Nice Tree Overhauls Comparison

[Mousetick]

You may enjoy watching this video presenting a bunch of Tree Overhaul mods, some very old and some more recent, with a plethora of comparison shots, including vanilla:

The Ultimate Guide to Skyrim Tree Overhaul Mods (YouTube)

Don't mind the clickbaity title, the content is actually much more subdued and interesting. I thought it was very well made and presented. Some great looking trees and forests to be seen, with some striking new mods. I'm quite happy with HLT + AA however, so I'll stick with them 

[TechAngel85]

I finally watched this video today and it was fairly well done. Here's my thoughts:

Honorable mention & Personal favorite: Nature of the Wild Lands
This mod beautifully fills out the forest! The areas completed look like real, diverse forests. It's rare that you only find a specific tree in a forest so I love that it makes them more diverse. The aspens also look amazing and on par with Aspens Ablaze. The only issue here is that it's unfinished so it remains just an honorable mention. Once completed, it will be awesome!
 

For vanilla "enhanced" replacements: Enhanced Vanilla Trees & Myrkvior
These two mods are the best vanilla-like replacements of the lot. We're currently using EVT, so I think we all know how that one fairs. It's nearly a direct vanilla replacement, as seen from the compare video, which is using the Lush version and is what I recommend for EVT users. The only significant deviations are a couple of the dead pines.

Myrkvior is essentially "EVT enhanced". I think it might even use some EVT assets. Some pines look like EVT's pines, but other models are also added for diversity. I'm not an enormous fan of the green on the snowy pines, but I get that it's technically more accurate. It's just a bit too bright, imo. The aspens are lusher and taller vs vanilla/EVT, but are for some reason green by default. There are options to change that to vanilla yellow or RAT colors. If I used this mod, I would likely keep Aspens Ablaze in my mod list to overwrite it. All things considered, Myrkvior would be something I'd recommend for someone who wanted to stay remarkably close to vanilla, but desired to add a bit more "oomph" to the trees.
 

For vanilla-like interpretation (but completely new): SFO & Ulvenwald Carpathian Forest
SFO requires no introduction or review. We are all likely familiar with it. In my opinion, SFO is the most vanilla-like interpretation that still presents something new. Vurt has produced his work for years, and it shows. If you selected the vanilla trees and gave them a facelift to something more modern, it would likely land somewhere close to SFO. As such, SFO tends to fit in nicely with just about any setup, like our two vanilla "enhanced" replacements above.

Ulvenwald Carpathian Forest is something that caught my attention and made me think there might be something to look into. It's very beautiful. The pines are unique but still very lovely. I love the snowy pines! Vanilla snowy pines are just painted textures, which I've never cared for because they do not replicate real snow on branches. Ulvenwald is one of them that corrects this. The aspens are are vanilla sized, but reshaped to look more like an aspen. They are just as lovely to look at vs some of the other compares. My sole concern is that all the trees seem a bit thinned out and sits just above vanilla in lushness. I'm suspicious this might make the landscape look less dense since I'm accustomed to EVT Lush pines. I couldn't tell from the video, so I would have to see more of the mod to know if that would be an issue for me or not.

EDIT
Ulvenwald Carpathian Forest is now Traverse the Ulvenwald. I can see from some of the shot that my thoughts about the forest looking thinner may be true. One of the reasons I like Nature of the Wild Lands is because it really feels full and "wild". The pines from this mod many have the opposite effect. Would need to look in-game to be sure.

Okay, so the burning question..."Why not Happy Little Trees for this made up category of mine?"
I know many users have endorsed this mod. Why don't I? Honestly?...many of the trees look unusual to me. Regardless of all the mesh correction that may come with the mod, many of the trees look...weird...in one way or another and it's all design choice. First is the choice of barks. Lets face facts, when you're running through the forests you're predominantly seeing bark in your field of focus. The pine bark just looks off. There's at least two types and one of them (the more predominate one) lacks depth and detail, making it bland and stick out in many of the lighting situations I've seen. The trunks of these trees also feel a bit too large to me; however, that could be the bark making it stand out too much. The branches are excellent on all the pines, though. Snowy pines have the same bark issue.

As for the aspens, they simply look unusual to me. Nothing about the trunk/branch structure says "aspen" to me. The base of the trunks is too large, which creates an odd and quick narrowing to the tops. Aspen trunks should be narrower for those size of trees. Next the branches coming off the trunks are bendy and wavy with flowering branches of leaves at the ends. Aspens branches tend to be more straight with smaller branches shooting off along the entire length of the primary branch, thus filling out the entire length of the larger branch with leaves. This design is simply odd to me for an aspen tree. Finally, their pastel colored leaves aren't to my personal tastes. The same tree design is repeated in the Reach trees and just looks odd.
 

The other mods in the compare are all good in their own right, but are all larger deviations than I would care to play with. 

[ButchDiavolo]

Just to add my 2 cents:

For me personally the best combination of tree mods is (in install order):

• EVT Lush (+EVT Lush Parallax)
• Realistic Spruce & Pine Bark Textures (spruce version)
• Realistic Aspen
• Happy Little Trees
• Nature of the Wild Lands

Nature of the Wild Lands is my personal favorite as well. But, as TechAngel already said, it isn't finished yet, so I use the other tree mods to get a more or less similar effect to NotWL outside of the regions NotWL touches. I use the Spruce Bark textures, because they look slightly better than other pine-like barks. Performance wise, I have never noticed any lags or odd behaviours, apart from a stray tree here or there, but even those are rare. My setup also doesn't cause missing textures/ meshes errors in DynDoLOD 3.

As I said, this set up works for me personally and is of course entirely subjective.

[MisterMorden]

To me, the best part of HLT is the 3D lods.  I've yet to see tree lod with as little pop in (EVT's Vurt snow trees are pretty good too, but I just can't get that barely noticeable transition on the green pines that I can with HLT's 3D lod add on).  The reach trees are fantastic as well, imo.  But I can certainly see Tech pov on the bark/trunks.  As much as I like the snow pines as well, I get a little texture flicker near the tops of some as I scan the landscape or approach them.

[TechAngel85]

1 hour ago, MisterMorden said:

To me, the best part of HLT is the 3D lods.  I've yet to see tree lod with as little pop in (EVT's Vurt snow trees are pretty good too, but I just can't get that barely noticeable transition on the green pines that I can with HLT's 3D lod add on).  The reach trees are fantastic as well, imo.  But I can certainly see Tech pov on the bark/trunks.  As much as I like the snow pines as well, I get a little texture flicker near the tops of some as I scan the landscape or approach them.

With DynDOLOD and all the Add-ons that Z has made, you can get 3D LODs with just about any trees now.

[MisterMorden]

26 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

With DynDOLOD and all the Add-ons that Z has made, you can get 3D LODs with just about any trees now.

Oh, no doubt about that...I just mean that with the ones Z made for HLT (especially the higher quality ones) the lod crown model more closely resembles the actual fully loaded tree than any I've tried.  Again, only my humble opinion.