Watch On
The way NPCs open doors in Skyrim has always been a bit silly. When they’re crossing load screens they can’t open them all the way—because then the other side would have to be rendered—and so they pop doors open a crack revealing a sliver of darkness, then fade out of existence like the guy in that one meme.
I remember looking for a mod to replace that with fuller animations back in the day and learning it would be completely impossible. (Deleting the door-opening animation altogether was on the table though, thanks to the Get On With It mod.) Given the whole process is necessarily artificial, it never struck me how bizarre it looks in the instant before the fade—when the NPC about to vanish lights up like they’ve just been plugged into the mains.
As well as all shadows on them disappearing their hair looks super weird, vanishing from their eyebrows, sideburns, and the nape of the neck as the transparencies suddenly fail. Watching the video by modder wSkeever really makes it impossible to ignore. They light up like Uncle Fester with a lightbulb in his mouth, which is why the No Load Door NPC Fade mod is such a blessing.
It’s a one-kilobyte download, and immediately joins my list of Skyrim modding essentials along with a bunch of other mods by wSkeever (don’t ask what the “w” stands for) like Lock Add-Ons, Dynamic Things Alternative, the questmod Belethor’s Sister, and the one that adds the weeping angels from Doctor Who.
