Oh hey, by the way guys -
here is a Realistic Lighting mod that uses an esp file.
Instead of being a Post Process Injector this gives you the ability to mod just particular areas, like just inside caves, or taverns or other places.
I suggest you try it out! You can get some wonderful effects.
Also, there are a few mods that I just HAVE to recommend to everyone, these are the absolute MUSTS that I think everyone has to have installed.
Edit - As requested I'm going to try and put what I think to be the performance impact of the mods listed here underneath each recommendation. Performance impact will be listed in bold italics like this.
GAMEPLAY
Deadly Dragons
To me, this is like the number 1 must have mod out of all the list that I have here. I don't know if I said that about any graphics mods, but in terms of game play mods, this is the upper echelon. This makes the Dragon's in the game much harder, and each conflict with them is much more difficult. It also introduces a few new dragons into the game (including their own look) and makes you run into dragon's more often. Considering the game is all about dragons... well, to me I love fighting the dragons, and I love it to be a massive hard arse fight to the death every time so you can't go past this ball breakingly awesome mod.
Pluto's Improves Skyrim Experience
You need to click on the link to find out more about this one, basically it makes the game harder - but not just in the way that the regular game goes from easy to normal to hard. If you're like me and are playing on hard already but it's not hard enough, then get this. Enemies use potions, the AI is better, the level scaling is changed, this is like the ultimate 'realism' mod. Trust me, it makes the game HARD, but it's fookin worth it because it makes it FUN, every time you travel from city to city is an adventure in a dangerous land.
Seamless over Shoulder
This makes the third person camera so much better. Plus it makes a 'fake' first person camera option when riding a horse. I'm sure this one is something people will definitely like.
Horse Fast Dismount
Changes the way the game makes you dismount your horse, I found Horse travel a bit irritating because it took so long to get up and get down. This fixes the getting down part. MUST HAVE.
Better Sorting
Renames items in Inventory to help sort them better and make them easier to find, such a simple thing to have done - why Bathesda did you not do it this way you stupid arses.
Leathers Weight Fix
If you're like me and felt that once you had used the tanning rack and changed a pelt into leather and that it should weigh less because you had removed the extra 'fat' that was no longer needed, well now you can change the weight of your leather.
GRAPHICS
Higher Polygon Skyrim
Download this. NOW.
FPS Impact = None: As I said, download it now, this is an absolute must have. You want round rings instead of square rings? You want round apples instead of square apples? Keep an eye on the mod as well because he updates a lot of things and god damn it makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE you wouldn't think just upping the poly of some meaningless items in the world would matter but it does SO MUCH.
Xenius Character Enhancement Better Beast Races
Like the human style one but for beasts, if you're playing as a beast race you gotta have it, and even if you're not it's good to have to make sure the beast races look good.
FPS Impact = Small: This increases some texture maps to higher res, if you're worried about performance and you're not playing as a beast race then avoid it - if you are playing as a beast race then definitely grab it.
High Resolution Armours
The BEST - bar none, armour res up so far. All the others make everything over saturated oversharp CRAP, but this one does a good job without going to far. MUST HAVE.
FPS Impact = Small to Medium: This one increases the quality of all the armours in the game, you might think that would have a huge huge impact but you need to think about how many characters you have on screen at once most of the time - it's not very many. The quality improvement is worth the performance in this case because most of the standard armours look like shit IMO
Armour and Weapons Better Reflection and Polish Improvement
This one gives a bit of a performance hit, but damn it's SO SO SO SO important, it makes metal look like metal, it makes it reflect and shine like it's polished when it should. Makes a HUGE improvement to virtually all armors. GET IT.
FPS Impact = Medium: Ad's reflection mapping tot he armours, we all know that reflections are hard on GPU's, damn it looks good but if you're concerned about power then keep it down a bit yep yep, this is one to avoid if you're worried.
Weapon Retexture Project
Keep a very close eye on this one, this guy is doing a slow and steady (but brilliant) job of upgrading the weapons textures. His work is the best of any weapon artwork creator, however he's very slow - I only hope I'm still playing the game by the time he's done.
FPS Impact = Minimal: So few weapons have been upgraded and the weapons are such a small part of the world, even when all of the weapons have been upgraded you would have to put probably 100 swords in the same room and then shout at them to make it matter, so get this one for sure..
High Resolution Shields
This is a bit of a mixed bag. The shields are heaps better than standard, but they're not perfect - a few are a bit sharp and some stick out a bit (namely the banded iron and the round steel), but in my opinion it's far better than the stock. Not perfect but I wouldn't go without it.
FPS Impact = Minimal: Same as above, but I think it's pretty much a required mod because if you're using a shield you'll be spending a large part of the game staring into the back of a mushy disgusting bleck of the back of a shield.
Improved NPC Clothing
Nuff said, get the more dirt version - the standard textures for NPC's are CRAP.
FPS Impact = Minimal: Think of this as the same as the armour mod. If you're using Skyboost it helps a lot, I'd be going with this without a doubt, to me the Vanilla clothes don't even look like clothes.
Believable Hair
Changes the way the hair in the game looks to make it look MUCH more real, a MUST have.
FPS Impact = None: This just changed the normal maps on the hair to be finer and sharper and thinner and look more real, no impact on performance.
Eyebrows Match Hair
Simple mod which makes your character's eyebrows match your hair color.
FPS Impact = None: Same as above, no impact.
Enhanced Blood Textures
It's part of the OP but it's a must have, make sure you get the Blurry Screen Blood as well.
FPS Impact = None
Dragon Retexture Pack
This one isn't for everyone, but it is for me, the screenshots here make it look a little over sharpened, but IMO it's not quite that bad. Makes the dragons look a lot 'harder' than the standard textures did. I think no one should go without this.
FPS Impact = Medium: Increases the look of the dragons by a huge amount, can be a bit demanding on low end systems, if you're stretching your performance thin then stay away, but this is a must have mod so don't skip over it unless you absolutely must
Skyrim Flora Overhaul (Formally Vurts Flora Overhaul)
SO SO SO SO essential, don't even hesitate, if you only get a few mods for the game, this MUST be one of them!
FPS Impact = Small to Medium: This one has the option of choosing a 'lower res' version if you're worried about performance which is good because everyone needs this mod, it's not that much of a performance hog, but it does take a hit, if you're stretching it... I don't know whether to say stay away or not because I think if I could choose only one mod out of the entire list this might just be the one mod I'd choose. You spend most of your time out in the bush and this makes the bush land look so darn good.
Lush Grass
I was skeptical about this at first, I felt 'well the grass and stuff looks pretty good as it is, why does it need to be more lush', boy how wrong I was, this mod is subtle and if you didn't realise it had been put in you wouldn't know but it makes the world feel more real, alive and rugged.
FPS Impact = Medium: Stay away if you're worried about performance especially if you're going with the Flora Overhaul, this one busts out and increases the density of all the grassland and tundra and basically everything on the ground and it's a big FPS hitter
Lush Trees
This is just like the Lush Grass above but for trees - be careful with this one I would recommend this one only for people with powerful systems, but boy is it worth it.
FPS Impact = High: Only for powerful systems.
Better Rocks and Mountains
This mod is the SUPREME mountains and rocks upgrade mod, I'd been waiting for something to upgrade the mountain textures for ages and this one takes the cake, it remains true to the vanilla styling but just looks about 10x better.
FPS Impact = Medium: The textures of the mountains are pretty much always in your view, the benefit is that this mod has the option of reduced size again, so that helps if you're worried about performance or if you're in the mid range. Damn this is a good mod for the rocks but it can be a bit of a hit.
Watery Rocks
Small and simple mod that makes any rocks near or in water look wet. Must have.
FPS Impact = Small: Negligable, but oh so pretty to the rocks in the streams - get it.
Serious HD Landscape Rextexture
I know this one has had some controversy around here, but this bad boy is a good ground mod. The quality is fantastic and I don't care what anyone says. I once installed but then uninstalled it before because it caused crashes and it didn't look right, but it's come a long way since then and I believe it is worth it now.
FPS Impact = Medium: I love this mod, because you can just go into sneak mod, and look straight at the ground and it looks amazing but i'm sure it's got to be a bitch on performance so stay way for the performance minded.
Realistic Water Textures
I believe this is in the OP but it was recently updated and the update made a hell of a difference, make sure you're using the latest version and that you're using this and not Immersive Water.
FPS Impact = Small to Medium: Again this is up there with the Flora Overhaul as one of the ones I'd have difficulty choosing not to include.. but it is an FPS hitter.
Better Rain Drops
Simple and easy mod, small, no performance impact it just improves the rain drop texture and makes them more visible / look better IMO.
FPS Impact = None: Just get it.
High Resolution Books
Get both files, makes the books look heaps better.
FPS Impact = Small: Minimal impact unless you're in an area with hundreds of books, but makes the books look actually high res instead of a blurry mess.
Tobes Highres Texture Pack
This is the first of your clutter upgrades, make sure this goes in first and then everything else goes in on top of this, it has some really good stuff but the rest is better, but it has SO much included that you want it.
FPS Impact = Small: Textures up lots of miscellaneous things there is an impact, again if you're worried consider staying away but damn, these new few clutter mods make such a huge difference to the appearance of the game.
HD Furniture and Barrels
If you're like me and the really low textures for the cupboards and furniture around the world really shits you off, then this is for you. No performance impact from what i understand.
FPS Impact = Small: Same as above.
HD Clutter and Furniture
More things to upgrade that are crappy and low res by standard, this is another must have IMO, it doesn't impact performance but makes things look so much better. Just beware that you might want to consider not using the Enchanting and Alchemy Table's that it provides, personally I don't like the Alchemy Table in this mod, but I like the Enchanting Table.
FPS Impact = Small: Same as above.
HD Barrels and Chests
More minor stuff around the world upgrades, well worth it for minimal performance hit.
FPS Impact = Small: Same as above.
Silly Level of Detail - Potions and Poisons
This one is interesting, I hate the standard potion and poison textures in the game and therefore I needed to upgrade them, however there are quite a few options to choose from! I feel that there are some that look great from each of the categories. Here is what I did. Install Ceramic as the main file, and then pick and choose individual bottles from the other styles that you like, I chose about a dozen from 'fine' and a few from girly and it's a great mix of different bottles. It's good to have different level of 'quality' bottles depending on how good the potion is.
FPS Impact = Small: Same as above.
Realistic Ore Textures
A great little mod for the Ore textures, no performance hit and replaces the old shitty ones that are just SO bad. Good mod, especially if you're a Smith like me and looking at Ore all the time.
FPS Impact = Small: Same as above.
Silly Level of Detail - Wine / Mead Bottles
Same as above but only one option for the Alcohol bottles, definitely worth it.
FPS Impact = Small: Same as above.
Farmhouse and Villages Vanilla Based Textures HD
Absolute must have, basically a HD upgrade to the standard textures in the game, all of the textures look virtually the same but just high res. This is how the PC game should have looked from the beginning had it not been a console port.
FPS Impact = Medium: This one really hits up the non city houses and villages textures, so basically any textures that aren't part of a city and are re-used many times throughout the world are here. It's a pretty incredible mod and helps the appearance of the world very much.
SOUND
Immersive Skyrim Thunder
Just get it and install it, even if you don't think you care, install it, wait for a storm to happen and then uninstall it if you don't like it. There's no way you will go back after this. It also makes some shouts have more of a 'thunder' feel to them too. Great sound mod.
Sound of Nature - Fire
Sound of Nature - Water
Get these mods, they improve the fire and water sound effects in the game significantly, you want them.
I'd love to put pictures with each of these posts, but that'll probably do for now
