Anyway, here are a few of the other mods that I've added on, still looking at improving the look of the already beautiful game:
- Skyrim HD - 2K Textures (Dungeons, Landscape, Misc, Riften, and Towns) - As advertised, this mod increases the pixel count of nearly all of the textures in the game. When I'm playing the game, I hardly notice the change until I come across some of the textures that weren't touched and then I'm just blown away.
- Xenius Character Enhancement - My only complaint on this one is that now all of the male characters have "Stallone veins" on their arms. That said, characters take a nice leap in their overall look with this mod. They still look have that uncanny divide that keeps them from looking truly human, and their eyes end up a bit darker, but overall it's a nice improvement.
- Detailed Faces V2 and No More Blocky Faces - I added these two at the same time, so I'm not certain which was responsible for what, but the faces of humans and elves certainly look nice. I have noticed more lip-sync problems, but that might just be because I"m probably overtaxing my hard drive.
- Better Beast Races and Coverkhajiits (male and female version) - This does for the beast races what Detailed Faces did for humans and elves. The Khajiits look much more detailed after I installed this mod (and since I seem to prefer playing as a Khajiit, I've really appreciated the difference).
- I personally did not like Better Females by Bella. I appreciate the time and effort put into the mod, but the women all ended up looking like plastic Barbies. It also created more defined lines where XCE added textures (like on toes and necks), giving the characters even more of an action figure look where the joints meet.
- Belt-Fastened Quivers - With all of the character model and armor mods that I added, this was a nice mod to make it so the quivers weren't sticking through capes and armor as much. The person who created this was also kind enough to rework the animation so the characters aren't reaching over their shoulders to reach for arrows that are now down by their waists. Honestly, the new quiver placement looks more practical for adventurers anyway ...
- Skyrim Project Optimization mod is one that works behind the scenes and certainly improved my computer's performance (especially considering the number of mods that I added). It makes it so the computer doesn't render effects that my character couldn't see from his position anyway, giving a solid boost to processing speeds. I put this one as a must.
- Immersive Weapons - Adds a number (a large number) of new weapons both to find and to forge. Even though they don't make much of a difference stats-wise, they certainly give extra choices for the look of the weapons characters and NPCs have at their disposal. It also gives special NPCs weapons that better fit their overall character.
- Unique Uniques - I haven't gone far enough in the game to see this, but the mod is supposed to make the unique weapons of the game look ... well ... unique, rather than just like other weapons but with a different glow.
I have just a few more mods to mention, but I think that I'll leave them for another post.