Photorealistic Happiness

In Vortex go to your Mods tab and in the Mods window select the 'Install from file' button on the top menu bar.

Add DynDOLOD Standalone but do not install yet.

Right Click on DynDOLOD Standalone and select 'Open In File Manager', this should bring up the folder that your DynDOLOD Standalone archive is located.

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We need to make changes before we can install in vortex to make sure the files are installed correctly into the SkyrimSE game directory.

For whatever bizarre reason Vortex adds a mesh folder and plugins which are not in the original archive. This is most likely normal behaviour for adding mods, but as this needs to be treated differently we need to delete these files. (Note that if you do not delete these extra files then the DynDOLOD Tool will fail to run correctly. Don’ t ask me why tho.)

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You should now be left with a folder called DynDOLOD.

You want to cut all the files out of the DynDOLOD folder and paste into the main archive.

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The DynDOLOD folder, which should now be empty, can be deleted.

You should be left with something like this;

Docs folder

Edit Scripts folder

Logs Folder

DynDOLOD.exe

DynDOLOD_QuickStart.html

DynDOLODx64.exe

TexGen.exe

TexGenx64.exe

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Now go back to Vortex > mods and double click DynDOLOD Standalone mod to bring up the mod details pane. You want to change the Mod Type to dinput.

Dinput is more for script extenders, but it works for DynDOLOD too. Dinput basically, for our purposes, tells Vortex that the files to be installed should be put in the Skyrim SE directory, and not the data folder.

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I know, it’s a bit convoluted and crazy, bear with me.

Now we can close the mod details pane and install and enable the mod.

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At this point it makes sense to add the other files we downloaded, again by selecting the 'Install from file' button on the top menu bar:-

Add DynDOLOD Resources SE, install and enable (Vortex will show conflict. For myself I set rule to 'Load Before' - remember to deploy the rule changes)

Add DynDOLOD DLL SSE, install and enable

Add DynDOLOD Scripts SSE, install and enable (Vortex will show conflict. For myself I set rule to 'Load After' - remember to deploy the rule changes)

Add PapyrusUtil SE, install and enable

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Now everything should be ready for you to add the tool to your Vortex Dashboard.

In Vortex navigate to your Dashboard. Go to Add Tool > New.

In Target field navigate to your SkyrimSE game directory and select the DynDOLODx64.exe (Example: E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\DynDOLODx64.exe).

The Start In and Name fields should automatically populate.

In Command Line add '-sse'. This step is important, otherwise you will receive a fatal error from DyDOLOD.

If Icon doesn't show, navigate to SkyrimSE game directory and select the DynDOLODx64.exe.

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Run Skryrim SE game via SKSE to allow DynDOLOD to calibrate itself.

Close SkyrimSE, return to Vortex > Dashboard and run DynDOLOD

That's it. DynDOLOD should now load. fingers crossed