T.A.Z Visual Overhaul
Completely new weathersystem combined with a refined ENB preset to produce realistic and lore friendly visuals with a cinematic touch.
This is a complete visual overhaul of Skyrim.
It comes with completely reworked weathers, newly added weathers, adapted climate templates and a ENB configuration to compliment these changes.
I tried to achieve a very balanced, natural look while adding a slight cinematic touch to the whole scene. One major focus is graphical consistency, so that you’ll never notice major differences in graphical quality during different weathers/times/landscapes/interiors.
This time around I also focused heavily on sunset/dawns and proper weather distribution. Skyrim now has an overall colder feel, snowy regions tend to have brighter days/nights, the throat of the world is now cloud free (you are over the clouds, you will see dense clouds below though) Riften isn’t nonstop foggy anymore, nights featuring auroras will be brighter, the auroras will even cast light when on top of the throat of the wolrd etc., you get the idea.
To achieve this I’ve completely reworked the existing weathers to get natural skyboxes, proper ambient colors (which is essential for ENBs skylighting to work properly), added completely new weather types and much, much more.
The ENB preset uses almost all effects at disposal so that you get to enjoy real dynamic 3d sunrays shining through the clouds, dynamic cloud shadows, volumetric mist(almost 1000 handplaced mistanchors), “volumetric” clouds, SSAO/SSIL, soft shadows .etc all tweaked to produce a pleasant and balanced picture during all situations.
Thanks to Hodilton and MMOxReview for feautring the mod on their channels!
If you want to see some more videos of the mod in action check out GRvOUPs youtube playlist or the video sharing tab!
This mod is NOT compatible with any other weather overhaul mod(CoT, NLA etc.).
Fog revamping mods(revamped exterior fog for example) are incompatible aswell (except interior fog revamps)
Other than that any mod that modifies weathers is incompatible.
Mods that make changes to regions are partially compatible since v0.3, but they will stop newly added weathers from appearing and also undo the changes made to the weather distribution.
This mod IS fully compatible with mods that rely on a properly set up weathersystem like Frostfall, Wet and Cold etc.
and mods that modify interiors.
Edit: True Storms is compatible, fadingsignal has included a patch option in his installer.
If you are using AOS, download the patch provided under optional downloads. Load the patch after TAZlighting.esp.
For this mod to work properly you’ll have to download the following files:
The latest ENB files: enbdev (Only copy the d3d9.dll and enbhost.exe to your Skyrim folder after you’ve installed this mod)
(Optional)And ELFX, although it will work without it, the interiors might be to bright as the configuration is tweaked in conjunction with this mod:
ELFX
(You can use the full mod, or only the interior plugin)
And set the following values in your SkyrimPrefs.ini(the one in your Documents/my Games/Skyrim) to 1:
bFloatPointRenderTarget=1
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
bShadowsjavascript-event-stripped1
(Just add the line below [Display] if it isn’t present in your ini)
I also highly recommend Mindflux’s particle patch and snowflakes for ENB: Particle patch snowflakes
slamm98 has made a fix for the vanilla LODs, get it here if you want darker tree LODs: LOD fix
I’ve made optional darker LODs for SOF users. Download can be found in the optional downloads section.
Credit and thanks go out to Vurt for the original tree LOD texture(for SFO regular edition).
A NMM download is not possible because of the filestructure of the mod, there is nothing I can do about it.
GamerPoets was kind enough to make an installation video, guiding you step by step through the installation process. I highly recommend watching it and please stop by his profile and give him kudos if his video has helped you!
Short insctructions for experienced users:
Donwload the mod manually and drop everything within the folder into your Skyrim folder.
Then add the ENB files you’ve downloaded from enbdev (only the d3d9.dll and the enbhost.exe!) to the Skyrim folder aswell.
Now open your mod manager of choice and activate TAZlighting.esp
(Forcing the weathertype 81a is not necessary anymore since v0.3)
(You should also disable AA, since this ENB version uses deffered rendering and a lot of effects won’t work with AA enabled)
After you’ve started the game for the first time a file called enblocal.ini will be generated (in your Skyrim main fodler). Configure this file to your liking (enable/disable terrain parralax if you use it or not, enable AA types if you want to use them, set you Vram amount correctly etc.).
That’s it, you’re done!
-v1.1
-Lightlevels for all weathers have been rebalanced to reduce the brightness when using certain textures.
-Tree LODs should look normal now, only the snowy tree LODs might be a bit bright at times.
-Reworked snowy weathers: I wasn’t satisfied with the skies and the too dark shadows.
-Mist tweaks for almost all weathers
-Tweaks to sunrises/sunsets during cloudy weathers: Mainly to the shadows and some smaller stuff like reducing the contrast a bit and adding more sunlighting to the mist
-Reworked underwater: Reduced the sunlight, made the waters foggier , muddier and generally darker (the surface will look like in the older versions)
-Nighteye tweaks: Now features lens distortion(warp) and a more reddish tint+bloom colorshift
-Reworked interiors, only smaller touches to keep compatibility with other mods.
-Increased stars intesity
-v1.0
Now out of beta 🙂 All planed features have been done (Updates will still be made though).
Added full DLC support, fixed a small bug in the vanilla version of the esp, made changes to the subsurface scattering(let me know if charachters are too “washed out”. Looks fine on my end, but the outcome is highly dependent on the skins used) and tweaked the bloom for sunrises and sunsets to be a bit more tame.
Made a patch for AOS and the DLC version of the mod and finally removed the enblocal.ini. It will be generated automatically as soon as you start the game with the mod active.
-v0.3
Reworked the esp, all vanilla weathers have been overhauled, adapted and are now used alongside the newly added ones. This greatly increases compatibility with mods that make changes to the regions and eliminates the bug where the weathersystem present in the old esp stopped working.
Further changes have been made to the LOD rendering and the weather distribution has been tweaked slightly aswell.
Various smaller fixes and tweaks have been made to enhance the overall appearance.
If you encounter weathers that transform your Skyrim into a supernova (really, really extreme brightness, only report if you feel like your eyes might be bleeding) or look really off, then please let me know which weather type (open the editor ingame with shift+enter and then open the weather window to see the id) with ID was active.
-v0.2.3:
Made changes to the charachter lighting to reduce the “washed out” effect during bright weathers.
Tweaked the LODs and made optional LOD textures for SFO. LODs in general should now look much more like in the vanilla game, snow covered tree LODs are still a bit too bright though.
Fixed the glowing hands when in first person during nights.
Fixed the underwater imagespace.
Numerous smaller fixes/tweaks.
-v0.2.2:
Further tweaks to particles and volumetric fog and some fixes to the esp. Namely Windhelms weather region edits and some changes to
Falkreaths weather chances(clear and cloudy weathers are now more likely)
-v0.2.1:
Reduced the moon glow, fixed the nightsky for clear_snow aswell and reduced the particle intensity during sunny days.
The volumetric clouds should now look normal during all weathers.
-v0.2:
Tweaked dawn/dusk transitions. Volumetric clouds should now look more natural. Changes to the mist have been done aswell. The nightsky should now be more visible.
Fixed some localistaion issues. Names should now appear in your set language. No version change.
Boris for his wonderful work on the ENB series mod
Matso for his prepass effects
Confidence Man for being so kind and giving me permission to use his assets(to prevent confusion, the esp is not made by confidence man and is not based on it either)NLA
scegielski for his Enhanced ENB Nighteye
Alex Blade for the enbhelper plugin
Thanks to ponomax87 for testing the mod and providing feedback and suggestions
yunage For helping users having problems, saving me a lot of time.
The modding community in general for being wonderful :*
