ENB and Weather Mods

[Garfink]

I noticed that there are many ENBs that are based solely on ELFX and are not compatible with Climates of Tamriel.  Which makes sense because COT messes with color and if the ENB isn't designed with COT in mind you are going to have unpredictable colors in certain weather conditions.

 

With that in mind, I was wondering about weather mods like enhanced dynamic weather system, do all weather mods mess with color or can I use enhanced dynamic weather system (or other such vanilla weather mods) safely with any ENBs? Any general recommendation for weather with ENBs that don't like COT?

 

(It's just that my favorite ENBs just don't support COT or even the enb-weather mod and I really miss the many different weather patterns you get with COT and its adjutant mods.  The first time I got caught in a Supreme Storm blizzard was simply awesome!)

 

(partly answered my own question... just noticed that supreme storm is compatible with vanilla weather!)

[thunderclam]

There are a few ENBs that do fine with CoT or were designed with it in mind. Don't know about recent ones.

[Aiyen]

The main issue is that half the ones that say they work with CoT... never actually took the time to look how their preset looks with EVERY weather.

 

Also the main issue is that every CoT weather applies its own imagespace modifer (Think its own ENB) to alter the feel of the scene. This makes it impossible to adjust so every weather looks great. You have to settle for something in between. This for especially for Realvision. Its a nice piece of work in some weathers, but there are some where its just obvious that said weather would be better removed.

 

The only ENB that goes around this is one that uses the helper mod that was being experimented with a while back to provide a seperate enbseries.ini for every single weather, hence allowing every weather too look its best regardless of the others. (Think its called vividian ENB or something similar.) However the helper mod is not really super stable, and even less with longer mod lists.

 

A way to get around the above imagespace modifier issue is to remove the code that applies the imagespace modifiers (I am currently messing with that.). So far I am optimistic, its certainly easier to make more weathers look nice. Even got night vision working, however there are still other issues. For example interiors looking a bit off since well those image spaces obviously also dont work.

 

Once you are confident enough with tes5edit, you can technically just remove all weathers but the ones you like from the climate tabels in the .esm. They will then never appear ingame unless you force them. Ofc you need to know the formID´s of the weathers you like then. However CoT is somewhat smartly made and every weather type usually comes in a group where all weathers have the same look but different cloud coverage. Its like that most of the time.

[thunderclam]

Dang. RCRN is sounding better and better.

[johnnyboy88]

I like Phinix's ENB.

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24235/

 

It's designed with CoT in mind and I think it works rather well. I also use ELFX and I think it looks really good.

[Mangaclub]

The helper mod actually got quiet stable , have a look at Vividian ENB: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/36067/?

I fiddled out all 500 weather ID's from CoT and grouped them in a sensefull way so i cover all of them (ENB just allows max 100 weather inis).

The recent Version of Vividian is made with the 0.213 ENB but also works perfectly with the latest one.

 

Edit: Just looking at Surpreme storms, looke nice! will integrate that with the next update ;)

[Aiyen]

Welcome to the chaos... I mean STEP forums Mangaclub!

Glad to hear that you got it stable. Sadly its not what most people reported back, and for now any development on it is discontinued.

Also with the rather long mod lists that people use here then it might not be super stable. But I recommend to try it out, since your approach is a really nice one.

[Garfink]

The helper mod actually got quiet stable , have a look at Vividian ENB: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/36067/?

I fiddled out all 500 weather ID's from CoT and grouped them in a sensefull way so i cover all of them (ENB just allows max 100 weather inis).

The recent Version of Vividian is made with the 0.213 ENB but also works perfectly with the latest one.

 

Edit: Just looking at Surpreme storms, looke nice! will integrate that with the next update ;)

Try out Supreme Storms, Supreme Fog and Morning Fog together with OR without COT, they really add a lot of atmosphere and unique weather to the game.  Looks great too.  Volumetric fog is so hard to do and I think the author has done a great job given the limitations of the game engine.  The Blizzards and Torrential Rain is really well done and just makes the world so much harsher.  I personally think the Blizzards added in this mod really is NUTS and very much like the real thing, you can't see shite! 

[Mangaclub]

@Aiyen Thanks glad to be here ;) Yes i had times where i had every 2 minutes some CtD but those where mostly some really bad mods.

 

@Garfink Ok i installed Surpreme storms it certainly pimps up the skyrim snowstorms but i see no difference in the rainy storm, strange things that is.

Surpreme Fog and morning fog i certainly test how they work with the ENB, ill keep you updated. Btw, C64 and Amiga rullez ;)

[EssArrBee]

Hey mangaclub, you use the weather helper mod with your ENB, and I was wondering if the [TIMEOFDAY] and [DAYNIGHT] sections have anything to do with the weathers for ENB? I've been trying to find info to update the ENB guide wiki and don't really see to many specifics about [WEATHER], [TIMEOFDAY], and [DAYNIGHT], though I haven't had time to read every forum thread.

[Aiyen]

Time of day set to true means that instead just day and night separation, you also have sunrise and sunset. Every weather have parameters in the CK for all stages, it was just ENB that originally did not have it included.

The Day night settings determine when those stages start and end. So you can make mornings longer/shorter etc.

The weather part only allows one to use the helper mod to give (almost) every single weather or group of weathers their own respective enbseries.ini file.

[Mangaclub]

Yea the Documentation of ENB is quiet obsolete. The TIMEOFDAY influences the weather indeed. It globally tells (in 24h format) on what time the Night, Day,Sundown and Sunrise settings shall apply and how long the transition between them should take. [NIGHTDAY] variables specify the thresholds that determine when ENBseries uses its Day and Night values and has been used before TIMEOFDAY. anyhow it measured this by looking at the color of the sky gradient so it was not really Climates of tamriel compatible with custom skys. Thats why i never used it and i think TIMEOFDAY is more precise anyway as it measures by time.

[EssArrBee]

Thanks for the help Mangaclub, that is useful. Is the time measured from 0.0 to 23.9 or 1.0 to 24.0?

[Mangaclub]

in this case 0.0 to 23.9.

[prod80]

I have on my mod page a fully functional ToD ENB setup for CoT/ELFX/ELE using a heavily modified (edited fx files, added code, etc) Kountervibe ENB of Kyo... I don't see any issues with CoT weathers as long as people do NOT enable the DisableWrongSkyMath, as that is intended to fix vanilla weather bugs, and not CoT. Lot of ENBs have that setting enabled and try and balance for CoT which will work in all weathers except Cloudy weather. It's basically impossible with that setting enabled to balance against all CoT weathers using a single setting.

 

Btw ToD works a bit different and is connected to ENightDayFactor in enbeffect.fx which ranges from 0 to 1 in 0.01 intervals. It's connected to your TIMEOFDAY settings for Day and Night (eg. 13:00 and 1:00) and the curve depends on your settings for Sunrise and Sunset. The settings for Sunrise/Sunset duration is the time BEFORE the sun actually rises or AFTER the sun has set that it will fade in or out your settings under *Sunrise or *Sunset

 

EG. TIMEOFDAY settings of (this is for CoT):

 

DawnDuration=1.5 //CoT Original this should be 2.0 but I think 1.5 works better with ENB

SunriseTime=7.50

DayTime=13.5

SunsetTime=19.00

DuskDuration=1.5 //Same comment as above

NightTime=1.0

 

Basically translates as:

 

1:00 = Pure night time

This will last until 6:00 (7:30 minus 1:30)

Sunrise settings will fade in between 6:00 and 7:30, reaching it's peak (7:30 is the sunrise time of CoT)

After 7:30 it will transition to Daytime values which reaches it's peak at 13:30 (13:15 is CoT original but I don't care)

Then goes to Sunset time, which reaches peak at 19:00

Dusk duration is the setting that says the duration after Sunset that it will take to fade Sunset settings into Night settings

 

There is a set curve that cannot be adjusted to transition from Sunrise -> Day and Day -> Sunset, it's about 1.5 - 2 hours game time (or perhaps it's using the same duration for both, haven't tested that because it works well as configured above)

[Aiyen]

Now I know that "balancing CoT" is a subjective point, but with the sky fix on or off does not really matter. Since ultimately then the sky colors are just too diverse.

 

You cannot balance 5 different sets of base colors, with just one set of settings and then have all 5 look super epic! You either make separate settings, or reduce the amount of base colors you have to work from.

 

As for the ToD settings then yeah you got it right. As for the dawn/dusk duration's. This defines how long the sunset and sunrise settings are used for. They are there to help make the transition from night to day go a lot smoother, and allows for unique clouds during the phase, and unique color schemes etc.

 

You can think of it as dawn starts at a set hour, then for the duration those settings apply, peaking in intensity in the middle of the duration.