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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been out for nearly two weeks and the modding community has already crafted a host of amazing and useful mods for Bethesda's amazing open-world RPG. Over on SkyrimForge, we have a ton of amazing mods for users to check out and download but we wanted to spotlight some of our favorites today, to give you an idea of what these amazing authors are working on.

Without further ado...

Detailed Faces

by Xenius

Xenius has crafted some amazing mods, but one that we wanted to zero in on today is his Detailed Faces mod. As you can see in the screenshot above (click to enlarge), Xenius has greatly increased the texturing on character faces by filling a "4096x4096 image with this resource, then [decreasing] the size to 2048x2048 and [applying] it to the original face textures."

This mod is especially great, because it is complemented by Xenius' Detailed Bodies mod. The detailed bodies mod was created in the same manner as detailed faces, so be sure to check them both out to get the most out of your character textures!

Detailed Faces at SkyrimForge

High Quality Whiterun Texture Pack

by Chris2012

As you can see in the image above, Chris2012 has vastly improved the texture quality for the city of Whiterun. Chris has improved texture quality for everything from stone, wood, carpet, houses, furniture, dirt, antlers and so much more. The mod looks gorgeous, as is evidenced in the screenshots.

This is a high-quality texturing mod (currently for Whiterun). As you can see in the comparison pictures, i try to keep the same feel to the textures while having actual quality instead of bluriness. Some are actually redrawn at 4 times the resolution of the original file.

Currently changed 77 of the most encountered textures, it's a work in progress.

Textures are currently 2048x2048 and 1024x2048.

This is a work in progress, so be sure to keep up to date o SkyrimForge for updates as they are released.

Whiterun HQTP at SkyrimForge

Lockpick Pro

by Kenney Vleugels

One of the features we've come to love in Skyrim is the revamped lockpicking system, but let's face it - there has been more than one occasion where we've broken a dozen lockpicks trying to get into a chest or unlock a door. That's where Kenney's amazing Skyrim mod comes into effect.

The mod adds a bar to the top of your display, showing a color spectrum that indicates where you will be able to have success in opening the lock. Every lock has a 'sweet spot' of varying size, depending on the difficulty of the lock in question, and Kenney's mod shows you exactly where that sweet spot can be found.

Additionally, the mod shows you the health of your current lockpick so you know how far you can press your luck before it snaps.

Lockpick Pro at SkyrimForge

World Map in Full 3D

by Mikanoshi

There isn't a whole lot we can say about Mikanoshi's amazing World Map mod that can't be seen in the video above, but we'll do our best. Here we have an unbelievably useful mod that essentially brings Google Maps and Street View to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

The world map in Skyrim doesn't exactly zoom in to a level that many players would like, but Mikanoshi's mod has definitely taken care of that. Not only can players zoom in to much greater levels, but they can actually zoom all the way down to 'Street View', seeing the world as it looks from your players position. 

The area around your character can be explored in the map in full detail with Mikanoshi's mod, making it a very useful tool in planning routes and deciding where you'll head to next.

World Map in 3D at SkyrimForge

Glass Weapon Set Recolor

by Nickoli002

Nickoli wanted to create this mod so as to have some pleasant looking weapon sets, aside from the bog-standard items that come in the game.

He says:

Doing this set to have some nice looking weapons in the game when you get bored with the standard weapon sets. I will be doing the entire glass weapon set at some point, the greatsword is next, will be uploaded to this and I will repackage older weapons into their own compilation zips.

This set will be all original colors, not whole sets. I will simply do weapons that are the best for this and some will be left out. If enough interest is there, I may separate these color sets and do individual release packs like I did with my Obsidian Glass set.

Check out all of the colors that he has cooked up in the screenshots section, over at SkyrimForge.

Glass Weapons Recolor at SkyrimForge

This is just a small sampling of the amazing mods that have started being created in less than two weeks! As time goes on, there are sure to be even more impressive projects being worked on so be sure to stop by SkyrimForge!