+++ please refer to my user profile about me page and follow my recommendations how to use my mods as an addition to nexusmods terms +++

see also my newer sse mod with BC7 compressed textures.


a high res uncompressed normal map for eyes 512x512p size for crystal clear eye reflections and smooth shadows. optional all in one package including normal maps for agonians and werewolves now available.

no more close ups with blocky human eye shadows, contact lens effect or artifacts.  even male characters and npc look better ;)

eye setup demo images

motivation:
vanilla and some other eye options are low res or have compression artifacts. the main point is that any not lossless compression leave artifacts. this may be neglegible in standard textures dealing with color informations but this has a severe impact using normal maps including directional information.
many custom mods suffer from using suboptimal normal map settings. especially if the texture or even more the normal map has a lower resolution, compression (if not lossless) will lead to rendering errors and surface appearance is getting worse.
often zoomed main character related textures like skin and eyes are even more suspictable for resolution related texture limitations. hi res textures are included in most eye mods but often with a substandard normal map.
the imo best normal map option with thousands of endorsements has to fight with a kind of lens seams
(related to the inability of the skyrim engine to render extreme directional information differences in the normal map errorfree).
so i customized my own normal map for vivid, natural eye appearance. i tested a non lens based high res variant with a moderate, eye bulb curveoriented natural concave reflection effect included mainly the same as vanilla but without resolution and compression dependent artifacts. with a good cubemap and eyereflection texture it delivers imho very good and natural results. the important thing is to omit compression. so please exclude this file or reinstall it if you plan to use texture
optimizers like ordenator. 

i did some addinional tests and added a new option with the customized eyebrown_sk.dds. both textures together should give you a realistic result using the best eye mods here on nexus.

why playing hd skyrim with 4k skin but blocky eyes ?

if you are happy stick with your settings - if not try my mod and compare!

i use enb (eye reflections in the eye settings menu) to alter the settings for the best reflection intensity and recommend this combination. use my customized eyebrown_sk.dds option if you like to reduce the standard iris subsurface reflection effect.
it helps sepecially in darker environment to lower the amount of unnatural subsurface iris refelection and helps finetuning realistic enb related subsurface skin settings affecting also the eye skin. it does not change the cubemap related reflection amount!



it's just a small texture replacer. no performance impact, no esp. put it at the end of your load order.

an optional package covering some common mods and a readme with explanation how to cover more mods is also available
mods included:
the ordinary women
breezy followers
toccata follower
SBF all in one
lunari warriors



credits to the gimp and the normal map filter plugin developer

you are welcome to use this texture for your follower or npc mods. if you credit me in your mod you do not need to ask me for approval.

you may watch my other skyrim mods here.

have fun playing skyrim!