TESTING ENBSeries Glow re-Maps (by TechAngel85)

[TechAngel85]

Discussion topic:
ENBSeries Glow re-Maps by TechAngel85
Wiki Link

---

Provides texture patches for mods with glow maps. These patches relocate ENBSeries' control of their glow from its WindowLight feature to its ObjectGlow feature. This decouples these glow maps from the window glow. In turn, this allows authors and users to alter the window glow without affecting the glow of dozens of other things that would normally get wrapped up into the WindowLight feature. This mod is meant to companion Particle Patch's "Glow Maps for ENB" optional file.

---

Suggested Installation

For testing for Step, this mod should overwrite everything, since these glow maps are modifications of those provided by (winning) mods in Step:

1. Particle Patch
2. ...
3. Skyrim Realistic Overhaul
4. Particle Patch - Glow Maps for ENB
5. ...
6. ENBSeries Glow re-Maps (overwrites all conflicting mods)

 

[z929669]

Tagged for testing to keep it on the radar.

[z929669]

@TechAngel85 Your mod's options have me wondering if we should be using ENB particle lighting for Chaurus eggs/sacs, but our instructions for BSF are to not install the Chaurus option. IIRC, you had suggested not using the Chaurus option in BSF, so do you have advice on this?

EDIT: Also, BSF applies to the Rudy HQ for Chaurus, which we aren't using.

[TechAngel85]

On 12/8/2024 at 9:46 PM, z929669 said:

@TechAngel85 Your mod's options have me wondering if we should be using ENB particle lighting for Chaurus eggs/sacs, but our instructions for BSF are to not install the Chaurus option. IIRC, you had suggested not using the Chaurus option in BSF, so do you have advice on this?

EDIT: Also, BSF applies to the Rudy HQ for Chaurus, which we aren't using.

Frankly, I have no idea why that would have been recommended. Could have been something up with testing, but nothing on our forum topic suggests any of that. I remember Rudy telling me they were going to fix all of their meshes, but that has never happened so it could have been something to do around that too. I find it disappointing that Rudy hasn't returned to all their mods to fix this. At this point, doesn't look like they ever will.

On another note, Gamwich gave permission for all their mods, so I will be adding those over my "weekend" (Wed/Thus). I think that will cover all the mods in the Guide.

[z929669]

9 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

Frankly, I have no idea why that would have been recommended. Could have been something up with testing, but nothing on our forum topic suggests any of that. I remember Rudy telling me they were going to fix all of their meshes, but that has never happened so it could have been something to do around that too. I find it disappointing that Rudy hasn't returned to all their mods to fix this. At this point, doesn't look like they ever will.

On another note, Gamwich gave permission for all their mods, so I will be adding those over my "weekend" (Wed/Thus). I think that will cover all the mods in the Guide.

So it seems like we should be revisiting the ENB mesh mods in the guide as well as any dependent/conflicting glow-map mods (like possibly this mod, PP glow maps, and now Embers XD glow maps). I'm trying to determine what meshes each of these glow map mods expect. I assume Rudy fixed any applicable PP and Embers meshes with the wSkeever tweaks, since they are updated a lot. I want to look at all the meshes to see which are using the glow maps and correct/incorrect flags.

These are the mods providing ENB-compatible meshes, except for the glow-map mods I'm testing (many of the mesh mods also provide their own textures).

It also looks like our BSF instructions need an update.

Agree that Rudy has a bit of a mess to clean up, but I suspect it won't ever be done to keeps BSF relevant.

[TechAngel85]

On 12/10/2024 at 12:41 PM, z929669 said:

So it seems like we should be revisiting the ENB mesh mods in the guide as well as any dependent/conflicting glow-map mods (like possibly this mod, PP glow maps, and now Embers XD glow maps). I'm trying to determine what meshes each of these glow map mods expect. I assume Rudy fixed any applicable PP and Embers meshes with the wSkeever tweaks, since they are updated a lot. I want to look at all the meshes to see which are using the glow maps and correct/incorrect flags.

These are the mods providing ENB-compatible meshes, except for the glow-map mods I'm testing (many of the mesh mods also provide their own textures).

It also looks like our BSF instructions need an update.

Agree that Rudy has a bit of a mess to clean up, but I suspect it won't ever be done to keeps BSF relevant.

Meshes shouldn't be an issue unless they are providing a custom texture path to their own glow maps. Once the ones for Gamwich's mods are done, all the conflicts within the Guide should be covered (unless there are custom paths with custom meshes).

[z929669]

Posting some testing results here. I'm using this mod, the Particle Patch glow maps, and the Embers XD optional glow maps (all recently modified with the black alpha channel to decouple from WINDOWLIGHT under ENB 0.503+). Only the chaurus eggs and embers are impacted in these screens.

First, this is a compare under Step 2.3 with Step Heavy ENB: default glow maps  >>  re-glow maps

Notice that with no other changes besides swapping the new glow maps, the chaurus eggs are brighter, and the embers are a bit dimmer with a higher 'curve' effect (more saturated and reddish embers). Window lights are not different in either case, as expected.

Next are the impact of changing WINDOWLIGHT and OBJECTGLOW settings (pay attention to the IntensityInteriorDay settings for each of these parameters in the screenshots):

default glow maps

re-glow maps:

 

My conclusion is that the re-glow maps decouple these objects from the impact of WINDOWLIGHT settings, but the OBJECTGLOW settings have no impact on the re-glow maps just as they had no impact on the default glow maps prior to ENB 0.503. WRONG. I was testing changes to the weather-specific config in the GUI with OBJECTGLOW > IgnoreWeatherSystem=true in enbseries.ini, duh. I will update this post or repeat this in a proper post when I have time

There's either some other setting or dependency that's missing (), or this is the intended behavior (), IDK.

Conclusion: unless the OBJECTGLOW settings can control the visuals of the relevant objects (chaurus eggs and embers in this case), the re-glow maps don't seem to have any benefit, because I think the eggs are overly bright, and the embers are overly 'curvy' (too dim/red).

[z929669]

22 hours ago, z929669 said:

Posting some testing results here. I'm using this mod, the Particle Patch glow maps, and the Embers XD optional glow maps (all recently modified with the black alpha channel to decouple from WINDOWLIGHT under ENB 0.503+). Only the chaurus eggs and embers are impacted in these screens.

First, this is a compare under Step 2.3 with Step Heavy ENB: default glow maps  >>  re-glow maps

Notice that with no other changes besides swapping the new glow maps, the chaurus eggs are brighter, and the embers are a bit dimmer with a higher 'curve' effect (more saturated and reddish embers). Window lights are not different in either case, as expected.

Next are the impact of changing WINDOWLIGHT and OBJECTGLOW settings (pay attention to the IntensityInteriorDay settings for each of these parameters in the screenshots):

default glow maps

re-glow maps:

 

My conclusion is that the re-glow maps decouple these objects from the impact of WINDOWLIGHT settings, but the OBJECTGLOW settings have no impact on the re-glow maps just as they had no impact on the default glow maps prior to ENB 0.503.

There's either some other setting or dependency that's missing, or this is the intended behavior, IDK.

Conclusion: unless the OBJECTGLOW settings can control the visuals of the relevant objects (chaurus eggs and embers in this case), the re-glow maps don't seem to have any benefit, because I think the eggs are overly bright, and the embers are overly 'curvy' (too dim/red).

According to Mindflux, OBJECTGLOW should have an impact. It may be the latest version of ENB 503 broke it, or what I'm thinking is that this effect may be reliant on UseOriginalPostProcessing=false. The Step presets use UseOriginalPostProcessing=true.

More testing required.

[z929669]

Update to my last: Changing UseOriginalPostProcessing to 'false' has no impact. I am still unable to affect relevant objects (with black alpha) with OBJECTGLOW settings.

[z929669]

Update to my update: I had neglected to toggle OFF IgnoreWeatherSystem under OBJECTGLOW, and all of the settings in my previous post are edits to the ENB weather-specific configs (as shown in the screens) .

So I will need to update my compares when I find the time. It all works just fine

[Kattmandu]

Curious, what file is the [OBJECTGLOW] section found in?  I don't see it in enbseries.ini nor do I see it in the rainstorm.ini file shown in your screenshots.  Did you have to manually add that section?

[z929669]

13 hours ago, Kattmandu said:

Curious, what file is the [OBJECTGLOW] section found in?  I don't see it in enbseries.ini nor do I see it in the rainstorm.ini file shown in your screenshots.  Did you have to manually add that section?

It's in my screenshots. The one or two it isn't is because it's just not in view.

Update to ENBSeries 503, and run the game once. Then check your INI files again to see any updated effects/parameters at the end of the file or the relevant section. They might only appear in ENBSeries.ini. I will soon be updating the Step ENB files once I finish testing, and they will have everything.

TIP: Use WinMerge to compare your files/folders before/after they update.

[z929669]

So here's my testing results using Step Heavy ENB. Note the WINDOWLIGHT and OBJECTGLOW settings for IntensityInteriorDay and CurveInteriorDay (the settings that apply in this situation and ToD):

The following demonstrates coupling of OBJECTGLOW to WINDOWLIGHT settings due to use of default glow maps (no alpha):

Default glow maps (no alpha, ENB 503, Step Heavy preset)

Default Step  >> no WINDOWLIGHT  >>  high WINDOWLIGHT  >>  no OBJECTGLOW  >>  high OBJECTGLOW

 

---

The following demonstrates DEcoupling of OBJECTGLOW from WINDOWLIGHT settings due to use of modified glow maps (black alpha):

Reglow maps (black alpha, ENB 503, Step Heavy preset)

Default Step  >> no WINDOWLIGHT  >>  high WINDOWLIGHT  >>  no OBJECTGLOW  >>  high OBJECTGLOW

 

---

The following is a comparison of default Step (glow maps with no alpha) to Step using the modified reglow maps (glow maps with black alpha):

Default Step (no alpha glow maps)  >>  reglow maps (black alpha) with optimal intensity/curve:

 

 

Conclusion: The reglow maps (with black alpha) work nicely in terms of decoupling the WINDOWLIGHT settings of these chaurus egs and Embers XD embers, but the quality of the glow of the Embers XD reglow maps is worse than when they are controlled by WINDOWLIGHT for some reason. The chaurus eggs seem fine. However, the embers are red shifted a bit and not quite bright enough. I'd like to be able to increase the OBJECTGLOW intensity to maybe 0.30 and reduce the curve < 1.00 to get rid of the red shift. Baybe some other settings woiuld be useful to fine tune OBJECTGLOW settings.

---

EDIT: It's worth noting that the chaurus eggs (provided by both this mod and Particle Patch) reglow maps work great, and there's no issues as with embers. The same may be true of the other reglow maps provided by this mod and Particle Patch. The issue seen here is solely with respect to Embers XD reglow maps which neither this mod nor Particle Patch include.

Also note that Particle Patch includes all the reglow maps of this mod and many more, so I haven't tested if there's any difference between the two with respect to anything but the chaurus eggs (no difference, results not shown here). This mod is overwriting Particle Patch in all the screens. However, this mod's redone glow maps are specific to the mods used in Step (see "Compatibility" section under this mod's Nexus Description), whereas the Particle Patch revises the vanilla glow maps, so this mod should override all conflicts, including Particle Patch.

[z929669]

I've discovered the Deathbell does not react to ENB OBJECTGLOW due to the Tree_Anim shader flag in the NIF. Also, the NIF doesn't map the glow map, even though it exists.