With Nolvus you have a mod pack completely separated from the game itself. Nothing will be installed inside your Steam Skyrim installation directory and your game will remain absolutely clean.

Go to your Dedicated SSD and Create a Directory NOLVUS

Inside NOLVUS create 5 sub directories

• ARCHIVE (where mods archive files will be stored)
• MO2 (where the mod manager will be installed)
• MODS (where mods will be installed)
• STOCK GAME (where your skyrim game isolated for nolvus will be installed)
• TOOLS (where modding tools will be installed)

Inside NOLVUS\ARCHIVE create this directory structure

• 1 CORE
  • 1.1 SKSE PLUGINS
  • 1.2 BUG FIXES & TWEAKS
  • 1.3 ALTERNATE START
• 2 USER INTERFACE
  • 2.1 HUDS
  • 2.2 HOTKEYS
  • 2.3 SCREEN FONTS & MAP
  • 2.4 CHARACTER
• 3 MUSIC & SOUNDS
• 4 DLC MODS QUESTS & CONTENT ADDONS
• 5 VISUALS
  • 5.1 BASE TEXTURES AND MODELS
  • 5.2 LODS
  • 5.3 LANDSCAPE
  • 5.4 ICE SNOW & ASHES
  • 5.5 MOUNTAINS & ROCKS
  • 5.6 FLORA
    • 5.6.1 TREES & BARK
    • 5.6.2 GRASS
    • 5.6.3 PLANTS
  • 5.7 WEATHERS
  • 5.8 SKY
  • 5.9 WATER
  • 5.10 NPCs, FOLLOWERS & CHARACTER ENHANCEMENTS
    • 5.10.1 NPC's RESSOURCES
    • 5.10.2 ADDED NPC's
    • 5.10.3 FOLLOWERS
    • 5.10.3 NPC's VISUAL OVERHAULS
  • 5.11 SETTLEMENTS
    • 5.11.1 CITIES
      • MARKARTH
      • RIFTEN
      • SOLITUDE
      • WHITERUN
      • WINDHELM
    • 5.11.2 TOWNS & VILLAGES
    • 5.11.3 FARMHOUSES
    • 5.11.4 PLAYER HOME
    • 5.11.5 OTHERS LOCATIONS
  • 5.12 ENVIRONMENTS
    • 5.12.1 LAND
    • 5.12.2 RUINS
  • 5.13 INTERIORS
  • 5.14 ARMORS CLOTHING & WEAPONS
    • 5.14.1 ARMORS
    • 5.14.2 CLOTHES
    • 5.14.3 WEAPONS
  • 5.15 CREATURES & ANIMALS
  • 5.16 OBJECTS & MODELS
    • 5.16.1 JEWELRY
    • 5.16.2 CLUTTERS
    • 5.16.3 STATUES & SHRINES
    • 5.16.4 COLLECTABLES
    • 5.16.5 MISC MODELS
  • 5.17 LIGHTING EFFECTS & PARICLES
• 6 ANIMATIONS
  • 6.1 CORE ANIMATIONS & FRAMEWORK
  • 6.2 PLAYER ANIMATIONS
    • 6.2.1 ATTACK ANIMATIONS
    • 6.2.2 MOVEMENT ANIMATIONS
  • 6.3 NPC's ANIMATIONS
  • 6.4 COMMON ANIMATIONS
• 7 GAMEPLAY
  • 7.1 PERKS, ABILITIES & POWER
  • 7.2 SURVIVAL & NEEDS
  • 7.3 CRAFTING
  • 7.4 COMBATS & ENEMIES
  • 7.5 ECONOMY
  • 7.6 AI
  • 7.7 RELIGION
  • 7.8 MISC
  • 7.9 RACES
• 8 IMMERSION
• 9 LATE LOADERS

This guide provide a manual way of installing mods.

Mod Organizer 2 which is the software we will use to manage our mods ( described in the next section ) also provides an automatic way of downloading and installing mods directly from Nexus.

I always used the automatic method to download and install mods which is faster till the time i realized that all mods archives were stored into a single directory and as sometimes mods archive names are irrelevant i decided to go for manual download and installation and put mods archives into a directories structure keeping my mods archives more organized.

I know that for someone it's a pain, but it's my way of doing things and everyone has his own method related to his own preference.

I started to work on this guide because many users were asking me to explain how they can get the same visuals for Skyrim on my Youtube chanel. So i explained how i did manage to get my Skyrim modded like that including my way of doing things.

However i understand that people sometimes prefer an automatic way of doing things so i will also provide information on how to download and install mods automatically.