Increasing the Render View Distance?

[DoubleYou]

You can't uninstall complex grass. You have to disable it in the ENB GUI. Uninstalling the complex grass textures while leaving complex grass enabled will cause the awful grass appearance you're seeing.

[mooit]

41 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

You can't uninstall complex grass. You have to disable it in the ENB GUI. Uninstalling the complex grass textures while leaving complex grass enabled will cause the awful grass appearance you're seeing.

Well, I didn't have ENB Complex Grass installed when I generated the Grass Cache, or running xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLOD.

After I generated the grass cache, and ran xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLOD, I then installed ENB Complex Grass.

[z929669]

35 minutes ago, mooit said:

Well, I didn't have ENB Complex Grass installed when I generated the Grass Cache, or running xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLOD.

After I generated the grass cache, and ran xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLOD, I then installed ENB Complex Grass.

ENB Complex Grass isn't a mod but rather a setting in ENB. Either disable it or follow this advice to get good matching LOD with ENB-CG and a compatible CG mod for CL. I recommend this one, naturally.

[mooit]

Ahh my bad, I now set in the ENB;

EnableComplexGrass=false

There is a ENB Complex Grass Mod, I was using it;

ENB Complex Grass - Patch Compendium for various grass mods at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Now the distance grass looks better, but still not 100%, not sure if it can be better.

In this screen shot, you can see it's better blended, but the red box, with the red circle, all these little clumpy areas, of the grass textures, still appear a little at closer distance, and the further away grass, which doesn't seem so far to me, isn't as detailed.

Here's the same screen shots as before. Now the grass isn't as neon, and the red boxes where there's no higher detailed grass.

Now the grass pops into view, the hue/color isn't as noticeable, but from the above screen shot, you can see the difference. Again, the grass pops into view.

So, with the Complex Grass disabled in the ENB this is much better, but shouldn't the full texture of the grass be rendered 100% at these short distances, and not popping into view?

THANKS

Edited August 3, 2022 by mooit

[mooit]

Ok, I'm using 'Cathedral Landscapes Complex Grass for ENB', this is nicer too by the way.

But in this screen shot, the green boxes, at the closer distances, shows the grass in greater detail, and the red boxes, less detail. So I can tell looking at this distance, the grass is still going to pop into view, when I'm around 150ft-200ft in the game.

THANKS

P.S. Shouldn't the areas in the red box, show the grass in fuller, greater detail too?

Edited August 3, 2022 by mooit

[DoubleYou]

That is all the fuller it gets I do believe.

[mooit]

I'm making the settings/changes z929669 just mentioned for TexGen/DynDOLOD. Running DynDOLOD now, will post a pic in a few, to see how this looks.

; grass LOD brightness multipliers
GrassBrightnessTopR=1.0
GrassBrightnessTopG=1.0
GrassBrightnessTopB=1.0
; make bottom darker to fake shadowing
GrassBrightnessBottomR=1.0
GrassBrightnessBottomG=1.0
GrassBrightnessBottomB=1.0

TexGen Grass Direct=100, Ambient=10

THANKS

[z929669]

1 hour ago, mooit said:

I'm making the settings/changes z929669 just mentioned for TexGen/DynDOLOD. Running DynDOLOD now, will post a pic in a few, to see how this looks.

; grass LOD brightness multipliers
GrassBrightnessTopR=1.0
GrassBrightnessTopG=1.0
GrassBrightnessTopB=1.0
; make bottom darker to fake shadowing
GrassBrightnessBottomR=1.0
GrassBrightnessBottomG=1.0
GrassBrightnessBottomB=1.0

TexGen Grass Direct=100, Ambient=10

THANKS

You will want to enable ENB-CG for those settings. See my CG mod for links to good ENB-CG settings.

[mooit]

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

You will want to enable ENB-CG for those settings. See my CG mod for links to good ENB-CG settings.

Yes I'm using  ENB-CG, but I don't know what other settings you are talking about, besides these I posted above. 

These are the only other settings I see, but then, they are different from the advice you mentioned.

Cathedral Landscapes Complex Grass for ENB (by z929669) - Skyrim SE Mods - Step Modifications | Change The Game

You just said before;
--------------------------
 Either disable it or follow this advice
--------------------------

So that is what I did, followed the advice, but the grass is really off, very bright in the distance.

P.S. So I should instead make my DynDOLOD RGB settings from the link I posted above, not 1.0 for everything as before?

; grass LOD brightness multipliers
GrassBrightnessTopR=0.415
GrassBrightnessTopG=0.365
GrassBrightnessTopB=0.315
; make bottom darker to fake shadowing
GrassBrightnessBottomR=0.245
GrassBrightnessBottomG=0.195
GrassBrightnessBottomB=0.140

I guess I should also edit the enbseries.ini I am using to look the same?

[COMPLEXGRASS]
SpecularMultiplierDawn=1.0
SpecularMultiplierSunrise=1.0
SpecularMultiplierDay=1.0
SpecularMultiplierSunset=1.0
SpecularMultiplierDusk=1.0
SpecularMultiplierNight=1.0
SpecularMultiplierInteriorDay=1.0
SpecularMultiplierInteriorNight=1.0
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountDawn=0.2
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountSunrise=0.4
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountDay=0.8
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountSunset=0.4
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountDusk=0.2
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountNight=0.2
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountInteriorDay=0.2
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountInteriorNight=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountDawn=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountSunrise=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountDay=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountSunset=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountDusk=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountNight=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountInteriorDay=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountInteriorNight=0.2
BasicGrassFakeLightDawn=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightSunrise=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightDay=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightSunset=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightDusk=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightNight=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightInteriorDay=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightInteriorNight=0.0
FakeLightDawn=0.1
FakeLightSunrise=0.2
FakeLightDay=0.25
FakeLightSunset=0.2
FakeLightDusk=0.1
FakeLightNight=0.0
FakeLightInteriorDay=0.0
FakeLightInteriorNight=0.0

Edited August 4, 2022 by mooit

[z929669]

1 hour ago, mooit said:

Yes I'm using  ENB-CG, but I don't know what other settings you are talking about, besides these I posted above. 

These are the only other settings I see, but then, they are different from the advice you mentioned.

Cathedral Landscapes Complex Grass for ENB (by z929669) - Skyrim SE Mods - Step Modifications | Change The Game

You just said before;
--------------------------
 Either disable it or follow this advice
--------------------------

So that is what I did, followed the advice, but the grass is really off, very bright in the distance.

P.S. So I should instead make my DynDOLOD RGB settings from the link I posted above, not 1.0 for everything as before?

; grass LOD brightness multipliers
GrassBrightnessTopR=0.415
GrassBrightnessTopG=0.365
GrassBrightnessTopB=0.315
; make bottom darker to fake shadowing
GrassBrightnessBottomR=0.245
GrassBrightnessBottomG=0.195
GrassBrightnessBottomB=0.140

I guess I should also edit the enbseries.ini I am using to look the same?

[COMPLEXGRASS]
SpecularMultiplierDawn=1.0
SpecularMultiplierSunrise=1.0
SpecularMultiplierDay=1.0
SpecularMultiplierSunset=1.0
SpecularMultiplierDusk=1.0
SpecularMultiplierNight=1.0
SpecularMultiplierInteriorDay=1.0
SpecularMultiplierInteriorNight=1.0
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountDawn=0.2
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountSunrise=0.4
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountDay=0.8
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountSunset=0.4
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountDusk=0.2
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountNight=0.2
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountInteriorDay=0.2
SubSurfaceScatteringAmountInteriorNight=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountDawn=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountSunrise=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountDay=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountSunset=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountDusk=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountNight=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountInteriorDay=0.2
BasicGrassSSSAmountInteriorNight=0.2
BasicGrassFakeLightDawn=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightSunrise=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightDay=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightSunset=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightDusk=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightNight=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightInteriorDay=0.0
BasicGrassFakeLightInteriorNight=0.0
FakeLightDawn=0.1
FakeLightSunrise=0.2
FakeLightDay=0.25
FakeLightSunset=0.2
FakeLightDusk=0.1
FakeLightNight=0.0
FakeLightInteriorDay=0.0
FakeLightInteriorNight=0.0

The advice you are linking from the Nexus mod description is the same advice essentially. It's all linking to those two posts.

Keep the DynDOLOD grass brightness settings at 1.0 for all. This ensures that grass billboards are the same color as full grass without any bias. Only adjust those if needed much later (probably won't need to though).

Yes, use that COMPLEXGRASS config in your enbseries.ini.

What's happening is that you are using a different ENB probably with other settings that impact the grass in the distance. Your weather mod will also impact this. All you need to do is find the proper TexGen grass direct/ambient for your setup. Since it's way too bright, you need to try reducing both by half and so on until you get a match.

You tried 100/10, so try 50/5 and then 25/2 until the grass brightness is the same. The point is that you want very high direct relative to ambient to get LOD grass that works decently with CG.

---

EDIT: You may wind up with something like 35/8 or whatever. Once you have the correct brightness and contrast in the distant grass, you can make subtle adjustments to the top/bottom DynDOLOD grass settings. These settings are specifically to fine tune grass tint if ENB alters colors differently for grass. This could happen if your ENB uses high bloom values or customizations that impact grass (e.g., [GRASS]). Lots of ENB settings can impact grass to more/lesser degree.

[mooit]

Ok, I put the DynDOLOD grass brightness settings all at 1.0, and I put TexGen this time on 50/5.

Here's some screen shots of how it looks now, and much better too.

Just outside the Whiterun gate, standing on the walkway, the colors are much better matched.

But I did notice, when I turn, and look out in the distance, across the tundra, where I placed a red x, all of this area, the hue of the grass is slightly different. Maybe the color difference(s) won't be as noticeable in the screen shot, but it does look a lot better.

Then when I get out in the tundra, the grass colors look a lot better, the hue difference of the grass in the distance is much harder to notice, and much nicer looking.

 

For now I'm really happy, not sure if I can get it looking any better. Unless, maybe I play around with those  enbseries.ini settings?

These screen shots are using the latest PI-CHO ENB for Cathedral.

PI-CHO ENB ( Based on Silent Horizons) at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

I do see the grass pop into view still, but because it's now much better blended, it's very subtle, and if I'm not really looking for it, sometimes it's not really noticeable, so it really makes this effect now much better than before, which was very noticeable.

I tried the enbseries.ini settings, but they make the closer distance grass brighter, it throws off the colors with the PI-CHO ENB I'm using. Keeping the original settings looks better.

The first screen above is without the enbeseries.ini changes.

This screen shot is with the enbseries.ini changes, notice the area in the red box, compared to the above screen shot is brighter. No worries, the original ENB settings are fine.

THANKS

Edited August 4, 2022 by mooit

[mooit]

Now, as DoubleYou was pointing out before with the shadow distance, what should I have fShadowDistance set to?

Also, are there any settings on this link I should be following and adding to my INI?

Shadow Optimization for SSE - INI Tweaking - Step Modifications | Change The Game

THANKS

[DoubleYou]

I was misinterpreting due to compression of the video. Your shadow settings are fine. 

[z929669]

16 hours ago, mooit said:

But I did notice, when I turn, and look out in the distance, across the tundra, where I placed a red x, all of this area, the hue of the grass is slightly different. Maybe the color difference(s) won't be as noticeable in the screen shot, but it does look a lot better.

Then when I get out in the tundra, the grass colors look a lot better, the hue difference of the grass in the distance is much harder to notice, and much nicer looking.

As mentioned by DY, this is an artifact of ENB-CG not being fully supported by DynDOLOD in terms of like-normal faces. DynDOLOD's LOD grass normals don't behave the same, and ENB-CG does not trigger on LOD grass like it does loaded grass. It's not the grass tint that is different but rather the reflected light difference that seems like change in tint. The settings you have found are the best way to match CG and probably any normal grass in terms of LOD and loaded.

CG grass has normals that reflect light, and the impact of this varies by weather, ToD and PoV. Midday and night time should have best blending, while worst blending will be at sunrise/sunset, depending on the weather.

[mooit]

Ok, thanks guys, I guess it's done, oh and the EVT trees look good now, but I did use Darker mesh and Vanilla darker.

THANKS again for all the help, greatly appreciated!