ACCEPTED Ambiance - A Vanilla(plus) Ambient Lighting Overhaul (by TheMilesO)

[z929669]

Discussion topic:
Ambiance - A Vanilla(plus) Ambient Lighting Overhaul by TheMilesO
Wiki Link

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This would replace Luminosity and improve RAID compatibility.

Test with and without the Light Colors optional plugin. The Step ENB should work fine with this mod.

SCREENSHOTS

[Eliian]

I have been using Ambiance for about 6 months now. It is a great improvement over vanilla. Dungeons, caves, tombs and such are typically darker than with luminosity (including the mcm darker option). The overall effect of the mod is quite subtle as per the author's description. Nothing is mind-blowing it just feels right. Light balance and detection with RAID feel great with medium interiors and those worried about difficulty can always use light. 

For testing/screenshots should the base version be used or the darker interior fog option?

[z929669]

27 minutes ago, Eliian said:

I have been using Ambiance for about 6 months now. It is a great improvement over vanilla. Dungeons, caves, tombs and such are typically darker than with luminosity (including the mcm darker option). The overall effect of the mod is quite subtle as per the author's description. Nothing is mind-blowing it just feels right. Light balance and detection with RAID feel great with medium interiors and those worried about difficulty can always use light. 

For testing/screenshots should the base version be used or the darker interior fog option?

Probably not the darker fogs, but I honestly haven't tried that option. I think Tech mentioned that we shouldn't use it, but IDK for certain. We need to test the lighting color variation too though. Ideally, compares should be against current Step (Luminosity), but whatever you can do is helpful. I still need to set up and test before I can decide on screen compares.

[Mousetick]

At the time I installed it, about 6 months ago, it wasn't "known" to LOOT and its main plugin would be sorted incorrectly in the middle. Because of the edits it makes, it needs to be very high priority, so very low in the load order, like RWT and ACMoS.

If that's still the case today, you can create a custom LOOT rule, to group it into the 'Interior Lighting' group, which puts it at the end of the load order right before RWT, like so:

If you decide to incorporate it into the guide later on, you should be able to ask the LOOT team to add a metarule so that manual configuration is no longer necessary.

I've been using as part of an expanded load order based off STEP 2.0 (core only) and there are no conflicts that needs to be resolved in xEdit, when sorted correctly. There are a few visual conflicts in some instances with RLS, where RLS modifies ambient light sources while this mod assumes vanilla ambient light sources. I can't give more details than that as I don't use RLS anymore, but a prime example was the Thalmor HQ in Solitude which became dark as a cave with RLS. This would be fine to ignore as normally I believe it's supposed to be empty and more or less abandoned. Except with CRF, the Thalmor HQ are occupied and inhabited by Thalmor agents, so it doesn't make sense for them to live in darkness.

The optional Lights Colors plugin doesn't conflict with anything as far as I can tell and can go anywhere in the load order.

EDIT: For reference, I've been using the standard version (not darker interior fog version) along with the Tweaked Light Colors optional plugin. It's all very subjective of course. I think the Tweaked Light Colors make the light a bit more natural looking than vanilla, but not too "warm".

[z929669]

31 minutes ago, Mousetick said:

At the time I installed it, about 6 months ago, it wasn't "known" to LOOT and its main plugin would be sorted incorrectly in the middle. Because of the edits it makes, it needs to be very high priority, so very low in the load order, like RWT and ACMoS.

If that's still the case today, you can create a custom LOOT rule, to group it into the 'Interior Lighting' group, which puts it at the end of the load order right before RWT, like so:

If you decide to incorporate it into the guide later on, you should be able to ask the LOOT team to add a metarule so that manual configuration is no longer necessary.

I've been using as part of an expanded load order based off STEP 2.0 (core only) and there are no conflicts that needs to be resolved in xEdit, when sorted correctly. There are a few visual conflicts in some instances with RLS, where RLS modifies ambient light sources while this mod assumes vanilla ambient light sources. I can't give more details than that as I don't use RLS anymore, but a prime example was the Thalmor HQ in Solitude which became dark as a cave with RLS. This would be fine to ignore as normally I believe it's supposed to be empty and more or less abandoned. Except with CRF, the Thalmor HQ are occupied and inhabited by Thalmor agents, so it doesn't make sense for them to live in darkness.

The optional Lights Colors plugin doesn't conflict with anything as far as I can tell and can go anywhere in the load order.

EDIT: For reference, I've been using the standard version (not darker interior fog version) along with the Tweaked Light Colors optional plugin. It's all very subjective of course. I think the Tweaked Light Colors make the light a bit more natural looking than vanilla, but not too "warm".

Good to know. The only conflicts of note with the Light Colors module is ENB Light, whichh is late in the LO anyway. Ambient main plugin still sorts rather early in the LO, so I will look at this again.

I have this installed the same as you: no darker fogs and with Light Color plugin.

[Eliian]

If you do use the custom LOOT rule the color plugin will be placed above the main ambiance plugin. From looking at SSEedit this is fine as the main plug does not change any light color.  Torch light color from the plugin does overwrite embersxd.

[z929669]

31 minutes ago, Eliian said:

If you do use the custom LOOT rule the color plugin will be placed above the main ambiance plugin. From looking at SSEedit this is fine as the main plug does not change any light color.  Torch light color from the plugin does overwrite embersxd.

Such overrides are part of what need to be tested. Torch fires should emit similar to Embers rather than lighting I'd say. It depends on the result.

[Mousetick]

29 minutes ago, Eliian said:

Torch light color from the plugin does overwrite embersxd.

You're correct - my bad, I spoke too soon without paying attention. The Light Colors plugin overwrites Embers XD, WACCF, and USSEP for a few records such as Torch, when sorted naturally by LOOT, which is the desired order IMHO so doesn't require manual ordering or patching.

I can't speak of the conflict with ENB Light since I don't use ENB, but I guess it would make sense that ENB Light should win when it's used.

[Eliian]

I did compares between luminosity, ambience, and ambience color plugin. Relighting Skyrim was used as well in all cases. 

Luminosity>Ambience>Ambience w/ color plugin

Sleeping Giant:

 

Bannered Mare:

Dragonsreach:

Blackreach:

Edited May 6, 2022 by Eliian

[Eliian]

I'll post some more/better ones for dungeons/caves and with more light sources (candles, torches, ect.)

The color plugin is subtle but it does add a more orange glow for the fires. 

[z929669]

59 minutes ago, Eliian said:

I'll post some more/better ones for dungeons/caves and with more light sources (candles, torches, ect.)

The color plugin is subtle but it does add a more orange glow for the fires. 

Thanks again ... I think Embers should override Ambiance for all fire conflicts. It's definitely too orange with Ambiance. I mean the source light and not the reflected light. Need to find out what's causing that. It may also apply to magic fire. It looks like that would be more consistent with the light sources as well.

Blackreach: Are you overriding CW with the Ambiance changes? I have patched this to use Ambiance colors and fog settings but CW in all other respects. There are several ways to go with this conflict, especially if CW-Godrays is included.

I think the Light Color plugin is preferable, and Ambiance is definitely closer to vanilla.

EDIT: Luminosity has quite a bit more red in the lighting than I assumed

EDIT2: also need to look at laterns. There is quite a bit of patching we have done that needs to be tested.

[Mousetick]

54 minutes ago, z929669 said:

Such overrides are part of what need to be tested. Torch fires should emit similar to Embers rather than lighting I'd say. It depends on the result.

To be precise, in the case of the Torch for example:

• Embers XD changes the fade radius compared to vanilla, but doesn't change the light colors
• WACCF changes the weight and merchant value compared to vanilla, but doesn't change the light colors
• Ambiance - Light Colors changes the light colors compared to vanilla

For purposes of quick comparison testing with/without Ambiance - Light Colors, the fade radius, weight and merchant values would be irrelevant, and so don't need to be considered as conflicting. In order for the light color differences to apply however, Ambiance - Light Colors need to be loaded after both Embers XD and WACCF.

If and when Ambiance - Light Colors is incorporated into STEP, all the unrelated changes from the 3 mods will need to be combined into a merge patch.

Hope that makes sense.

PS: I don't know how Lanterns of Skyrim comes into this, as I don't use it either, but it may also touch some light sources such as street candle lights which are also modified by Ambiance - Light Colors. 

[z929669]

20 minutes ago, Mousetick said:

To be precise, in the case of the Torch for example:

• Embers XD changes the fade radius compared to vanilla, but doesn't change the light colors
• WACCF changes the weight and merchant value compared to vanilla, but doesn't change the light colors
• Ambiance - Light Colors changes the light colors compared to vanilla

For purposes of quick comparison testing with/without Ambiance - Light Colors, the fade radius, weight and merchant values would be irrelevant, and so don't need to be considered as conflicting. In order for the light color differences to apply however, Ambiance - Light Colors need to be loaded after both Embers XD and WACCF.

If and when Ambiance - Light Colors is incorporated into STEP, all the unrelated changes from the 3 mods will need to be combined into a merge patch.

Hope that makes sense.

PS: I don't know how Lanterns of Skyrim comes into this, as I don't use it either, but it may also touch some light sources such as street candle lights which are also modified by Ambiance - Light Colors. 

 See my edits ...

Yes, we have this patched now much as you say. I just can't believe how drastic the effect is on some of those fires. The lighting seems fine, but the fire itself is sooo orange.

[Eliian]

I was accidently overwriting Cathedral with Ambience in Blackreach my bad. 

Luminosity>

Ambience>

Ambience w/ color plugin

 

 

 

 

 

Embershard mine:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Eliian

[TechAngel85]

I think there is some misunderstanding with the color plugin. If we drop Luminosity, the color plugin should probably be added. Else you're going to have vanilla colors for everything, which is a mess and inconsistent. Luminosity currently provides Step's light colors. Before that, it was ELE. We've never used vanilla light colors.