How does the mod work? On installation, a quest will fire off to apply an applicator spell to the player character. This applicator is responsible for distributing the EffectShader to both the player and any NPCs in the nearby area. An EffectShader is chosen based on the actors LightLevel condition (as well as checking for special quest stage positions). This means that in low lighting conditions the actor will be distributed a less intense lighting effect compared to a well-lit actor. The latter effect of the applicator is a cloak effect that will assign the shader based on the same conditions. The effect is on a timer, which means when you leave an area the actor will not have the EffectShader after the timer runs out.
What is this mod compatible with? Due to the scope of this mod, it is entirely compatible with most lighting and weather mods. Unfortunately, due to the nature of how EffectShaders work, it is incompatible with any other mod that relies on EffectShaders. This is because actors can only be assigned one EffectShader at a time. Refer to the mod page for detailed compatibility notes.
Is this real SSS? No. This method is, by definition, a hack. It simply tries to simulate how real subsurface scattering would look (while taking some liberties to improve character lighting). True subsurface scattering effects on skin would require a complete rewrite of the shaders in the game or a completely custom shader written for ENB. It could take months or years until we see a replacement for subsurface scattering in Skyrim. So unfortunately, Classic Skyrim isn't "dead" yet. Although I am quite fond of how this effect looks in game.
Will this hurt performance? Unless you are on a lower end CPU, this effect will cause no notable performance impact. This system is lightweight by design.
---
Recommended Mods
If you're looking to achieve the same appearance as my screenshots, or simply want recommendations on which mods look best with this effect, I have compiled a list of what I consider to be best mods in their respective categories.
Obsidian Weathers and Seasons New weather mod from the minds of Arindel and Megaloblast. Not only do all of the weathers look fantastic, it's imagespace bloom is designed to enhance skin tones to help simulate SSS effects. This helps bring out the subtle SSS effect even more in this mod. If you are using something different currently and haven't given it a try, I implore you to download the mod and see how it looks in-game (preferrably without an ENB or with an ENB designed for Obsidian).
Enhanced Lights and FX I always go back and forth between ELFX and ELE in my playthroughs, but recently the flavor of the month has been ELFX. It's lighting is very dramatic and moody. In inns and taverns the visuals are fantastic.
Tempered Skins for Males Tempered Skins for Females (NSFW) After 6 years of playing this game, my personal favorite skin texture. Not only does it look fantastic and handpainted, they are companion textures, meaning you won't get that slightly uncanny jarring feeling when you look at a male and female texture next to each other using different skin textures. It comes with a decent selection of underwear replacers as well.
Natural View Tamriel Hands down the best ENB preset available on the Nexus. Not only does it support a million different weather mods, but it also has a very robust shader configuration. NVT is designed to make it your own, and the author puts a lot of care into every update and making sure they're on top of the latest ENB binaries Boris releases.
But... Vanilla Skyrim has a subsurface scattering effect for skin. There are the reddish textures for this. For example, the sk textures for females are femalebody_1_sk.dds, femalehands_1_sk.dds and femalehead_sk.dds in the textures\actors\character\female folder. Example from a Fair Skin Complexion installer: with sk enabled (https://imgur.com/a/bEkrV9y) vs. with sk disabled (https://imgur.com/a/IuuDv7Z). Do I need to turn off vanilla sk to use your mod or they are designed to be used together?
disclaimer first, its not this mod fault btw. so for some reason the SSS effect cant be applied to my chars face. its working fine on the body but not the face, so looks like it has seam. can anyone help here?
I noticed via MO2 that this mod overwrites these archive script files from Adamant and Vanilla Script (micro)Optimizations: ms11calixtoscript.pex dgintimidateplayerscript.pex companionssinglecombatantscript.pex c00vilkasscript.pex c00trainerscript.pex ...and so forth. Are these part of the Brawl Fix?
I would let Adamant overwrite. Modern Brawl Bug Fix is from 2016. Adamant (and Hand to Hand for brawling and unarmed combat) are more recent. However, it is Simon's Blade and Blunt that contains a copy of the Modern Brawl Bug Fix by Enai so I'm surprised you're not seeing the conflicts there unless you don't have Blade and Blunt. I would just put this mod before any combat overhaul mods and before anything else that conflicts if the other thing is more recent.
The answer's in the title. Vanilla script (micro)Optimizations are optimizations to the vanilla script. This has modded scripts, that is, scripts that do different things than vanilla, so you'd want it to overwrite the script optimizations.
Both this mod and the above mod are BSA packed. Put the above mod as high as possible in the load order after USSEP, let everything else win priority. Put this mod well after USSEP.
You can open the esp file in xEdit to add any conditions you want to these Magic Effects. Here is the modified esp file to exclude KhajitRace using conditions: https://mega.nz/file/rRwVnQhI#uc2Le6sM9cZGFg_4_yrOgfIcuzLvJ4csU9GIoKy4_sM If you just want a few specific actors to be excluded, you can add their formids to loriSSSFormListExcludedActors formlist as well.
225 comments
How does the mod work?
On installation, a quest will fire off to apply an applicator spell to the player character. This applicator is responsible for distributing the EffectShader to both the player and any NPCs in the nearby area. An EffectShader is chosen based on the actors LightLevel condition (as well as checking for special quest stage positions). This means that in low lighting conditions the actor will be distributed a less intense lighting effect compared to a well-lit actor. The latter effect of the applicator is a cloak effect that will assign the shader based on the same conditions. The effect is on a timer, which means when you leave an area the actor will not have the EffectShader after the timer runs out.
What is this mod compatible with?
Due to the scope of this mod, it is entirely compatible with most lighting and weather mods. Unfortunately, due to the nature of how EffectShaders work, it is incompatible with any other mod that relies on EffectShaders. This is because actors can only be assigned one EffectShader at a time. Refer to the mod page for detailed compatibility notes.
Is this real SSS?
No. This method is, by definition, a hack. It simply tries to simulate how real subsurface scattering would look (while taking some liberties to improve character lighting). True subsurface scattering effects on skin would require a complete rewrite of the shaders in the game or a completely custom shader written for ENB. It could take months or years until we see a replacement for subsurface scattering in Skyrim. So unfortunately, Classic Skyrim isn't "dead" yet. Although I am quite fond of how this effect looks in game.
Will this hurt performance?
Unless you are on a lower end CPU, this effect will cause no notable performance impact. This system is lightweight by design.
---
Recommended Mods
If you're looking to achieve the same appearance as my screenshots, or simply want recommendations on which mods look best with this effect, I have compiled a list of what I consider to be best mods in their respective categories.
Obsidian Weathers and Seasons
New weather mod from the minds of Arindel and Megaloblast. Not only do all of the weathers look fantastic, it's imagespace bloom is designed to enhance skin tones to help simulate SSS effects. This helps bring out the subtle SSS effect even more in this mod. If you are using something different currently and haven't given it a try, I implore you to download the mod and see how it looks in-game (preferrably without an ENB or with an ENB designed for Obsidian).
Enhanced Lights and FX
I always go back and forth between ELFX and ELE in my playthroughs, but recently the flavor of the month has been ELFX. It's lighting is very dramatic and moody. In inns and taverns the visuals are fantastic.
Tempered Skins for Males
Tempered Skins for Females (NSFW)
After 6 years of playing this game, my personal favorite skin texture. Not only does it look fantastic and handpainted, they are companion textures, meaning you won't get that slightly uncanny jarring feeling when you look at a male and female texture next to each other using different skin textures. It comes with a decent selection of underwear replacers as well.
Natural View Tamriel
Hands down the best ENB preset available on the Nexus. Not only does it support a million different weather mods, but it also has a very robust shader configuration. NVT is designed to make it your own, and the author puts a lot of care into every update and making sure they're on top of the latest ENB binaries Boris releases.
so for some reason the SSS effect cant be applied to my chars face. its working fine on the body but not the face, so looks like it has seam. can anyone help here?
ms11calixtoscript.pex
dgintimidateplayerscript.pex
companionssinglecombatantscript.pex
c00vilkasscript.pex
c00trainerscript.pex
...and so forth. Are these part of the Brawl Fix?
that is.. to get the same effect as in some enb(silent horizons, rudy)
Here is the modified esp file to exclude KhajitRace using conditions: https://mega.nz/file/rRwVnQhI#uc2Le6sM9cZGFg_4_yrOgfIcuzLvJ4csU9GIoKy4_sM
If you just want a few specific actors to be excluded, you can add their formids to loriSSSFormListExcludedActors formlist as well.