Terrain
Link | Author | Description | |
---|---|---|---|
Anvil Beach Retexture | Muddy | Improved sand in the Anvil area | |
ATP - Ampol's Texture Pack | AmpolX | Hi-res landscape/cave textures | |
ATP - Blackwood | AmpolX | Hi-res landscape textures | |
ATP - Colovian Highlands | AmpolX | Hi-res landscape textures | |
ATP - Gold Coast | AmpolX | Hi-res landscape textures | |
Bomret's Detailed Normal Maps for Vanilla Landscapes | Bomret | Detailed normal maps for better graphics without a performance hit | |
Bump mapped terrain snow | discovery1 | Drifting snow effect | |
CaptNKILL's Non-Tiling Texture Mod | CaptNKILL | Replaces landscape textures with ones that show less tiling | |
Cave Mesh Fix | dev_akm | Corrects cave entrance meshes rendered transparent by hi-res texture replacers | |
Cyrodiil Snow Mod v4 Final | Nikku | Changes Cyrodiil into a snow-covered land and animals | |
Darooz Landscape | Darooz | Hi-res landscape textures | |
Detailed Terrain | ChainsawXIV | Better textures for landscapes without impact on performance | |
Evandar's Snow Texture Replacer | Evandar | Retextures all snow and snowflakes, and ice in Pale Pass | |
Grass and Dirt | Justb | Darker grass, improved dirt | |
HD jerall ice texture with transparency | xrayy | replacement adds slight transparency to ice in 2048x2048 textures | |
Jarrod's Oblivion New Textures | Jarrod | Terrain texture replacer | |
Jarrod's Rock Replacement Mod | jarrod1937 | Rock texture replacer | |
John's Better Rocks | Johnn123 | High-res rocks; each type has different appearance | |
Jungle Roads | Betty | red and sand color for tropical roads | |
HiRes Oblivion Textures | Evandar | Oblivion Realm landscape, caves, gates, & citadel textures | |
Landscape HD | amnes | HD textures for Oblivion and SI mainly based on AmpolX, some complemented by Darooz, QTP3, & Amnes | |
Landscape Normal Map Fix | Quarn | Fixed normal maps to reduce pixelation on landscape when viewed up-close | |
Landscape retexture | Lougian | retexture all the landscape in 2048x2048 resolution | |
Lush and Gaudy Demonic Frippery | Brittainy | Hi-res texture replacer for Oblivion planes | |
Nehrim Ambience for Oblivion (Ambience II) | Snusmumriken | Enhanced version of Oblivion Ambience I | |
Nice Ice (a.k.a. The Hills Have Ice) | maczopikczo | translucent ice-rock textures & meshes in 1024x1024 as DXT5 format | |
Oblivion Ambience I | Snusmumriken | lightweight replacements for basic & common textures; includes shaya's hi-rez LODs | |
Oblivion Realm HD | amnes | Realms of Oblivion in Hi-rez textures | |
Oblivion Texture Replacer: Landscapes 1024 | Qarl | Higher-res landscape textures (Inc. In QTP III) | |
Oblivion Texture Replacer: Landscapes 2048 | Qarl | Higher-res landscape textures (Inc. In QTP III) | |
Rocks retexture | Lougian | HD textures for all rocks (no specifics) | |
Snow Texture Replacer | InsanitySorrow | High-res textures | |
SnusAmbience (Ambience III) | Snusmumriken | HDR enhanced high contrast (darker/brighter) version of Nehrim Ambience for Oblivion (Ambience II) | |
Swampier Swamp | yoplatz | Improved textures for Blackwood area - flora and terrain | |
Tree bark HD | Darooz, amnes | Darooz covered about 70% of trees in Hi-rez. This completes his coverage |
Complementary Landscape Mods
Most mods that improve the landscape are texture replacers, but Unique Landscapes (UL) is a must-have for anyone interested in making Cyrodiil more beautiful beyond simple texture replacers. There are nearly two dozen different mods, made by a wide variety of folks, that alter vast stretches of Cyrodiil - everything from the Anvil coast to most of the Valus Mountains. The downside, of course, is that they conflict with a large number of other mods, but the UL team (and the community at large) is very good about making compatibility patches as necessary.
Note the Unique Landscapes link above is for a compilation of the individual releases. It is unofficial, and should never be regarded as "complete". However, it makes a good starting point as most of the XUL mods are very stable and seldom have updates. Just note the "as of" date in the description and then search for 'Unique Landscapes' after that date.
Harvest Flora is a great mod for immersion - plants will change appearance after they've been harvested. Also be sure to grab the Shivering Isles version.
Autumn Trees is a nice little mod that makes leaves fall from the trees (just the ones in northern Cyrodiil).
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Caves
Link | Author | Description |
---|---|---|
Abnormal Caves | Oberscht | Higher-resolution cave textures |
Adense Darker Ruins and Caves | GrandDukeAdense | Darker textures for caves and ruins |
Amp's Cavern Retexture | AmpolX | 2048 x 2048 cave textures |
Cave textures | jaassu & CaBaL | Cave texture replacements from Skyrim mod by CaBaL |
Improved Cave Normal Maps | Evandar | Makes cave normal maps look better with no FPS hit |
Insanity's Cave Retexture | InsanitySorrow | Hi-res cave retexture, darker than vanilla. |
Caves retexture | Lougian | HD retexture of caves in 1K and 2K res |
Koldorn's Cave Textures | Koldorn | High-res retexture, makes stone darker |
RD Darker Cave Retexture | Ryu Doppler | Makes caves darker and rougher-looking |
SpewBoy's Caves | SpewBoy | High-res caves |
Complementary Cave/Dungeon Mods
There are lots and lots of mods that add new dungeons or pretty up the existing ones, but only a few that add new content to the vanilla dungeons. I'm not talking about quests and such, but little things that make each one unique. Better Dungeons is perhaps the best example of this; it adds new content to almost all the vanilla caves, ranging from simple flora to full-on Nordic ruins. CDEP Fanaceya and CDEP Underpall do much the same thing, but one a smaller scale. Fanaceya links together Fanacasecul, Ceyatatar, and Haynote Cave with a network of passages and a Daedric cult; Underpall renovates Underpall Cave to make it look more like the home of a band of necromancers that it is. SnusDungeons is an alternative to Better Dungeons, with textures from Skyrim run through Optimizer Textures. There are many screenshots available on the download page.
Caves should be dark, right? There's a mod for that - several, in fact. Cava Obscura is the most comprehensive, in that it not only covers vanilla and Shivering Isles dungeons, but dungeons from a load of popular mods as well. Unlike other mods that alter lighting, like Let There Be Darkness, Ambient Dungeons, Darker Dungeons, and Darker Caves, it alters the lighting levels manually, lowering them to 10% of their original values.
As far as sound mods, Sounds of Cyrodiil adds new sounds to caves, as well as all over the landscape in general.
And finally, an "honorable mention": Immersive Caves. This mod "removes" the doors to most caves and mines (it actually renders the meshes invisible), so that the entrances appear as black holes instead of a door. Unfortunately, if the dungeon in question has a door that's not included in the pack, it will still show up; also, if you're using the Auto version and you try to enter a dungeon with a locked door, you can get stuck there. Luckily, however, it doesn't lock up the game - you can still use coc to teleport elsewhere (like inside the dungeon) and get free.Underground Complements
Link | Author | Description |
---|---|---|
Ambient Dungeons | KalendraStar | tweak the atmosphere of Ayleid ruins, forts, caves, etc. into Dark, Magical, & Misc groups |
Better Dungeons | Scot, WalkerInShadows | Makes almost all the vanilla caves unique and interesting |
Cava Obscura | WrinklyNinja | drops cave & dungeon lighting to 10% of vanilla |
CDEP Fanaceya | Ryu Doppler, Folex | links together Fanacasecul, Ceyatatar, and Haynote Cave with a network of passages and a Daedric cult |
CDEP Underpall | Trollf | renovates Underpall Cave into looking like the home of a band of necromancers |
Darker Caves | poopgoblin | removes all ambient light except for external sources |
Darker Dungeons | Galcyon | removes all ambient light except for external sources |
Immersive Caves | addiktive | natural cave/mine openings by removing doors |
Let There Be Darkness | LprMan | removes universal ambient lighting and fog |
SnusDungeons | Snusmumriken | textures from Skyrim run through Optimizer Textures |
Sounds of Cyrodiil | Cliffworms | adds new sounds to caves, as well as all over the landscape in general |