Whitestar127

Sure Manga. Go right ahead and do whatever you want with the images. But please don't sue them, just show them.

<<<< Continued from last post Outside Solitude - day:I think Vividian Vanilla looks great here. Vividian Vivid looks really "fantasy", wow. And notice the spot in the swamps where the sunlight breaks through the clouds. More on that further down. Sun coming up outside Whiterun:I think all three look good here. In Vividian Vivid you can actually see the sun. Winterhold - day - snow:Both Vivids look great here. Lastly I want to point out a couple of fantastic features with Vividian. The first being moving cloud cover (which creates sun "spots") and the second being the use of distant fog. I'm sure all of you have in real life experienced days where there are lots of fast moving clouds, and where the sun breaks through you get those sort of moving spotlights i.e. the sun lights up just a limited area of the terrain. This creates a certain kind of lighting, which looks a bit more intense than when there are no clouds. And I think you just nail light completely Manga. The lighting looks intense and moves smoothly across the terrain. It just looks amazing in-game. Here are a couple of screenshots (Vividian Vivid only) with that particular weather and lighting. But you really have to see this in-game to fully appreciate it. The use of the distant fog in Vividian not only brings out the depth and vastness of the landscape, but also helps minimize z-fighting. Original game on the left, Vividian Vivid on the right. So that was a brief look at Vividian and its features. Great job MangaClub and Benhat. Of course this was just the exterior. Maybe I'll do some comparisons for interiors also. Maybe.

Ok, here goes the screenshot "analysis" of the vanilla game (original) vs Vivdian Vanilla vs Vividan Vivid. I'll refer to the original vanilla game (without any ENB) as "original" below, to avoid confusion with Vividian Vanilla. All image sequences will be from left to right: Original game, Vividian Vanilla, Vividian Vivid. Outside Dawnstar - noon:Vividian Vanilla VERY close to original (color and lighting wise I mean). Vivid is gorgeous. Outside Dawnstar - afternoon:Vividian Vanilla pretty close to original. Vivid is is really beautiful here too. Outside Dawnstar - night:Both vivids are darker than original, which is nice. Vividian Vivid a bit brighter than Vividian Vanilla, but that could be weather variations, like moon lighting. Outside Dawnstar - night - snowstorm:Snowstorms in both vivids are awesome. It's REALLy dark and you almost can't see s**t in front of you. These images don't do it justice. Has to be played live. Just an amazing feeling to walk out there in the dark with all the snow. You feel so alone and isolated. Outside Falkreath - daytime in woods:You may want to (if possible) perhaps make the vivids just a little brighter, Manga. Especially Vividian Vanilla, which looks a bit dark and ominous. Or maybe you want it that way? It does give a certain atmosphere. Markarth city wall - day:In my book Vividian Vanilla wins this one hands down. Just look how those shaded areas makes everything pop and brings depth to it. Glorious! Morthal - day:Vividian Vanilla is REALLY close to original game here. I quite like the Vividian Vivid colors here though. Looks really nice. Outside Whiterun - night:Vividian Vivid wins this one in my eyes. Both vivids are darker than original, which is great. But in Vividian Vivid the plants and rocks are just crisper and sort of more moonlit, everything stands out more clearly. And the sky is beautiful. Outside Riften - day - fog:I have to say you have done a great job here, Manga. One of the previous versions of Vividian was too dark here. But now Vividian Vanilla looks spot on compared to original. And Vividian Vivid is great too. Continued in next post because of image posting limit >>>

Hmmm, good points from both of you. I guess a little variation is good. It is a fantasy world after all. And Vivid IS very "fantasy" looking to begin with. I'll do a screenshot "analysis" of your ENB as well, Aiyen, when I get the time. Always fun to compare ENBs. But at some point I'll actually have to start playing the game again as well, heheh.

Hi Manga. I thought I'd highlight what I find to be the biggest (and arguably only) issue color wise in your Vividian ENB. This is only meant to be helpful, and I only took the time to do it because I really like your ENBs and would like for them to look as good as possible. These shots were taken with only Vividian - Vanilla and Vividian - Vivid installed. I had no extra lighting mods or options installed. Just the main files. The issue is that in certain clear weather types the sky becomes too orange/brown with your ENB. I tested several of the clear weather types and found one that seems to represent a worst case scenario and one that seems to represent a best case scenario (probably! I haven't tested all clear weather types). The two are 10a23b_SkyrimClearFF (left) and 10e1f0_SkyrimClearSN_A (right). The left one is the best case scenario. The right one the worst case; the sky is too orange/brown IMO. It almost looks as if it's on fire. Here are some other examples. Left is 10a23b_SkyrimClearFF and looks really good, right is 10e1f0_SkyrimClearSN_A and looks too orange/brown. These images were shot at 6PM and 6:15PM. I took the time to follow the color of the sky closely; At about 5PM the FF sky starts out with a fairly normal color I would say. A bit brighter (and slightly gray) towards the ground than the rest of the blue sky. This color changes nicely into the blue/orange/yellowish color seen in left screenshots above. Then there's the SN_A sky. It starts out a bit purple tinted and around 5:40PM it starts to transform into the not so attractive orange/brownish color seen in the right screenshots above. I did not test all of the different weather types of course. There are way too many. I found them here: https://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Console_Commands_(Skyrim)/Weather I don't know if it's possible for you to do anything about it, Manga, but I just wanted to point it out for you. Maybe you are already aware and working on it, I have no idea.

I think the Vividian - Vanilla is equally impressive. Very close color wise to the original vanilla game. Just a little darker in many places. I will soon have a looong post again where I compare Vividian - Vivid, Vividian - Vanilla and the original game. And of course point out a few problem areas. But just a few this time. Great work Manga.

Man, two of those cards would absolutely destroy Skyrim with Vividan ENB, if you can live with the SLI issues we talked about. I guess you can expect between 55-95% increase when running SLI, wildly depending on location/situation. 55-65% in most outdoor locations. I get 40+ fps with one of my GTX 670s in single-GPU mode, which I'm quite happy with. But that's 1080p.

I think this is a nice ENB, but the default is maybe a little bit chilly/cold. It adds a slight light blue or greenish tint compared to vanilla. TechAngel85 mentions a warm preset. Is that still available? Performance wise there is little difference between this one and Vividian.

Hmmm, well I disabled the DoF, which stole about 5-8 fps, depending on situation. I also turned off AA and AF in the launcher, but I suppose you did too, since it's in your guide. I also have Shadows in the launcher set to High instead of Ultra. Other than that I can't think of anything. What FPS do you get? Edit: This is with CoT and those weather patches you mention in your guide. The fps sometimes fluctuates down into the 50s, but mostly stays somewhere between 60 and 70. Edit2: And this is even with ugrids at 7! Which is quite surprising actually. Edit3: I followed your Sk:Re guide regarding ENB ini settings and stuff, except DoF=false and removing the lens flare effect (which I guess that sunGlare=false does?). But if you are getting much lower fps then maybe I should investigate further to see if I'm missing some effects. I want all the effects.

I'm running GTX 670 4GB SLI. I get 60-70 with Vividian and 70-80 <edit>a couple of more frames</edit> with Phinix, which I just tried. But Phinix is a little too cool/cold looking. It adds a light blue / greenish hue on top of vanilla, which actually makes it look even colder than vanilla. I found that I actually prefer the warmer brown/red-ish hue of Vividian, although I would prefer it to look just a little bit cooler/colder in clear sky weather, but that may be nitpicking. :) The sky and snow sometimes has a slight pinkish hue to them, which looks absolutely beautiful, especially in the evenings. I think it just needs to get a bit brighter during the day in some places, especially in fog, like in Riften and Falkreath, but also on clear sky. Anyway, that's just my opinion. With the Pale & Cold you get sort of a sepia effect which can be stunning in screenshots! Manga, I forgot to say that I'm not running CoT, which you say in the description is needed for best effect. So I'm installing that tonight to see how it is. :)

Ah, good to know. Excellent! :)

Thanks, looking forward to testing when I get home. :) Another thing I'm wondering about: The "HDR eye" effect (in lack of a better term) seems to be missing. I'm talking about the eye adjusment effect you get in vanilla when looking at or walking into a dark area. Then your eyes adjust and you see it gradually becoming a bit brighter. If you look up at the sky then it adjusts the other way, making other areas darker and giving the sky the correct exposure. Now, I don't know if this is because of the ENB or the mods I have installed (or some other issue with my setup), but the effect is gone right now. Do you know anything about this? Is it supposed to be like this?

That looks good, Mangaclub. I wouldn't want you to mess up other things though - if that's a risk - just to get that one right. It's not that big a deal. :) On another note: I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to installing ENB apparently. In that Pale & Cold folder there was just one file, enbeffect.fx.ini. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I just copied it into the Skyrim folder, but that did nothing. Could anyone tell me how I should install it? Looks like I'll have to take some time to read up on ENB stuff. I already spent a solid week and a half going through the STEP guide, and another one going through Neovalen's guide. Time consuming stuff this, but totally worth it. :) I wasn't really into ENB before I tried Vividian, and now I can't possibly go back to playing without, so thanks a lot. :-P ;-)

Thank you very much! Will test and compare. :)

One more thing - where can I find the Special Edition folder with the Pale & Cold Edition inside it? The Beta Files Section link on your Nexus description page only links to the Vanilla Color Version on Dropbox. Sorry if this info has already been given.

I follow Neovalens Skyrim Revisited guide, so I installed some of the graphics mods there. Here are those which I believe influence how the landscape in general looks: Vivid Landscapes - Moss Rocks - Compatibility PatchVivid Landscapes - Classic grey mountains forVivid Landscapes - All in One - Update for 2048 onlyVivid Landscapes - All in One - Loose FilesUltimate HD Fire Effects -Medium Resolution-Serious HD Retexture LANDSCAPE 2048pxRealistic Water Two - ENB TexturesRealistic Water TwoMoss RocksHD Stone Quarry and Clay Deposit 2KHD Enhanced Terrain PRO - Blended VersionEnhanced Distant Terrain 2 - DragonbornEnhanced Distant TerrainDramatic Clouds UltraSROStatic Mesh Improvement ModSkyrim Particle Patch for ENB I think you may be right that some of these maybe contribute to a bit "warmer" overall feel.In addition to this I play with ugrids 7. I also left brightness slider in the middle as per your instructions. Duh! I didn't know about that Shift+12 shortcut. I used ENB Manager to turn on and off the ENB effects and restarted each time. Silly me. :) Thank you for the tip! I will for sure try both the Pale & Cold and the new Vanilla Color Edition. Thanks a lot! :) Oh, and one more thing: In evening sunsets the sky turns red/orange/yellow all the way around 360 degrees of the sky, not just the area around the sun. I think I read somewhere that that's a bug or issue with the Skyrim engine. Is that correct? Normally only the area around the sun would turn red/orange/yellow. The rest of the sky would have a gradation from lighter blue just over the mountains to darker blue towards the center of the sky above you. If I remember reality correctly. :) Fair point. I just think it looks a bit too warm still. Like 25 degress summer, if you know what I mean. :) Warmest months of tundra climate should be from 0 to 10 degrees or so. Not that it HAS to mimic reality of course. :)

Ok, long post alert. :) This is a really good looking ENB. I just have a couple of things I'd like to point out in version 5.10. Hopefully constructive. :) Have a look at this shot from outsideWhiterun (Vividian) >> Vanilla Does your lighting and color maybe give the impression of a too warm climate? Just look at the vanilla mountain and the fog surrounding it. Brrrrr, looks freezing! Your general lighting looks almost as it is a warm summer instead of a chilly tundra climate. That said I prefer your blue sky as opposed to the washed out vanilla one. Maybe you could find some middle ground between the ice cold chilly vanilla lighting and your warm summer look? I'm talking about both general lighting and sky color. Here are some more comparison shots: Vividian Whiterun >> Vanilla Whiterun Vividian tundra >>> Vanilla tundra The second thing is the darkness of certain places. Here are a couple of shots from Riften during midday: I think they are a bit too dark. Looks more like afternoon or evening. I actually liked the last version (4 was it?) a bit better, because it had a fantastic mix of reality and fantasy/adventure look to it. A couple of shots from that version:That last one is incredible. It's almost a painting, and I remember the weather and conditions in-game when I took the screenshot. It was almost like walking inside a painting, wow! :)I hope you don't change it a lot because that version was what made me really like this ENB in the first place. Anyway, I know you can't please everyone, and you have done a great job. :)

Wow, that's a fantastic quide! Thank you!

Hi, under the MO guides (under Third Party Programs) I found these instructions for SKSE: "SKSE may not be installed as a mod via MO. You may, however, install the scripts via MO to keep your data directory clean (provided that you haven't changed MO's load mechanism to Script Extender)" How exactly can I install those scripts via MO? I downloaded and ran the exe installer, but I'm guessing I will have to use the 7zip instead, because after installing all the scripts ended up in the Skyrim Data folder under the newly created script folder.

Hi, I'm not sure if this issue is related to the ones in this thread, but on this page: https://wiki.step-project.com/Skyrim_Memory_Patch_3.0 The "Download:" and "Link:" hyperlinks are broken. Might be a separate issue.

Thanks for the info, WilliamImm. Can you elaborate a bit on point a) and which implications it has in the game?

Right, that makes sense of course. Sorry for the misinformation. In that case the installer does work as intended. :) I actually installed BetterQuestObjectives-Dawnguard.esp and BetterQuestObjectives-Hearthfire.esp in addition to the main file with the merged DLC, which is redundant. Should I just leave BetterQuestObjectives-Dawnguard.esp and BetterQuestObjectives-Hearthfire.esp activated in my load list, since they (hopefully) only contain the fixes that are also in the merged main esp? Not sure how safe it is to remove them and then carry on with the same save. Although, if they indeed do contain the same fixes that are already present in the merged main esp, then maybe it is safe to deactivate them and carry on with same save? Any thoughts? I do realize that yes. Always have. :) Maybe I should have said "as long as you install and activate".

I tried this yesterday. Both the installer and the fomod plugin has issues. The fomod doesn't detect anything and doesn't install the DLC patches. The installer detects correctly, but that too doesn't install the DLC patches, for some reason. Simplest way to install (IMO): - Make a new folder and call it "Even better quest objectives 2" or something similar. - Select which main file folder you need and then copy over the ESP and BSA from that folder to your newly created folder. - Copy over the other optional ESP patches to your folder, according to what you need or have installed. - Zip or 7zip your new folder and install it like any other mod in MO. You will get a red warning triangle if you are missing an esp that is required by one of the patches you installed. You can just ignore that as long as you install and activate that esp later on. Then the red warning triangle will go away. And BOSS will sort everything in the correct order. The nice thing about Mod Organizer is that there are several ways to do things if one doesn't work. Edit: Strikethrough = plain wrong Orange = inserted for clarification

Is anyone familiar with Wearable Lanterns by Chesko? BOSS is reporting one Identical To Master dirty edit in that esp. Just wondering if it should be there or if it's safe to remove/clean in TES5Edit.

Yeah you have a point there. Not really necessary for me either. Edit: Oh great, now I started a whole new page just to say that.