Cloud Flicker & Banding I Only See With NAT III

[mooit]

Hi,

I'm running SSE 1.6.640.0, and NAT.ENB - ESP WEATHER PLUGIN v3.1.1C - Fixed.

In my setup with MO2, I have disabled every mod little by little. I removed all plugins from \Data\SKSE\plugins, I have also started a new game to test this with, and I've also started the game from Steam, to make a default Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini. I also use DynDOLOD 3, and I disabled xLODGen, TexGen and the DynDOLOD output too. NAT III also has a NAT-ENB.ini and I've changed settings in this, and I've even removed it.

I use EVLaS, the only thing I've done with this is change PerformancePreset Default = to Balanced, Fast, Faster, but of course I also disabled EVLaS in MO2.

I have tried absolutely everything I know, what else is there to do, especially when you disable all the mods and use default Skyrim INI files, and test this on a new game save?

On top of all the troubleshooting I have done, I only see this Cloud Flicker on the mountains, and banding in the sky with NAT III, NAT III's own ENB, and NAT III ENBs. I've never seen this with Cathedral, Obsidian, or Azurite.

Here are two videos I uploaded to Vimeo - ( If you don't know, click the V to watch them on Vimeo).

Cloud Flicker

Banding - The banding is in between the trees at Whiterun and the mountain.

This has seriously driven me nutts, trying to figure this out, I have no idea what else to do, and I'd really love to use NAT III. Help would be greatly appreciated until this is solved. I have been playing with this on and off since the beginning of the year.

And, I think to myself, if this is the mods I'm using, or my load order, then why doesn't it happen with every other weather and enb mod, makes no sense to me... hmm

I read this on NAT III's Nexus;

Q: There is some sort of light flickering on the grass around my character or there is some noise on some objects and walls ?
A: Pronounced flickering comes from the screen space raytracing used in ENB and only happens to few people for unknown reason. You can either lower the interior ILAmount values from the enb left panel/SSAO-IL tab or use the LOW or MEDIUM version, This will fix the issue but will also reduce the raytraced lighting on the environment. Another method is to use the games TAA anti aliasing which will greatly reduced the visibility of the shimmering. Regarding noise/pixels it comes from the resolution and the nature of the effect and there is no real solution about it.

I wonder if this flickering being described here, could also be the culprit? Otherwise the only thing I can think of, is that actually the new game I started was using Obsidian, and if I'm going to switch over to NAT using DynDOLOD, I need to re run DynDOLOD over?

Or an issue is baked into the game Save, I need to re run over xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLOD and start a new game, or reload the save over after re doing these? hmm

THANKS

Edited June 28 by mooit

[DoubleYou]

Maybe increase Particles, Neverfade distance, or Object fade distance in INI settings could possibly help the clouds.

The "banding" between the trees at Whiterun and the mountain is actually coming from the plume of Red Mountain. I remember because this bothered me too. I forget exactly how we are solving the issue, but I think there may have been a fix on Worldspace Transition Fixes page?

[mooit]

Ok on the INI settings...

OH the Plume, wow, never knew anything about this. I actually installed the DLC2 Vvardenfell 3D Plume in the DynDOLOD Resources, because I'm not using any Step patching, I assumed that was the reason it's not listed in the Step Guide to install. I wonder if adding it in the DynDOLOD Resources causes the issue?

OH sheesh WTT, that's another can of worms I'm also dealing with... LOL I use Water for ENB, and I've been using it for years. I stopped playing SSE several years ago, when I got serious on the modding, this is all I've been doing, and I've used Water for ENB for years, but since I've only run around a few places on the map, I haven't had a chance, of course to see a lot, and I just realized that WTT and Water for ENB are not compatible, so I need to look at making a Wrye Bash patch, if I can do it, otherwise I'll have to not use WTT, while I wait hopefully on someone else patching it.

THANKS

Edited June 29 by mooit

[z929669]

I think the cloud 'flicker'  and also the 'banding' could be due to ENB. You can tell that it's a proximity issue to the PC when panning left/right. It's much like the fog problem... and may be directly related to that. Test by toggling ENB off using shift+F12 to see if the problem goes away without ENB. If ENB is the cause, read on.

I forget exactly how I resolved, but IIRC, these need all settings as indicated in all weathers and main enbseries.ini

[ENVIRONMENT]

FogCurveMultiplier ≥ 1.0

FogAmountMultiplier ≤ 1.0

 

It could also be related to the cloud* settings under [Sky] or settings under [VOLUMETRICFOG]

 

There's also some testing info on our WTT mod page if that's of interest. We're not using any fix, AFAIK other than hiding the plume from Tamriel (I think, it's been a while).

[mooit]

5 hours ago, z929669 said:

I think the cloud 'flicker'  and also the 'banding' could be due to ENB. You can tell that it's a proximity issue to the PC when panning left/right. It's much like the fog problem... and may be directly related to that. Test by toggling ENB off using shift+F12 to see if the problem goes away without ENB. If ENB is the cause, read on.

I forget exactly how I resolved, but IIRC, these need all settings as indicated in all weathers and main enbseries.ini

[ENVIRONMENT]

FogCurveMultiplier ≥ 1.0

FogAmountMultiplier ≤ 1.0

 

It could also be related to the cloud* settings under [Sky] or settings under [VOLUMETRICFOG]

 

There's also some testing info on our WTT mod page if that's of interest. We're not using any fix, AFAIK other than hiding the plume from Tamriel (I think, it's been a while).

 

I'm now not using  WTT, it conflicts with Water for ENB, so I uninstalled it.

For Neverfade and Object fade all I know are these; fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=327680.0000, fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000 and fLODFadeOutMultObjects=15.0000

I increased the Neverfade Distance, Obeject Fade, and Particle in Bethini Pie at Max, it didn't help.

I'm trying to correct this on Rudy ENB NAT III. I tried the Fog settings, didn't do anything. Rudy for Obisidian doesn't have this issue, so I took the entire enbseries.ini and swapped it out, and it still didn't do anything.

THANKS

Edited June 29 by mooit

[mooit]

Here's two screen shots, with alll the mods disabled, only a few so I could start the game. This time I am using NAT III with NAT III's ENB.

I could still see a very small amount of flicker, so there does appear to be this issue in Vanilla, but not noticeable, maybe this is just a game engine limitation/physics issue.

Also if I disable all the mods and only enable NAT III there are more clouds added to the mountains, and then I see the flickering. It looks like NAT III has more cloud coverage and introduces this.

It would be really GREAT, if someone wouldn't mind installing NAT III with everything else disabled on their load order to see if you notice the same thing? Because then I don't get how I see this with everything disabled, except the few mods I listed in the screen shots.

THANKS

Edited June 30 by mooit