Best of ENB_Visual Comparison

[frihyland]

Best of ENB_Visual Comparison

 

Download the files and compare for yourself, and discuss here.

[z929669]

Thanks for posting this. Will take a look and provide some feedback.

[jmad75]

Yes, thank you! Downloading now...

[stoppingby4now]

I'll provide some more detailed analysis later, but of the lot of those screenshots, akibo and kaliko provide the best consistent look leaning towards realism. Too many of those are over saturated, and a couple are under saturated, though they would lend themselves to a more vanilla look.

[z929669]

I looked at all of these in some detail, and found that Fimbulvinter consistently offered the most realistic look indoors and outdoors, day and night. RCRN was a close second, but was just too bright for me in the night shots. Opethfeldt desaturated was also very nice (as were the other versions of that one); however, these were even more overly bright in the night shots. 

 

Many of the others were WAY oversaturated and intense. I prefer muted colors, as this is more in keeping with reality (outside of the Chinese New Year anyway).

 

SYNERGY has lots of promise I think, although this one is a bit TOO dark, and the contrast seems a bit too high as well. I assume that each of these can be tweaked though, right?

 

Anxious to see other implementations as well (including Stayned's mod)

[stoppingby4now]

I looked at all of these in some detail' date=' and found that Fimbulvinter consistently offered the most realistic look indoors and outdoors, day and night. RCRN was a close second, but was just too bright for me in the night shots. Opethfeldt desaturated was also very nice (as were the other versions of that one); however, these were even more overly bright in the night shots.[/quote']

Fimbulvinter would be my third if I had to chose one, but I have to disagree that it's the most realistic. It's far too muted in a realistic sense for things such as fires, sky ambiance (dusk), aurora night sky illumination, ambient light reflection off water in cloudy conditions, etc.

 

I would put Fimbulvinter and Opehtfeldt up for vanilla look options, as that is what they best portray. I just find the vanilla look to be too dull, and prefer to go for more realism.

 

You also have to consider differences of time period if you want to be realistic. In today's world we have light pollution which causes all sorts of visual "changes" from brighter nights in cities, to seemingly muted colors during the day. When I go a couple miles into the mountains, it's a sea of color. Head back towards town, it gets more hazy.

 

I also tend to find that folks that think indoors scenes such as enb/1/Fimbulvinter ENB v2.2.bmp to be realistic are comparing to what they experience every day from modern day light sources. That fire looks more like an illuminated display than an actual fire pit.

[z929669]

I looked at all of these in some detail' date=' and found that Fimbulvinter consistently offered the most realistic look indoors and outdoors' date=' day and night. RCRN was a close second, but was just too bright for me in the night shots. Opethfeldt desaturated was also very nice (as were the other versions of that one); however, these were even more overly bright in the night shots.[/quote'']

Fimbulvinter would be my third if I had to chose one, but I have to disagree that it's the most realistic. It's far too muted in a realistic sense for things such as fires, sky ambiance (dusk), aurora night sky illumination, ambient light reflection off water in cloudy conditions, etc.

 

I would put Fimbulvinter and Opehtfeldt up for vanilla look options, as that is what they best portray. I just find the vanilla look to be too dull, and prefer to go for more realism.

 

You also have to consider differences of time period if you want to be realistic. In today's world we have light pollution which causes all sorts of visual "changes" from brighter nights in cities, to seemingly muted colors during the day. When I go a couple miles into the mountains, it's a sea of color. Head back towards town, it gets more hazy.

 

I also tend to find that folks that think indoors scenes such as enb/1/Fimbulvinter ENB v2.2.bmp to be realistic are comparing to what they experience every day from modern day light sources. That fire looks more like an illuminated display than an actual fire pit.

Hmmm, let us look again ...

 

... indoors A - F - K:

 

I have to say, that akimbo is much too red. Fire pits cast an orangeish glow, but that seems unrealistic. Same goes for Kalicola x100. Fimbulvinter is less saturated overall, the fire is brighter and the rest of the light in the room is insignificant compared to the fire pit. This is a bit too bright and unrealistic, behaving more like a modern light source. It is the reflected light and the lower red-saturation that I like about this one (and hate about the others). I'd like the fire pit of akimbo and the ambiance of Fimbulvinter or Opehtfeldt.

 

... and the outdoors at night:

 

 

Again, I think that akinbo and Kalicola are just too red and arty. Fimbulvinter has a much more "real" color temp, saturation level and darkness/detail ratio. All three of these handle the lighting pretty well though. There is just not so much red in the world though (given that the world of Tamriel is like Earth and Skyrim might be thought to resemble New Zealand's Southern Alps).

[frihyland]

I used Fimbulvinter for a while before I switched to a version of Vibrancy that had a similar look but slightly more saturation and slightly less contrast, sadly that version was discontinued.

[stoppingby4now]

Hmmm, let us look again ...

 

... indoors A - F - K:

 

I have to say, that akimbo is much too red. Fire pits cast an orangeish glow, but that seems unrealistic. Same goes for Kalicola x100. Fimbulvinter is less saturated overall, the fire is brighter and the rest of the light in the room is insignificant compared to the fire pit. This is a bit too bright and unrealistic, behaving more like a modern light source. It is the reflected light and the lower red-saturation that I like about this one (and hate about the others). I'd like the fire pit of akimbo and the ambiance of Fimbulvinter or Opehtfeldt.

Wood burning temperatures are typically just a little over 1000°C which is in the red (barely moving into orange) spectrum. When indoors, the temperature is slightly cooler due to the decrease in available oxygen when compared to outdoors. I don't find any of the individual ENB settings to be the perfectly ideal, but in the above scene, Akibo is the closest to realism that you are going to get form the available selections.

... and the outdoors at night:

 

 

Again, I think that akinbo and Kalicola are just too red and arty. Fimbulvinter has a much more "real" color temp, saturation level and darkness/detail ratio. All three of these handle the lighting pretty well though. There is just not so much red in the world though (given that the world of Tamriel is like Earth and Skyrim might be thought to resemble New Zealand's Southern Alps).

This is one area where time of day would really help. But, judging by the light that is coming through, this looks like dusk, and again I find Fimbulvinter to not get it right. You get much more orange reflection during this time as the sun sets, and with cloud cover it tends to be more pinkish. I have to side with Kalicola for providing the best definition of clouds and closer resembling what you would expect as the sun sets, particularly as there is enough weak spots in the clouds to let the color diffuse through. Fimbulvinter is far too dark and devoid of any color for the sun position.

 

My problem is there are certain scenes where I find Kalicola to be superior, while others Akibo. Fimbulvinter does what it does well, which is an under saturated (non-realistic) scene. Here is an example where Akibo provides the more realistic scene (A - F - K):

 

 

Kalicola is far too red. Akibo more accurately resembles the greater amount of ambient light reflection you get during snowfall, especially as it bounces off the cloud cover and the lake (though it needs more blue tint). Fimbulvinter is unrealistically grey and dead.

 

Overall I find Fimbulvinter to side much more with the Vanilla look, though in some cases it's a little too desaturated even for that (though I do find it's shadows to be one of the best among all of them). With a slight reduction in the red tint and improvement in shadows, Akibo would be the one to beat for realism amongst the choices..

[z929669]

Fimbulvinter does what it does well, which is an under saturated (non-realistic) scene. Here is an example where Akibo provides the more realistic scene (A - F - K):

 

 

Kalicola is far too red. Akibo more accurately resembles the greater amount of ambient light reflection you get during snowfall, especially as it bounces off the cloud cover and the lake (though it needs more blue tint). Fimbulvinter is unrealistically grey and dead.

 

Overall I find Fimbulvinter to side much more with the Vanilla look, though in some cases it's a little too desaturated even for that (though I do find it's shadows to be one of the best among all of them). With a slight reduction in the red tint and improvement in shadows, Akibo would be the one to beat for realism amongst the choices..

I agree that Akimbo would likely be the best choice of all if the red tint were significantly reduced overall. However, I do not think that Fimbulvinter is too gray and dead. That gunmetal grey color is so very realistic in the scenes above. There should be no red tint at all on a snowy, cloudy winter day, be it morning noon or evening. The middle pic above is most realistic IMO.

 

If you look at all of the EMB series, most mods add warmer reddish tones, and reds are the exception to the general rule of color in nature. Red is rare in nature on Earth accept where light is low or absent.

[JudgmentJay]

They should really use RCRN Classic or Pure instead of Legacy. Legacy is the closest to vanilla of the three presets, and the other two provide a darker image resulting in a much more dynamic picture. Here's my RCRN Classic:

 

 

...Then again, everyone probably knew that seeing as how it's part of the regular STEP install.

[stoppingby4now]

I agree that Akimbo would likely be the best choice of all if the red tint were significantly reduced overall. However, I do not think that Fimbulvinter is too gray and dead. That gunmetal grey color is so very realistic in the scenes above. There should be no red tint at all on a snowy, cloudy winter day, be it morning noon or evening. The middle pic above is most realistic IMO.

 

If you look at all of the EMB series, most mods add warmer reddish tones, and reds are the exception to the general rule of color in nature. Red is rare in nature on Earth accept where light is low or absent.

I do agree that the others have too much red, but a lot add red due to the HDR which tends be too void of it, particularly for fires (though this would best be handled by any of the upcoming mods to alter light source colors). We'll just have to agree to disagree in terms of Fimbulvinter. The world should have a much more pronounced bluish tint, not covered in a sea of grey. Fimbulvinter also does not accurately portray the massive amounts of ambient light reflection you get on a snowy day. And at dusk when you get diffused lighting, the clouds become more pink due to the color change at that time of day (at least in my part of the world). But, these two in particular are perfect examples of too much color, and not near enough. But that has always been a struggle due to the limitations of the game.

 

One thing I could likely agree on is that if you took Fimbulvinter and used one of the available mods to tweak the HDR, it may indeed become the perfect setting with the added help.

[Kelmych]

Real landscape coloring seems more complex, so you could almost say that a number of the choices are correct about at least part of what is visible.. I'm looking at the sunset as I read this, and indeed near the horizon it is pinkish. At higher elevations it becomes more blue and gray and, at least right now, the clouds are quite gray (they are likely to be storm clouds). What is difficult for me is coming up with a consensus choice among the ENB choices since even the ones I feel are most realistic have some striking flaws in one or more of the pictures.

 

To me Akimbo has too much strong (vs. muted) red, although I agree reds will be the dominant color when the light source is at a low temperature. I don't feel the pictures that show a lot of intense yellow in the fire pits are very realistic; they seem more like what I would expect from an incandescent light vs. what you see from a bed of hot coals.

[z929669]

They should really use RCRN Classic or Pure instead of Legacy. Legacy is the closest to vanilla of the three presets, and the other two provide a darker image resulting in a much more dynamic picture. Here's my RCRN Classic:

 

 

...Then again, everyone probably knew that seeing as how it's part of the regular STEP install.

I like that best of all. Just add to those coals a deep orange-red glow and we have a winner for that scene I think ...

[LeetMiniWheat]

I know I said this in another thread, but I think combining RCRN (I prefer Classic) with ENB seems to give the best of both worlds (plus able to use SMAA). Though I haven't found the perfect ENB for it yet. Vibrant ENB is great with the oversaturation disabled (or toned down) but it's too performance heavy.