Description
I decided to rename my mod "HQ SNOW TEXTURE" to "Nordic Snow". In my opinion, this snow looks more realistic than the vanilla Skyrim snow, I'm coming from a country with a lot of snow (Norway), so I guess you can say I know what I'm talking about. 

The vanilla texture has minor tiling issues and looks too dark and more like foam than snow - it just doesn't look realistic to me. They also had issues converting everything to the newest textures, which is why their snow with the footprint has a different shade. 


I was trying to go for a more crystallized look with my texture and at the same time overcome the shortcoming with vanilla. These textures have been worked on for a very long time and I now decided to port them over to Special Edition. With my textures, you will still have the benefits of the new snow shader they added in the special edition.


The "HQ snow texture" mod was a big hit on Steam workshop and did relatively well on Nexus, so rest assured that these textures are well made. 
I hope you like my textures and if you do make sure you leave an endorsement so that you can help other people to discover this texture pack. 

Reviews

Vanilla looks like 'wet' snow, like -5 or -10 C. Mod looks like dry powder snow like -20 or -30 C. Thank for making this Canadian happy. Snow looks as cold as Skyrim now.
- Pthalo

As fellow snow brother (i live in Switzerland) i approve this snow textures, well done 

- remlnx

you sure do know your snows.
kudos and hats off, by far best looking snow i ever seen in skyrim.
ty very much.
- wim1234  

My friend, I have to say that this is the best snow mod out there, no offense to the other snow mods but they lack realism big time, even smim's version, good job my friend..
- aundrejones 

Video Reviews
English:

• JuiceHead
• S.Silin (Ikari)
• Fevir
  
  

Spanish:

• OMIKKRON
  

Performance?
These textures are 2048x2048 which is also the same as the original snow textures in SSE. Hence, these textures won't cause you any harm as long as you can pull of the original (with some exceptions). Don't be afraid, it will be fun - I promise.

Installation
You can either use the nexus mod manager or you can install it manually. To install it manually you need to unzip the files to the Skyrim main folder:
To find the Skyrim folder you just go to steam -> second mouse button on Skyrim special edition -> properties -> local files -> browse local files.

Dynamic Snow
Have you seen the white color covering all the rocks etc? Ugly right? Well to get that to look like the snow texture you can use something called "Better Dynamic Snow", this will replace the white shader with the snow texture. You can get this mod by downloading it HERE.


Note that Dynamic snow is not without flaws. You will probably notice some areas that do not look good with this mod. Textures that get stretched etc. So try it out and see what you prefer. 

New or old snow shader?
This is down to personal preference, they will both work well with my textures. 
In my opinion, the new shader tend to make the snow differ more in different situations (light levels, weather, etc), it seems to have slightly more depth, with torches and other light sources like it, the new shader may make the snow look like it has a thin layer of ice on top of it. The "snow mist" (not related to my textures) also tend to be brighter with the new shader. The new shader also reflects other light sources more and may give the snow a more sparkling feel. On the other hand, the old shader looks softer. All of my screenshots were taken with the new shader. 

You can see a comparison gif HERE.

Btw the white dots that you see covering snow in the new shader can be turned off in the SkyrimPrefs.ini without deactivating the new shader:
bToggleSparkles=0
Note that these are not that invasive in my textures as they are in the vanilla.  

ENB?
Use one that does not "burn out" the snow or just don't use one at all. My textures are made with mostly the same brightness as the vanilla so if there is a enb that work well with vanilla then it's likely to work well with my mod. Unfortunately, too many enbs overexpose and as a result leads to snow that burns out (completely white). Nordic snow should not look like this. If you think your snow is too bright, then try to turn off your enb and see if it helps. Some weather mods might also add more brightness so those could also potentially add to the problem. 

If your snow looks worse than my pictures that are taken with vanilla rendering, then your enb is doing a poor job with snow.


How to know if a snow texture is good?
People have different preference when picking textures and there is usaully many to pick from. These are some general guidelines for what I think is important.

• Do the textures tile well? When you look at the snow in Skyrim what you see is a combination of many images placed next to each other in a gird. With a good texture you will not be able to distinguish where one tile begins and another ends. Look for an area that has a lot of snow and that you can see far. If you don't notice those tiles then its good. For landscape textures you don't want to many specific features (like leaves or branches) as it tends to stick out when you tile them. 
• Is the color gradient and brightness the same as the vanilla texture? My textures have been tweaked to have the same color gradient and brightness as the vanilla texture. By using vanilla as the baseline, we know that everything that works with vanilla will work with my mod. If you are using something with different settings then your ether has to tweak it yourself or you will have situation where it will be off. E.g. that the snow gets "burned out" on sunny days. 
• Do the textures share similar features like the vanilla textures? When Bethesda created their environment, they saw the vanilla texture, and they adjusted everything to fit with that. So, if the textures have rocks or other features in different places you may get weird overlap where the textures are cut in half, this will not look good. So, this is why I reused the rocks that they have in their texture and make sure they are in the exact same spot. 
• Does the texture look good without ENB or other mods? Be wary of those that has a lot of other mods and ENB in their photos, this may give you a false comparison to other textures, and imperfections may have been covered with ENB settings. Thus, you rely on a specific ENB setting to get the desired result. 
• Does it look and feel right in the game and on your setup? Finally, you just need to try it out and look at it. Look at the snowy places and walk around. 
  

Bethesda Mod Database
If you like to download it from Bethesda MD then you can find it here:

• PC
• Xbox
  

Compatibility
You can use the HD Nordic Snow with Parallax by EdmondNoir, if you prefer to use Nordic snow with Parallex. Note that this patch also requires Nordic snow to be installed. 

It works with almost everything except other snow textures. My textures also have very similar color and brightness as the vanilla so rest assured that it will also work well with any enb etc that works on vanilla. Also remember that this mod only has textures, hence it will never cause any harm to you or your savegames. 

If you are planning to use texture packs that already contain snow textures, then make sure you install my mod last and overwrite everything. My textures only replace snow-related stuff so you can rest assured that it will work well with any major texture pack of your choice. I personally only use the vanilla textures and Nordic Snow. 

Files for ineed and Majestic Mountains were added to 3.4.3 so that you don't need to do this yourself if you are using these mods. These extra files will not do any harm if you are not using these mods so don't worry about that.

Please note that this texture does not work well with Blended roads this is due to BR using the alpha channel to make the ground transparent. The problem is that this alpha channel is also used to control the reflection of textures. I recommend not using blended roads.