I've been heavy into Skyrim this past week or two. Ever since I found Cathedral Weathers and started tweaking my ENB to work with it, I've been all about it. It just looks so good all of the time. Still a long road getting all of the weathers in order with RudyENB, but the results have been pretty satisfying. A lot of the weathers looked weird at first (when ENB isn't set right for certain weathers, you wind up with really alien colors/tones, inverted silhouettes, brightness/contrast issues... so on) but with adjustments to each profile they really start to come around and make you realize just how good the whole package is. It's very colorful and dynamic, but always pretty natural and filmic looking. None of that harshness or oversaturation. Cathedral makes other weather mods seem primitive... like they're trying too hard to wow you. It's got that 'next-gen' polish and balance. You can go super-realistic with the ENB, or full on fantasy. I said before I like a mix, and it does that really well. It's like they learned from every weather mod that came before and fixed all of the things that made them flawed. I don't feel like there's much of a debate as to what the best one is anymore. So long as you tailor it... it's definitely this one.
It's still such an amazing time to be modding Skyrim. The texture and model work gets consistently better year after year, as does weather, lighting, and new content. I wish Bethesda truly realized how special that scene truly is and focused on it more... not CC bullshit, but actually making the engine mod-friendly and giving people the best possible platform to exert thier creativity on the game, rather than making them bear down on ruddy engine limitations. What people do with it as is, is amazing. Imagine if the engine was actually good and not buggy as fuck every time you changed something! People could focus entirely on what they're trying to make for the game. Hardware is now good enough that an RTX 2060 can let you do all sorts of really heavy modding without bogging down. A better optimized engine with modding better integrated, using modern tech ON modern tech would be an AMAZING thing. Sometimes I really think it is Skyrim itself that doesn't do its best mods justice. Some modders have amazing skills.
Just a few SS for now... I've got so many. It's such a travesty how much damage 95% JPEG quality and a little scaling do to them, though. :/ Playing the game I'm in a constant state of "Ohhhhkay. Woah.
That's beautiful ohhhhhhmygoddd..." Interesting how a bunch of visual polish really can rejuvenate a game you already know really well. I stop and look around like I haven't seen any of it before now.
I'm also working on my general interior settings. Vivid weathers does a little something to them that no other weather mods do. So to me they're always missing something now. I like them to be kinda dark, dank and moody, but also warm and cozy when appropriate. ENB authors always seem to leave them looking comparatively plain. Landscapes look crazy photogenic and dramatic and then you go inside and there's no drama to any of what you're seeing. Getting there on fixing that more to my liking.
Just for fun... here's with no ENB. Pretty jarring difference, eh? I don't think Cathedral touches interiors at all, so this is basically vanilla post-processing.
I randomly got the best screenshot I'm ever going to get of Aela. It was too perfect. I think this is how Aela fans always pictured her looking in their heads. I don't always like Bijin's characters... they always look younger than they are and sometimes they stand out too much with their done-up-ness, but this one is almost totally faithful to what she's meant to look like, I think. A little too clean and her hair is absurd, but I understand how that can be hard to really do in a visually-appealing way, with what's available.
Since I'm sticking to this character for real, I'm hashing out a custom preset, too. My general rule with female characters in this game is that they can be pretty, but more than anything they need to look like they can do what they actually do... like fight, and brave harsh environments. Like, she needs to look like she is down to kill rooms full of people, literally climb mountains, and kill trolls with huge battleaxes. No exaggerated barbie/sims characters or anime waifus with absurd proportions and gigantic eyes. No judgement if that's what you like, but I don't get how that isn't totally immersion breaking for people. It seriously annoys me that it is so hard to find character presets that don't look they belong in a different kind of game... where are the badass female protagonist presets, man? She's the fuckin Dovahkiin fer chrissake! She rips fuckin dragons out of the sky, barabrically brutalizes them... with simple weapons/crazy mystical shouting... and then eats their souls. She's a badass. Not one part of a 5-girl-1-boy light-novel harem. She's not trying out for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, either. She might be attractive enough for that, but she doesn't do things like that because this is Skyrim and in Skyrim people often try to kill you, and you have to kill them back with melee weapons. It's a rough place with crazy shit going on... there are no fancy shopping malls. This is a world where women often wear armor and carry swords
IDK, maybe I'm just too boring/old. I think female protagonists are cool, but I don't need for them to primarily be sex objects, to the point where it doesn't even make sense. A little fan service, I don't mind at all. But past a certain line it's just corny and steals away legitimacy. It just seems juvenile. I'm at this point in my life where none of it is new to me. I've been through the whole rigamarole with enough different women to know that stuff doesn't amount to much on its own. TnA is always a welcome thing - I'm still just a dude at the end of the day, but you can't set aside other things for it. So, I'm not going out of my way to put bikini models in my medieval fantasy game and ruin things just to have it. There are so many other things out there for those sorts of desires.
I understand sometimes people gotta live their best lives... but that ain't me. It's funny how obvious the Nexus demographics are. I'll be the first to admit I am a super-nerd (even a hardcore shut-in at different times,) but even I'm like "OH COME ON. WHY WITH THAT? Why did you do that to her? Nooooo!" What do you do if you meet a nice girl and she sees all of your explicit tiddy mods?
I need her to be significantly more grizzled than this. But it's early in the playthrough. If I can ever figure out how to properly sculpt, I'll make her older and give her some scars. Make her look more like she actually belongs in the game.
I do like how she always looks like she's not having anybody's shit... like she knows everyone is an NPC, she can't die, and nothing in the world actually matters except for killing, looting, and turning in quests. She feels no pain... save for the constant pain in knowing the meaninglessness of her truest existence. I think she'd make a good vampiress but I never play as one, so 2h warrioress will have to do.
) and those who are available on GoG but the physical support is damaged ... backup install ... thanks GoG! 
