Cathedral Landscapes - Increasing Density & Reducing Clumpy Look?

[mooit]

Is there any way to increase the density of the grass in Cathedral, meaning, removing a lot of the gaps in between the grass and making it look fuller?

I've been playing with iMinGrassSize but it's not changing anything, I'm not sure if what I'm asking for can be done, because this is how the grass is designed, which I was thinking has to do with keeping it performance friendly.

I've looked at a lot of grass mods out there, Cathedral seems to have more gaps in between the grass, than any other grass mods I've used. Because of this, I've noticed, depending on the lighting and angle you are looking at the grass, it can sometimes appear very clupmy/lumpy looking.

Here's a screen shot sitting on the horse, looking down at the grass. I place red circles in many areas, not all areas, these gaps I am referring to.

I was also talking about this in another post, someone mentioned this is the ENB causing it, it's not the ENB, I've tested this without an ENB, and I still see clumps of grass when looking at it from different angels and different lighting.

Here's a screen shot of the clumpy look to the grass I am referring to. (Please disregard the green circles, they were placed there for another issue.)

Here in this screen shot, the time of day and lighting has changed slightly in the game, and now the grass looks fuller. (The lighting change is subtle, and not noticeable in the screen shot, but it changed the effect of how the grass looked)

 

So, Cathedral's grass is the only one I see like this, any solution, so it always looks full, and not clumpy?

THANKS

Edited July 4, 2022 by mooit

[z929669]

What is your iMinGrassSize  setting in those screens? What values have you tried? Some of this looks like your ENB. Obviously, use 100% for grass LOD for fuller LOD grass. Step has recommended NGIO settings as well (seach "no grass" on wiki).

Try out the Cathedral Landscapes Complex Grass mod. My grass does not look like that, and I use CL with Complex Grass (see previous screens I have shared)

Also, if you are using NGIO, a couple of it's settings override iMinGrassSise in the INI (e.g., OverwriteMinGrassSize).

Also, other mods can provide INI settings, so you need to check MO for all mods loading an INI (look on plugins viewer to discover them and edit accordingly)

---

The Grass LOD Guide actually has the best settings for NGIO with comments

[mooit]

I was playing with 20,40,60

As I mentioned, it's not the ENB that does this, I get the same effects with Cathedral without an ENB. Cathedral seems to be designed less dense, with all these gaps in the grass, the gaps cause this effect, nothing else.

Go sit on your horse and look down at the grass, you'll see all the gaps too, this is the problem, nothing else, which appears to be the design of the grass. I don't think people are really looking at their grass as much as I am to notice these things. I also see it more noticeable for some reason with the brown tundra compared to the green.

I wasn't overwriting the grass size with NGIO.

I don't have or use any other mods that have INI that needs adjusting/tweaking for grass, or anything that would effect this.

I've gone through everything in the Grass LOD Guide too.

SkyrimSE:Grass LOD Guide - Step Mods | Change The Game (stepmodifications.org)

THANKS

[mooit]

Here are two screen shots without any ENB.

Here is the grass in a brighter/lighter condition, when it appears clumpy.

Now, the time of day and lighting changed a little darker and the grass now appears fuller.

I'm sure we all understand how grass can take on a different look at different times of day, lighting and the angles, but the problem here is, I'm not talking about extreme differences in any of these, that the grass should appear so clumpy and then full, especially at these short viewing distances.

This kills the realism/immersion of the game and how the grass should look.

I don't know how I could have something in my settings create this effect, because I'm thinking, if the grass is full, then it's going to always look full, or if it's just clumpy, then it will always look clumpy.

THANKS

Edited July 4, 2022 by mooit

[mooit]

Here's the Green Tundra installed, and I've personally always picked it, because it shows less clumpy in brighter lighting.

Here the grass appears slightly clumpy in brighter light. (The day time brightness is the same as the above picture using the brown tundra)

Here the lighting is slightly darker, and now the grass appears fuller.

Maybe 'Full' might not be the best choice of words, if you scroll back and forth quickly between these two pictures, you can still make out the areas, but I guess to me, the illusion is that the darker lighting does make the grass appear more natural and not as blotchy/clumpy looking, therefore I used the word 'Full'.

If we can also throw gamma and saturation out there, it looks like in slightly brighter lighting, the grass looks a little over saturated, so maybe some gamma/saturation settings somewhere could make the grass look more natural in all lighting/settings.

I've used Cathedral Landscapes since it's been around, on probably 12 different setups in MO2, on both SE and AE, and I've always seen this problem, this is the main reason I've never used Cathedral Landscapes, because I've never been able to figure out how to change this and keep the grass looking more natural.

THANKS

Edited July 4, 2022 by mooit

[z929669]

1 hour ago, mooit said:

Here's the Green Tundra installed, and I've personally always picked it, because it shows less clumpy in brighter lighting.

Here the grass appears slightly clumpy in brighter light. (The day time brightness is the same as the above picture using the brown tundra)

Here the lighting is slightly darker, and now the grass appears fuller.

Maybe 'Full' might not be the best choice of words, if you scroll back and forth quickly between these two pictures, you can still make out the areas, but I guess to me, the illusion is that the darker lighting does make the grass appear more natural and not as blotchy/clumpy looking, therefore I used the word 'Full'.

If we can also throw gamma and saturation out there, it looks like in slightly brighter lighting, the grass looks a little over saturated, so maybe some gamma/saturation settings somewhere could make the grass look more natural in all lighting/settings.

I've used Cathedral Landscapes since it's been around, on probably 12 different setups in MO2, on both SE and AE, and I've always seen this problem, this is the main reason I've never used Cathedral Landscapes, because I've never been able to figure out how to change this and keep the grass looking more natural.

THANKS

If you use NGIO, always use it's INI settings where they override to guarantee your settings are seen in game:

OverwriteGrassDistance = 6144    ;Optional. This overrides skyrimprefs.ini.
OverwriteGrassFadeRange = 14128    ;Optional. This overrides skyrim.ini.
OverwriteMinGrassSize = 20    ;Optional. This overrides skyrim.ini.

[mooit]

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

If you use NGIO, always use it's INI settings where they override to guarantee your settings are seen in game:

OverwriteGrassDistance = 6144    ;Optional. This overrides skyrimprefs.ini.
OverwriteGrassFadeRange = 14128    ;Optional. This overrides skyrim.ini.
OverwriteMinGrassSize = 20    ;Optional. This overrides skyrim.ini.

I used the NGIO settings, this didn't change anything.

But if you're just making a suggestion to use NGIO like this, ok.

THANKS

Edited July 5, 2022 by mooit

[z929669]

3 hours ago, mooit said:

I was playing with 20,40,60

As I mentioned, it's not the ENB that does this, I get the same effects with Cathedral without an ENB. Cathedral seems to be designed less dense, with all these gaps in the grass, the gaps cause this effect, nothing else.

Go sit on your horse and look down at the grass, you'll see all the gaps too, this is the problem, nothing else, which appears to be the design of the grass. I don't think people are really looking at their grass as much as I am to notice these things. I also see it more noticeable for some reason with the brown tundra compared to the green.

I wasn't overwriting the grass size with NGIO.

I don't have or use any other mods that have INI that needs adjusting/tweaking for grass, or anything that would effect this.

I've gone through everything in the Grass LOD Guide too.

SkyrimSE:Grass LOD Guide - Step Mods | Change The Game (stepmodifications.org)

THANKS

So you are not using NGIO to overwrite all grass INI settings ...

1 hour ago, mooit said:

I used the NGIO settings, this didn't change anything.

But if you're just making a suggestion to use NGIO like this, ok.

THANKS

AND, you are using NGIO to overwrite grass INI settings.

I hope you realize, that with this kind of feedback, it's impossible to assist. may as well shoot in the dark

[mooit]

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

So you are not using NGIO to overwrite all grass INI settings ...

AND, you are using NGIO to overwrite grass INI settings.

I hope you realize, that with this kind of feedback, it's impossible to assist. may as well shoot in the dark

 

I didn't elaborate very well, I did overwrite the settings with NGIO a few times testing it out, and a few times I didn't let it overwrite settings, sorry for not explaining that better my mistake. So basically you could say I tried it several times with and without NGIO settings.

 

Edited July 5, 2022 by mooit

[mooit]

When I look back and think more on this, and look at the grass up close, in greater detail, I see a lot of gaps in the grass, and I think this is the purpose here, to have less grass being rendered, to make it more performance friendly.

I've done in the past some of my own modding, creating models in 3D Studio Max, and looking further at this, I don't believe Skyrim has the capability of simply extending grass into other regions that are empty. This looks like more modeling work would need to be done to fill these blanks in.

I think the only thing that can be done here, is with various lighting options/settings, try and change these, so at least in certain lighting conditions in the game, the grass doesn't become over saturated and give the illusion of looking more patchy/clumpy looking, as show in a screen shot.

I think for now I just need to find a grass mod that has more grass models filling in spaces, unless someone has a trick up their sleeve on accomplishing this?

THANKS

 

[Tyrthemis]

On 7/5/2022 at 4:03 PM, mooit said:

When I look back and think more on this, and look at the grass up close, in greater detail, I see a lot of gaps in the grass, and I think this is the purpose here, to have less grass being rendered, to make it more performance friendly.

I've done in the past some of my own modding, creating models in 3D Studio Max, and looking further at this, I don't believe Skyrim has the capability of simply extending grass into other regions that are empty. This looks like more modeling work would need to be done to fill these blanks in.

I think the only thing that can be done here, is with various lighting options/settings, try and change these, so at least in certain lighting conditions in the game, the grass doesn't become over saturated and give the illusion of looking more patchy/clumpy looking, as show in a screen shot.

I think for now I just need to find a grass mod that has more grass models filling in spaces, unless someone has a trick up their sleeve on accomplishing this?

THANKS

 

Hey, I had a similar problem.  do you have ANY grass mods later in your load order? Even if they don't overwrite cathedral landscape's FILES, if they have a iMinGrassSize= ini tweak, it may overwrite cathedral landscapes INI TWEAK.  Personally, I had 3D pine grass that had an ini tweak (iMinGrassSize=20), when I adjusted that, I could clearly see a difference in the cathedral landscapes grass density.  I hope this helps my fellow modder

[mooit]

Thanks for the reply, I'm now using Folkvangr, which I've combined with Folkvangr - Grass Green Patch, and Tamrielic Textures.