SkyFalls and SkyMills – Animated Distant Waterfalls and WindMills
Distant Waterfalls Actually Animated. Now also Animated Distant Windmills.
SkyFalls + SkyMills
Animated distant waterfalls and mills, finally.
=Compatible with WATER, Pure Waters and Realistic Water Two=
=Now includes Windmills Resized by Pfaffendrill!=
Over 25.000 endorsements!! WOW. Thanks Everyone for endorsing and voting and your continuous support!
Donations: If you care to donate (I appreciate the gesture), please consider donating to charity, or the victims of Nepal instead, they need money more than I do. I don’t have, nor will ever put up, a donate button. Thank you!
=Dynamic Distant Object LOD – DynDOLOD=
Yes, DynDOLOD requires it’s own heading now. DynDOLOD is a mod made by Sheson (Best known for creating the Skyrim memory patch), and is basically the successor of SkyFalls and SkyMills + a lot more. I urge everyone to read on, pick a choice and give DynDOLOD a try!!
Sheson has been so kind to make DynDOLOD compatible with SkyFalls and SkyMills from the start even though it is not really necessary. The only benefit for keeping SkyFalls and SkyMills when using DynDOLOD, is the placement of windmill sails. My mod moves the larger sails away from the entrances of windmills for added realism (no more concussions for farmers). I won’t blame you for using solely DynDOLOD. Sheson’s personal remark on SkyFalls and SkyMills:
“I want to go on record to thank and credit SjoertJansen for his tremendous work. Without your SkyFalls/SkyMills there simply would be no DynDOLOD. SkyFalls/SkyMills always remains in my list of mods to test whenever I update DynDOLOD. It may be a bit sentimental but also because of my deepest respects.”
I previously endorsed The Skyrim Distance Overhaul LOD Improvement mod (SDO) by Grieche. DynDOLOD replaces SDO completely and massively improves upon it whilst having a lower performance impact. Although SDO is still fully functional, Grieche has not responded for nearly a year, and I consider his mod unsupported from now on.
DynDOLOD is very modular, and can be run on any but the most primitive of PCs. It improves your distant views beyond any other mod does and without the performance impact one may expect.
The installation for DynDOLOD may seem daunting on first inspection, but is actually rather straight forward. To make things easy to understand and follow, GamerPoets, of which I am co-manager, has made a Thorough DynDOLOD Tutorial (With both NMM and Mod Organizer in mind). I urge everyone to give it a try, and be amazed at the improvement, especially when paired with a distant terrain (ground textures, not objects) improvement mod as well. I personally recommend HD Detailed Terrain by Soolie.
There are several ways to combine DynDOLOD with SkyFalls and SkyMills if you so please, or use it on it’s own. I will go through all options for you.
1. Use SkyFalls and SkyMills as is, and install DynDOLOD after it. You will get all this mod has always offered and the windmill sail placement changes from this mod + everything else from DynDOLOD. The optional “small waterfall” esp from SkyFalls and SkyMills will be redundant and should be deactivated.
2. If you do not like or don’t want scripts, or the dynamic mod part of DynDOLOD affects your performance too much, you can use SkyFalls and SkyMills together with only the static LOD from DynDOLOD.
You could create the static LOD (and or tree LOD) with DynDOLOD yourself, to include city extensions/custom home mod buildings into your LOD, by following the provided tutorials from both Sheson himself, or from GamerPoets. In short, press teh advanced button in the DynDOLOD GUI and simply untick the “Generate DynDOLOD” checkbox in the bottom of the screen.
Or, you install one of the pre-made static LODs found under the Miscellaneous section of the DynDOLOD mod page file tab. This is as simple as download with manager and activating the mod and done, like you would most texture mods. make sure you have your install order right for installing the pre-made LOD for the DLC. Mind: Objects and buildings added by mods will not be visible in the LOD with this option.
3. If you do not care for windmill sail placement, you can skip installing, or remove SkyFalls and SkyMills entirely, saving you an esp slot. To still get the nice bigger windmill sails from SMIM you need to select the SkyFalls and SkyMills compatibility patch during SMIM installation even though SkyFalls and SkyMills is not installed. This makes DynDOLOD recognise the new meshes and implement them automatically.
Enjoy your new and improved ingame vistas 🙂
If no more bugs are reported, this will be the final version, fingers crossed.
For Installation please refer to the =Installation= section on this page or the readme!
KEY CHANGES:
– Adjusted windmill rotor placement, no more head injuries when entering or exiting a mill.
– Further increased performance, by making changes to the meshes without any visual loss.
– Changed and fixed BAIN installer.
– Changed FOMOD installer and fixed parallax patch not installing.
– Fixed 2 missing distant waterfalls.
– Updated changes from the new USKP files.
– Fixed up Dimfrost LOD.
– Removed clipping from Blackreach LOD.
– Added the Skyrim Distance Overhaul LOD improvement patch by Grieche
– Added a patch for Expand Object LODs mod by tamu75
– New LOD patch now gets installed by default as it is stupid not to.
Thoroughly recommended to use the Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM) on top of my mod to get nice new and improved windmill sails! Many thanks to Brumbek for creating those!
=Updating=
For updating please use an interior save!
When updating from version 2.0 or earlier, I recommend you perform the following in an attempt to prevent old references from sticking in your save (Version 3.0beta and up is a completely different mod!):
1. Go to an interior that has no waterfalls.
2. Create a new save and quit the game
3. Remove my old version.
4. Load the new save.
5. Create a new save again and quit the game
6. Install my new version
7. Load the new save from 5 and enjoy the game.
=Mod description=
I am proud to say that this mod is part of S.T.E.P. An extensive and excellent graphical modding guide (v 2.2.9) as well as a community of dedicated expert modders who are very helpful if you have any problems. I thoroughly recommend registering for their community forum.
Ever wondered why distant waterfalls turn into ugly ice cubes? I did. I was disappointed to find no mods available that fixed this issue, only mods that changed the ugly ice cubes for slightly less ugly ones. It was claimed waterfalls could not be distantly animated. So here it is, animated waterfalls at a distance! And I also distantly animated windmills and waterwheels along the way.
What I have done since version 3 of my mod:
In essence I literally replaced all Waterfalls for 2 new ones (manually). One low quality will be rendered as full LOD, and another full detail one for close by.
Note: Some people mention The Skyrim Distance Overhaul LOD Improvement (SDO) by Grieche. I use this mod in all my images and my video. It is a great mod, but it does not render distant waterfalls animated, because simply ticking the “is full LOD” box on the old static waterfalls does not work!
Although there is a patch included in my FOMOD/BAIN installer, which can also be found under my optional file section I recommend using DynDOLOD instead. SDO is no longer supported and has a bigger performance hit than DynDOLOD. DynDOLOD also improves the distance better than SDO ever could, and is far more compatible with everything.
This mod does NOT contain scripts of any kind, and should therefore not cause save bloating.
I recommend running this mod, or just Skyrim in general really, in combination with ENBoost.
Please leave a comment if you find any bugs!
=Version History SkyFalls + SkyMills=
Please refer to the Changelog! (For full changelog, see “SkyFalls + SkyMills Changelog.txt” file in the main file archives)
=What is in the making/ known problems=
– Currently no known bugs.
– If no bugs are reported, version 3.3 will be the final version of this mod
– The mod has been renamed since 3.0Beta; Use LOOT to sort your mods!
=DLC Support=
All DLC options are included in the FOMOD. DLC and new land support for Dawnguard, Dragonborn, Falskaar and Wyrmstooth are now available under the optional section. They are all merged into one esp in the Total Edition main file, which is, together with all other options included in the FOMOD/BAIN installer (Recommended).
Please report any bugs.
=Installation=
Also refer to the readme
I personally RECOMMEND the use of Mod Organizer (MO). An excellent tutorial series can be found HERE. Enjoy the headache free world of Skyrim modding.
I suggest you download any version using either Nexus Mod Manager (NMM), Mod Organizer (MO) or install using Wrye bash!
If you use The Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM) from Brumbek (Recommended):
Please ensure you install SMIM AFTER my mod and YES to overwrite!!
SMIM should overwrite swindmillrotor.nif and SMfarmhousewindmillfan.nif!
when updating SkyFalls and SkyMills you can simply tick NO when asked to overwrite SMIM files.
If you use DynDOLOD (recommended), please refer to the DynDOLOD subheading at the top of this mod page! Also make sure to install SMIM properly.
If you use The Skyrim Distance Overhaul LOD Improvement by Grieche:
Install the patch (Included in FOMOD/BAIN installer). Do not install the optional New Skyrim LOD. The rest of the mod is perfectly compatible.
If you use Expand Object LODs by tamu75:
Install the patch (Included in FOMOD/BAIN installer). Do not install the optional New Skyrim LOD. The rest of the mod is perfectly compatible.
If you use WATER or Realistic Water Two:
When asked to overwrite 2 texture files, you can say yes or no. The textures are the EXACT same as those found in WATER and Realistic Water Two SO INSTALLATION ORDER DOESN’T MATTER AT ALL! You can overwrite either way (Load order does matter see Load order section). The textures are purely there for those people who do not use WATER or Realistic Water Two, but do want to use the recommended meshes. So if you are a vanilla, Pure Waters or other water mod user, you can use the WATER or RWT meshes without a problem!.
For Manual installation:
Please use all the manual files (The NON fomod main file and all the required optionals)! You can merge them later using the merge plugins TES5Edit script.
Simply unpack all the archives in the /Skyrim/Data/ folder and activate the esp files in the launcher.
The optional New Skyrim LOD should be extracted to the /skyrim/data/ folder.
If you use The Skyrim Distance Overhaul LOD Improvement by Grieche, make sure you do NOT install my optional Skyrim LOD files.
All optionals should also be extracted to the /Skyrim/data/ folder.
If you have SMIM installed, please make sure that swindmillrotor.nif and SMfarmhousewindmillfan.nif come from the SMIM mod f you want the new windmill sails he created. So be careful which mod overwrites the other.
My mods are dependent on the Update.esm! Make sure you update your game
I suggest you download any version using either Nexus Mod Manager, Skyrim Mod Organizer or install using Wrye bash!
=Load Order=
This mod needs to be loaded BEFORE Realistic Water Two (RW2) and DynDOLOD, but AFTER Wyrmstooth (WT) and the unofficial Skyrim patches (USKP)!.
Other than that, there are no rules. You can load it anywhere you like.
Use LOOT to sort your mods!!
=Performance impact=
This mod has a performance impact (Common sense). However, the impact is minimal and most PC systems should be able to handle that without FPS loss. Since version 3.0Beta, performance has improved significantly. And version 3.3 improves performance even more.
Thanks to backslash33 who extensively tested different set-ups on his low end system (Radeon HD 5800 (1GB), 4GB ram and an intel Q6600 2,4GHz) which is close to the minimum Skyrim recommendations. if you have a low end system you can expect a 3-10 fps drop over vanilla, depending on your setup. If you have a significant FPS drop, I can recommend using the Vanilla waterfall meshes (They will work with any water mod) for a lower impact. Bear in mind that the actual water mods (RWT and WATER) come with a significant FPS hit in themselves on lower end systems, especially in combination with this mod. My system (AMD 6950HD, I5 2500K and 8GB RAM) has no FPS impact with this mod, if your system is equal or better, you should not suffer any performance hit.
Use ENBoost to lessen the impact on performance.
Please turn the setting iMaxDesired= under [Particles] in your Skyrimprefs.ini back to 750.
Don’t set higher than 900 if not required! it can cause flickering (Also see readme #FAQ# section). Previous versions of this mod might have required you to set this setting higher, please revert it back! If you use DynDOLOD, depending on your quality setting, you may need to increase this again!!
If you use Wet and Cold from Isoku, and the cold breath disappears, increase this setting by increments of 50 until the problem is solved.
=FAQ=
Refer to readme.
=Uninstall=
Refer to readme.
=Compatibiliy=
Also refer to readme.
This mod IS compatible with the following mods, which are all recommended!.
-Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM) by Brumbek. (Install AFTER my mod and overwrite! See =installation= section)
-Realistic Water Two by Isoku (simply overwrite his textures or vice versa (DOESN’T MATTER!) also refer to installation section).
– WATER – Water And Terrain Enhancement Redux by SparrowPrince (simply overwrite his textures or vice versa (DOESN’T MATTER!) also refer to installation section).
– Pure Waters by Laast
– DynDOLOD by Sheson (See the dedicated DynDOLOD heading at top of page.
– The Skyrim Distance Overhaul LOD Improvement by Grieche. Please use the provided patch (Included in FOMOD/BAIN installer).
– Expand Object LODs by tamu75: Please use the provided patch (Included in FOMOD/BAIN installer).
-Better Mills Textures by Raphou112 (Simply install his SkyFalls and SkyMills version!)
=ALL THE ABOVE MODS ARE HIGHLY RECOMMENDED IN COMBINATION WITH THIS MOD=
This mod is NOT compatible with:
– Pure Waters – Waterfalls by Laast. Use DynDOLOD instead!
– Purity by Laast. Use DynDOLOD instead!
Although, for both Purity and Pure Waters – Waterfalls, SkyFalls and SkyMills can be run alongside each-other, my waterfalls will be in front of the ones Laast has made to make everything look prettier. Rendering all his work pointless. If you don’t care for Laast his new waterfalls, Purity can be used together with SkyFalls and SkyMills.
Any mod that changes the placement or shape of any vanilla waterfalls in game. (Not talking about the meshes or textures here, those don’t affect my mod!)
This will likely be any landscape changing and or custom house mods that move, or delete waterfalls. If you find any incompatible mods, please let me know (None reported so far).
Waterfalls placed by other mods, will not have distant waterfalls, nor will they be animated! Use DynDOLOD instead!
This mod has a patch for Project Parallax Remastered. It comes with Unofficial Skyrim Patch (USKP) and Enhanced lights and FX (ELFX) compatibility included!
Other than that, nothing really.
=Credits=
RichardPellets (AKA Michael of Gamerpoets) for the epic logo and video review
Sheson for allowing me to use his distant waterfall meshes and his epic memory patch and DynDOLOD tool!
Pfaffendrill for allowing me to use his mod.
Grieche for the SDO patch
Surazal for creating the BAIN wizard.
Brumbek for creating new windmill meshes.
Isoku for allowing me to use his waterfall meshes.
SparrowPrince for allowing me to use his waterfall meshes.
backslash33 For testing the performacne impact on low end systems.
Bethesda for creating TES
Everyone else who helped with reporting and solving bugs, creating videos and otherwise providing feedback and help!
All you guys who press the download button, and especially so, those that come back to press endorse.
Thanks!
=Permission=
Anyone who wants to translate this mod, is freely allowed to do so, as long as it remains on the Nexus.
I will not allow this mod to be uploaded outside the Nexus without personal permission.
This mod may NEVER be uploaded to the Steam workshop and CANNOT be hosted on Steam, or any other repository, for money. My work, past or future, will always be completely free.
If you wish to use any asset of this mod in your own mod for uploading, permission needs to be asked first.
