So yeah. What do you use?

I use only face mods but thinking of uninstalling them and roll vanilla. Looks a little too unrealistic.

I only use CBBE , but no face mods. Heck, don't even use Apachii hair mod

It all depends on what mods you use. I'm currently using http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32986/? which looks very nice and quite realistic.

Nuska real skin was pretty good but it no longer seems to be available.

Not a fan of mods that make all the women look like super models.

Not face mod as in Oblivions Veritas Secreto one but I use uncompressed map textures and such.

Oooo - you are talking pc changing mods...

Anywho I voted pancake.

Both.

Feel free to post which mods you're using so others can benefit.

I only use XCE

apparently just decompresses the normal maps on faces, makes them look 100x better but sticks to vanilla

I removed all face mods I had (better females) and installed XCE. Voted "both" because XCE changes a bit of this and bit of that. So far a lot happier because now NPC's no longer look plastic-y as they did with better faces. Now they're vanilla but improved.

Only thing I'm using is XCE, and I wish it had a Dragonborn option too

I use envision face for CBBE, and CBBE.

i play at 720p which is blurry by default. at this resolution vanilla gives the best results. all those high res details are simply lost. vanilla has low res details which are still visible.

CBBE for the girls, Better Males for the guys, no face mods.

I currently use Lore Friendly Females body and face textures (by Xanthus) with CNHF 2.5 body meshes (Calyps and Nuska Heroic Form). Might test out Body by Leito mesh (by Leito86), as it it is compatible with my currently-installed body textures.

I actually like the vanilla body mesh and the textures are pretty good, and so would have perhaps gone with XCE if not for the vanilla burlap underwear. Seeing identical underwear on every body in Skyrim is for me like an express ticket to the bottom of the uncanny valley. I could maybe understand makeshift linen wraps or loincloths, but we're talking burlap lingerie on every single woman in all of Skyrim, from bandits to Forsworn to Jarls.

As an aside, I didn't care too much about compatibility with custom armors and clothes, because (1) Skyrim already has plenty of oufits; (2) armors all come with their own body meshes anyway, and (3) most armors I'm interested in cover the entire body. And there are only two mods that remove clamshells from stock female armors, and those armors cover the entire body. Clamshells on functional armor are dumb; armor is supposed to direct kinetic energy away from the body, but clamshells direct it right into the sternum. Maybe the concept artists liked the aesthetics, or maybe they didn't do their research.

ANYWAYS.

I tried just about every body mesh out there. The rest of this paragraph, needless to say, is my opinion and is in all ways quite prejudiced. CBBE is heavily idealized, and makes high-weight characters look almost like porm stars. I fiddled with CBBE Body Slide for a while, but couldn't really deviate substantially from the original baseline even with the additional advanced sliders. UNP has more-normal proportions, but also seemed too idealized at higher body weights. Both mods are quite awesome, and I can see why folk like them, but their meshes felt too perfect and so were not what quite what I was looking for, which was an improved vanilla.

Hence CNHF, which is more-realistically proportioned and makes characters look like the sorts of folk who do hard physical labor every day. BBL seems to follow the same idea, but with less-defined musculature. Both are compatible with UNP textures. BBL also has conversions for all of the vanilla armors and clothing

Navatsea for female textures with the UNP body. Pretty much the same setup for a year. There are other amazing textures like Mature skin that I've tried, but I always return to Navatsea's work.

Geonox textures for males, mostly the rugged option. Once in a while I use a modded male body if I want an especially buff warrior-type character, but I always return to vanilla after he retires. I'm not entirely happy with any of the male body options, because they all make the arms longer, which is supposed to be more realistic than vanilla, but ends up looking gorilla-like to me. The other issue is that if you use a buff body, all of the men in the game get bigger, which can be a little too much. There are ways around this, but it's too much effort.

I'm also not a fan of the vanilla male posture and shoulder width, so I usually use a skeleton replacer (currently one of the Custom Skeleton Replacer nifs) for less slouching and slightly wider shoulders. I also think it's essential to move the player camera up into the head, though I now use Player Size Adjuster for that.

My setup is a bit complicated, and I did a bit of editing to the textures to smooth out the neck seams, but here's what I use:

CNHF v2.0

Better Males Favoredsoul version

Smooth Male Body Textures

XCE + XCE Dawnguard

Smooth Faces for Ladies and Gents

Straight Hair Retexture

Cover Eyes

Argonian Improvements - Horns

The striped UNP female body texture from Nuska's Dagi-Raht mod (for the Khajiit)

And some miscellaneous personal edits (mostly to the Khajiit)

I've got 4 things for my female characters.
I know I have installed UNP and UNPB but I can't remember the other 2.
1 of them is for muscle and the other is just to make the female faces look more "realistic"

Males - Roberts Skyrim 03 meshes and textures

Females - Alt Navetsea UNP Seamless

If it wasn't for the diapers I actually like vanilla body meshes and textures

But my overall favourite for females which will replace my own in game .. Will be CNHF

( when Calyps has redone the vanilla Armour and clothing meshes for v 2.5 )

I don't exactly run around without any armor or clothes so I don't notice this.

I'm always armored and armors have their own body meshes anyway

No body or face mods.

I play in first person, and like my NPCs to feel real - not like I'm backstage at a fashion show.

I once had XCE installed, and I do miss the improved feet on occasion, but as I don't wander around staring at feet all day long it's not much of a loss.

Oh you dont know what you are missing in that fresh mountain air, its invigorating, and those volcanic pools for the skin complexion are amaaaazing

I dont go for the skimpy stuff, but I just cant imagine underwear being a priority clothing concern in a barbaric world either .. To me the diapers are just a non-advlt title thing to get more potential customer sales in our world, and I feel they are out of place.

More native, less stinky ( and less likely to attract wolves from a few miles further afield downwind )

I don't mind the underwear at all. Like I said, I don't run around with nothing on me so for me that is no issue at all, whatsoever.

Just face mods. I am even so picky that I custom-tailor face normal maps for my characters... 90% of all face mods are heavily makeup based but I prefer to have a bit of a weathered look on my characters. I actually took the wrinkly sunken eyesockets from dark elves and blended them in a bit on my orc, haha. For bodies maybe less barrel chested males if I feel like it. For females I don't really like all those armor replacers that over-feminize them and exagerrate things like waist thinness. The vanilla proportions are just fine. I actually like the more muscular and defined CNHF but there's pretty much no support for mod armors like Immersive Armors for that one.