Skyrim Horse Animation Mod

Owning horses is a sought-after task in Skyrim.

However looking at the game for variations, there’s really nothing of value that’s totally unique. Sure, the addition of riding dragons was probably a pretty cool one… but still.

Mounts seem to be a little too bleak for my taste, and it’s about time a few mods fixed that.

This list aims to collect the coolest mount mods that range from basic horse improvements to hellish creatures that you can ride through the plains of demise.

You’ll go from wondering why mounts are so boring, to wonder why the hell have you so many crazy mods installed!

In any case, just be sure to back up your save before installing most of these mods. And remember to unmount them first if you want to uninstall them, or your game might crash. Just some minor precautions to take before the fun begins.

15. Creatures of Hell

Creatures of Hell adds a whole new bunch of mounts that range from “chill” hellish beings to some of the most terrifying creatures that you’ll ever see.

You’ll get to ride over 60 new creatures, which is pretty cool on its own. But that’s not all that this mod does.

You will also have the chance to use them as followers, so whenever you decide to go into battle they will support you in your fight.

Hellish creatures don’t discriminate – they’ll kill other hellish beings or heavenly entities alike.

Just grab 'horse buddy' mod. Super simple stand alone horse summon mod. You get 2 spells one to summon and one to dismiss. Horse will actually follow you like a follower too. 'Sorry CC but just gtfo my Skyrim. Immersive Horses - this mod and my mod both makes changes to the Horse Race, you can put IH's esp later in your load order or make a patch. Realistic Running Speed (or other movement speed mods)- put HorsesRevamped.esp later in load order.

Skyrim may have released years ago, but with our picks of the best Skyrim PC mods for 2020 out there, you can make it feel like a whole new experience. Animations Best Skyrim PC Mods 2020. The mod works great except for a few things: 1. When my or my follower's horse initiates the pawing-on-the-ground animation, the sound effect goes off but the animation doesn't. The horses keeping doing their idle animation. All other horses in Skyrim don't have this problem and do the animation with the sound effect properly. Setting the horse AI to foolhardy does not make the horse attack.

14. Warbound – Unique Horses

There’s nothing that says “I’m ready for war” like having your trusty steed wear armor that suspiciously looks like a giant pillow.

This mod adds a horse called “Warbound” to the game, which seems to be more than ready for war.

The horse’s textures look fantastically well done. And you’ll prefer riding this one into the battle over any other horse in the game.

I’m still unsure about its weird-looking armored saddle, but hey nothing’s perfect right?

13. Monsters Mounts Dragonborn

This might not be one of the best-rated mount mods, but holy crap. These look absolutely astounding.

These creatures aren’t hellish like the ones that come in the Creatures of Hell mod. But they are super creepy and they move in totally unique ways.

Some of the monsters you’ll be able to mount are absolute units too. Looking as massive as they can be without achieving the size of a dragon.

Do keep in mind, however, that you’ll need the Solstheim DLC if you wish to mount any of these mighty beasts. Try not to fall off while dismounting them, though!

12. Huskies and Co

Oh yeah, huskies!

Not only that – ARMORED HUSKEYS!

This amazing mod gives you the chance to own huskies that will go into battle with you. Or that you can actually ride into battle yourself!

The armored husky summoning technique has to be one of my favorite additions to the game that I’ve ever seen.

I mean, look at this thing. It’s so cute and deadly at the same time.

There are also other dogs on this mod to check out, but seriously – take a look at those huskies, man.

They are too damn cute to pass up.

11. Horses of Skyrim

One of the things I liked most about Red Dead Redemption 2 was its masterful horse system where horses came in various different races, colors, all that good stuff.

I can’t tell you that this mod adds something similar to Skyrim. But it does give you many more horses to find out in the wild.

There are also new saddles to spice things up and break away from the traditional look that the game has.

So overall, a must-have for horse lovers.

10. Mini Dragons

Sure, you can ride giant dragons across the skies of Skyrim. But have you ever given any thought to how cool you would look riding miniature dragons around as if they were horses?

I sure as hell never gave any thought to it. But when I came across this mod, I instantly knew this would be a keeper.

Just look at how a miniature Death Dragon looks and tell me this mod isn’t worth it. I dare you.

9. Bears Mounts and Followers

Nothing says “I’m a badass Nord” more than riding a damn bear into battle. Or even ride it around the towns of Skyrim.

This mod allows you to add bear mounts to the game, including the legendary Dovahbear which is basically a giant grizzly with the Dovahkin helmet from the cover.

Yes, seriously. Check it out yourself and see what you think.

8. New Armored Horses

Now this mod truly solves two issues at once.

The first is the horse variety in the game which is catastrophically low. New Armored Horses adds a whole bunch of new horses to the game (5 to be exact), and all of them have a cool-looking set of armor that ranges from iron to Daedric.

The second issue it solves is that, in order to obtain these horses, you need to summon them.

They come through a portal that you can call upon whenever you want. And you can just as easily dismiss them to avoid death in battle.

It’s by far one of the coolest horse mods for this game. But especially for the level of detail in gameplay and model design.

7. Frost Horse White Retexture

Do you like Frost? Well so do I.

And apparently, so does the creator of this mod.

Skyrim Se Horse Animation Mod

This is a small mod that simply replaces the basic texture of Frost with a much more detailed one.

And it takes a spot on my list just because this trusty steed deserves some recognition for its special damage.

6. Forest Mounts and Followers

Man, this mod truly evokes some fantastic Druid vibes.

I feel so in touch with nature when riding some of these majestic creatures. And I absolutely love it.

Generally I’d say these mounts fit almost any playstyle, and they are made by the legend that brought us the Creatures of Hell mod to boot.

As you can imagine, the textures of these creatures are just as detailed as the Creatures of Hell.

I’m not sure what it is about some of these animals, but they just make me happy to boot up my game.

Is it the pretty colors maybe? Or the fact that they look super realistic yet magical at the same time?

5. Fully Flying Dragons

This mod allows you to fly virtually every single type of dragon in the game.

You can even fly Alduin if you want!

I mean, the creator of the mod went all-out with it.

He even added some dragons that you shouldn’t be able to see in the game(some of which are really buggy). In any case, the all look super cool and some of them have really unique redesigns.

I think you’ll want to try out this mod even if you’ve already settled for another mount.

Take over the skies with some of the best dragons in the game and you’ll never even bother with horses(well, not as much).

4. Monster Mounts

Killing skeletons is cool and all, but how come you can’t ride them into battle?

Why is logic a thing in Skyrim?

I want to get on the shoulders of an undead corpse and ride them around all day!

Monster Mounts allows you to live some of your craziest and stupidest fantasies in the fantastic world of Skyrim.

Take control of the most fearsome monsters in the game and diminish their roles to being nothing but your trusty steeds (or the undead equivalent of them).

I’m pretty sure this mod is not lore-friendly at all. But it’s just too much fun to let it pass without a solid ranking here.

3. Hale – Horse Retexture

My God, what are these damn HD horses doing in Skyrim?

The retextures shouldn’t even be possible, yet here we are.

If you want vanilla horses to look like photorealistic versions of the actual animals, then you might want to give this mod a try.

The textures are fantastic and almost put to shame a lot of the other detailed texture mods.

2. Big Cats and Mount Followers

Skyrim horse animation mod american truck simulator

Tigers, Lions, and other felines are now mount options in Skyrim thanks to this amazing mod.

It basically allows you to summon a bunch of creatures that would very well fit in World of Warcraft, but they don’t seem too out of place in Skyrim either.

Then you can ride them around like you broke out of the zoo. You know, a typical Sunday.

1. Ride Sharing

This #1 ranking is not exactly a typical mounting mod.

But it is one of the best additions that mounts can have in the game.

Ride Sharing allows your companion to ride into battle with you in the same horse!

There’s no need to buy an extra horse for that idiot you asked to follow you around. Insteadmake them hop onto yours and save some dough.

Your enemies won’t be to happy about it though.

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Overview

This is a simple workflow for working with animations in Skyrim. Basic 3d modeling tool competency is assumed. This tutorial will extract animations from Skyrim, modify them in 3ds max or a similar editor, and export then back into Skyrim. This tutorial does not cover use of 3d modeling tools, or actually making the desired animations.

Extracting animations from Skyrim

Get a BSA Unpacker. Some choices include Fallout Mod Manager, or you could do a search on SkyrimNexus.com.
Open up 'Skyrim - Animations.bsa'.
Browse to the actorscharacters folder, select everything in there, and extract to a temporary folder. Make sure the directory structure is intact.
Go grab Havok Command Line Tools 1.4. Install this preferably in the same folder as your temporary folder with the animations.
Make a new temporary subfolder (i.e. 'anim-out') in the temporary folder you used above. The resulting folder structure looks something like this:
Open up a command prompt in that directory and type (change 'anim-out' to your temporary subfolder):
hkxcmd exportkf 'skeleton.hkx' 'animations' 'anim-out'
Now the files should be ready to load into 3ds max.

Animations in 3ds max

This example will use 3ds max 2012. Really, you can use any version you want.

Import a skeleton.nif. You may have to use your BSA unpacker again, this time on 'Skyrim - meshes.bsa', to obtain that file.
Not sure how much the settings matter here, but be sure 'import skeleton' is checked.
Import a .kf file that you just extracted. This demo will use '1hm_attackleft.kf'. Make sure all boxes are checked in the import dialog.
Edit your animation. Covering animating is beyond the scope of this tutorial, and frankly enough I'm not an artist.
Be sure to have proper 'note' blocks for your animations, which are visible under Graph Editors > Track View - Dope Sheet. You may wish to refer to previous TES tutorials for this.
When finished, export the animation. Make sure to use these EXACT settings as shown below.

Free Animal Animations

Exporting animations to Skyrim

Open up your animation in NifSkope to make sure it's not empty, etc:
Open up a command prompt in that directory and type (where 'test' is the name of your animation):
hkxcmd convertkf 'skeleton.hkx' 'test.kf' 'test.hkx'
Put your animation back into the Data folder under the appropriate directory. Try it out in game!