those assets and switch them to the SMIM version. On a side note, this is why we don't use the plugins from ELFX and a few others. We want just the meshes and texture, but NOT the other changes it makes. As a consequence of the above, if the winning torch mesh is added by a plugin-less mod, More Informative Console isn't useful in finding the plugin that changes that mesh, which you can see in the bottom right in MIC (in your case "Alternate Start"). It does however tell you the name of the mesh at the top left, in this case Torchpermanent01. With that information, we can track down which mods change this mesh. There are a number of ways to find out, but for me personally, the simplest way is to use the Data tab on the right side of MO2, above the loadorder list. Click on the data tab, then at the bottom you can type in the mesh name, in this case Torchpermanent01.nif (nif files are the mesh files). It will then show you just the folder(s) this nif is in (meshes/clutter/common). The name of the mesh will be in red, indicating that more than one mod change this nif, with the winner shown under "mod name". Hovering your mouse over the name will give a pop-up/ toast with the names of the other mods that change it. I will use my loadorder as an example, so in my case, the winner of this conflict is Ember XD. When I hover over it, it tells me "Particle patch for ENB" and SMIM also contain this nif. I know that both the other mods are not parallax enabled, but Embers XD is (if you picked the parallax meshes during install). So Embers XD should be the winner, which is why I don't have the missing texture problem in my game. Now back to your situation. If you have another winner, you can solve the problem by simply moving Embers XD lower in the mod list on the left, ideally in the Parallax category. This is a good example of how important the install order (left column) is when modding Skyrim. The install order defines the ultimate look and function in the game, which is why the STEP Modlist is in the order it is in and why you should put parallax mods below all others, but before the Post-Processing category. Yeah, wall of text again, but I hope this helps you.

I had a short peek at the pics. The torch light is actually a missing mesh/ texture. The give-away here is the purpleish color. Check with More Informative Console which mesh it is using, then check in MO2 which mods alter that mesh/ texture. Tinker around a bit to find a mesh that does work. The shadows issue is caused by a conflict in (lighting) mods. It could be caused by a host of the mods you have installed. You could try finding the culprit, or learn to live with it. As for your posted modlist: is that the installation order (left side in MO2) or the plug-in order (right side in MO2). If it is the plugin order, then the order is wrong. Nothing should come after DynDOLOD and Occlusion. Re-run Loot and don't make adjustment manually afterwards. if it is the installation order, it is also less than ideal. When adding mods on top of a STEP install, the best thing to do is put the extra mods in the same categories as the STEP guide (i.e. JK Skyrim under Locations, it's patches under Patches etc.). That way it is easier to see what mod overwrites what. Exception to this is ENB Parallax mods, they should all be put under a new category (call it Parallax or something), right before the Post-Processing category. Then move them around within that category to get the look you want. Parallax enabled mods should always overwrite everything else, or you will lose the parallax effect. And of course make sure you have the effect enabled in the ENBseries.ini. In short: move the mods to their respective categories, keeping an eye on what is overwriting what. Then rerun xLodgen, TexGen and DynDOLOD. Then re-run LOOT and don't make manual changes to the loadorder. Maybe that will already sort out the issues. Good Luck

You can say what you want about Arthmoor and his team, but they truely move mountains. Yeah... I know. I will let myself out.

In case you get unlucky (like me) and Steam decides to update Skyrim anyway... You can downgrade to the old version rather easily: Open a command window by pressing Win + R and then enter the command: steam://open/console, and then press Enter. This will open console tab on your Steam At the bottom will be the input line for you to enter the following code, just copy and paste one line at a time and press enter: download_depot 489830 489831 3660787314279169352 download_depot 489830 489832 2756691988703496654 download_depot 489830 489833 5291801952219815735 This will download the 1.6.640 files. Wait until all 3 files have downloaded. You will get a prompt when it is done. Go to the folder C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\content (or where you have installed Skyrim). Here you will find the 3 folders with the 1.6.640 files. Copy and paste the files (NOT the folder!) into C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition (or where your Skyrim is). Done. Remember that you will have to reclean the master files again as per the Step Guide!

Updated on Nexus Updated for 1.6.1130.0

Updated to version 4.5 Version 4.5 Updated for SKSE64 AE/SE 2.2.4 & Skyrim 1.6.1130

Updated to v. 4.3.0 to be in line with the Skyrim update. Patch notes here

Oh dear god... Just earlier today I was thinking "I am glad Bethesda is preoccupied with Starfield, so no sudden updates to Skyrim"... I jinxed it. Sorry everyone, my bad.

Hmm, well STEP is meant as an upgraded/ debugged vanilla Skyrim. So you won't find much photorealism in the Guide. Of course you can find all kinds of visual upgrades on Nexus yourself. But, if you are already limited in disk space, going photorealistic is probably too much of an ask. Those kinds of mods are generally very large. Maybe pick up a good plug-in SDD disk, dedicated to gaming? That should give you enough disk space to do whatever you want. I did hear about Nolvus which looks pretty amazing and I am tempted to give that a try, sometime. But I have spend so much time the past weeks to rebuild my mod list based on STEP and get it working well with ENB Parallax and the new ENB gizmos, that I now just want to actually play the game for a while. Modding can become a whole game in itself. Ever since Skyrim came out, I have never even done any of the Dragonborn and Dawnguard quests... because I get sidetracked with all these new shiny pretty pretty mods...

The mod page of "12 years" is... rather confusing. It says it is updated in April 2023, but the download files haven't been updated since May 2022? Also it tells you to "downgrade" to version 1.6.353. Why? This tells me that the mod list/ Wabbajack is not current. There should be no reason to downgrade to an older version these days. Since Skyrim has been updated to version 1.6.640, there have been lots of changes/ enhancements. I personally would suggest to let go of the "12 years" mod list and follow the STEP Guide instead, as it is current, stable and well maintained. And has a helpful community if you run into trouble. But that is of course entirely up to you. If you want to continue with "12 years", you should check which version of Skyrim you have installed now after the "downgrade patcher". You should have version 1.6.353 if you downgraded correctly. Skyrim 1.6.353 requires SKSE version 2.1.5, which you can find under the "Old Files" in the link Greg posted above this post. If you have version 1.5.97, you have downgraded all the way back to the old Skyrim SE, so not Skyrim AE. This means you didn't downgrade correctly and you will need to do it again to get to version 1.6.353. if you have version 1.6.640, you have the most recent version of Skyrim AE, which is suggested by the first error picture. This means you forgot to downgrade to version 1.6.353. This version is, apparently, not compatible with the "12 years" mod list/ Wabbajack. Downgrading to the "correct" version and installing the correct SKSE version should solve the SKSE problems. Remember to install SKSE as you did before, so it shows up in MO2. But, as I said before, I fear that you may run into other problems caused by incompatibility because of the Wabbajack file. Just come over to the STEP side. We have cookies. Well, had cookies. I was hungry.

Of course you can deviate from the STEP Guide. BUT, follow the STEP Guide first and make sure it is working to get a sold, working base for Skyrim. Once that is done, you can start adding extra mods. Installing them in their specific sections is a good option. Or you could start a new section called something like Non-STEP mods to keep track of the added mods. That is up to you. After adding the mods you want, don't forget to re-run xLODGEN (after adding worldspace etc) and TexGen + DynDOLOD. Just remember that when adding mods that are not included in STEP it may be harder to get help with problems. And for those mods you should post them in the "General Skyrim SE Discussion & Support" forum.

Hi QuietBeat, Firstly, this forum is specifically for the STEP Modlist. The modlist you are following is not supported here. That modlist also includes the use of Wabbajack, which is also not supported by STEP. So you should have posted this in the "General Skyrim SE Discussion & Support Forum". As for your problems: both are related. Apparently you haven't installed SKSE correctly. In step 5 of that list, they give an incomplete/ wrong way of installing SKSE. HERE you can see how to install it the correct way. From the error message I see you downloaded SKSE for 1.5.97 or the pre-AE version of SKSE. If you have Skyrim AE (either free or full) you have to download and install SKSE for 1.6.640. So double check you have the correct version downloaded. After installing SKSE, you should see the SKSE Launcher in MO2.

Good find. I never looked into this either. Remember though: if you want to test this and use the STEP Conflict resolution patch, you will have to make some edits to the patch: load xEdit with at least BOTH masque esp's and the step patch open Masque of Clavicus Vile for Beast Race click on the "armor"section drag&drop the references into the STEP patch in the STEP Patch remove the complete column of Masque of Argonian Vile in the left screen of xEdit, right mouseclick on the STEP Patch and select "Clean Masters" Save (with backup) and Done. This way you transfer the references from Argonian Vile (which you can now remove/ disable for testing) to the Masque for Beast Races in the STEP patch. If you prefer the Argonian Vile version, reinstall the saved backup of the STEP Patch. Or just reinstall the STEP patch.

You should never delete questions and self-found solutions on any forum. Someone will eventually have the same issue and will find the answer this way.

Thanks for that! I always assumed that it was caused by "mesh only" mods. And come to think of it now, I do get a lot more "unknowns" since I started using BOS, so that would make sense. That is my "theory" taken care of then. @S-Matrix I checked the specific mesh in your screenshots in my loadorder to see if I could find an issues. In my game MountainRidge01 comes from ERM. But it is also present in Skyrim Landscape and Water fixes and SMIM, both not parallax. Have you checked in MO2, (left column, data tab, typing in the mesh name) which mods wins in your loadorder? I use that a lot to fix/ find issues.

I think it is that clear cut though. if you place COTN above ERM in the left column, ERM will overwrite, plugin or not. I think (not sure though) that more informative console names the last changed reference "unknown" in that case. I am getting a lot of "unknown" reference in my console, which I attribute to that. But, again, I am not sure if that is the case.

New version of ENBSeries: v.0 499 "Former Patreon optimized version with some adjustments."

Yes that is the "weird shimmering effect" I mentioned. Your screen shots also indicates what is causing it though: COTN - Falkreath is overwriting ERM. If you want to start using ENB Parallax, you might want to create a new section of mods and call it something like Parallax. Install the original mods in the normal STEP section (i.e. Models & Textures), and the Parallax enabled versions in this new "Parallax" section. Put this new section just before the "Post-Procession" section, to make sure that the parallax versions will always overwrite what needs to be overwritten, while still getting the benefits of the Post-Processing additions. tl;dr: parallax enabled mods should ALWAYS overwrite all other models and textures, so install them as low as possible in the right MO2 column.

Some "wisdom" from my experience modding Skyrim/STEP with ENB Parallax: I have been using the new ENB version of parallax (and later additions to ENB) since mods have been coming out for it. Adding ENB parallax to pure STEP install is pretty much impossible. There are only a few mods on the list that even have a version with parallax meshes and textures. Because of that lack of mods for it, you WILL have visual glitches. Not "might get", but a very firm WILL. ERM is only a minor part of it. The main issue with ERM is that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't include all meshes/ textures that are used by mountains. And this is pretty much the case with most mods that use ENB Parallax. Auto Parallax does a decent job of "forcing" parallax on meshes that doesn't have it, but if you don't have appropriate textures for it, it will still look weird. Like for example "melting landscapes" because of unadjusted normal maps, and weird shimmering effects when your view changes (which is probably what S-Matrix experienced). It also doesn't really help the ENB parallax case that ENB for SE/AE is updated without version changes, while adding key new features, so it is easy to have previous version that doesn't have the proper mechanics. It is still version 0.494 (last update November 3rd) and has been for months. So always check if there is a new updated and adjust the enbseries.ini. Another "pitfall" is mods that have "parallax" in the mod description, but are in fact the "old version" of parallax. These will also cause graphic anomalies, because they implement parallax differently. So it is very important to double check which kind of parallax they are to be used for. Thankfully, more and more ENB parallax mods are slowly coming out now. But using them means you will have to step (see what I did there?) boundaries of a pure STEP installation. I call my installation a "STEP +" installation. This means that the curators most likely will not be able to help in case of problems, since it is not a core step install. You can always ask of course. I will use my install as an example. To get ENB parallax mostly covered, I have had to install and extra 79 (?!) mods just to get the ENB parallax effect. And I still run into areas where it doesn't work. This mean Skyrim doesn't look anything like a normal STEP install, which is inevitable. You need to first get a good base with mods like Pfuscher's Skyrim 202x and Skurkbro's SRP series. These together will cover a lot of the base game. Then you will need to pick a look/ style: Pfuscher's or Skurkbro's "vision" (load order). Then you will have to build on top of this. Ending up with probably 79 extra mods, like I have. Final word on ENB parallax (for now): for ME it is worth it. I really does make the game spectacular. But to get to that point, it is a A LOT of work, weeks or even months. You will get sick of having to run xLODGEN, TexGen and DynDOLOD after left pane load order changes in MO2. I have the time for all this, because sadly I am unable to work. So it gives me something to do. For the average user, I think ENB Parallax will have to mature more to be a viable option. Having said all this, back to the actual conversation: for me ERM is the best mountain/ rock mod out there with parallax, with minimal conflicts. But the parallax version on it's own is not a good option.

Another small update on Nexus Version 3.9.0.8 Updated to fix a crash due to Vortex's trashy file staging... The proper fix should really be USE MO2. Finished implementing the 'Ignore Completed Entries' setting for MCM searching which apparently I forgot about

You can't. You will unfortunately have to rerun xLodGen, TexGen and DynDOLOD again without Ordinator and any other mods you don't want to include .

38 is considered "older gentlemen"? I must be a fossil then at 54... What does DP mean though? You youn- um older gentlemen these days use abbreviations that us toothless old biddies don't understand...

If Tech wants to do that, I am all for it as well. Having multiple options is always a good thing. I just hope he is prepared for the potential can of worms, i.e. patches and the like. I think that for us STEP followers "mod scope" is not as much of an issue as it is for the curators. I guess this is what is causing this discussion. If I look at myself, it is more an issue of "Does this mod fix the problems I am having?" If it does, great, imma install it. If not, then not. So it is probably more a difference of insight? Basically, we just want to play. Not that I do much playing with all the new mods coming out, but again, that is another discussion. It is amazing that after all these year Skyrim still has such a vibrant mod scene. Which also means that people are finding different ways of finding solutions for known, unknown and previously unfixable problems. And while we are very fortunate to have the STEP curators keeping watch and update the lists, I keep coming back that it is ultimately the users responsibility what mods to use. But, this is just MY opinion.