The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is like the gift that keeps on giving, at least on PC, thanks to the seemingly unending support of skilled modders. One of them is undoubtedly ‘doodlez’, who made a ton of excellent Skyrim mods, such as the Light Limit fix that introduced unlimited dynamic light sources to the 2011 open world RPG.
Over the past week, doodlez has released several graphics mods that augment the visuals of the aging game in a number of ways. The most impressive of the bunch is arguably the realistic rain and weather effects mod, which is actually a collaboration between three modders (including doodlez).
The small team claims to have added a physically modeled rain system that tracks precipitation, runoff, and evaporation depending on the weather. Rainwater will build up gradually and stick around after the weather changes, mimicking the real world. Once it has rained for enough time, puddles will form and stick around for a while after the rain has stopped. They’ll eventually evaporate based on the weather. Shores near lakes, rivers, and seas will also appear appropriately wet.
This Skyrim mod takes advantage of dynamic cubemap reflections from another of doodlez’s new mods, Dynamic Cubemaps, which improves reflections across the game and even adds fresnel as an efficient specular global illumination system. There’s an optional separate mod to enable Dynamic Cubemaps for metal armor, too.
Another Skyrim mod implements subsurface scattering in Bethesda’s game to greatly improve the look of character skin. According to doodlez, the mod is compatible with every skin and body modification. Furthermore, the profile is configurable from within the game.
The other two mods released by doodlez are focused on improving water bodies. The Parallax effect is added to water surfaces to improve their details, while Caustics result from light rays reflecting or refracting from a curved surface. Doodlez noted that calm water would have different Caustics from rapids’ water.
Do note that all these mods require the installation of the Community Shaders mod.
