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

[phpones]

7 minutes ago, z929669 said:

A few lights were modified for consistency with Step (and some with Ambiance itself, IIRC). We also forward/merge select Ambiance weather changes to Blackreach that would otherwise be snuffed, since we are also making some weather changes to CW. I can't think of anything else offhand, but if you are running Step lighting, you will likely want those changes.

Easiest thing to do is get the AE update. Otherwise, you will need to maintain your own versions of the Step patches with all of the CC stuff removed. Some people are likely doing this, but it's quite a bit of work first time around. Once you have it, it should be fairly simple to maintain in parallel to ours.

Thanks, Z. I run STEP Ultra Lite Vanilla Extra Plus, not even running CW. I was just curious about the Ambiance changes due to RS or possible color changes to keep it close to what it was (CW + Luminosity). I'm still thinking if I'm going RAID Weathers or simply vanilla + dark nights, but if I go CW, I'll get the AE CC stuff. 

Edited November 28, 2022 by phpones

[ns0119]

Hey y'all! Just wanted to begin by saying thank you everyone for your hard work on v2.3!

I was wondering, is there a way I could decrease the intensity of darkness added by this mod without compromising stealth? Unless there is a light source, it is near impossible for me to see in the dark. I realize that having it this way is more realistic, but there are so many interior areas that don't have light sources everywhere and are thus too dark to see clearly.

I have already bumped up the brightness through Cathedral Weathers MCM, but it did little to lighten the darkest areas. As a temporary workaround, I have increased AmbientLightingIntensityInterior in enbseries.ini, but changing this value is not always consistent across different locations & times of day. Lastly, I tried to tweak ENB settings under ADAPTATION as directed by the pinned comment on the Nexus Ambiance page, to no avail.

Edited September 4, 2024 by ns0119
typo

[z929669]

2 minutes ago, ns0119 said:

Hey y'all! Just wanted to begin by saying thank you everyone for your hard work on v2.3!

I was wondering, is there a way I could decrease the intensity of darkness added by this mod without compromising stealth? Unless there is a light source, it is near impossible for me to see in the dark. I realize that having it this way is more realistic, but there are so many interior areas that don't have light sources everywhere and are thus too dark to see clearly.

I have already bumped up the brightness through Cathedral Weathers MCM, but it did little to lighten the darkest areas. As a temporary workaround, I have increased AmbientLightingIntensityInterior in enbseries.ini, but changing this value is not always consistent across different locations & times of day. Lastly, I tried to tweak ENB settings under ADAPTATION as directed by the pinned comment on the Nexus Ambiance page, to no avail.

Are you using the Step ENB?

Changes to [ADAPTATION] may rely on UseOriginalPostProcessing=false, but I'm not sure about that.

[ns0119]

9 minutes ago, z929669 said:

Are you using the Step ENB?

Changes to [ADAPTATION] may rely on UseOriginalPostProcessing=false, but I'm not sure about that.

Thank you for the quick response! Yes, I am using STEP Heavy ENB. I will test using UseOriginalPostProcessing=false and then try making changes to ADAPTATION.

Do you have any other suggestions on what to try?

[z929669]

1 hour ago, ns0119 said:

Thank you for the quick response! Yes, I am using STEP Heavy ENB. I will test using UseOriginalPostProcessing=false and then try making changes to ADAPTATION.

Do you have any other suggestions on what to try?

UseOriginalPostProcessing=false will cause problems without altering many other global ENB settings, so that may be a rabbit hole.

Do you have Windows HDR enabled? If so, try disabling that.

[ns0119]

22 hours ago, z929669 said:

UseOriginalPostProcessing=false will cause problems without altering many other global ENB settings, so that may be a rabbit hole.

Do you have Windows HDR enabled? If so, try disabling that.

I do not have Windows HDR. I also tried different ENB presets to little avail. I'm starting to think the issue may just be that I would prefer a lighter version of Ambiance. Not sure if this is possible without loosing its intended purpose with RAID.

[z929669]

1 hour ago, ns0119 said:

I do not have Windows HDR. I also tried different ENB presets to little avail. I'm starting to think the issue may just be that I would prefer a lighter version of Ambiance. Not sure if this is possible without loosing its intended purpose with RAID.

It could also be your driver-soft settings, your monitor quality, or even your graphics hardware. "Too dark" is highly subjective, so it's difficult to know what you are seeing exactly (or not seeing in this case).

Maybe share a couple of screenshots, one with ENB active and one with ENB inactive (Shift+F12)

[D1Z4STR]

We need to make one small additional change to the STEP - CR or STEP - Lighting and Weather CR (not sure which this would be for)

If you load xEdit and look at SightlessNavFix.esp and conflict check to that file only you will see the lighting mod Ambiance loads before it. The XCLL lighting data you want from Ambiance for FormID 00025195 - Abandoned Cave will lose to SightlessNavFix.esp (Navigator Navmesh Fixes) gaining back the default Skyrim colorspace values.

[Bushranger]

After working on a mod list for a couple of months now I'm so close to getting something I think is wonderful to play and I've finally found that it's a combination of Ambiance, my monitor and the graphics settings that are what need to be solved to get this fixed. I've put up some screenshots before how dark interiors can be and that had me test both ENB and Community Shaders which both have perks. I also followed TheMilesO's advice in the first post on Q/A Post and checked the calibration of my monitor which did bring out that because of having ASUS Shadow Boost and Gamma settings (no idea why) enabled is why other settings have a knock-on effect to cause the graphics settings to cause that but trying to fix them still leaves it somewhat dark.  There is the optional Darker Interior Fog Only option when installing Ambiance and that makes the Frozen Hearth not completely black, but it also makes all the dungeons and mines bright.  Thankfully I found a solution and if others also find Ambiance - A Vanilla(plus) Ambient Lighting Overhaul (by TheMilesO) is too dark in civilized areas perhaps this could help:

Dark Dungeons - Base Object Swapper (by Ness Lowland) has an Optional File: Darker Ambient Light - Dungeons and Caves Only. It provides an altered Ambiance.esp that does as it says. When I used it the Freezing Hearth was nice and visible with vanilla illumination but the Whistling Mine was dark and shadowy!

 

Spoiler

I might use this as inspiration instead and alter the original Ambiance.esp so that the Lighting Template of places citizens live and/or work in - like 000A1196 FarmLightingTemplate (Which is referenced by 970 Cells including places like the Frozen Hearth, Windstad Manor and the Penitus Oculatus Outpost!) - is changed to how the optional Darker Interior Fog Only option will handle instead of just being removed.

 

[z929669]

11 hours ago, Bushranger said:

After working on a mod list for a couple of months now I'm so close to getting something I think is wonderful to play and I've finally found that it's a combination of Ambiance, my monitor and the graphics settings that are what need to be solved to get this fixed. I've put up some screenshots before how dark interiors can be and that had me test both ENB and Community Shaders which both have perks. I also followed TheMilesO's advice in the first post on Q/A Post and checked the calibration of my monitor which did bring out that because of having ASUS Shadow Boost and Gamma settings (no idea why) enabled is why other settings have a knock-on effect to cause the graphics settings to cause that but trying to fix them still leaves it somewhat dark.  There is the optional Darker Interior Fog Only option when installing Ambiance and that makes the Frozen Hearth not completely black, but it also makes all the dungeons and mines bright.  Thankfully I found a solution and if others also find Ambiance - A Vanilla(plus) Ambient Lighting Overhaul (by TheMilesO) is too dark in civilized areas perhaps this could help:

Dark Dungeons - Base Object Swapper (by Ness Lowland) has an Optional File: Darker Ambient Light - Dungeons and Caves Only. It provides an altered Ambiance.esp that does as it says. When I used it the Freezing Hearth was nice and visible with vanilla illumination but the Whistling Mine was dark and shadowy!

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I might use this as inspiration instead and alter the original Ambiance.esp so that the Lighting Template of places citizens live and/or work in - like 000A1196 FarmLightingTemplate (Which is referenced by 970 Cells including places like the Frozen Hearth, Windstad Manor and the Penitus Oculatus Outpost!) - is changed to how the optional Darker Interior Fog Only option will handle instead of just being removed.

 

Make sure Windows HDR is either disabled, or that Auto HDR is disabled for SSE. Do this regardless of whether or not your hardware fully supports HDR, because it will need to be tone mapped to SDR, and Skyrim doesn't support HDR. You are more likely to get black crush and white washout if HDR is active. If you do have HDR enabled, then you likely used Windows HDR to create the calibration profile. You will need a SDR profile for your monitor (or create one yourself with a colorimeter) or Windows standard SDR profile to be active when running the game.

[Bushranger]

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

Make sure Windows HDR is either disabled, or that Auto HDR is disabled for SSE. Do this regardless of whether or not your hardware fully supports HDR, because it will need to be tone mapped to SDR, and Skyrim doesn't support HDR. You are more likely to get black crush and white washout if HDR is active. If you do have HDR enabled, then you likely used Windows HDR to create the calibration profile. You will need a SDR profile for your monitor (or create one yourself with a colorimeter) or Windows standard SDR profile to be active when running the game.

HDR off is a good instruction. Unfortunately I have always kept HDR off. 

I had also noticed that LOOT had placed both RealisticWaterTwo.esp and Ambiance.esp below step patch - conflict resolution.esp and step patch - lighting and weather.esp so I added them as masters to adjust the load order. It was not mentioned earlier because I have been altering CR quite a bit.

Colour blindness also does not help trying to find a calibrated colour balance so I usually pick from the pre-made options on the monitor or just leave RGB all at 100 for the Colour Temp. Gamma 1.8, 2.2, 2.5? After trying again to get things sorted I've spent another hour with this reply window open. I tried lowering the Digital Vibrance % and I switched Colour Accuracy Mode from Accurate to Reference but still quite dark in some civilized places like Frozen Hearth.

 : From the Abandoned Prison to Frozen Hearth with Ambiance.esp

 : From the Abandoned Prison to Frozen Hearth with Darker Interior Ambient Fog.esp

 : From Abandoned Prison to Frozen Heath with Ambiance.esp after another hour calibrating monitor and graphics card again.

NVIDIA Output colour settings.  Ensuring HDR and shadow boost is off.  Changing from accurate to reference colour accuracy mode. It still looks to me like he would have his bar brighter in the morning even if there are few customers in Winterhold.  These screenshots are without ENB or CS.

[z929669]

6 hours ago, Bushranger said:

HDR off is a good instruction. Unfortunately I have always kept HDR off. 

I had also noticed that LOOT had placed both RealisticWaterTwo.esp and Ambiance.esp below step patch - conflict resolution.esp and step patch - lighting and weather.esp so I added them as masters to adjust the load order. It was not mentioned earlier because I have been altering CR quite a bit.

Colour blindness also does not help trying to find a calibrated colour balance so I usually pick from the pre-made options on the monitor or just leave RGB all at 100 for the Colour Temp. Gamma 1.8, 2.2, 2.5? After trying again to get things sorted I've spent another hour with this reply window open. I tried lowering the Digital Vibrance % and I switched Colour Accuracy Mode from Accurate to Reference but still quite dark in some civilized places like Frozen Hearth.

 : From the Abandoned Prison to Frozen Hearth with Ambiance.esp

 : From the Abandoned Prison to Frozen Hearth with Darker Interior Ambient Fog.esp

 : From Abandoned Prison to Frozen Heath with Ambiance.esp after another hour calibrating monitor and graphics card again.

NVIDIA Output colour settings.  Ensuring HDR and shadow boost is off.  Changing from accurate to reference colour accuracy mode. It still looks to me like he would have his bar brighter in the morning even if there are few customers in Winterhold.  These screenshots are without ENB or CS.

Graphics driver and monitor gamma should be 2.2, but game settings and DynDOLOD gamma should be 1.0. Are you running Relighting Skyrim?

[Bushranger]

I have Relighting Skyrim - SSE together with Ambiance - A Vanilla(plus) Ambient Lighting Overhaul The only difference in Lighting and Weather is I'm currently using Azurite Weathers in place of Cathedral Weathers.

My game Display Settings were at default brightness, I've just gone in again to test it and used sg 1 in console before the screenshots to ensure gamma is 1. xLODGen was changed to 1.25 but when I edited the ini for TexGen and DynDOLOD I'm fairly sure that was about grass as I've only followed the Step Guide, I checked now and both are sRGBGamma=1.3  I can edit this to 1 and run DynDOLOD again.  Monitor Gamma has been 2.2, but Graphics Driver has been 1. If I change that to 2.2 then the monitor seem to be very blown out.  The screenshot does not show that though so now I'm really confused.

With all this extra testing I have found that instead of Shadow Boost off having Shadow Boost - Dynamic Variable: On helps but the screenshots are not very different.

   

Edited Saturday at 05:37 PM by Bushranger
Hit Submit instead of Other Media.

[z929669]

6 hours ago, Bushranger said:

I have Relighting Skyrim - SSE together with Ambiance - A Vanilla(plus) Ambient Lighting Overhaul The only difference in Lighting and Weather is I'm currently using Azurite Weathers in place of Cathedral Weathers.

My game Display Settings were at default brightness, I've just gone in again to test it and used sg 1 in console before the screenshots to ensure gamma is 1. xLODGen was changed to 1.25 but when I edited the ini for TexGen and DynDOLOD I'm fairly sure that was about grass as I've only followed the Step Guide, I checked now and both are sRGBGamma=1.3  I can edit this to 1 and run DynDOLOD again.  Monitor Gamma has been 2.2, but Graphics Driver has been 1. If I change that to 2.2 then the monitor seem to be very blown out.  The screenshot does not show that though so now I'm really confused.

With all this extra testing I have found that instead of Shadow Boost off having Shadow Boost - Dynamic Variable: On helps but the screenshots are not very different.

   

From Azurite Weathers:

Quote

This mod uses filmic tone mapping, but don't worry- included is an ini file that also adjusts global brightness and contrast so that all other mods you are using will be compatible with the new tone maps. The filmic tone mapping allows for bright scenes without white-wash or clipping.

 

[Bushranger]

I have only changed to Azurite Weathers this week, before that I was using Cathedral Weathers in the Step Guide and Relighting Skyrim + Ambiance was just as dark in places like Frozen Hearth screenshots I've posted before in 2025 are all with Cathedral Weathers. Also when I said that If I change the Graphics Driver gamma to 2.2 it became blown out I wasn't just talking about in Skyrim, everything was blown bright then. I took a screenshot of the Graphic Driver settings because it was washed out when I adjusted the settings.

My Monitor is the ASUS ROG Swift PG329Q and I've found today that it does not have uniform brightness that many recommend using when a monitor is calibrated. There are several suggestions around the internet which preset to start with and then adjust the RGB to what they recommend (which always seem random to me because it's often very different person to person). Because I don't know what I'm really doing, and because I find it looks reasonable, I've been using the RTS/RPG GameVisual preset with Normal Colour Temp.

What makes me extremely confused is that when I set the Graphics Driver gamma to 2.2 and took screenshots of what the monitor shown was washed out driver settings and the Frozen Hearth, those Screenshots then looked nice when I set the Graphics Driver gamma back to 1.  Also while Shadow Boost with Dynamic Adjustment seems to not place the Frozen Hearth bar in such gloomy shadow it also makes the smoke particles in the Loading Screen worse.  I'm starting to think almost all of this is because of the monitor.