Skyrim Special Edition

About this mod

Lightweight, fast, vivid and natural looking ENB preset for Azurite (1, 2 and 2 Expansion), Obsidian or Cathedral Weathers. ACES HDR tone-mapping, custom night-eye shader, weather support, adjustable brightness, and distance dependent sharpening.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Changelogs



iMMERSIVELY iMMERSIVE ENB

for Azurite, Obsidian or Cathedral Weathers (now with trial RAID weather support)


. . .    s e e   t h e    s c r e e n s h o t s   . . .

Features... 

Highlights

  • Lightweight and fast
  • Unique image processing code
  • Highly user-adjustable
  • Realistic, well saturated colour
  • Easy install
  • Multiple Weather support


Details

  • "ACES filmic" HDR tone-mapping. Based on code by Krzysztof Narkowicz & Stephen Hill. This implementation of ACES HDR mapping compresses dark shadows and bright highlights and results in a natural looking image with solid colour reproduction. It is slightly more complex than a "filmic" tone curve, but in the same family.
  • Improved "Nighteye". Nighteye potions and night vision abilities are enhanced with custom post-processing code. Includes fixes for false ENB triggering. Includes an experimental alternative effect for vampire characters (just playing about there, really). Can be simply turned off too.
  • Distance dependent sharpening. Depth and distance is improved by subtle sharpening of nearby scenery and the player, but leaving distant terrain unsharpened. Based on code by JawZ.
  • Adjustable day, night and interior brightness, saturation and gamma. Customise your dungeon or night-time experience to taste through the ENB GUI.
  • Highlight and shadow saturation control. Uses algorithms rather than a LUT to allow fine adjustments. Highly customisable.
  • Original skies. Maintains weather mod's colouring of skies instead of overriding them with ENB settings.
  • Tuned for different weather types. Customised environments for ash, rain, snow, fog, overcast and sunny weather.

Effects enabled

  • ENB cloud shadows. Sunlight fluctuates in cloudy weather realistically.
  • ENB brightness adaptation. Eyes adapt over time to different brightnesses. Tuned for subtilty to avoid strobing.
  • ENB sun rays. Fast volumetric sunbeam effects.
  • ENB volumetric rays. Fast volumetric lighting effects.
  • ENB underwater shader. Underwater visual effects including caustics and chromatic aberration.
  • ENB detailed shadows. Accurate near shadows.
  • ENB distant shadows. Accurate terrain shadows.
  • ENB subsurface scattering (SSS). More realistic skin and translucent materials.
  • ENB ambient occlusion (SSAO). Advanced lighting. Replaces in-engine AO.
  • ENB indirect illumination (SSIL). Enhanced lighting. Simulates light bounce.
  • ENB complex particle lighting. Realistic extra light sources with shadows (optional - depends on mods - see below).
  • ENB procedural sun. Improved sun glare.
  • ENB water. Improved water effects. Includes improved screen-space reflections, caustics and (optional) parallax mapping.
  • ENB bloom. Natural looking soft glow in very bright areas.
  • ENB lens. Subtle blow-out in extreme brightness.
  • ENB rain wetness. Terrain, objects and skin become shiny and reflective in the rain.
  • ENB screen space reflections. Improved reflections, including water.
  • ENB complex grass. Grass with full shadow and light support.
  • ENB grass collision. Grass moves on contact.
  • ENB Complex Parallax and Complex Materials. Grass moves on contact.






Installation...

It's easy compared to some ENB presets with lots of additional files and INI changes, but there's a few simple things you need to do, so read through this before installing. Let me know if anything is unclear.

1. Install requirements...

. Install these mods through your favourite mod manager...


Note: Please uninstall the ENB Helper Shader Bundle if you've got it. It's not needed.
Note: SkyUI and USSEP are highly recommended.
Note: Don't skip step 4 (below). Always install one or the other nighteye fix ESPs.


2. Set up ENB...

. Clean out any previous ENB installation. 

. Download the latest Skyrim SE ENB package. Here is the ENB SSE homepage download. Click the highest version number towards the bottom of the page, then the download link at the very bottom.

. Extract only the two .dll files in the WrapperVersion folder and put them in your Skyrim root folder - the same folder as SkyrimSE.exe and SkyrimSELauncher.exe.

Note: Update the ENB core regularly. Some new features require the latest version and bug-fixes. 



3. Set up the preset...

. Download this preset (always "manual download"). Grab either the Obsidian or Cathedral versions as appropriate. If using Azurite, download the Cathedral preset and the Azurite add-on.

. Extract all the files and the enbseries folder from the preset archive to the Skyrim root folder (not Data)

. If using Azurite, extract the Cathedral package as above, then overwrite one file with the one in the Azurite archive The file to overwrite is enbseries/_weatherlist.ini


4. Select Nighteye effect preferences ...

If you're using Predator Vision...

. You'll need Predator Vision and SkyUI installed.

. Grab the NightEyeENBFix_PredatorVision file and install it through your favourite mod manager (or manually).

. When in game, open the ENB console (shift ENTER), expand ENBEffects on the right and make sure NE: Use Predator Vision Mod is ticked/checked. Save configuration.

. In the SkyUI mod menu under Predator Vision, turn Night Vision Brightness and Colour to minimum values.


If you're NOT using 
Predator Vision

. Grab the NightEyeENBFix file and install it through your favourite mod manager (or manually).

. No PV is the default, so you don't need to do the following step unless you're switching back from a Predator Vision load order to one without... When in game, open the ENB console (shift ENTER), expand ENBEffects on the right and make sure NE: Use Predator Vision Mod is unticked/unchecked. Save configuration.

. Optionally, try out the NE: Use Alternative NightEye Effect made for vampire characters. Just an experimental novelty at the moment. Let me know if you want me to develop it into something nicer.



5. Launch...


. Start SKSE as normal to launch Skyrim SE/AE

Note: It takes a while to build shaders when Skyrim starts. A black screen for several seconds is normal. 

Remember to Endorse if you like. :)

Submitted screenshots and video are welcomed.






INI settings...


. BethINI works well enough to optimise you INI settings if you're not an expert. I use BethINI Ultra preset with Recommended Settings for the screenshots here.

. Use BethINI to turn off in-game Ambient Occlusion. Might give you a few FPS. ENB does this effect instead. This preset does not use vanilla game Ambient Occlusion at all. Keeping it on will not affect or improve the image quality in any way. However, keeping it on won't degrade image quality either.





Recommended visual mods...

Listed here are some "foundation" graphic mod suggestions. This list is hardly exhaustive and gets out-of-date quickly. 

Essential
(nearly)


Recommended
  • Enhanced Volumetric Lighting and Shadows (EVLAS) together with Fixed Mesh Lighting for proper volumetric lighting at sunrise and sunset, and it makes volumetric god-rays follow the sun and largest moon correctly. Some effects are a bit hit and miss because the game was never built to handle shadows at this scale.
  • Majestic Mountains Very nice looking mountain, rock and moss and an improved snow system. Huge effort, looks great. Don't select North or South shadow options during install as those break ENB's time detection.
  • Static Mesh Improvement Mod Massive improvements to many lumpy vanilla objects. This is an old one now and there are additional mods that improve these improvements even further. 
  • Skyland landscapes. Landscape textures that tile very smoothly. Alternatively, try Skyland AIO. Add Darker Distant LOD to make distant grass darker.
  • Skyland Imperial Forts. Really nice looking weathered stone and moss effect.
  • Skyrim High Definition LODs - Darker and Grassy version. If you[re not using an all-in-one texture packs, this improves distant landscapes a lot. Oldrim, but works in SE. Manual install. Makes distant terrain blend in with grasses better. Good if not using Skyland AIO. 
  • Noble Skyrim. Huge texture pack with nearly every texture in Skyrim improved in some way. Have all other more specific texture mods overwrite this.
  • Rudy HQ Nordic Ruins. Great ruin textures. I've not found better.
  • Underground Nice cave, mine, fort and Dwemer ruin textures (and others) from the author of Majestic Mountains.
  • DynDOLOD. Huge improvements to distant object rendering. A few things to learn, but worth the effort.
  • Realistic Water Two. Includes parallax maps for extremely nice looking ENB-enhanced water.
  • Water for ENB. More modern that RWT and a bit nicer effects. Lots of options. 
  • Mists of Tamriel Atmospheric fog and mist effects. Or use 
  • Azurite Mists

Trees
  • Simply Bigger Trees with HQ Tree Bark is a great enhancement to vanilla trees. Bark should overwrite SBT.
  • Happy Little Trees is a recent and popular tree mod. You will need to generate LOD with DynDOLOD.
  • 3D Trees and 3D Landscapes looks good, includes many plants and optional matching landscape textures, but it can hit performance on lower-end systems.

Grass
  • Veydosebrom Personal choice at the moment. Now support ENB Complex Grass.
  • Cathedral Landscapes includes grass and very good distant landscape textures, and is very performance friendly. Some of the plants could do with the tweaks that you can find across Nexus.

Vegitation (flowers and plants)

Others to have a look at: High Poly Project, Unofficial Material Fix, Stunning Statues of Skyrim, Misc Retexture Project, Assorted Mesh Fixes.






Antialiasing...

There are three kinds of post process antialiasing methods available at the moment (not including custom ones from various other ENB presets).

ENB Edge: a reasonable quality and VERY fast antialiasing method that selectively blurs the screen to smooth sudden contrasts. Removes a lot of noise which can cause some smudging of foliage. Worth a try if you're looking for a fast method.

To enable: make sure TAA and FXAA are off (you can use BethINI). Load you game. SHIFT+ENTER to enter the ENB menu. Top left menu, open ANTIALIASING and tick Edge. Click SAVE CONFIGURATION. SHIFT+ENTER to leave the ENB menu. Restart isn't required.

TAA: Very good at eliminating noise, moderately good at removing flicker, good at fixing aliasing, but softens the image and adds motion blur. The most effective system for removing aliasing jaggies, but also the softest. Enable in BethINI. Make sure ENB Edge is disabled.

FXAA: All-purpose and quick selective blurring. Moderately good at removing aliasing artifacts. Enable with BethINI. Make sure ENB Edge is disabled.

iiENB distance sharpening is tuned for TAA, so might need turning down for other methods.






Q & A...


1. "What is the performance like?"
I lose about 20 fps over vanilla on an RX480. Usually locked at 60 in interiors. I use many of the above mods/textures including DynDOLOD high preset. On a more capable GPU (eg Nvidia 3070, Radeon 6600 XT or greater), or with a light graphics mod load a 60 fps cap everywhere is reasonable. Without special mods, going over 60fps can cause physics to glitch.

2. "I have a fire damaged Geforce 4 MX covered in gravy. Can I use this?"
No.

3. "I have two watercooled RTX 4090 with a gazillion terabytes of video memory, can I use this?"
Yes. You will enjoy infinite FPS.

4. "How do I turn ENB on and off and access the ENB GUI?"
Use defaults. Shift + Enter to access the control panel and Shift + F12 to turn ENB on and off. Always SAVE before exiting the GUI

5. "Any other Weather mods supported?"
No. I have enough trouble developing two separate versions of this preset. You might have luck using the Cathedral preset with a weather mod based on it.

6. "Can I turn on or off effects (like Skylighting)?"
Yes. Skylighting and Depth of Field work fine, they're just a bit performance intensive for mid-end rigs. Conversely, you can turn off effects if you're having performance issues. I'd turn off Sun Rays and Complex Particle Lighting first. The preset is supposed to be fast but if you have a good GPU like a 3070 or better, you can add Skylighting and turn up effect quality settings.

7. "My dungeons or night are too bright or dark. Is there anything I can do?"
Yes. Open the ENB control panel, open ENBEffects on the right panel, change the Night/Interior Exposure and/or Gamma settings to taste. Hit SAVE CONFIGURATION. Hint: open the console to stop your character breakdancing while you change settings.

8. "Can I use your shader code in my own ENB preset?"
Yes. With appropriate credits in the .fx file and mod description. Modding is a communal and nonprofit effort after all.

9. "Who is the lady-orc in the screenshots?"

Her name is Test. She is an orc barbarian warrior. I made her a CBBE Body Slide preset. The preset is available here (NSFW as it's CBBE).