Skyrim Special Edition

About this mod

Real time snow cover, Support Seasons & Vanilla screen effects (Night Eye, Berserker Rage, fade-to-blacks), Performance Friendly, 4 variations, Support Cathedral Weather and Obsidian, include Horizon fix.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Changelogs

- Ljóss -

Performance Friendly Preset
with Snow Cover, Vanilla effect and ENB Light support



In Old Norse, ljóss means : light, bright, shining, light-coloured, fair, clear, evident, plain.

  • Nordic: Main Ljóss preset, Natural color with a nice fantasy touch. Nice and fresh!
  • Vivid: Vivid color and higher contrast. Ljóss with a stronger fantasy taste.
  • Stylistic: Desaturated version of the original Ljóss preset with a brownish touch. Warm and very stylish!
  • Gothic: High desaturated version with a dark & gloomy feeling.

Introduction:

Skyrim is a beautiful place, even more when you follow the amazing Lexy's Legacy of the Dragonborn: Special Edition installation guide. But, after I finished configuring my mod list, I had to accept that it's not possible to use the great presets available here and run so many mods on my 1440p screen without facing unpleasant slowdowns. Moreover, I wanted to build a preset exactly the way I wanted because there's always something that didn't suit me ;)

That's how my Ljóss preset was born.

My goals was :

  • Get the best compromise between performance & quality
  • Support vanilla screen effects like Night Eye, Berserker Rage, fade-to-blacks, etc... and those added by mods (toxicity, imaginator...).
  • Keep it easily configurable (check installation instruction below)
This preset is for playing not for screen archery, but I think i managed to reach a pretty good mix between performance and beauty. It is very easy to configure to your tastes

Note about performance:

Using a ENB preset always has an impact, including this one. The impact on performance increases exponentially with the resolution you use. The ideal framerate for Skyrim is 60 fps if you don't want game's physics going crazy. This means that on my setup with a framerate locked at 60, I get 53 fps at worst on a 1440p screen (only big cities with full JK Skyrim + Dawn of skyrim Director's cut goes below). This result is very hardware dependent, so it can vary a lot from one system to another.


Includes:

  • 4 preset variation : Naturalistic , Vivid, Stylistic & Gothic (Take a loot at comparison screenshots during installation)
  • Fake snow cover effect (Like screen above)
  • Lens Weather Effect (frost vignette and raindrops)
  • Perfect support of vanilla screen effects like Night Eye, Berserker Rage, fade-to-blacks, etc or the ones added by mods (toxicity, imaginator...)
  • Per weathers preset support Cathedral weather and Obsidian (configuration power are supported)
  • Horizon fix support
  • ENB Godrays
  • Enhanced Colors (Vibrance & Lut 35 pre-installed)
  • Contrast Adaptive Sharpening
  • Enhanced Lighting (ComplexParticleLight, Bloom, ENB light support)
  • Performance friendly Bloom (Reforged Bloom)
  • Performance friendly Anti-aliasing SMAA
  • Enhanced Shadows (Detailed Shadows, Distant Shadows, ENB Ambiant Occlusion, Skylightning & Shadows adjustment)
  • Realistic Skin colors & aspects (Skin Specular & SubSurfaceScatering)
  • Enhanced Sky & Water
  • Procedural sun
  • Deep of Field
  • Lettterbox (Optional)

Comparison screenshots :
Top Left is Nordic, Top Right is Vivid, Bottom Left is Stylistic and Bottom Right is Gothic


Spoiler:  
Show

Clear Weather (midday)

Fog (midday):

Storm (midday):

Interior (Day)
Optional brighter option available

Night(1:00AM)
Optional brighter option available

Cloudy Weather (midday)



Installation Instructions:

Requirement:

For Nvidia users (HDMI / DP users only):
Go to your Nvidia Control Panel (right click on your desktop)
Then go to "change resolution" and find "Output Dynamic Range" and change it to "Full". (if it is grayed out press "Use NVIDIA color settings" first)

For AMD users:
If you're using a AMD/Radeon graphics card you need to do a similar tweak, but you have to change the display pixel format instead. This can
be done by selecting "RGB 4:4:4 Pixel Format PC Standard (Full RGB)" instead of the default "RGB 4:4:4 Pixel Format Studio (Limited RGB)" inside of the AMD Catalyst.

Mandatory :
Calibrate your monitor properly, follow these instructions
ENB Helper SE
Skyrim Particle Patch for ENB Special Edition (don't use esp)
Please remove "PrivateProfileRedirector SE" if you use it, Boris mentions incompatibilities with enbs as it disables some weathers

Strongly recommended :
Embers HD by mindflux
Inferno - Fire Effects Redux by Retrospect
ENB Light by 4109

Installation

ENB files
  • Go to enbdev.com, click on last version
  • At the bottom of the page, click the link for the specified version.
  • At the bottom of the new page, click the download link.
  • When the file has downloaded, open the Wrapper Version folder enclosed in the archive and extract ONLY D3D11.dll & D3DCompiler_46e.dll.
  • Place the D3D11.dll & D3DCompiler_46e.dll into the main Skyrim Special Edition directory.

ljóss' preset
  • Use your mod manager to install ljóss like a normal mod
  • Follow FOMOD installation to customize it (Please read it carefully, i added a lot of tips to help you to configure to your tastes)
  • Then copy all files from "To Skyrim Folder" to the Main Skyrim Directory.
  • Open Skyrim.ini and change the following, if value doesn't exist add them :

    [Display]
    fGlobalBloomThresholdBoost=5.0000

    fSAOBias=0.5000

    fSAOExpFactor=0.220

    fSAOIntensity=12.0000

    fSAORadius=850.0000
    
    fSAOValueDiffFactor=0.3000

    Open Skyrimprefs.ini and change the following, if value doesn't exist add them :
    [Display]

    bEnableImprovedSnow=0

    fGamma=1.0000

    bFXAAEnabled=0
    (you can set it to 1 if you prefer FXAA instead of or in addition to the SMAA included in the ENB settings)

    bUseTAA=0
    (you can set it to 1 if you prefer the motion-blur of TAA, compatible with any other AA choice)

    bIBLFEnable=0

    bIndEnable=0

    bSAO_CS_Enable=0

    bSAOEnable=0
    (If you use performance version, set it to 1)

    bTreesReceiveShadows=1

    bDrawLandShadows=1

    bShadowsOnGrass=1
    bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=1
    (This settings helps to reduce color banding but will cost until 4 fps)

    bVolumetricLightingEnable=1
    iVolumetricLightingQuality=2




How to configure:
Read FOMOD instruction carefully most of important settings are explained during installation process.

It is not advised to change Bloom settings as I use it to simulate fog.

Disable SMAA :

Edit ENBEFFECTPOSTPASS.FX file with notepad and replace #define Enable_SMAA 1 by #define Enable_SMAA 0

Enabling ENB SSAO :
Set bSAOEnable to 0 in skyrimprefs.ini.
Open ENB GUI, in left menu, enable AmbientOcclusion
It is already tweaked to preserve performance as much as possible.

All settings below are in ENBEFFECTPOSTPASS.FX

Sharpness :
Use CAS sharp amount to reduce or increase general picture sharpness.

Letterbox : (not enabled by default)
Add a letterbox effect, bar size and color are configurable

Colorfulness :
If you want a more or less colorful rendering, a good start is to play with the Vibrance settings.


All settings below are in ENBEFFECT.FX

Color Filter
If vibrance is not enough, you can adjust color, shadows and luminance here

AGCC Input Mixer
Here, You can adjust vanilla effects strength

Advanced ENB Output Effects Editor
You can adjust contrast and luminosity under this section


For more settings ask, I will try to help you.


Mod used :

Weather Mod:
Cathedral Weathers and Seasons
Improved Rain and Fog for Cathedral Weathers by Nawor3565
Storm Lightning for SSE and VR (Minty Lightning 2019) by Shizof

Lighting:
Enhanced Lights and FX by anamorfus
Enhanced Lighting for ENB by --JawZ--
Relighting Skyrim by --JawZ-- and NovakDalton (Modified version "tailored for ELFX" by neovalen, refers to the Lexy's guide linked below)
Claralux SE - Controllable Lights Everywhere by MyGoodEye and Scythe42

Texture overhauls:
Noble Skyrim Mod HD - 2K by Shutt3r
MystiriousDawn's HD Skyrim Overhaul by MystiriousDawn

Flora:
Skyrim Flora Overhaul SE by vurt
Enhanced Vanilla Trees by SomeRandomGuy83-TechAngel85-Scythe42

Cities Overhaul:
Dawn of Skyrim (director's cut) SE by BluePianoTwo
JK's Skyrim by Jkrojmal

Miscellaneous
Better FaceLighting and Conversation by Sthaagg

And so many more that I forget but if you want an amazing game take a look at:
Lexy's Legacy of the Dragonborn: Special Edition installation guide !

Credits:
enbeffect.fx is based on Phinix's the truth enbeffect.fx files
Histogram based Adaptation by kingeric1992
Bokeh Depth of Field by Marty McFly
Reforged Bloom by THE SANDVICH MAKER
Color filters by HeliosDoubleSix (HD6)
AGCC tonemap by kingeric1992
ENB itself and various effects by Boris Vorontsov
Day/night/twilight separation by kingeric1992 & Phinix
Additions, in-game options, & formatting by Phinix
Contrast Adaptive Sharpener by rhellct
Vibrance by Ceejay.dk
LUT by Kingeric1992 & Adyss
Letterbox by Ceejay.dk
Lightroom by Marty McFly
SMAA by kingeric1992
Weather Fx lens by Skysan4298 && kingeric1992
Further Credits in .fxh files
12AiN for his rain texture from his Viven Rain for ENB mod