My ENB rant - or someone please explain the fascination with ...

[begalund]

First off, let me say that I've been a lurker for years and the step community (and the guides on here and elsewhere) are amazing at getting things up and running.  I don't always understand everything discussed, since I'm more of a casual player/tweaker, but I've learned enough to be dangerous to myself which I guess is good enough.

 

I've got a fairly decent system.  Nothing near top of the line, but more than enough for skyrim, and I've been able to run it successfully for years, playing with many different options and variants (such as trying out tropical for a while just for the change).  I've been playing it off and on for the last few weeks while waiting for the expansions in FO4 to drop, and after wiping and reinstalling, figured I'd try once again to reinstall an ENB and see if I could fix it up how I liked.

 

Now let me say I can get the various ENBs up and running.  I use MO, always start over with a new fresh save each time I test a new preset, completely wipe the old preset files and rebuild the enblocal each time - just to be sure I'm starting from scratch.  But I'm still baffled by some concepts - various fascinations - and included effects - that seem to defy my understanding, and ability to fix.  So I'm going to rant for a bit, and hope that the kind folks in here can help me out (in a relatively non-condescending way) and maybe lend me a hand in fixing what I either don't understand or simply don't like.  So here goes:

 

1.  DARKNESS - The debate between realism/immersion and fantasy/vibrancy and playability aside, the biggest gripe I have is with every ENB being tweaked for one or the other lighting overhaul, or simply tweaking the lighting aspects within the ENB itself.  Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the concept of wanting nights to be darker than twilight in a walmart parking lot.  But if I've gone through the trouble of installing upgraded textures for enemies, dungeons, interiors, rocks, coffins, jugs, cobwebs, water, dungeon clutter, what-have-you, shouldn't I - oh I don't know - actually want to SEE it?  

 

I'll explain my specific darkness troubles further down, but suffice it for now that even with a torch out, or casting candlelight, I can't see everything in a mid-sized room, so why in the hell did I go through the trouble of installing upgraded textures?  Is the only time things are supposed to be decent looking (I'm avoiding the loaded word "pretty" here) when I'm outside at high noon on a fully sunny day?  Cause that's stupid.  I'm old enough to remember the original X-Files, and how everyone complained that the series was mostly filmed in the dark using flashlights and you could never see anything.  I understand it was supposed to add to the "creepiness" but it mostly just pissed people off.

 

Otherwise, you've got two different problems.  One, you've installed a bunch of extra high end textures you don't need, and in fact will just slow down your system and reduce your performance a ton - since you aren't ever seeing them.  Just remove them.  And since most of the time you aren't actually exploring in the wilderness in this game (unless you've turned off fast travel - which I know a lot of people do), then you don't really need the ENB in the first place now do you?  Two, if you do still want those high end textures, then you need to pull out your light source and get really close to everything you want to take a look at.  "Oh hey, it's a napkin!  Look at that napkin I found.  Isn't it pretty?"  So now you are focused in on the damn napkin and completely missing the beautiful full length mural that takes up an entire dungeon wall - and which no light source in the game can completely illuminate (yes, I'm looking at you Alduin's Wall).

 

2.  LIGHTING - So currently I'm trying out Skylight.  I like this preset so far.  It seems to be well laid out and VERY well explained.  But the lighting in it (like almost every other ENB preset I've tried) has me baffled.  I coc'ed to Riverwood and entered the inn.  The interior was too dark, but I allowed the adaptation to run for a bit (about 3-4 minutes) and then I started testing out a torch.  I haven't adjusted anything from the default settings - although I do have a few mods in place as per recommendations.  Specifically: pure weathers, ELE and ELFX.  Although the load order is exactly reverse that.  I do not have the ELFX enhancer installed.  Standing near the big fire in the middle of the common room, which has three what I would call large campfires burning, the room isn't completely lit up.  There are lots of deep shadows, and I can't see details on the bard playing over by the chairs near the door.  

 

Pulling out a SINGLE torch, doubles (yes, doubles) the ambient light effect in the room.  It still doesn't light up the whole room, but one torch sheds as much light as three large campfires/small bonfires?  Again, no adjustments to any of the mods or the ENB from default settings (as d/l from nexus).  The same torch in my hand is many times brighter than the torch on the wall.  Now i realize this might be because I haven't installed the Skylight optional torch d/l, but it was optional so I didn't grab it yet.

 

3.  SUNRAYS (or as FO4 calls them, godrays).  These are one of two personal pet peeves of mine.  I never see these in real life unless I am squinting when looking sunward.  I do see what are known as jacob's ladders during certain cloud configurations - but this is a much different effect.  in third person mode I would not expect to see these at all, since when I am playing the game I take on the role of the character.  Hence, I give some leeway to minor sunray effects in various presets (and I know how to turn them off).  My favorite version (decently done) of this so far was the way it was implemented in Tetrachromatic - but the rest of that preset was way too vibrant for my tastes.  But I simply don't understand the fascination with turning them on and especially with cranking them up so high.

 

4.  But even worse is LENS FLARE and the associated RAINDROPS on the lens effect.  Both of these bother the holy crap out of me.  They are bad in 3rd person.  They end up establishing the 4th wall by showing me the "camera."  In effect, suddenly I know I'm in a game or inside a movie.  But to have them show up in first person?  WTF!  I never see lens flare while I'm walking around in real life.  I only see flares if there is actually glass for the damn sun to reflect off of.  My eyeball's own lens doesn't do that, since it is physically impossible to focus on it.  

 

And raindrops?  I'm actually getting raindrops to stick to my eyeballs in first person mode?  I haven't blinked them away?  I understand this is entirely an effect of the particular weather overhaul being installed, but most ENBs have a "recommended" or "required" weather overhaul needed, and most of them have this issue.  Why are raindrops sticking to my eyes and running down them like a camera lens? ARGGGG!

 

5.  Oh yeah, I nearly forgot that everything in this game except you can see in the frigging dark.  Obviously you can always turn into a werewolf or vampire, but if you aren't, you seem to be screwed.  So I'm wandering along, and it starts to get dark (or worse, I have to explore a dungeon or crypt).  I have two choices:  Pull out a light source so I can see where I am going and not fall into the crevice and die, or don't and hope that there isn't a crevice that will kill me.  If I pull out the light source, I can't sneak and everyone for miles can see me.  I get that.  Logical.

 

But if I don't pull one out, please explain to me how the normal Nord archer standing on the battlements of the tower can not only see me, but can see me well enough to hit me with a damn arrow - when I can't even see the TOWER?  And the tower is like 400 times larger than either the archer or me?  So I'm all for realism, but at least make it fair realism - and not require me to download yet another mod to adjust the world to correct for the fact that I want to have pretty trees that move in the wind and clouds that drift past good looking snow-covered mountain peaks, and to see the lighting effects take on a reddish hue when the sun starts to set.  Cause again, I shouldn't need to add more mods to fix things just cause I paid for a nicer video card and more memory.

 

 

 

Okay, so back to darkness.  How do I fix this issue?  I've read what I can find, and I'm reading through the Skylight ENB guide to figure it out, but I've got to say it is just generally too dark for my taste.  I'm going to try removing all the lighting overhauls and running with just vanilla Skylight - but I'm expecting that it will still be dim and still suffer from the odd torch behavior.  I'm not asking for vanilla non-ENB lighting, but I at least want to be able to see the whole room if I bring in or turn on a light source.  Enter Whiterun's grandhall, and the Jarl is sitting in the dark.  But walk outside and the world is just amazing and beautiful.  Why the hell is anyone sitting inside on a day like today.  Balgruuf, go outside and play.

 

My machine:  MB - sabertooth 990fx, AMD 8320 8core, 16 gb ram, two AMD r9-200 2gb video cards

 

Skylight ENB for ELFX presently

pertinent mods and load order:  attached

 

So that's it.  Any advice, input, or follow up? Feel free to weigh in.  I've got pretty thick skin, but by the same token, since this is my rant, unless you are following up with something technical, corrective, helpful, or suggestive, I'll likely just take it as your opinion and move past it.  Some people might like dungeons that are dark as hell, and lots of lens flare.  More power to them.  They aren't me, and I just don't get it.  Now if there is a technical basis for it, I'd love to hear it.  But if it is just a personal preference - that's nice, whatever, to each their own.

plugins.txt

modlist.txt

[Aiyen]

Well I guess I know a thing or two about skylight.... And since it is rare I get this level of feedback I am going to see what I can do to help ya out. 

 

1: Lens flares... these effects should not be on by default. If they are on it is because you have textures for them. If the various textures for those effects are just empty they should not show. 

I only like lens effects for various screenshots... and as such they should be disabled. 

 

2: Sun rays and god rays... there are two options in ENB. One is the rays you get if the sun is behind a tree or near a building etc... it will be a sun ray. 

Then there are the god rays produced by the clouds. It depends largely on your choice of texture, and for the vanilla weather version is should not be a super pronounced effect. 

 

3: Darkness... the first thing to say about darkness is that ENB cannot produce realistic lighting... since the game does not support realistic lighting. 90% of the game is lit up by ambient lighting in vanilla. With lighting overhauls more of this goes to point light sources without shadowcasting. ELFX is what I normally recommend since it has imo the best scenic moments... like walking into dragonsreach with ELFX and without... and you will know what I mean. Those extra effects just add a nice touch... it is not realistic, but it is nice to watch. 

 

That said ELE is a requirement, since it normalizes every interior so they all have the same base colors. It might be boring but it does ensure that you get consistency. From what you describe it sounds like you do not have the proper load order... you can go to the skylight page and look at the uploaded shots for interiors from various people.. it should look like that, which I would not call dark to the extend you describe. 

 

As for exteriors. If you use pure weathers then nights are going to be dark.. because the author decided that black is a good idea... but since post processing works by multiplying pixel values... then 0 * anything = 0.. so it cant be changed without altering pure weathers. I have tried to make it as bright as it can get without looking really silly. 

This issue should only be present in pure weathers however. 

 

If what you see inside interiors and exteriors is not to your liking then there are several ways to make things brighter. Ofc. I assume that you have set the ingame gamma value to 1 (Ie you have never touched the brightness slider in options) Also I assume that you have at least calibrated your monitor once. Most default settings for contemporary monitors have really bad contrast settings that are not made for darker colors. 

 

Other than all that I have covered the various variables that will allow you to make the game brighter in the guide. You can do this ingame and once done and saved you never need to do it again.

 

Hope that helps you a little bit, if not just write again and I will see what I can dig up of old memories. 

 

Edit: Here is the album I have of interiors shots from the currently uploaded version. https://imgur.com/a/Sd6CH

However it is worth noting that most of those shots are taken during night time!... and there is a different in lighting level depending on night or day in many interiors! (When using the mods supported that is.)

I guess it is a tad to dark for most monitors that are not properly calibrated. However I do recall that I put the relevant options in the guide for personal tweaking, and interiors are simple since it is only one set of values and then it affects everything. 

My first guess would be the adap min and max value.. those should be easy enough to adjust so it works for your monitor. 

 

Hope that helps a little bit more! :) 

[elenhil]

One possible note is that theirs (ENB presets') is a fake darkness. It makes the world look darker to you, its user, but to the ENB-less NPCs the nights are still Vanilla bright. So, they have no trouble seeing and hitting you. Contrary to that, mods like Realistic Nights claim to change the real level of light. Wouldn't vouch Skyrim's engine makes NPC accuracy depend on that, though...

[begalund]

Ah, I am humbled to hear from the author himself.  I thank you.  Let me add some additional information then.

 

1.  Monitor calibration:  I did this quite a long time ago - although I cannot guarantee that it might not need some readjustment.  I use a sony flatscreen tv as a monitor, and the color adjustments and normal black/white, brightness levels all seems fine.  I've never gone to the silly extreme of using an external light meter or anything, but for my eyes it appears to still be correct or at least a close approximation thereof.

 

2.  I went back and reinstalled - removing the pure weathers variant and used the "vanilla" version instead.  I did install Dramatic Clouds as per the suggestions, and kept in ELE as listed.  Although one silly add-on mod I have has a weird feature where all the lights appear to be reversed (lights in front of my character light up the back when in third person mode and vice versa), I blame that particular mod and not ELE.  I can live with it in that circumstance, and it doesn't happen anywhere else.  

 

3.  I used the in-game ENB menu to turn off the lens flare and sunrays, since that was fairly easy to fix (your guide was quite helpful in this regard, many thanks).  The jacob's ladders/godrays effect still appears, which I like, and all is happy there.  If those other two effects aren't supposed to be turned on by default, I'm not sure why they were to begin with, I'm fairly (95%) certain I removed all the old preset files and reinstalled the new preset from scratch - only my enblocal would have remained unchanged, since I saw no reason to reinstall and re-edit it again.

 

4.  Since I am now using the vanilla version I'm not using any lighting overhaul mod - so I've turned off ELFX in the hope it would help out.  I haven't gone through playing with the other overhauls since all of them tend to do the same thing - I know they don't universally just darken interiors, but unfortunately that has been the effect I've experienced.  I'll get back to this in a second....

 

5.  Load order - my OP did include both the left and right pane MO mod lists  - although a straight MO export throws one of those list out in exactly reverse order, both lists are in priority order.  So if you see something loaded incorrectly, I'd love to hear it.  I loaded everything in the left pane according to the install guide, and then let LOOT sort the right pane - plus I use an updated external version of LOOT rather than MO's built in version.  But I'll admit I didn't check the right pane all that closely for things being in the correct order - so it is possible that might be the cause of some lighting issues when ELFX is turned on.

 

6.  I'll try adjusting the adap min/max values as you suggest.  I haven't had enough time to read everything I want to on what all the various settings are (nor have I gone in and started tweaking each one just to see what they do).  

 

I definitely appreciate the feedback - there aren't many authors that respond personally like this.  I had decided to post my rant after complaining to my wife that I had just killed an enemy and I couldn't see him without pulling out a torch - even though he was right at my feet.  The room in question was the first interior of Bleak Falls Barrow - right inside the main door.  I hadn't moved after zoning into the cell, used my bow on the guys at the far side of the room and one of them eventually fell dead at my feet.  But while my cursor clearly showed where he was, because I was using a bow (and therefore didn't have a torch out), he was just another section of completely black flooring so far as I could tell.  Yet there are candles by the door, light streaming in from the roof (although granted, not all that much), and various other light sources around.  But I apparently was standing in the inky darkness of Hermaeus Mora's own little plane of Oblivion.  It was just frustrating.

 

I'll go do some tweaking and check my load order again - you never know, I might get things adjusted how I like.  But allow me to say that as far as ENB presets go, yours is by far the easiest to install, the most comprehensive in explanation, and you definitely hit the sweet spot with just making things look nice and not taxing the system.  You also don't rely on 999+ other mods to make the game look nice before the ENB (Pure Vision comes to mind here).  So even if you aren't looking for it, congrats.  

[Aiyen]

TV´s and monitors tend to do contrast quite differently. So in that case I would be almost certain that some tweaking of the so called tonemapping would be required to get satisfactory levels of brightness. I did not make the preset values for TV´s... also since I do not have one myself I am limited in my options to upload a version tailored for those. 

 

Load order should basically go like this 

 

Exterior mods that deal with weather if any 

Interior overhaul mods if any 

ELE 

 

The sun rays are on by default because I like the effect through tress, and during sunset and raise. It can add some spectacular moments. It is a matter of taste, and it should be fairly easy to correct. However if you disable the godrays.. it will significantly alter the visuals, since the color balance is made to take that effect into account. Also it looks cool when you see the clouds pass overhead. Even though the scale of the effect is far from realistic! :) 

 

On the nexus main page there is an image with dragonsreach and ELE and every single lighting overhaul combination. That is the intended visual. It is a good place to test since you have a lot of shadows, and lighting in a small area, so I recommend that you try to do any tests there. 

 

Dungeons etc. will be darker because ELE makes them darker, and removes or tones down the ambient lighting by quite a bit. 

 

As described in the guide, adap max and min is the easiest way to make small adjustments. However they should just be small, since adaptation can quickly go out of hand. (Also the effect will stabilize in seconds not minutes!)

 

If that does not do a sufficiently good trick you can adjust the general tonemapping in enbeffect.fx. As long as you only make small adjustments it should be easy to quickly get proper brightness back. Again as I recall the guide has all the details that are easy to go nuts with. 

 

 

 

Overall the interiors are designed so that on my monitor I can make out the floor etc. but only just. So I can just make out enemy movement, but I wont be able to find anything without a torch afterwards. Also if you use a torch it is designed so that in some dungeons you wont be able to see beyond the light... again an effect I kinda liked. 

 

Finally thank you for the kind words, and I hope you can get around to enjoy playing the game soon!

[begalund]

Bingo!

 

Well you came through once again.  Obviously I haven't visited every location in the game yet, but the guide was the fix.  It did take me a quick google search to find exactly where the "exposure threshold" and "exposure scale" settings were located, because, apparently, I'm blind (or dense).  But once I located them, and figured out which way to adjust them, I was able to play around with them to make things work.

 

So here is a quick link, in case anyone reading this wants to see some before and after adjustments.

https://postimg.org/gallery/2kit58vli/

 

There are only 9 images in there, so it'll be a quick look through.  The only parameter I ended up adjusting in the end was the exposure threshold interior.  I took it up a bit and that made all the difference in the world - as you can see from the images.  No longer did equipping a torch suddenly double the light intensity in the room (which was always weird), I can actually see the light from the windows now, and the corners of the room aren't completely cloaked in shadows.  I understand that not all buildings were bathed in light, but people did need to move around without running into chairs and other family members.  :-)

 

I'm off to go play now and see if this fixed the dungeons and other building interiors, but I think I've learned enough to adjust whatever else I might need to tweak.  Thanks a ton for your help.