Merethic Grasslands - A Vanilla-purist Grass Overhaul

Merethic Grasslands is meant to replicate the look and feel of vanilla landscapes, but with the technical benefits of modern complex grass models.

The grasses were hand-picked and set up based on the intended original environmental design for Skyrim. I have done this by cross-referencing each specific landscape texture, the publicly available concept arts from the Collector's Edition artbook (and elsewhere), how the vanilla grasses look, and in a few cases some inspiration from Elder Scrolls Online. For these reasons, the grasses can look intentionally sparse in some places, and lush in others.

The grass coloring and mipmaps were fine-tuned carefully so as to ensure seamless blending with vanilla LODs in wide-open regions. Here's an example of the Tundra area around Whiterun.

Performance was another big consideration. While it's certainly a bit taxing due to being high-poly complex grasses, I have evened them out in a way that does not make any specific spot prone to performance drops. A hearty thanks to members from the Community Shaders Discord for beta-testing this hunk of junk and giving me feedback on the performance and visuals.

Finally, I've attempted to maintain consistency with the geography of each region (both TES Lore and botanical logic from real life). However, I'm no lorebeard - far less a botanist, so you'll have to forgive me if I've made some wrong calls on that front.

Merethic Grasslands is an all-in-one grass overhaul, covering everything in the base game plus official DLCs.

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TL;DR

✅Highly lore-accurate and Vanilla-friendly 3D Complex Grass

✅Unique look for each region, consistent with its geography and intended original aesthetic

✅Plug-and-play; No need for grass cache if you're using vanilla lods, or custom lods based on vanilla textures

✅Gameplay convenience of short grass, no more losing bodies and loot in the greenery

✅Carefully tuned grass density, doesn't tank performance

✅DLCs covered

❌No Grass Cliffs

❌No Seasons support (for now)

Requirements

Cathedral - 3D Grass Library - Meshes (only the file linked here)

Community Shaders or Open Shaders or EN