Looking for the source of cloud/fog/smoke/wind coloring - Weather & Image Space

[Mousetick]

I've been spending the last few days searching for the cause of some ugly yellowish coloring of cloud/fog/smoke/wind effects with certain weathers, which I'd been tolerating but can't stand anymore and I want to get rid of it.

At first I was convinced it was RAID Weathers, but I found out that the coloring is merely accentuated by it due to some change it makes to an ImageSpace setting. It also apparently makes it worse because it increases Saturation. I can reproduce the same effect without RAID Weathers and even in pure vanilla by tweaking the same setting.

The setting is 'Tint Amount' in the ImageSpace record:

I set it to zero so that the RGB tint values below don't matter, i.e. there is no blending. RAID Weathers decreases it from 0.815 to 0.6 for this particular ImageSpace.

Screenshots taken near MilitaryCampPaleImperial Cell with SkyrimOvercastSnow Weather and ISSkyrimOvercastSnowDAY ImageSpace.

1. Fully modded game with vanilla weathers and Tint Amount set to 0. Red arrows show areas with fugly smog effect, green arrows show areas not covered by fog/wind.

2. Pure vanilla game and Tint Amount set to 0. Different time of day but same weather. Same effects can be seen.

 

The ugly smog is especially noticeable against bright backgrounds like snow and skies. It also affects fire smoke (not shown in screenshots) and the small footstep "puffs" generated by the Footprints mod (not shown in screenshots).

My questions:

• Why the heck is this yellow?!
• Is there a setting that controls the color of all these effects? There are a bazillion color settings in Weather records.

This wiki and that wiki are not helpful at all. And googling hasn't turned up anything interesting.

Any clue or pointer would be welcome. This is driving me bonkers and I'm getting desperate.

Thanks.

[OlivierDoorenbos]

Interesting. If anyone finds out any more on this I'd like to know, as it may help me improve RAID Weathers. Anyway, I may do some experimenting on this to see if I can figure anything out.

Long shot, sorry to ask (just saying since some other users reported similar things to me about this), but are you sure you have "bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=1" enabled in skyrimprefs.ini under [Display].

EDIT: just noticed one of you is the bethini author, so lol, sorry for the above question haha (i dont use bethini tho).

Edited June 1, 2022 by OlivierDoorenbos
noticed bethini tag

[DoubleYou]

Welcome to weather editing. Best thing you can do is hop on Kitsunne's Discord and grab KreatE in-game weather editor so you can see what you need to adjust to make it look how you want. There are a lot of different color settings to play with. I would put the tint back to how it was and modify the weather colors to how you desire. 

The yellow coloring appears to be affecting multiple color settings. You simply don't like the RAID colors, which are very similar to vanilla. 

Or just try a different weather mod. 

[z929669]

Incidentally, I created a less saturated version of RAID Weathers that the MA posted, so you may want to try that version our first to see if the effects are at least reduced. The fog distance settings impact quite a lot in weathers. FNAM record, I think, but I may be misremembering. xEdit comes with a weather editing script I think, but DY's reference is probably better if it's not the same thing.

[Mousetick]

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions, much appreciated.

5 hours ago, OlivierDoorenbos said:

Long shot, sorry to ask (just saying since some other users reported similar things to me about this), but are you sure you have "bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=1" enabled in skyrimprefs.ini under [Display].

Not a long shot at all: that was it! I had bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=0.

I had experimented with switching off the HDR system in the console (thdr command), which made no difference with this particular issue. So I erroneously concluded that HDR was not involved.

I had bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget off because I felt it was degrading performance without significant visual improvement, but that was a long while ago with a vastly different mod setup.

Thanks for chiming in Olivier and for providing the solution. My bad for missing this detail in the RAID Weathers installation instructions.

PS: I sent you a PM.

[DoubleYou]

Interesting. Could you get a before and after shot so I can add that to the wiki? I've never had much success finding a combination that showed the effect well. 

[Mousetick]

1 hour ago, DoubleYou said:

Could you get a before and after shot so I can add that to the wiki?

Sure.

This is taken with RAID Weathers as it triggers the effect much more extensively, but it can also be seen a little in Vanilla in some cases if you squint really hard and examine each pixel closely. It seems certain combinations of Tint Amount and Tint RGB values cause the yellow smog effect, but there might be other factors at play. Blowing snow (which I previously misnamed "wind") exhibits it pretty reliably, as shown below.

Before: bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=0 > After: bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=1

You may think this is barely noticeable. But I can assure you once you notice in-game, it cannot be unseen and this was driving me crazy

[DoubleYou]

1 hour ago, Mousetick said:

Sure.

This is taken with RAID Weathers as it triggers the effect much more extensively, but it can also be seen a little in Vanilla in some cases if you squint really hard and examine each pixel closely. It seems certain combinations of Tint Amount and Tint RGB values cause the yellow smog effect, but there might be other factors at play. Blowing snow (which I previously misnamed "wind") exhibits it pretty reliably, as shown below.

Before: bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=0 > After: bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=1

You may think this is barely noticeable. But I can assure you once you notice in-game, it cannot be unseen and this was driving me crazy

Thanks! I can definitely see it. I'm honestly quite suprised how much it alters the colors here. I never would have guess that would cause it to look that much warmer in color tone.

[z929669]

I can see the diff just in the thumbs.

[ButchDiavolo]

14 hours ago, Mousetick said:

Before: bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=0 > After: bUse64bitsHDRRenderTarget=1

Don't eat the yellow snow...