Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Skyrim SE - ENB 0.310 - Installation Guide & Feature Overview

Greetings to my fellow Dovahkiin of Tamriel!

While some of you may know me from my videos about ENB for Fallout 4, we are here today

with the first video in my new series about ENB for Skyrim Special Edition.

This video provides a basic overview of ENB 0.310, as well as detailed installation instructions

which should also apply to future versions of ENB as well.

While ENB for Skyrim Special Edition is still in its infancy, it already includes several

useful features and effects, and I will cover each of these in detail in future videos.

Ok, let's get started.

As mentioned earlier, we will be installing ENB for Skyrim Special Edition, though the

general process is the same for all ENB releases.

First, you will want to visit the ENBdev.com website, and then click on the 'News' link

towards the bottom of the page.

Here we find news about recent ENB updates, including the release of ENB 0.310, as seen

here.

Next, you will want to click on the 'Download' link from the main menu at the top of the

page.

From here, scroll down to the bottom of this page, and click the link for 'TES Skyrim SE'.

Ok, we're almost there folks.

On this page, click the link for v0.310, or the link for the most recent release avaialbe

if you are watching this video in the future.

And finally here we find the download link itself, a small arrow at the bottom of this

page.

Just click the arrow and download the archive to a location on your computer = you are familiar

with; I already did this earlier, so here I am overwriting my previous files.

Now, navigate to the downloaded file in Windows Explorer, and extract the .zip archive.

Again, I have already done this earlier.

Now, navigate to the extracted folder, and find the 'Wrapper Version' folder within.

From this folder, you will want to copy all of the files except the two .txt files, which

are not required.

Now we navigate to our Skyrim SE game folder, which can be accessed easily through the Steam

'Properties' window for the game.

Just select the 'Local Files' tab, then click 'Browse Local Files'.

In the directory that opens, we will paste the ENB files we have copied to our clipboard.

Again I did this earlier, hence the overwrite.

When installed correctly, both the 'enbseries' folder and the lose files should be in the

same directory as the SkyrimSE executable files.

And, congratulations, installation is complete!

Now before we jump into the game, a quick note on updating ENB.

In general when updating, you only need to replace the d3d11.dll file to upgrade to a

newer version of ENB, though you can always look at the 'Date Modified' value for the

files in the archive to see which ones are new since the last version.

Now, the ENBseries.ini file contains all of your custom settings for ENB, so you generally

don't want to overwrite this file when updating.

If an ENB update includes new parameters for this file, these will be automatically added

to your existing enbseries.ini file when you boot up the game with the new version.

Or, otherwise, you can copy any new parameters from the new enbseries.ini file into your

own file before booting up.

The ENBlocal.ini file is similar in nature, though in this early version of ENB, the file

contains only a few customizable settings.

And in general, you will also NOT want to update any of the files from within the 'enbseries'

folder, as these contain many of the effect settings which can be customized from within

the game.

Ok, we have now completed installation of ENB 0.310, so let's go ahead and boot up the

game.

As the game starts, notice the version message that appears at the top left, ENBseries 0.310

Beta.

This indicates that the mod was installed correctly.

Now, from right here on the start menu, we can hit Shift-Enter on the keyboard to open

ENB's in-game menu, again confirming that the mod is in fact working.

Ok, so let's jump into the game and see how it looks!

Fortunately, load times are not yet an issue with this early version of ENB.

Aaaand ... Huh?

What?!

Why does everything look veiled in a shroud of grey?

When we toggle ENB off with Shift-F12, evreything looks great!

What gives?

Well, this is actually because ENB's default post-processing is not configured to look

good -- by default.

However, I can give you three simple tweaks to make this scene look right.

All you need to do here in the enbeffect.fx panel is to set gamma, brightness and contrast

all to a value of 1.4.

And now when we toggle ENB on and off, things look more like we would expect.

However, there is an issue, in that these same settings do NOT look right at night or

in interiors.

And since the default post-processing file does not include separate settings for days,

nights and interiors, there is no configuration of settigs that works well for all three.

You can see that with these settings, interiors appear much too dark, and night scenes much

too bright.

So, what is to be done?

Well, you have a couple options.

The first option is to enable OriginalPostProcessing and OriginalBloom in the 'EFFECT' section,

as shown here.

Now when you toggle ENB on and off, there is virtually no visible change.

Then 'what's the point of even using ENB?' you ask?

Well, this approach still allows you to enjoy some ENB effects, like depth of field, for example.

And the second option is to use an alternate ENB postprocessing file like those offered

in the 'Cinematic Film Looks' mod by TREYM and EDCVBNM, which provides a number of pre-configured

options based on real-world film sytles.

I am also creating my own custom post-processing file for everyday use, which I will share

with you all once ready.

Anyway, let's jump back into the game.

Let's take a look at some of the features and options available in ENB 0.310.

As always, we open the ENB menu by hitting Shift-Enter.

Since I play Skyrim with a gamepad, I can move my mouse freely without affecting the game.

However, if you play with mouse and keyboard, moving your mouse with the ENB menu open will

cause the game camera to move around like usual.

To deal with this, you can open the console with the tilde key, thus freeing your mouse

from camera movement.

And you can also use the 'TM' console command to hide the hud and console if you want to

get a better look.

So, let's take a look at the options in the 'EFFECT' section of the ENBseries.ini menu.

The first four options are disabled by default, which should be fine for most users, unless

you would like to use the 'Original' PostProcessing and Bloom options as discussed earlier.

Dithering is a useful technique to handle color banding-artifacts when present, though

I don't think this feature is yet functional, or at least it seems to have no impact on

the game image.

Moving along we have Adaptation, Bloom, Lens and Depth of Field, all of which I will cover

in future videos.

Below this we have a 'COLORCORRECTION' section.

The 'Procedural' option here seems to have no effect, while the brightness and gamma

controls allow you to adjust the overall game image in a predictable fashion.

Note that you can click and drag on these bars to change values dynamically, as shown

here.

The 'Shader Parameters' panel provides access to customize various effects at a more granular

level.

Again, I will be taking a closer lookat these in upcoming videos.

But for now, feel free to poke around and experiment!

There are also a few features availale in the main ENB panel, which corresponds to the

ENBlocal.ini file, such as the ability to force vertical sync.

And setting the number of frames here to '1' will sync to half your monitor refresh rate.

A customizable framerate limiter is also provided, as well as an interface that allows you to

remap the mod's hot-keys to your liking, the dropdown menus listing all available options.

In my next video in the series, we will take a closer look at some of the other effects

already available, such as the dynamic lens flare effect which you can see here.

I really like how this looks when using shock magic.

And, we will also look at ENB's depth of field effect, including basic setup and how the

effect can be customized to suit your tastes.

Alright folks, be sure to stay tuned, and if you're hungry for more ENB videos right

now, check out my ongoing series about ENB for Fallout 4.

As always, thank you very much for watching, and I'll catch you next time! :)