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About this mod
REM provides several renovations within the vicinity of the Markarth Entrance. This includes: aesthetic and functional improvements to the landscape and roadway infrastructure, two new sets of stairs for improving the city façade and for facilitating a more direct approach to and from the entrance by foot, and a brand Salvius Farm.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
Brief Summary:
Renewed Exterior of Markarth (REM) provides several renovations within the vicinity of the Markarth Entrance. Great consideration was given to lore-friendliness and the organic consequences of human habitation. This includes: aesthetic and functional improvements to the landscape and roadway infrastructure, two new sets of stairs for improving the city façade and for facilitating a more direct approach to and from the entrance by foot, and a brand new Salvius Farm. This mod also includes grass fixes for roadways and boulders in the immediate area, as well as a modicum of the surrounding area as well. More than a dozen new occlusion planes have been added to optimize performance. This mod does NOT modify anything within the city of Markarth nor any of the interiors of the surrounding buildings.
REM has been properly NavMeshed in CK and has been cleaned with SSEEdit.
Several Patches are provided, and more will be added as needed. Every Patch is flagged as an ESL, which means they will follow load order like any other mod, but will not contribute to your 255 Plug-in Limit.
If you’d like more details, keep reading. If you’d like to be surprised, skip down to Compatibility & Load Order for important information, and be sure to check out my Mod Recommendations as well.
While I’ve created dozens of mods for my own personal use, this is the first one that I’ve ever shared on Nexus Mods. Please let me know what you think of Renewed Exterior of Markarth and be sure to Endorse if you like it!
The Apathetic Before:
In Vanilla Skyrim, when traversing the Markarth Pass, you’re met with a less than picturesque vista of the city. The roadways are dilapidated or missing, and the main intersection after the bridge is covered with awkward foliage that impedes the natural flow of movement that boots and
carriages would have cut across long before in the real world. This is followed by a very steep and bumpy incline toward the city, a weedy wheat farm that doesn’t actually grow wheat, and whose inept occupants would have likely been evicted by an angry Jarl with a hungry city. –And then, when one finally winds their way around and reaches the entrance, they’re met with messy horse stalls not fit for pigs and narrow crumbling steps that are bifurcated by a dead solitary shrub enshrined between. Does this seem realistic to you?
The Needed Renewal:
Landscaping:
The first change I made was widening the opening between the two mountains to provide a more impressive line of sight to the city from the Markarth Pass. The entire landscape architecture was overhauled. Inclines are more graceful, the river was widened in places where it was unnaturally narrow before, boulders were moved, endemic Reach plants were added, and many grass changes were made to prevent clipping with things placed in both my mod but also to correct those in Vanilla Skyrim that Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods didn’t seem to address. This includes the Markarth Pass, the road between Salvius Farm to Kolskeggr Mine, and the road from Kolskeggr Mine back to the Markarth Pass. No other roads were changed in The Reach, as that would have been a vast overreach from the intended purpose of my mod, but I also figured the Jarl would care less about maintaining areas farther away from the city.
Infrastructure:
Relevant roads in the immediate vicinity were moved and shaped to accommodate the natural flow of traffic. Potholes were filled in, and large gaps in paving stones and segments were connected. This maintenance is naturally tapered off farther from the city to match the incongruity of the preëxisting Vanilla roads. Pathing was also simplified by aligning the small bridge to Left Hand Mine with the new farm entrance. Pedestrians traveling to or from the city can now bypass the curvy roadway used by carriages via a new set of Dwemer stairs in the middle of the central platform. This creates a straight path toward the entrance, which features another set of matching stairs, which I carefully veneered over the old ugly steps, which were non-removable. This creates a centralized and far more grandiose ascent to the top.
Salvius Farm:
The most dramatic change comes to Salvius Farm, a previously underutilized property with a useless wheat mill and nothing more than a few chickens and potato plants. Having shifted the small mountain on the right, the anterior farm was also shifted to accommodate the improved thoroughfare toward the city. It was also expanded East toward the edge of the cliff and Northward for symmetry. The farm is now fully enclosed by walls, landscaped for farming, cleared of grass and weeds, and actually grows wheat, as per its designation in the game. Several other vegetable varieties were added to better serve the city’s needs, along with added domestic livestock to eat the otherwise wasted chaff. Two small flower gardens were also planted, which old ladies like Vigdis Salvius love to grow. These can be harvested for your needs and are perhaps where The Hag's Cure gets some of its ingredients as well.
The Watchtower Windmill:
Nchuand-Zel, now named Markarth, is a Dwemer city that was repurposed by the Reachmen and the Nords following the disappearance of its previous occupants. Aside from merely inhabiting the rooms, this is best evidenced by the integration of Dwemer gears with the rudimentary wooden waterwheel at the Markarth Forge within the city. In this vein of ingenuity, I present the Watchtower Windmill of Salvius Farm, a matching architectural addition to the cityscape.
While the city is highly defensible, being recessed in the mountain doesn’t afford a clear line of sight for oncoming threats either down the river to the North or up the Markath Pass to the East. In the real world, this would necessitate an appropriately placed military outpost whose vigilance and forewarning would allow advanced defensive mobilization of the city. That outpost, with its watchtower serving as the city’s beacon, now exists, only centuries later, Salvius Farm sits upon it. At some point, the upper story of the watchtower was crudely walled up, the ceiling boarded over, and a windmill was added, as its great height gave ample access to the winds of The Reach.
Optimization:
This small area of Vanilla Skyrim was already taxing on performance due to the large number of objects and NPCs that needed to be rendered within a handful of cells and only two Occlusion Planes to help compensate: one within the mountain to the right behind Salvius Farm, and one within the city wall. Everything else is being rendered 100% of the time, even if you can’t see it. This is corrected by my mod with the addition of many new Occlusion Planes. Major ones include:
Texture placement was also optimized. Hidden grass that was rendering unnecessarily beneath boulders and other objects deep underground
have been replaced with default Reach dirt.
Compatibility& Load Order:
Not Compatible:
City Entrances Overhaul - Markarth:
But checkout JPSteel2’s City Entrances Overhaul - Windhelm. I consider it a must have.
Open Cities Skyrim:
Requires a patch for conflicting NavMeshes near the entrance. This is a top priority, which I may need assistance with.
Compatible with Load Order:
Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods:
Load REM after.
Optional Patch is available if you can't, for whatever reason, load REM after.
Compatible with Patch:
Better City Entrances
Relighting Skyrim
skyBirds
Sky City - Markarth Rising
Load before REM.
Load Patch after BOTH mods.
Skyrim Bridges:
Load before REM.
Load Patch after BOTH mods.
Trees in Cities
Fully Compatible:
Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul
Cutting Room Floor
Lanterns of Skyrim:
Two optional patches are available, but not required.
Option 1 is for use with just REM.
Option 2 is for use with Skyrim Bridges and is Strongly Recommended.
This list will be updated as more conflicting/compatible mods are brought to my attention, and relevant patches will be made available in the
future if possible.
For Patch descriptions, see Files Tab.
Mod Recommendations:
First and foremost, I highly recommend Skyrim Bridges by bjs_336, which is featured in both the before and after images. It is, without a doubt, my all-time favorite mod for Skyrim. It was always a consideration while I was making REM, and I feel it pairs perfectly. Download and endorse it! Be sure to install the available patch after both mods, and if using Lanterns of Skyrim, I strongly recommend downloading Option 2 of that patch as well.
If you are using Skyrim Flora Overhaul (SFO), as I do, you may notice random blocky pine shrubs among the Reach Grass. These are not my doing; they are integrated directly into the grass textures and meshes made by SFO. If you want to override this, I recommend a grass mod. When I started making the mod I was tweaking the landscape for use with Verdant, however I later switched to Northern Grass SE because I liked the less invasive changes to moss textures. Either way, load SFO first, followed by any grass mods, including Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods, and THEN load my mod after.
Mods featured in the provided images include, as I said, Skyrim Bridges, banners from Designs of the Nords, Fences of Skyrim, Ethereal Clouds & Ethereal Cosmos by Gamwich, and a mix of textures from Noble Skyrim, Skyland - A Landscape Texture Overhaul, SFO, Northern Grass SE, and Blended Roads, in that override order.
Future Plans:
For all intents and purposes, Renewed Exterior of Markarth is finished, and not a work in progress requiring major additions. Future updates
will focus on:
Please let me know what you think! Praise, questions, and suggestions for additional patches are welcome, and notification of any errors will be appreciated and corrected. I hope you give Renewed Exterior of Markarth a try, and be sure to Endorse if you like it!
Renewed Exterior of Markarth (REM) provides several renovations within the vicinity of the Markarth Entrance. Great consideration was given to lore-friendliness and the organic consequences of human habitation. This includes: aesthetic and functional improvements to the landscape and roadway infrastructure, two new sets of stairs for improving the city façade and for facilitating a more direct approach to and from the entrance by foot, and a brand new Salvius Farm. This mod also includes grass fixes for roadways and boulders in the immediate area, as well as a modicum of the surrounding area as well. More than a dozen new occlusion planes have been added to optimize performance. This mod does NOT modify anything within the city of Markarth nor any of the interiors of the surrounding buildings.
REM has been properly NavMeshed in CK and has been cleaned with SSEEdit.
Several Patches are provided, and more will be added as needed. Every Patch is flagged as an ESL, which means they will follow load order like any other mod, but will not contribute to your 255 Plug-in Limit.
If you’d like more details, keep reading. If you’d like to be surprised, skip down to Compatibility & Load Order for important information, and be sure to check out my Mod Recommendations as well.
While I’ve created dozens of mods for my own personal use, this is the first one that I’ve ever shared on Nexus Mods. Please let me know what you think of Renewed Exterior of Markarth and be sure to Endorse if you like it!
The Apathetic Before:
In Vanilla Skyrim, when traversing the Markarth Pass, you’re met with a less than picturesque vista of the city. The roadways are dilapidated or missing, and the main intersection after the bridge is covered with awkward foliage that impedes the natural flow of movement that boots and
carriages would have cut across long before in the real world. This is followed by a very steep and bumpy incline toward the city, a weedy wheat farm that doesn’t actually grow wheat, and whose inept occupants would have likely been evicted by an angry Jarl with a hungry city. –And then, when one finally winds their way around and reaches the entrance, they’re met with messy horse stalls not fit for pigs and narrow crumbling steps that are bifurcated by a dead solitary shrub enshrined between. Does this seem realistic to you?
The Needed Renewal:
Landscaping:
The first change I made was widening the opening between the two mountains to provide a more impressive line of sight to the city from the Markarth Pass. The entire landscape architecture was overhauled. Inclines are more graceful, the river was widened in places where it was unnaturally narrow before, boulders were moved, endemic Reach plants were added, and many grass changes were made to prevent clipping with things placed in both my mod but also to correct those in Vanilla Skyrim that Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods didn’t seem to address. This includes the Markarth Pass, the road between Salvius Farm to Kolskeggr Mine, and the road from Kolskeggr Mine back to the Markarth Pass. No other roads were changed in The Reach, as that would have been a vast overreach from the intended purpose of my mod, but I also figured the Jarl would care less about maintaining areas farther away from the city.
Infrastructure:
Relevant roads in the immediate vicinity were moved and shaped to accommodate the natural flow of traffic. Potholes were filled in, and large gaps in paving stones and segments were connected. This maintenance is naturally tapered off farther from the city to match the incongruity of the preëxisting Vanilla roads. Pathing was also simplified by aligning the small bridge to Left Hand Mine with the new farm entrance. Pedestrians traveling to or from the city can now bypass the curvy roadway used by carriages via a new set of Dwemer stairs in the middle of the central platform. This creates a straight path toward the entrance, which features another set of matching stairs, which I carefully veneered over the old ugly steps, which were non-removable. This creates a centralized and far more grandiose ascent to the top.
Salvius Farm:
The most dramatic change comes to Salvius Farm, a previously underutilized property with a useless wheat mill and nothing more than a few chickens and potato plants. Having shifted the small mountain on the right, the anterior farm was also shifted to accommodate the improved thoroughfare toward the city. It was also expanded East toward the edge of the cliff and Northward for symmetry. The farm is now fully enclosed by walls, landscaped for farming, cleared of grass and weeds, and actually grows wheat, as per its designation in the game. Several other vegetable varieties were added to better serve the city’s needs, along with added domestic livestock to eat the otherwise wasted chaff. Two small flower gardens were also planted, which old ladies like Vigdis Salvius love to grow. These can be harvested for your needs and are perhaps where The Hag's Cure gets some of its ingredients as well.
The Watchtower Windmill:
Nchuand-Zel, now named Markarth, is a Dwemer city that was repurposed by the Reachmen and the Nords following the disappearance of its previous occupants. Aside from merely inhabiting the rooms, this is best evidenced by the integration of Dwemer gears with the rudimentary wooden waterwheel at the Markarth Forge within the city. In this vein of ingenuity, I present the Watchtower Windmill of Salvius Farm, a matching architectural addition to the cityscape.
While the city is highly defensible, being recessed in the mountain doesn’t afford a clear line of sight for oncoming threats either down the river to the North or up the Markath Pass to the East. In the real world, this would necessitate an appropriately placed military outpost whose vigilance and forewarning would allow advanced defensive mobilization of the city. That outpost, with its watchtower serving as the city’s beacon, now exists, only centuries later, Salvius Farm sits upon it. At some point, the upper story of the watchtower was crudely walled up, the ceiling boarded over, and a windmill was added, as its great height gave ample access to the winds of The Reach.
Optimization:
This small area of Vanilla Skyrim was already taxing on performance due to the large number of objects and NPCs that needed to be rendered within a handful of cells and only two Occlusion Planes to help compensate: one within the mountain to the right behind Salvius Farm, and one within the city wall. Everything else is being rendered 100% of the time, even if you can’t see it. This is corrected by my mod with the addition of many new Occlusion Planes. Major ones include:
- All the walls surrounding Salvius Farm, which are true walls. Nothing renders on the other side until you either pass by the entrance or are at a high enough vantage point to look over. In fact, they are just tall enough that you can literally stand right next to them and know that none of the animals or crops are in existence beyond. Likewise, while within the farm, all the foliage, roadway components, and most of Left Hand Mine will not be rendered as well.
- The other mountain to the left, between Left Hand Mine and Markarth, was given a matching Occlusion Plane like its mate on the right. This means if you’re on the West side of the mountain, most of the Left Hand Mine area will not be rendered, and to the East, most of the Markarth Entrance area will not be rendered.
Texture placement was also optimized. Hidden grass that was rendering unnecessarily beneath boulders and other objects deep underground
have been replaced with default Reach dirt.
Compatibility& Load Order:
Not Compatible:
City Entrances Overhaul - Markarth:
But checkout JPSteel2’s City Entrances Overhaul - Windhelm. I consider it a must have.
Open Cities Skyrim:
Requires a patch for conflicting NavMeshes near the entrance. This is a top priority, which I may need assistance with.
Compatible with Load Order:
Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods:
Load REM after.
Optional Patch is available if you can't, for whatever reason, load REM after.
Compatible with Patch:
Better City Entrances
Relighting Skyrim
skyBirds
Sky City - Markarth Rising
Load before REM.
Load Patch after BOTH mods.
Skyrim Bridges:
Load before REM.
Load Patch after BOTH mods.
Trees in Cities
Fully Compatible:
Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul
Cutting Room Floor
Lanterns of Skyrim:
Two optional patches are available, but not required.
Option 1 is for use with just REM.
Option 2 is for use with Skyrim Bridges and is Strongly Recommended.
This list will be updated as more conflicting/compatible mods are brought to my attention, and relevant patches will be made available in the
future if possible.
For Patch descriptions, see Files Tab.
Mod Recommendations:
First and foremost, I highly recommend Skyrim Bridges by bjs_336, which is featured in both the before and after images. It is, without a doubt, my all-time favorite mod for Skyrim. It was always a consideration while I was making REM, and I feel it pairs perfectly. Download and endorse it! Be sure to install the available patch after both mods, and if using Lanterns of Skyrim, I strongly recommend downloading Option 2 of that patch as well.
If you are using Skyrim Flora Overhaul (SFO), as I do, you may notice random blocky pine shrubs among the Reach Grass. These are not my doing; they are integrated directly into the grass textures and meshes made by SFO. If you want to override this, I recommend a grass mod. When I started making the mod I was tweaking the landscape for use with Verdant, however I later switched to Northern Grass SE because I liked the less invasive changes to moss textures. Either way, load SFO first, followed by any grass mods, including Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods, and THEN load my mod after.
Mods featured in the provided images include, as I said, Skyrim Bridges, banners from Designs of the Nords, Fences of Skyrim, Ethereal Clouds & Ethereal Cosmos by Gamwich, and a mix of textures from Noble Skyrim, Skyland - A Landscape Texture Overhaul, SFO, Northern Grass SE, and Blended Roads, in that override order.
Future Plans:
For all intents and purposes, Renewed Exterior of Markarth is finished, and not a work in progress requiring major additions. Future updates
will focus on:
- Small tweaks and corrections if necessary.
- The possible addition of a farmhand NPC to help Rogatus and Vigdis. Facegen data would be provided, of course, and I would select a male with a shaved head so as not to clash with NPC overhaul mods that change everyone’s hair to Apachii or KS.
- Updated LOD in a few minor places. It’s unnecessary almost everywhere, but I would like the view from the interior of Markarth to reflect the changes outside. I’m not entirely sure how this is accomplished. I may need to rebuild the Watchtower Windmill in Nifskope to create it. Any assistance from the community would be appreciated and fully credited.
- Providing additional patches to increase this mod’s compatibility with others.
Please let me know what you think! Praise, questions, and suggestions for additional patches are welcome, and notification of any errors will be appreciated and corrected. I hope you give Renewed Exterior of Markarth a try, and be sure to Endorse if you like it!