This guide is aimed primarily at mod authors, but of course can be used by everyone. I see a lot of user submitted images, but almost no user-submitted videos. Why not make a video of your favorite mod, as a way to say thank you? :)


I use FRAPS for recording. If you have a GeForce 600 or later you might also be able to use ShadowPlay. Haven't tested it, but I've heard good things.


Always record at the correct size to avoid resizing artifacts. In skyrimprefs.ini:

[Display]
bFullScreen=0
iSizeW=1920
iSizeH=1080

Youtube uses the following resolutions: 1920x1080, 1280x720, 854x480. Always record with one of these, preferably with 1080p of course.


Video recording will probably slow down your Skyrim. Especially with all those mods that make your Skyrim look presentable. To counter this, you can record the video at half speed with "sgtm 0.5". You then encode the video at twice the speed to make it play back at the original speed, but with twice the frame rate! Of course you could also use other values, e.g. "sgtm 0.25" and a 4x speedup. I wanna see more 1080p60 videos on Youtube! :)


tfc (toggle floating camera) Lets the camera fly around freely instead of being stuck to your character.
sucsm <number> Sets the speed of the free-flying camera. Defaults to 10.
tm (toggle menus) Hides the entire UI. Including the console, for some reason. You'll note that time stops if the console is open. That means you have to re-enable the UI blindly (type "`tm<Enter>").
sgtm <number> (set global time multiplier) where the <number> can be a floating point number like 0.5.
set timescale to <number> Allows you to set the ratio of Skyrim time to real time. Defaults to 20, meaning 1 minute on Earth is 20 minutes in Tamriel. Use a low number if e.g. you want to keep that amazing evening lighting you were waiting for. Use a high number for timelapse recordings. Don't use this in a normal savegame unless you know the consequences!
animcam Lets the camera rotate and zoom freely around your character. The most important part of this is the F key. Press F, position the camera in first person, then press F again to go back to the anim cam.


Customizable Camera by Arindel allows to reposition the 3rd person camera, which is nice for presenting animation mods.
Directors Tools by Artisanix has a nice menu for controlling the weather, among a lot of other things.
Review Studio by KahjiitRaj comes in handy sometimes.
Mod Organizer by Tannin allows you to manage different profiles for your Skyrim. Add a separate profile for video recording, with separate settings (window size) and separate save games (with cheats).
And please, if you do any close-ups, get some decent textures. The most amazing sword will look bad on a low-res table.


If you don't have a controller, keep the camera still, or do simple pans (move side-to-side at a constant speed with the keyboard, see "sucsm" above). If you want to do camera work, always use a controller. Keep in mind that bad camera work can be very distracting. So keep it simple. Slow and steady. I would advise against using the mouse because it's too jerky.


I don't know much about photography. What I do know is that you shouldn't shoot with the sun in front of you (unless you know what you're doing). Keep the sun in your back for a well lit scene. I haven't seen any decent HDR for Skyrim, so you should probably stay away from shadows. Well. Unless your mod is about shadows...


I use Windows Movie Maker, because it's easy to use and free. Beware though, 95% of the options in WMM will make you and your mod look bad. For example, do not use these cheesy transitions that have no purpose whatsoever. I use a 0.5 s "blur through black" transition because WMM doesn't offer a simple "fade through black". The best course of action is probably to stay away from transitions altogether and just use simple cuts.

Always keep in mind what your goal is. If you want to present your mod, then you want to keep the focus on the mod itself, instead of distracting or possibly confusing your viewer with your editing. Don't use any sepia or black&white or any other effect. Don't use too fast cuts.

If you recorded at a 0.5x speed: Select all your shots (Ctrl+A) -> Edit -> Set Speed to 2x.

Please edit out the load screens. No one wants to watch you wait. :) You can even trick people into thinking you have amazing load times!

If you must use captions, use white or black, depending on the background. Rule of thumb: At least one second for every two words. And for the love of all that is holy, don't use Comic Sans!

Yea. Well either that or go all out.

Anyways, here are the Microsoft download links for WMM. Disable as much as you can in the installer.


FRAPS videos are huge, so you'll want to encode them to get a compressed video for faster uploading. I record at 1080p and simply use "Home->Save movie->For high-definition display" in WMM.


Uploading to Youtube is pretty straight-forward. Click "Upload", drag&drop, wait.
There is a page where you can select all the default options (title, description, etc) for your videos. I don't remember how to find it, but I was glad I did.
Don't forget to link back to your mod's Nexus page in the description.
Youtube will probably offer you to "stabilize" the video. Don't fall for this, it looks terrible.


Recording, editing, encoding, uploading - This whole process might take a while. It is incredibly frustrating to end up with a video that looks bad on Youtube. For example because it's too dark or too bright or because the ENB causes visual artifacts. So make a short test video (2-5 seconds maybe) first, and see what it looks like on Youtube. If it doesn't look good, change the weather or tune your settings/ENB.


If you don't already know this guy, check out hodilton's Youtube channel. This video is particularly well done. Notice the photography, camera work, lighting, unobtrusive editing.


I don't claim to be an expert on these things. In fact, I'm pretty much a complete video making noob. Maybe this guide helps some people figure this stuff out a bit faster. Feel free to point out any mistakes. If you have any tips on making videos that I can include in this guide, I'd like to hear them. E.g. I would very much like to know an easy way to make split screen videos. Oh, and if you have anything bad to say, don't forget to use an excessive amount of poorly disguised and completely uncalled-for swearwords. If I used your video as an example of what not to do: Sorry, dude! You can flame me in the comment section. Thank you and have a nice day.