Huge Ambitions for Aspiring Newbie - Please Read!

[dahfusroh]

I have been simply submerged in Skyrim modding for the past week, and only until recently have I stumbled upon this AMAZING forum. Until a few days ago, I had no idea that such beautiful creations could be produced from modding. Dumbfounded, with what little knoledge I had recently discovered about modding, I vigilantly watched threads such as "Post your sex screenshot" and "What mod is this?", hoping to learn anything I possibly could about making such jaw-droppingly gorgeous characters. Not stopping there, I have also seen non-adult related Skyrim mods that just seem to blow what I had rigidly scrambled together out of the water. From stunning skylines to beautiful groves, and seemingly perfect HD textures without even the slightest lighting/shading problem or texture mishap. Seeing all of this not only conveniently put on one forum, but also regularly populated and generated just had me enraged with my inability to, with the same resources, create something similar or even close to being so. I have tried everythnig that I possibly could to teach myself how to make amazingness like that, but my patience is just about up with myself and the seemingly finniky Nexus. The only thing that I can do at this point is to not ask, but BEG for any kind of help or tip that anyone is willing to spare. Even if it's a word or two, any bit of advice or help would be more than appreciated, and my gratitude will only grow with the amount of advice you're willing to offer. I will outline everything that I can that has to do with my PC specs or the mods that I have tried with respect to graphics and character modding. I'll also explain what I think is are resonable goals and benchmarks that I think I should be able to achieve with what I have. I hope that ANYONE can help me any way they can, as I am really at a loss for what more I can do. Without a doubt, my goal is to become a frequent contributer to this forum by submitting amazing photos, and hopefull if I learn some, amazing mod fixes. I am in all essence of the saying, trying to create and absolute diamond out of what I learn here. So with all that being said, here is some info that you may be interested in knowing about my problem.

PC Specs:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Processor: Intel® Core i5-3550 CPU @ 3.30GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.3GHz

Memory: 16384MB RAM

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Loads of disk space

There might be something that I can do with NVidia controls to improve FPS or image quality, but I don't know what that is. If you know anything about NVidia GPU's and Skyrim Optimization, feel free to share!

 

Mods:

Here is everything that I have tried when it comes to both Graphics Enhancement and Character Remodelling.

Graphics:

Climates of Tamriel
Enhanced Blood Textures
Falskaar
Realvision ENB
Sharpshooter ENB
Realistic Lighting Overhaul
SkyRe1.3.01
Skyrim HD 2k Textures v1.5
SkyUI
Ultimate HD Fire  Effects
Unofficial High Resolution Patch
Wet/Cold

Just to note, this is not a list of mods that I use all at once, these are just some things I have heard were good and tried. I'm not sure which do not work in conjunction with each other, or if any interfere with character modelling. I also do not know if I have used any of these properly as I have not done any graphics enhancing outside of modding. If you know any ways to improve FPS, Image Quality, etc. while using any of these mods, or if you know about a bug with any of them, PLEASE feel free to post anything you know!

 

Character Modelling:
This is where I had the most trouble, by far. I kept running into texture problems, meshes overlapping with each other, neck/hand/feet seams, shadows and edges being extremely blocky, and the whole 9 yards. If there is a mod you see in the graphics section that conflicts with one of these, PLEASE respond. Here's a list of what I've experimented with:

 

ApachiiHair
CBBE
Sporty CBBE
Sporty Sexy Sweat CBBE
CHSBHC CBBE

Basvanbeu Muscle Texture Changer
Bodyslide C++ (w/ CBBE, not sure if compatible with anything else)
The Eyes of Beauty
UNP/UNPB (Don't know which to use, whatever is more compatible with CHSBHC)
ADEC Human Argonian Female Texture Replacer
ADEC TBBP(I don't know what thsi is) Body Version 3.0 + Pubic Hair patch
CHSBHC UNPB
Detailed Lips
ASX Spells
FNIS Behavior v4.1 + Idle Spells
SG Texture Renewals
Sexy Sweat UNP

ECE

With both base models, I have yet to achieve the most perfect and seamless character. I'm not sure which of these to use or in conjunction with what. The most common and repetitive problem i have is neck + hand + feet seams, and I have no clue how to fix it.

 

I would really like to emphasize how much I LOVE the CHSBHC physics change, and that should be included in any character build that I make, but at the same time I suspect that to be the main culprit of most of my seam issues. If it is just impossible to create a seamless character with CHSBHC with some sort of well made texture pack, I'd like to be told gently...

 

In almost every case I tried to use the ECE, it just ended up not working the way I wanted it to. I'm not sure if it doesn't work well with any of the mods I had mentioned.

I am very inexperienced with editing meshes, and swapping certain files to make some textures or meshes work with other, but I am very willing to learn if it will help with my problem. Any advice you have, be it in words or a video you know of, will be greatly appreciated!

TL;DR - I suck at modding and apparently PC gaming in general. My short commings in these fields wont hold back my aspirations that I've seen on the net, so if you feel like giving a novice some advice, I will do everything in my power to properly thank and appreciate those who do.

A huge thanks to anyone who even bothered to click on the thread, and an even bigger one to those who bothered reading it. If anything, skim through the passage and see if you'd like to share your expertise. I bestow my moldable mind at all of your masteries!

-Dah Fusroh

[Thulas]

Modding is a bit like a job:

You have on the one hand the things you want to do and on the other hand the things that you am able to do. Last one doesn't only include current skills with anything that has to do with modding but also what is somewhat easy for you to learn; no one started modding and already was a master of the CK after all.

 

The best thing you can do is try to find where these two sides meet and start there with gathering experience. Play a bit around, try to reach some minor goals like "create your first item" or "write your first small script", and don't hold back any questions that might appear. Don't feel stupid for asking more experienced modders anything that seems to be so easy that they'd laugh at you for not knowing it. There will be many things like that, but don't let that drag you down, everyone had to figure it out at some point.

 

Also you should keep in mind that you need to focus your modding on what you want yourself, and not anything others might like to see. That might seem obvious, but it actually is very important in order to maintain passion and pleasure in modding.

 

And that's what it's all about in the first place:

Having fun.

[jimdandy28]

[...0...]

Bottleneck will be your 1gb vram for heavy modded games.

 

Only install light texture mods and performance mods don't go full textures mods your card can't handle that.

[hryh23k9823u]

I think it's ok, I use myself Skyrim HD retexture in my getto pc with 512vram... Little version, of course. But you need forcefully enb boost and DDSopt, specially the second one, I found myself having same/better performance with high resolution packs after using ddsopt than with vanilla res pack without it. It is recommended to optimize vanilla textures as well, but since that's really a tedious process, something that works too is installing an already optimized/reduced pack such as http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/14504/? (512 version) for the textures not includes in your texture packs, and then using your texture packs on top of em (at least with Mod organizer all of these is an easy task

 

The worse thing that may happen is that your experience suddently some sluttering (specially in my case, hd textures plus a good bunch of heavy scripted mods), but pressing f4 (a function included in enboost) to release your ram quickly solves it on the fly.

[EternalDamned]

Okay first thing you will want to do, is make a back-up of a working Skyrim directory, and skyrim.ini, skyrimprefs.ini. Just zip the entire directory and keep it safe. That way if you "break" anything, you can simply delete directory and unzip replace the safe copy and ini files. You can update this zip copy when you tinker and it works. But believe me, it is a major boon to have when your tinkering goes wrong! This will not save your save games, but will keep you from having to do a complete uninstall/re-install from scratch. Much better to spend 10 minutes unzipping than 3 hours re-installing! Then I would seriously advise checking out the creation kit website and going through the tutorials. Try some of them for yourself in a safe "disposable" self made mod before you try editing existing ones. I learned that the HARD way hehe. After that it's watching tutorial video's and look at other people's mods in CK to get an idea how they did things, then try your own with a twist and have fun!

[The DarkSlayer]

Heh, I have the same specs as you but with a lower ram.

For character creation try not to overcomplicate things and just stick to one skin texture to avoid any seams.

 

[dahfusroh]

Heh, I have the same specs as you but with a lower ram.

For character creation try not to overcomplicate things and just stick to one skin texture to avoid any seams.

I may be upgrading my hardware soon, as someone suggested my card didnt have enough vram for what I was expecting. But for now, this will be helpful, thank you .

 

Okay first thing you will want to do, is make a back-up of a working Skyrim directory, and skyrim.ini, skyrimprefs.ini. Just zip the entire directory and keep it safe. That way if you "break" anything, you can simply delete directory and unzip replace the safe copy and ini files. You can update this zip copy when you tinker and it works. But believe me, it is a major boon to have when your tinkering goes wrong! This will not save your save games, but will keep you from having to do a complete uninstall/re-install from scratch. Much better to spend 10 minutes unzipping than 3 hours re-installing! Then I would seriously advise checking out the creation kit website and going through the tutorials. Try some of them for yourself in a safe "disposable" self made mod before you try editing existing ones. I learned that the HARD way hehe. After that it's watching tutorial video's and look at other people's mods in CK to get an idea how they did things, then try your own with a twist and have fun!

Duely noted!

 

I think it's ok, I use myself Skyrim HD retexture in my getto pc with 512vram... Little version, of course. But you need forcefully enb boost and DDSopt, specially the second one, I found myself having same/better performance with high resolution packs after using ddsopt than with vanilla res pack without it. It is recommended to optimize vanilla textures as well, but since that's really a tedious process, something that works too is installing an already optimized/reduced pack such as http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/14504/? (512 version) for the textures not includes in your texture packs, and then using your texture packs on top of em (at least with Mod organizer all of these is an easy task

 

The worse thing that may happen is that your experience suddently some sluttering (specially in my case, hd textures plus a good bunch of heavy scripted mods), but pressing f4 (a function included in enboost) to release your ram quickly solves it on the fly.

Ohhh thanks a bunch, I was looking for something a long these lines. Need to figure out all this to get the perfect texture...

 

Bottleneck will be your 1gb vram for heavy modded games.

 

Only install light texture mods and performance mods don't go full textures mods your card can't handle that.

Guess I'll upgrade my card in tha case, thanks for the heads up!

 

Great! Exactly what I needed. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

The best thing you can do is try to find where these two sides meet and start there with gathering experience. Play a bit around, try to reach some minor goals like "create your first item" or "write your first small script", and don't hold back any questions that might appear. Don't feel stupid for asking more experienced modders anything that seems to be so easy that they'd laugh at you for not knowing it. There will be many things like that, but don't let that drag you down, everyone had to figure it out at some point.

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I guess I'll be taking things slowly, I hope learning CK isn't as hard as it sounds

[Thulas]

Oh, don't worry about the CK, if you treat it well it's like a good little pet.

One thing you also should keep in mind is that you can do many things without knowledge of the CK; without even touching it. My own work for example barely uses the CK at all, just for a slight integration.

[dahfusroh]

Oh, don't worry about the CK, if you treat it well it's like a good little pet.

One thing you also should keep in mind is that you can do many things without knowledge of the CK; without even touching it. My own work for example barely uses the CK at all, just for a slight integration.

 

Well, I see then lol. I'm sure something will prove difficult for a beginner like me along the way

[Monsto Brukes]

You need 2 things, both linked in my sig.

 

1) Mod Organizer is a severe improvement over NMM. 

2) "Favorite Body Mesh" link. Lists all the known body meshes with pics and links.