The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[Atomic Playboy]

It took a year for Shivering Isles to come out after Oblivion. I don't know why people are so shocked that there hasn't been a massive mod yet.

 

[Face2Face]

Dawnguard is definitively worth picking in my opinion. At this point I will buy anything Bethesda throws my way for Skyrim. I am in total love with this game and a big sucker for any additional content. I am not like this with most other things by the way

 

[The_Golden_Man]

Dawnguard is okay, but was nowhere near worth the initial price. Lately it has gone down a bit though.

 

[Face2Face]

How big was Shivering Isles for Oblivion? I played oblivion for about 20 hours and never could get into it... I think it was the combat. The graphics are still pretty decent and the story was good. The combat was meh...

 

[The_Golden_Man]

How big was Shivering Isles for Oblivion? I played oblivion for about 20 hours and never could get into it... I think it was the combat. The graphics are still pretty decent and the story was good. The combat was meh...

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:About

 

[Face2Face]

Looks pretty huge. I may have to give Oblivion another try...?

 

[The_Golden_Man]

Looks pretty huge. I may have to give Oblivion another try...?

Oblivion is a very good game. I spent far more than 100 hours in it. But just like Skyrim, I drained the game to the extent I cannot touch it anymore.

But if you haven't played it, you're missing out. Get the GOTY edition on Steam. It should be in your collection.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Dawnfire was very.....average. Not bad, but very forgettable.

Wait until it is $5.

 

[shortylickens]

I'll wait until everything is in a platinum pack for 20 bucks.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

A few screenshots from recent sessions (with the mods outlined here):

I'm thinking of switching to Opethfeldt ENB for a slightly more realistic daytime brightness. His latest shots look outstanding; you can see them at this NSFW link (NSFW on account of some people posting shots with nude models).

 

[Face2Face]

I have been eyeing the OpethFeldt after seeing your post about it awhile back. Does it work with the newest ENB release? Are there still water bugs in ENB's now? Or has that been fixed? Pic's look great BTW

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I have been eyeing the OpethFeldt after seeing your post about it awhile back. Does it work with the newest ENB release? Are there still water bugs in ENB's now? Or has that been fixed? Pic's look great BTW

The latest version of Opethfeldt at Skyrim Nexus includes a link to download ENB 0.117 from an external site (not the ENB dev page which stopped hosting 0.117 when 0.119 was released). So I think you'll be able to get everything you need to get that one running. It should also work with 0.119, but I don't know what values you might have to tweak to ensure compatibility and I don't want to screw around with that. Sounds like he's going to release another version shortly that should be compatible with 0.119 and 0.120 beta so I'll probably just wait for that.

 

[Face2Face]

Okay, I installed Opethfeldt. Pretty straight forward installation. Overall I am happy, I just need to tweak it some more.

I changed the vignette to 0. I also removed the Effect.txt file in the Skyrim root dir. It makes the game look really blurry, kind of like FXAA - which I hate. Here are some low resolution screen shots of my settings so far. I am also happy this ENB doesn't have DOF.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Looks really good. Nice and bright during the day, kind of like it were daylight or something. Which galaxy are you using? Milky Way?

Also, some console commands for photography (for anyone who doesn't know):

tfc - Sets free cam. Time passes normally. Use tfc 0 in console to disable.
tfc 1 - Sets free cam. Pauses all action. Use tfc 0 in console to disable.
sucsm <value> - Sets the free cam time scale. Default is 10. This is mainly useful for use with tfc 1, as the camera zooms around very fast. Setting "sucsm 3" in console (without quotes) will allow you to make smaller adjustments to the camera to find the ideal angle.
tm - Toggle menus. This will disable ALL menu items from being shown, including the console (although you will still be able to enter console commands). It also gets rid of any text on screen, any icons, location markers, compass, crosshairs, etc. Absolutely awesome for taking pictures that don't have any stuff getting in the way of your picture. Note that when you hit tm in console and press enter, the console disappears from view (being toggled off), but is actually still open; hitting ~ will lower the console so you can move around again. Hit ~, type tm and press enter again to disable.

I really like "tm" personally. Get rid of all the pesky gamer icons and you have some images that are just perfect for desktop backgrounds. Especially in a game with such great colors...

 

[shortylickens]

Yup, we are finally getting to the point where you dont need Maya and several hours of rendering for really good wallpapers.

 

[cytoSiN]

I'm thinking of switching to Opethfeldt ENB for a slightly more realistic daytime brightness. His latest shots look outstanding; you can see them at this NSFW link (NSFW on account of some people posting shots with nude models).

Some very cool images in that thread. I particularly like this one:

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Okay, I installed Opethfeldt. Pretty straight forward installation. Overall I am happy, I just need to tweak it some more.

Forgot to ask, did you install it on the 0.117 ENB Opethfeldt provides or did you port it over to 0.119/0.120? If you did port it, did you need to change anything or did it work straight away? If not, are you suffering from the fog bug he mentions 0.117 has?

 

[Face2Face]

Playboy- Thanks for the camera info. I had no idea I could do all of that. I am using the Milkyway galaxy mod - Is there a better one?

I followed the directions and used the 0.117 ENB. I haven't seen any Fog bug as of yet. I need to play the game some more and see if it's there. It's gonna take a while getting used to the dark nights though..

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Playboy- Thanks for the camera info. I had no idea I could do all of that. I am using the Milkyway galaxy mod - Is there a better one?

I followed the directions and used the 0.117 ENB. I haven't seen any Fog bug as of yet. I need to play the game some more and see if it's there. It's gonna take a while getting used to the dark nights though..

I was just going to say your nights look a lot brighter than mine . I had RCRN installed before going ENB, and holy cow, talk about dark nights. Even the "bright" setting of RCRN is virtually pitch black at night (and unplayable in a well lit room). As it stands, my nights are still pretty dark...

As for the galaxy, I use the color version from Enhanced Night Skyrim, one of the mods from TPC. I know he recommends the Milky Way galaxy, but I really like the more colorful nebula-esque fantasy style of Enhanced Night Skyrim, so I just use that.

 

[Rhezuss]

Beautiful pics!
If I wans't that lazy I would try to achieve comething like that but I like how my game looks like.

 

[cytoSiN]

Beautiful pics!
If I wans't that lazy I would try to achieve comething like that but I like how my game looks like.

Agreed. Loving the eye candy, but to be honest, I love the look of the vanilla game. I used a few relatively minor visual mods, such as the Night Sky mod and the HD textures, but otherwise I'm happy with Bethesda's effort. Modders have taken it to another, amazing level though.

 

[Rhezuss]

Agreed. Loving the eye candy, but to be honest, I love the look of the vanilla game. I used a few relatively minor visual mods, such as the Night Sky mod and the HD textures, but otherwise I'm happy with Bethesda's effort. Modders have taken it to another, amazing level though.

Exactly. I'm comsidering myself as a semi-purist: I'm all in for cool mods but want my games to feel like games, not real-life simulation

That being said, some pics in this thread look effing amazing and spectacular!

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Obviously I'm in the modding camp, but I agree with keeping the game as close to Vanilla as possible. There are plenty of mods out there to take the game in all manner of crazy directions. I'm more about enhancing the artistic vision Bethesda had; I like the feel they were going for, I just like it with some sharper textures. How could you not like the artistic appeal of this?

 

[Rhezuss]

Like I said, I really like your pics and many of the other posters.
I'm not just the kind of dude that would put in the time needed to mod a game to these results when some "basic" mods like the TPC take a few minutes and give you really nice results.

To each is own

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Like I said, I really like your pics and many of the other posters.
I'm not just the kind of dude that would put in the time needed to mod a game to these results when some "basic" mods like the TPC take a few minutes and give you really nice results.

To each is own

To be fair, TPC is a reasonably complex mod that involves replacing the vast majority of environmental textures (thankfully with ones that are very much in the spirit of Vanilla). I'd say TPC represents about 75% of the modding I've done to my own game, given how expansive it is. It's really nice though. If all you do is TPC, you've got a great looking game. :thumbsup: