guide Skyrim AE for Beginners - V 3.1.0

[Aylis]

Update to 3.1.0

Finally got to the update I had planned for some time (this here should have been 3.0.8). With this here all major changes are incorporated. Now it comes down to QoL, bugfixes (if I find some), quest expansions and fine details.  

 

Mods to REMOVE

Spoiler

Armor - Light

Adventurer Armor - Retextures                                                                                            Redundant.

Adventurer Armor - Fixes and SPID Distribution

Adventurer Armour - 3BA Bodysdlide Preset                                                                      Got a better solution

Adventurer Armour - HIMBO Bodysdlide Preset

 

Armor - Heavy

Crown of the Ancient Falmer                                                                                                 Covered ba a vanilla armor texture pack.

Guard Shields                                                                                                                          Covered ba a vanilla armor texture pack.

Guard Shields Reborn

Guards Armor Replacer - Guard Shields Reborn patch 

Twilight Princess Armor                                                                                                        Cut is too modern.

 

Mods to ADD

Spoiler

World - Textures [Fixes]

FYX - Alpha Blood Blending Bug - NG

 

PC

Vanilla Hair Remake SMP - Weight adjustment

 

Armor - Light

Arcane Mage Armor

Arcane Mage Armor - HDT-SMP Patch

Pelts 'o' Plenty - Fur Pelt Gear

Pelts 'o' Plenty - Fix

Pelts 'o' Plenty - Fluffy Fur Pelt Cloaks

Pelts 'o' Plenty - 3BA Preset

Adventurer Armour - HDT-SMP Armor Separated

Adventurers Tunic

Adventurers Tunic - 3BA Preset

Champion of Arkay Armor

Champion of Arkay Armor - HDT-SMP

Champion of Arkay Armor - HDT-SMP 3BA Preset

Champion of Arkay Armor - HDT-SMP HIMBO Preset

Einherjr Armor

Einherjr Armor - Fixes

Einherjr Armor - Textures

Einherjr Armor - HDT-SMP Patch

Master Thief Armor

Master Thief Armor - HIMBO Preset

Master Thief Armor - 3BA HDT-SMP Patch

Master Thief Armor - HIMBO HDT-SMP Patch

Penelope Outfit

Sand Snake Armor and Weapon

Wine Duchess

Wine Duchess - Meshes (Non-HS)

Wine Duchess - Textures

 

Armor - Heavy

Gryphonknight Regalia

Gryphonknight Regalia - HDT-SMP Patch

Gryphonknight Regalia - HDT-SMP 3BA Preset

Gryphonknight Regalia - HDT-SMP HIMBO Preset

Wind Ruler Armor

Wind Ruler Armor - Fixes

Wind Ruler Armor - HDT-SMP Patch

Wind Ruler Armor - HDT-SMP 3BA Preset

Wind Ruler Armor - HDT-SMP HIMBO Preset

 

Equipment Overhaul

Master Thief Armor - Thieves Guild Replacer

Wine Duchess - Vampire Royal Armor Replacer

SPID Hrongar Thane of Whiterun Viking Armor

SPID Penelope Outfit

SPID Uthgerd the Unbroken Viking Armor

SPID Ysolda Aspiring Merchant Viking Armor

 

Weather

Pelt Cloaks for Wet and Cold

 

PBR (Physical Based Rendering)

PBR Divine Crusaders

PBR Wine Duchess

 

Edited November 1, 2025 by Aylis

[Kamikatana]

On 11/15/2022 at 8:11 AM, Aylis said:

 

Just a small cleanup, the "DF - Enhanced Blood Textures Patch" is still showing up under "Gameplay - Foundation" even though we have removed EBT.  Thanks

[Novosin]

I get snowy footprints on the ground inside Windhelm city walls. But the ground is not covered in snow. 
Did I mess something up?

[PubliusNV]

I went ahead and installed OBody NG and all the presets from the Gameplay - Anatomy group, and also installed all the presets from the Predone Zeroed Bodyslides - Vanilla Armors and Predone Bodyslides - Added Armors down in the Final group. 

 

With RMD SPIDified Sons of Skyrim, all of the guards that I've checked so far (Whiterun and Solitude) are naked. Without it, they look fine. However, in either case, I noticed that Idolf Battle-born and General Tullius have invisible bodies (head, hands, and feet visible). So I ran Bodyslide, and batch built the morphs, but that didn't make any difference. Idolf and Tullies are still invisible.

 

I tried using the disable and enable commands on both the naked guards and Idolf, and in both cases the bodies flickered but then went back to the way they were before. Same thing happens when I use Obody to switch body types.

 

I'm going to assume that either I missed one or more needed armors, and/or made a mistake when running Bodyslide. Since you've made updates to the armors I'll start there.

[Aylis]

@Kamikatana

Yes, and we still need the script.

 

@Novosin

Its dust. Recheck the settings and textures for it.

 

@PubliusNV

No idea... Especially as Idolaf uses a vanilla armor untouched by any SPID. Floating heads means a broken or missing/unrecognized mesh.

[PubliusNV]

I think I found my problem. In the Armor - Vanilla group, in the Subgroup - Imperial Legion, I had taken the Legion Option 1 and installed Imperial Armors and Weapons Retexture.

 

I'm not sure whether there was a problem in that mod, or whether the fact that I had also installed [RMB SPIDified] New Legion without having the New Legion mod installed, but when I removed Imperial Armors and Weapons Retexture and installed Legion Option 2 New Legion and New Legion Textures, General Tullius and Idolaf are back to normal, and the Guards are no longer naked. 

 

Looking at the list now, I see that the Equipment Overhaul has different options for Imperial Legion Distribution that I must have missed.

 

Anyway, all is well. I'm going to update my mod list with your latest revisions and then proceed to the next group. Thanks for the help.

Edited November 2, 2025 by PubliusNV
Fixed typo

[Aylis]

@PubliusNV

Well, SPID distributes items with their ID. If the required mod is missing, then the ID isn't in use and a lot of things can happen...

 

Good to know that you found the problem. 👍

_________________________________________________

 

Yay! 4XXth rerun of DynDOLOD is finished. Now I can reactivate the maps, create a new character and start to enjoy the game.

Edited November 2, 2025 by Aylis

[YuFeng]

@Aylis

Great job with the armor update

 

One problem remains, though. The Guards Armor Replacer - Dynamic Armor Variants Patch in Armor - Heavy

 

That one replaces the esp of the Guards Armor Replacer mod and only uses the light armors and nothing else. That causes all GAR patches (We have 5 of them in our installers) to get errors because the Armors they want to display on armor displays don't exist. Also, we do have RMB SPIDified - Guard Armor Replacer in Equipment Overhaul in use, so we wouldn't use the other mod anyway I think?

[belegost]

I loaded to ASLAL "Camping in the woods" the other day. My favourite start option and a place I know like the back of my hand.

I lost my sense of direction and got totally lost in the forest 10 meters away from the camp. Amazing. 

 

I also yanked out TNG and got back to SoS, because I couldn't get TNG to work in animations. Details here: https://www.loverslab.com/topic/259006-solved-sos-himbo-or-tng/#findComment-7166162

 

[Aylis]

@YuFeng

That is no problem as GAR is only sort of a backup. SoS is the main mod here and overrides GAR. Before that combination (aka GAR alone) some guards still showed up in vanilla armor or had a wild mix and that was something I didn't want to see.

 

@belegost

Now you know why I went with the listed flora combination. 😉

[belegost]

Vortex reports Water in Wash Basins as being redundant after Noble Furniture SMIMed - Water in Wash Basins is installed and set to overwrite.

 

Modern Wait Menu causes a soft lock. No menu appears, the game still runs, but stops responding to input, including pulling up console and has to be terminated in Task Manager.

Edited November 2, 2025 by belegost

[Aylis]

@belegost

Yep, redundant if you ignore the included textures that we need...

 

I'll take a look.

[Novosin]

A question regarding PapyrusUtil.dll.

SexlabFramework v.1.66b have an included PapyrusUtil.dll that overwrites the newer PapyrusUtil.dll from PapyrusUtil SE - Modders Scripting Utility Functions v.4.6.

So far this doesn't seem to cause any issues for me, but according to a few different forum posts I've seen on Nexus and Reddit, this can cause CTDs.

I'm just wondering if anyone has had any CTDs due to this and if it would be wise to let the newer PapyrusUtil.dll overwrite the older one in Sexlab?

[Kamikatana]

You have to move the PapyrusUtil just below the Framework otherwise, you will CTD or have issues with some Sexlab mods.

Nothing should ever overwrite the Util.

[belegost]

19 hours ago, Aylis said:

Yep, redundant if you ignore the included textures that we need...

Redundancy is only reported if ALL files from within the mod are overwritten by something else. SMIMMed patch overwrites every single file, including the textures, if my assumption about load order is correct. So none of the original files are being used anymore.

 

I'm happy to be proven wrong, since this whole setup is just TOO BIG for me to ponder what should go where every single time I install a new archive. I just go with simple assumption: later in the guide = overwrite everything else.

 

If there are specifics as to what goes where, I would like to know them.  For. Every. Single. File.

 

 

Anyway, here's the report:

Edited November 3, 2025 by belegost

[belegost]

38 minutes ago, Novosin said:

A question regarding PapyrusUtil.dll.

SexlabFramework v.1.66b have an included PapyrusUtil.dll that overwrites the newer PapyrusUtil.dll from PapyrusUtil SE - Modders Scripting Utility Functions v.4.6.

So far this doesn't seem to cause any issues for me, but according to a few different forum posts I've seen on Nexus and Reddit, this can cause CTDs.

I'm just wondering if anyone has had any CTDs due to this and if it would be wise to let the newer PapyrusUtil.dll overwrite the older one in Sexlab?

 

Rule of Thumb:

 

Standalone Papyrus should ALWAYS overwrite everything. No exceptions. Even if the author of the mod claims otherwise.

If the mod will not work without its own custom Papyrus library, don't use that mod, because that's inviting problems down the road.

Edited November 2, 2025 by belegost

[belegost]

The Great City of Rorikstead is also redundant after installing Rob's Bug Fixes. TGC Rorikstead only contains one esp file and the fix overwrites that file.

[Aylis]

Papyrus

I've been using the listed configuration for a long time now. NO ISSUES.

 

If you think you know better, change it yourself. I won't.

 

@belegost

1. Big pictures belong into spoilers.

2. No idea what Vortex is doing...

Spoiler

3. The patch wouldn't exist without the original, and shouldn't the original get an endorsement too?

 

Wait/sleep menue works without issues here. No freezes or hiccups.

Edited November 2, 2025 by Aylis

[belegost]

3 hours ago, Aylis said:

No idea what Vortex is doing...

I just checked manually.

 

Assuming this is the correct load order:

• Water in Wash Basins
• Water in Wells - mesh-only animated wells
• Noble Furniture SMIMMed - Water for the Wash Basin

 

Water in Wells - mesh-only animated wells overwrites all four texture files from Water in Wash Basins

Noble Furniture SMIMMed - Water for the Wash Basin overwrites the one, single mesh file from Water in Wash Basins

 

Therefore no original files from Water in Wash Basins remain. The mod itself becomes redundant. Unless this is not the correct load order. In which case, please tell me what should the correct load order be.

 

Regardless of that, one of those two is still unnecessary with that particular setup, as Noble Furniture SMIMMed - Water for the Wash Basin only contains one single mesh file that shares path and name with Water in Wash Basins and nothing else.

Edited November 2, 2025 by belegost

[Aylis]

Ah, got it...

 

It had 57268 and should have been 57208. Different mods doing the same with an almost identical number. Fixed

 

And the big picture still belongs in a spoiler!

Edited November 2, 2025 by Aylis

[Aylis]

For your info:

 

I'm moving today to a new apartment. Its not quite clear when I have Internet again (although I already made all preparations for that). Hopefully it is only a day or two.

[Ihiku]

For those of you more knowledgeable than me:

Wrye Bash is displaying absolutely none of my mods, it displays the original stock game folder, but not the copy I made for modding. Is there possibly ANY help for me?

 

Google has been shit in this instance

[PubliusNV]

5 minutes ago, Ihiku said:

Is there possibly ANY help for me?

 

Did you install the mods with MO2, as this guide suggests? If so, are you invoking Wrye Bash from within MO2? If not, it will not see the mods in your virtual folder.

[Ihiku]

Yes, and yes. Mods installed with MO2, and wrye bash launched via MO2

[belegost]

12 hours ago, Aylis said:

Ah, got it...

 

It had 57268 and should have been 57208. Different mods doing the same with an almost identical number. Fixed

 

And the big picture still belongs in a spoiler!

Did you change something within the guide?

 

EDIT:

Assuming those are mod IDs, I presume then you're going to exchange Water in Wells - mesh-only animated wells for WiZkiD Wells with real water

Is that assumption correct?

 

================

Also another redundancy:

Cathedral 3D Mountain Flowers for Hearthfire

and

Cathedral - 3D Mountain Flowers Hearthfire Patch

 

Both do the same thing and contain the same files.

 

Overwriting either one makes it redundant, however Cathedral 3D Mountain Flowers for Hearthfire also overwrites all other Cathedral Mountain Flowers textures with a duller, less vibrant ones, including textures from Cathedral 3D Mountain Flowers - Snowy Yellow Snowy Red-White.

Therefore I am going to remove it from my load order.

Edited November 3, 2025 by belegost