Parallax is one of the most confusing aspects of Skyrim modding. This page serves as a guide to explain everything as concisely as possible.

Introduction

The naming of various shaders and parallax types is possibly the worst development in Skyrim modding ever, it causes confusion among even experienced users. First of all, everyone is after Parallax, but Parallax is only one rendering technique. Modern modding is capable of many other things which this guide will go over.

Bethesda's Vanilla Parallax

Skyrim has a built-in parallax shader with no mods, but it doesn't work. SSE Parallax Shader Fix and early versions of ENBSeries fixed this shader and allowed parallax mods to start being developed in Skyrim. This is a rudimentary implementation: parallax effect only with no shadows.

Complex Parallax

Later, Community Shaders and current versions of ENBSeries implemented what is known as "complex parallax". Complex parallax is an enhanced version of vanilla parallax which adds shadows around the parallax bumps that react to lighting. "Parallax" mods will by default be rendered with the complex parallax technique. Therefore, differentiating between "Complex Parallax" and "Parallax" mods on nexus is not required, they are interchangeable as there is nothing the mod author needs to change for their mod to be "complex parallax", it just happens automatically if you have the requirements.

Some examples of complex parallax mods are:

• Skyrim 202x
• Skyland landscapes - complex parallax
• Cathedral Landscapes - complex Parallax addon
• WIZKID Parallax Farmhouses
• HD Vanilla Landscapes
• Fantasia Landscapes

Terrain Parallax / Complex Terrain Parallax / Complex Terrain AHHHHHH

Terrain parallax requires the height map information to be stored in the alpha layer of the diffuse texture. Most terrain does not use meshes in the traditional sense so PG does not touch it. However, some parts of terrain, such as dirt cliffs, are regular meshes and PG will patch them. In addition, often mods like Terrain Parallax Blending Fix modify TXST records. PG will update those records in its own plugin if required.

Complex Material

Complex parallax is still limited for these reasons:

• Does not support decals
• Does not support skinned meshes
• Blue distant LOD bug
• Doesn't fully work with NiAlpha properties
• Probably more...

Complex material is a different kind of shader that builds on the vanilla environment mapping shader. Environment mapping in vanilla skyrim allows for parts of meshes to be reflective by providing an environment mask (what controls which parts are reflective), and a cubemap (the reflection itself that gets rendered). The complex material specification extends the environment mask file (commonly named TEXTURE_m.dds) with three additional layers: metalness, roughness, and parallax. Because of this, environment mapping and parallax can be combined in one shader type, which is ordinarily not allowed with complex parallax.

There are already plenty of complex material mods available on Nexus such as:

• Tomato's complex parallax material landscape
• Skyland complex material
• Dwemer pipework reworked complex material
• Atlantean landscape -complete- complex terrain parallax
• Fantasia landscapes - complex material
• Majestic mountains - complex material
• Better Dynamic snow - complex material

TruePBR

Community Shaders exclusive feature that will save us all - it does all of the above and more. See their wiki here: TruePBR Wiki