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Okay, so yesterday by some impulse I decided to Skyrim around a bit for the first time in more than a year. Wasn't going to make much of it but too much was entertaining about the session not to share just a bit.

First, when I downloaded this mod I decided that this would be one of the hairstyles that I would never ever use. But just flipping through it looked too good for me not to do it.


Second I completely forgot I had this mod active when I started playing. You'll have to forgive these. I'm not much for action shots and for the bulk of the time I was insanely panicked.

P-sto: Hey, I like that second one with your character running. Scared?

Finn: Yeah, Aicantar is pretty fine imo. He looks absolutely delicious in those master robes.

So scared. I actually decided to pause the game for five minutes when I realized there was no sneaking past Believe and I would have to run it. Also I was on the phone while I was playing. A decently long conversation that got broken up by ten minutes of me shouting at the dragon. And really I'm not the sort of person that talks to games and tv shows. It really put me on edge.

That one made me wonder whether Drain Life should actually work on undead - I mean, there's nothing to drain in that case, is there? Kinda like using soul trap on automata...

New shots:
Hist-Tongue the Argonian druid
Meditating
Approaching Shor's Stone
Candlehearth sunny
Candlehearth cloudy
Candlehearth moony
(I just love Pure Weather - best non-ENB weather & lighting mod so far IMO)
"I fight... because I must!"
Wuunferth at work

That's what I was thinking when I took it. Then I thought that it might just be draining the essence of whatever reanimated them. Aaand then I just lost my train of thought. Go figure.

Pure weathers doesn't have any issues with rain/snow weathers, does it? I'm thinking it's time to ditch CoT. I'm getting seriously tired of nearly clear skies during rain and snow storms. Among other things. The patch for it helps, but it doesn't fix everything.

I'll have some shots later. Vulom just finished the College of Winterhold and I wasn't really focusing on taking shots. The only shot I have taken today was of the Glenmoril Witch head that I left on (what I think was) Aela's bed. I'm not even sure where she sleeps. Vulom tried stalking her before she placed the head, but apparently Aela preferred to stand in the hall for the night instead of sleeping.

Not that I've noticed so far, although tbh I didn't notice the issues you describe that much in CoT either (which may be because my characters tend to hole up in an inn or their homes on rainy days and read books or do crafting ); what bothered me more were clearly defined shadows on overcast days with no sun visible... maybe related. I haven't actually paid much attention to whether PW suffers from that too, gotta check.

They are extremely obvious in my game.

"Hey, it's pouring rain and I can still see the moons!"
"It's a [&@%!] blizzard and I can still see the aurora."
"Excuse me? Why is the galaxy purple? Or... Green? Blue? Pink?!"
"Hey, look, there are two huge black holes in the sky. And black lines that occasionally flash with lightning."

It's like the weather mod I have for Oblivion... It has seasons, but it really doesn't fit in the game. It keeps snowing around Leyawiin. Yep. Snowing in a swamp that borders Black Marsh and Elsweyr. The only reason I use that one is because it provides unique skies for Mania and Dementia.

On another note, I don't think I'll use Pure Weathers, either. No DLC support. Comes with textures that could potentially cause problems with the ones I have. Not compatible with any ENB I use.
I think I'm going to have to either go back to vanilla or just stick with CoT (and update the patches I have since they are old versions and don't fix all the issues).



I said I'd post shots yesterday, but... It'll have to wait until later today. I got too tired yesterday.
I did, at least, take a bunch of Thieves Guild related shots.

Yeah, the first two sound familiar, but I think prod80's patch fixed most of their occurences for me (mind you, I have an ancient version of it without volumetric fog and all that jazz). The last two not so much. As for the sunless shadows, Pure Weather sadly suffers from that too; apparently on Tamriel shadows are cast by ultraviolet rays that penetrate any clouds...

Regarding DLCs, Laast is working on that, but it'll take some time, which is why I started a new game with PW - by the time Hist-Tongue is ready to tackle Dawnguard or Dragonborn hopefully something will be done (and I can't wait to see what Solstheim and Forgotten Vale will look like then!). It's of course a bigger barrier for people juggling several advanced characters like you, so you'll probably be better off sticking with CoT (as for going back to vanilla weather that's a thought too horrible to entertain for me sans ENB *shudder*).

So do I. I still get them a lot. Granted, it's probably because I merged a few patches into one to reduce the number of .esps in my load order.
I don't like having so many .esp files for one mod.

Sunless shadows could be an engine issue if it's present in vanilla as well. I don't know, though. I see vanilla weather/lighting on my PS3 and my TV is too old for me to make out much. Including the HUD and subtitles.

I wouldn't want to switch mods in the middle of a game anyway. I only have two characters at the moment (would have been three, but Wild got killed by Dawnguard), but removing a .esm file and several .esp files wouldn't go well. At least Laast is working on DLC support. That's more than can be said for the guy behind WATER. "Dawnguard is bad. No Dawnguard support." Thanks? Hmph.

It's a shame my ENBs wouldn't work with Pure Weathers. Otherwise I would switch to get rid of CoT's... Issues.
Although I still think vanilla is the best choice. It doesn't look that bad. Well, it's either that or I make my own weather mod. No idea how.



Shots:
Head on the Bed
Smirking Brynjolf
"Well, this is entertaining."
Into the Ratway
Skeptical Introduction
"Oh. I want to kill him already."

Hey, let's get back to pictures, shall we?

Finn: I like the picture of your Argonian meditating in the woods. Although it looks like he's about to do a ritual.

Can you find the elves in this picture?


Sylmirie Kill Cam:


Bosmer pics:

It's a Harry Potter crossover, he's using the invisibility cloak! But seriously, what happened there?

"Vanish Textures discovered from Ectoplasm."

Dohva, the meditating is a sort of ritual on my part - I've started to do this whenever he levels up, so I'm RPing the stats increase and the new spells he learns by picking a magic perk in Requiem as new powers granted by the Hist through meditation; meaning he only levels up when he has peace to meditate - no more emergency level-ups in the middle of combat.

And the list of mods I forgot I installed grows. I believe this one is Ambrosia Fashions (didn't take long for Skyrim to become a fashion show for me again did it). A number of the retextures are a little too colourful for my taste but here's a few of my favourites. I don't think I ever used this mod before when I was playing a female character. The men's outfits are nice but I have to admit I really like how they are on women.

I wanted to try the Common Clothes mod (it's a 200-something MB download for the 2k version, but with a total file size of over 800MB uncompressed), but I noticed that it would have overwritten some of the textures I already had installed and I really didn't want to sort through the whole thing. I tried to shove everything into a .bsa file, but apparently that didn't work. The .esp wasn't reading the file correctly despite the fact that they had the same file names and whatever else I did.

The result of that being... Well... Poof. Bodiless Courier.




"Invisible Meshes" more like it. If it was a missing texture, it would have shown up as a purple/pink whatever it was. Although it probably wasn't reading the textures either.



I would post some shots, but I don't have any. I've been playing Oblivion today (acrobatics is extremely tedious to level). The only time I did play was to find out that I failed horribly at making a .bsa file. I might try again.

Edit:
Got it working this time.
Gonna create a new character to test it out properly, though... I don't want to touch Vulom or Sa'Zyrr in case I decided not to keep it.
The advantage of having the mod stuffed into a .bsa archive now is that it'll be a lot easier to get rid of if I decide I don't want it anymore.

Edit #2:
You know, that particular piece (Mail and Jacket?) actually looks rather good on Sa'Zyrr...

Edit #3:
A couple of shots of said new character:
The Cultist
Going for a Walk

So I took this stunning picture of my Bosmer with an arrow in flight, and trees in the background. Totally saved over it with another pic on accident, so sadly that one isn't included in these lol. Less than a handful of snapshots to share, been too distracted with playing.

@Dohva, thanks for sharing. Vilkas looks good there.
@Mauin, your Khajiit Vamp in pretty awesome and your Lady is pretty too.

So sweet priestess of Mara Jade went from being this...

to this while following me.

Man, I've become so used to that being Dark Brotherhood armour that she even reminds me of Astrid when dressed like that.

Fun little jam session at the Bannered Mare.


And well, I know my character aren't always morally upright but Lydia you did not pay for that horse and we are trying to be discreet.

Lieth went through Alftand, but I managed to only take 3 snapshots (too busy enjoying mass slaughtering Falmer), which pretty much have no relation to the dungeon lol.

Shots (including Dawnguard stuff):
Random Altmer
Nyralor Fenris I
Nyralor Fenris II
Reunion
The Altar
Traveling Vampires
The Rotting Dragon
Ashes of Coldharbour

New shots for Argonian lovers* (and one or two for the rest of you):

White River Valley
Cloudy Falls Barrow
Sunny Falls Barrow
Honest Pay for Honest Work
Morning Swim
Home Sweet Home
New Staff and Armour
Healing Meditation

*(People who love Argonians, that is. Not necessarily lovers who are Argonians, and not in the Crassus Curio sense either.)

So I've been playing the civil war on both sides with two different characters. Have to say comparing Tullius to Ulfric, how they talk to you and their subordinates and their views on the war, my opinion of Tullius has plummeted while I've gotten a new respect for Ulfric. There's a good chance that I enjoyed playing the Stormcloaks a little too much this time and went camera happy. The Sixth House Bell Hammer seemed to be the perfect choice for a Dunmer smashing Imperial skulls.


Listened to this before playing to get my head ready.

Falkreath. The shot was inspired by the opening of Tim Burton's film Sleepy Hollow, when walking to the Van Tassel house the first time.

Deep Folk Crossing. "Now, where did I leave that Dragon Claw..."

Purewater Run. I ran this one through Photoshop to clean up some artifacts in the render, then muddied it up slightly to get some sense of it being a painting.

Here are a couple pics of getting drunk married in Skyrim. Getting to the temple in time was likely one of the hardest quests I've done with this character.

And since I haven't shown Jacqueline's face her yet here she is with her new husband Rumarin. May have to take another close up in the future, the full extent of her facial piercings don't show well in this light.