Screenshot Taking Advice

[LilligantEX]

Hi all,

 

I'm just getting into making poses and taking screenshots, and, it's taken some time, but I've put together a character I like.

 

However, I know that there must be a bunch of mods to improve lighting and other effects to make screenshots look as awesome as some of the ones people post on here.

 

If someone could give me some general advice when taking screenshots (plus mods if there are good ones), that would be great! Thanks!

[LaEspada]

ENB are probably the single best thing you can do to make better screenshots. I'd recommend Opethfeldt ENB, Realvision ENB, Somber ENB, or K ENB.

Next would be character textures(if focusing on characters)

MFG console for character emotions.

 

I find that a straight up screenshot "body and face facing completely you" kind of kills a picture IMO. I little bit of asymmetry goes a long way if your good. A sideways glance with a pose mod is great is more attractive than "looking directly at you" with no emotion.

[LilligantEX]

Thanks! I am mostly focusing on characters. I've been messing around with MFG already, and it makes a big difference!

 

Unfortunately, I have issues with running Skyrim on higher specs, so I'm not sure how I'd go with ENBs. Theoretically, my laptop should be fine (8gb RAM, 2.4ghz proc., decent Radeon card), but it overheats like crazy when I use high res texture mods; even just character ones.

 

Are there any decent ENBs that are less graphics intensive?

[maybenexttime]

Most ENBs usually hit performance but some don't. I don't any at the top of my head but I will endorse realvision enb and installing all the recommended mods with it. but yeah your laptop is going to have a hard time using realvision enb.

 

I think somber enb is a solid choice with little fps hit.

[Riceball]

For some reason, some of my ENB effects aren't being captured when I press the print screen. FRAPS doesn't help much and the normal steam screenshot has the same problem. Any ideas why or at least tips on how I can capture what is on my screen 99%?

[LilligantEX]

Most ENBs usually hit performance but some don't. I don't any at the top of my head but I will endorse realvision enb and installing all the recommended mods with it. but yeah your laptop is going to have a hard time using realvision enb.

 

I think somber enb is a solid choice with little fps hit.

 

Just tried Somber.

 

O.O It's just about the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The downside: my FPS was like 3. lol. So not usable, unfortunately. I took a few quick screens, but there was no way I could set up a pose or anything.

 

Any other suggestions for less intense ones?

[Guest Ragna_Rok]

nice topic... i will sneak-follow here... could be very useful next holidays when i maybe will go for some char-modding... after my custom crossbows are done.

 

[LaEspada]

For some reason, some of my ENB effects aren't being captured when I press the print screen. FRAPS doesn't help much and the normal steam screenshot has the same problem. Any ideas why or at least tips on how I can capture what is on my screen 99%?

 

Use the ENB built in screenshot key instead of the print-screen so you can preserve ENB effects and will only include your Skyrim window not your entire screen. You can see what hot-key it is in the ENB in-game editor.

[LaEspada]

 

Most ENBs usually hit performance but some don't. I don't any at the top of my head but I will endorse realvision enb and installing all the recommended mods with it. but yeah your laptop is going to have a hard time using realvision enb.

 

I think somber enb is a solid choice with little fps hit.

 

Just tried Somber.

 

O.O It's just about the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The downside: my FPS was like 3. lol. So not usable, unfortunately. I took a few quick screens, but there was no way I could set up a pose or anything.

 

Any other suggestions for less intense ones?

 

 

Best thing to do to make ENB's better performance is.

Disable Depth of field and Ambient Occlusion(or just lower the source size scale to like 0.3?).

 

[Kaz Aanh]

Don't forget about other usefull commands like :

 

TM - toggle menu is the most imporant one  ( or just set UI transparency in the Skyrim settings to 0% )

FOV - 1-120 ( 30 is great for close ups )

SUCSM X - slows a camera movement in TFC mode

TFC - free camera mode

TFC1 - as above but with time freeze

TCL - toggle collision , usefull if you want to "stick" to some object

TAI - turns off npc AI

setscale X - if you want to change size of yourself or npc's

 

SetPos and SetAngle are handy too.

 

FaceLight a mod that adds a lights in front of your character , so they look nice even in the shadows.

[LilligantEX]

 

 

Best thing to do to make ENB's better performance is.

Disable Depth of field and Ambient Occlusion(or just lower the source size scale to like 0.3?).

 

 

 

Whereabouts can you change them? I looked in SkyrimPrefs.ini, but couldn't obviously find them.

 

 

Don't forget about other usefull commands like :

 

TM - toggle menu is the most imporant one  ( or just set UI transparency in the Skyrim settings to 0% )

FOV - 1-120 ( 30 is great for close ups )

SUCSM X - slows a camera movement in TFC mode

TFC - free camera mode

TFC1 - as above but with time freeze

TCL - toggle collision , usefull if you want to "stick" to some object

TAI - turns off npc AI

setscale X - if you want to change size of yourself or npc's

 

SetPos and SetAngle are handy too.

 

FaceLight a mod that adds a lights in front of your character , so they look nice even in the shadows.

 

I'll check out that mod, thanks! I didn't know about FOV, so I'll try that too!

[LaEspada]

 

 

 

Best thing to do to make ENB's better performance is.

Disable Depth of field and Ambient Occlusion(or just lower the source size scale to like 0.3?).

 

 

 

Whereabouts can you change them? I looked in SkyrimPrefs.ini, but couldn't obviously find them.

 

 

Don't forget about other usefull commands like :

 

TM - toggle menu is the most imporant one  ( or just set UI transparency in the Skyrim settings to 0% )

FOV - 1-120 ( 30 is great for close ups )

SUCSM X - slows a camera movement in TFC mode

TFC - free camera mode

TFC1 - as above but with time freeze

TCL - toggle collision , usefull if you want to "stick" to some object

TAI - turns off npc AI

setscale X - if you want to change size of yourself or npc's

 

SetPos and SetAngle are handy too.

 

FaceLight a mod that adds a lights in front of your character , so they look nice even in the shadows.

 

I'll check out that mod, thanks! I didn't know about FOV, so I'll try that too!

 

 

Either in the enbseries.ini in your skyrim directory or in the in-game editor.

 

To access the in-game editor it's usually either shift+enter or shift+pagedown.

 

[LilligantEX]

That's running much better! Still a little stuttery, but usable for posing and almost playable!

 

Are there any other things I can turn off to improve the FPS just a little more?

[pyrosushi]

Get some good fps mods. Hialgoboost or Enboost (which is popular too). Somber enb having little fps hit than realvision is kind of hard to understand lol Realvision has performance versions. It even runs much smoother for me than somber. I also have a decent laptop lol

[LilligantEX]

Realvision (Performance) seems to produce about the same FPS as Somber for me. Maybe 3-5 faster, but not really noticeable.

 

I must have done something wrong with Enboost, since all it seemed to do was disable Somber.

 

Hialgoboost I'm sure I installed correctly (followed the steps exactly), but nothing seems to have changed. Apparently F10 should turn it on and off, but it doesn't seem to. I can't see any difference in performance.

[pyrosushi]

Probably installed Enboost wrong for sure.

 

If you do have the same fps as realvision, then there is no need to even install these mods haha 

[LilligantEX]

Well, I tried Hialgoboost with Somber, and that should still improve my FPS in some way though, shouldn't it?

[pyrosushi]

It should.....Use other types of mods like Texturecombiner or tesIV merge scripts to make performance and game stability better. 

[LaEspada]

Set all your graphic qualities to high instead of ultra(no real difference game play-graphical wise) in launcher, and set anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering to 0

 

 

turn off ambient occlusion in graphics card options. ENB handles it.

[...0...]

Thanks! I am mostly focusing on characters. I've been messing around with MFG already, and it makes a big difference!

 

Unfortunately, I have issues with running Skyrim on higher specs, so I'm not sure how I'd go with ENBs. Theoretically, my laptop should be fine (8gb RAM, 2.4ghz proc., decent Radeon card), but it overheats like crazy when I use high res texture mods; even just character ones.

 

Are there any decent ENBs that are less graphics intensive?

 

Plenty of performance ENB'S that also run smoothly on lower end pc's

[Redflyingmonkey]

I got this "razer game booster" on my laptop. I'm not sure if it was a wise decision, but I've seen a real drop in fps in game with the enb enabled. Well it was a shabby enb, but still, playing with an enb on a HP notebook made my boner go bonkers   
You could try it too, I think it disables temporarily some of your computer's background services to allow the game you're playing to receive a relevant boost. I'm still not sure if it's really wise tho, I'm using it on a secondary computer for my college and not on my main PC so it may be a bit hypocritical of me to propose this to you. 

By the way, the shabby ENB I got is called "Zoners High performance ENB", on nexus, and it was made for low end to mid end rigs, your computer looks like it's got what it needs to run it to it's fullest so you should even be able to tweak it and improve the quality exponentially. For performance tweaks, you can see Boris's guide on his enb website, and there's already tons of advice on the internetz for stuff like skin quality, shadows, blur, depth of field and stuff. 
Only downside for Zoners is that it doesn't support the configuration menu of other ENBs.
There's also the Imaginator mod on nexus, a nice graphic overhaul that adds tons of options to tweak the colors, the saturation, the blur and stuff. 
And finally, since you have a Radeon I'd advise tweaking the Catalyst Control Center specs a bit (if you have it of course). Sometimes it doesn't recognize your game and puts all the stress on your common graphic card instead of the dedicated one. 

[LilligantEX]

I tried out Zoners High performance ENB, but, again, the FPS is about the same as running Somber (and it doesn't look as good). I really don't understand why my FPS seems to be the same with all the different ENBs. I even used the High Performance version of Zoners.

[Redflyingmonkey]

This is really weird ! Try to right click somwhere on your desktop, and tell me if you see the switchable graphics. Are you running on windows 8 ? I really don't understand, with your specs Zoners should feel like a breeze ... Check your card drivers too, check everything ! Something must be going bonkers in your machine.

[LilligantEX]

I do have switchable graphics, and Skyrim is set to High Performance. I'm Running Windows 7.

 

Is it possible that, even set to high performance, it's using my Intel card instead of my Radeon?

 

I'm going to check my drivers now and will report back.

[LilligantEX]

Updated all my drivers (well, the ones that needed it) and still no change.