Want help starting out.

[KUR0T3NSH1]

Hey,

 

So after looking at Skyrim mods (mostly armors) for about around 10 hours, I finally decided to go buy it. I am now wondering what would be some nice mods to enhance the look of skyrim all together now. I already know I plan on using the Monli race, which means I'm going to be using the CBBE body, so now I'm looking for some that enhance the environment, lighting, colors, ect. etc. Also, is there a mod that contains a majority of the hair mods out now?

 

Also, any tools are pretty much needed when you are throwing in a bunch of different mods (don't know much about load order and what not, so might ask for help with that).

 

Sorry for the robotic sounding sentences (kinda feel out of place when it comes to modding since I'm pretty much a newb at it).

 

Thx.

[kholdy]

For environment, that's entirely up to you, just look around a bit. Same goes for lighting, find an ENB you like that you can run with a good framerate.

Here are some general mods I recommend. Please find them on the nexus yourself, they shouldn't be hard to find.

 

-Quality World Map - Enhances the world map a LOT, as the vanilla map is, well, terrible.

-ApachiiSkyHair - Just a good hair mod.

-Hair pack here: http://www.loverslab.com/showthread.php?tid=4188&pid=99562#pid99562 - Contains a lot of good hairs. Download the full 4-part pack + the fix.

-Hair packs of Fallout3, Hair packs of TES IV Oblivion - Contains even more good hairs.

-High Res Face maps for men - makes male faces more detailed

-Invisible helmets (this one) - Because vanilla helmets make your character look terrible. xD

-Animations by xp32 (look up feminine running) - some of the best animations

-idles by dualsun (look up pretty female idle) - great idle animations

-this mod, because Lydia is very annoying without it =P

-Skyrim community uncapper - lets you go beyond 100 in the skills, if you want

-Skyrim Monster Mod - More monsters, this is overall just a great mod to enhance your experience

-SkyUI - The original interface is terrible.

-Static Mesh Improvement Mod - I use this to improve textures on some objects

-UFO Ultimate Follower Overhaul - Makes the follower system useful

-Glowing Ore veins - makes ore veins visible, they don't stand out without this.

-Faster mining - Because mining is boring.

-DSPSOB Dual Sheathe Plus Shield on Back - does what it says it does.

-Extended Slider Colors - Lets you pick from a LOT more colors when creating your character

-Cloaks of Skyrim - Cloaks. For Skyrim. >_>

-FNIS Fore's New Idles - Required for a lot of animations

 

Edit: Oh, I use the Sexy city series to make my cities look better. For an example, just look for Sexy Whiterun, should find it. Creator has a lot more.

 

 

That was just me running through my NMM (which has a LOT more mods than this, lol.) and finding some, in my opinion, essential mods. Make sure to use the Mod manager, it's a useful tool.

[KUR0T3NSH1]

So, when I'm using the NMM,it actually installs the mod and everything correct? And does it sort out load order issues or anything (I get lost when it comes to knowing what order things should be loaded, totally confused back in Oblivion).

 

After doing very little modding with Oblivion, I'm going to assume manual installing is just throwing everything into the Data folder? And am I going to have to worry about load order here also?

 

Also, I'm going to assume there are some re-textures for CBBE, are any overall improvements that a majority of people download, or is it pretty much whatever a person finds necessary? Same thing for face re-textures, any that a person should get?

[Soulslayerzx]

I use WryeBash, it's a program that tells you what is wrong with your load order. Skyrim apparently mods being modified on the same data or some load order crap, you change that you're good to go, some mods may be missing parents, really varies, I heard of BOSS, but I'm sticking with WryeBash.

[kholdy]

So' date=' when I'm using the NMM,it actually installs the mod and everything correct? And does it sort out load order issues or anything (I get lost when it comes to knowing what order things should be loaded, totally confused back in Oblivion).

 

After doing very little modding with Oblivion, I'm going to assume manual installing is just throwing everything into the Data folder? And am I going to have to worry about load order here also?

 

Also, I'm going to assume there are some re-textures for CBBE, are any overall improvements that a majority of people download, or is it pretty much whatever a person finds necessary? Same thing for face re-textures, any that a person should get?

[/quote']

 

The NMM does everything mostly correct, I do believe it sorts your load order based on the BOSS masterlist. But as soulslayerzx has said above me, you should probably use BOSS itself, or WryeBash, to really sort things out.

Manual installing is generally just dropping things into the data folder yes. But it's not recommended because it's a hassle to remove the mods again - if you use NMM, you can remove mods with one click, and it will replace files that mod had replaced as well.

As for CBBE retextures, I personally use this one but a lot of people use navetsea's textures. It's up to you, I'm just not a fan of navetsea's textures because I don't want to use his faces, and not doing so tends to create massive neck seams. They can be fixed, of course, but I just think it's a hassle.

For faces, the popular ones are better females, which tries to stay close to the vanilla style, univision and envision, which has a less realistic look, but very pretty results, and Yaksha race, which has, in my opinion, the best results, but requires you to manually install the files - you're basically taking the Yaksha textures and meshes, and putting them into the normal female folders. Or you could use this, just download the sanhoshin pack. It's a modified version of the Yaksha race, ready to use.

I always recommend using RAN's headmesh variants, preferably variant D, to get better face shapes.