TES Skyrim 0.254

[Jafin16]

I'm really looking forward to the Volumetric Clouds too! I know you're still working through all the rough stuff, but I'm curious how this will relate to parameters like Cloudshadows. Will the 2D cloud textures still be an important factor or do you anticipate the volumetric clouds basically replacing them? Answer what you know, leave what you don't. Just glad to see some work on Skyrim again, especially this, since I expect it to be quite extraordinary

[ENBSeries]

Opethfeldt
Skylighting isn't simple to fix, but the worst thing is that i found two solutions already and just don't want to implement them, lazy ass.

Jafin16
I'm planning to disable game clouds when volumetric are drawed, they are too much different to fit each other. But may be for users who need low level volumetric fog instead of volumetric clouds, will keep original clouds.

[SerggX]

2ENBSeries
Доброго времени суток, выход Skywind все ближе, в связи с эти возник вопрос.
Помню когда-то давно, я спрашивал вас по поводу нормальных отражений воды(в данный момент отражается только дистантленд, а ближние объекты нет)
так вот помню с ваших слов, основной из причин невозможности сделать нормальные отражения было то, что вода находится на разных высотах,
в связи с этим возникал ряд проблем с которыми вам не хотелось возиться.
В Skywindе как и в оригинальном Моровинде вся вода находится на одной высоте.
Возможно, вы сможете реализовать нормальные отражения хотя бы для Скайвинда?

[ENBSeries]

А как я определю, что это мод, а не оригинальный Skyrim? Да и честно говоря мне влом, ничего из себя отражения не представляют, а дважды рисовать объекты удовольствия мало, оно того не стоит (все равно все нубы только орут какой убогий и тормозной мод, как будто все бесплатно рендерится).

[SerggX]

Без нормальных отражений создается впечатление, что все объекты висят над водой, смотрится не естественно. В третьем фалауте это же как-то реализовано, там такой проблемы нет.

все равно все нубы только орут какой убогий и тормозной мод

А нубов _SPAM_ не надо, это у людей такая сущность они и дальше будут орать но пользоваться не перестанут.

Я наоборот испытываю чувство гордости за русскоговорящее сообщество, что здесь есть люди способные замутить подобный проект.

[ENBSeries]

Not sure about future of the clouds for ENBSeries mod. Recently invented some perfect solutions for very fast rendering not used yet in games, so probably better to make them as middleware for licensing of game studios. I was afraid that clouds do not behave as real, they just look good, but i can't find anything better, the only single trueSky moves (appear and dissapear on edges to be exact) like real, but only for one type of clouds which are not impressive and blurry. I'll continue implementing clouds in Skyrim, may be much simpler, but first i'll try to make technology preview for commercial purposes, because it's really worth it to be in games.

[jonwd7]

Opethfeldt
Skylighting isn't simple to fix, but the worst thing is that i found two solutions already and just don't want to implement them, lazy ass.

Since the topic has been brought up, does part of this solution include the changes we've discussed previously, regarding the darkness of the skylighting in large, open areas (with nothing blocking the sky)?

I've posted these albums before to show the issue:

http://imgur.com/a/Zr2Mm
http://imgur.com/a/YGsfb

I'll note that in the gallery above I did not have very high ambient values. However, high ambient is not a good solution, because then direct sunlight is far too bright. There are also the skylighting AmbientMinLevel settings, but these merely cap the darkness, meaning you can never get truly dark areas (e.g. overhangs and other areas that are not exposed to the sky).

I think the issue is that the skylighting seems to depend primarily on the direction of the sun, i.e. if an entire region is behind a mountain, and the mountain is casting a shadow, the entire region will be enveloped in complete darkness (like in the images above). But inside of this darkness is even more darkness (See video #1 below). I believe the possible solution had something to do with diminishing the strength of the skylighting the larger the area of the shadow.


Current solutions:

1. High ambient values. Downside: Very bright sunny areas.
2. High IBL values. Downside: Very "dusty" grey, washed out appearance for everything, especially trees.
3. High AmbientMinLevel values. Downside: Everything is still the same level of dark, you're just capping the minimum darkness. Essentially erases the effect of skylighting.
4. Painstakingly editing all weathers with extreme ambient directional values. Downside: Affects overall ambient brightness which could make sunny areas washed out.

I have *fairly* good results with a combination of these, but I also have to have very very high directional ambient values in my weathers. But still, it should not be so dark in such a large area which is entirely open to the sky. It is called sky*lighting*, yet the sky isn't contributing very much.


I think maybe there are a few solutions that you might think are acceptable to implement. I assume you already have a convolution of the skybox from IBL, you could then add in your procedural sun, and change the implementation to use an actual skylight instead of the sun position. There are instead simpler options:

1. Add a curve for IBL which allows us to specify how much IBL affects areas shadowed by skylighting + cloud shadows, vs areas in full sunlight. For example, I would want IBL to influence sunny, unshadowed areas less, and IBL to influence areas shadowed by skylighting + cloud shadows more. I assume at some point in your rendering of the skylighting that you have a mask of its shadow contribution before compositing it into the scene. So, you use the mask (plus cloud shadows ideally) on the IBL curve options to determine the IBL contribution.


2. Alternatively, or in addition to #1, instead of a curve have a straight multiplier on IBL and ambient, which only affects the brightness in shadowed skylighting. So, 2.00 = two times the IBL in shadowed areas, without affecting bright areas (still 1.00x in bright areas). The same for ambient, if it's functionally any different from the AmbientMinLevel options, e.g. maybe AmbientMinLevel = 0.00 and SkylightingAmbientMultiplier = 4.00 will produce a better look than AmbientMinLevel = 0.25.


3. Add more skylighting options which allow us to multiply the directional ambient values of the weather. Sometimes pure white for -Z is still not bright enough for a good sky contribution. This could be one global multiplier across all values, or there could be one for +/- X, +/- Y, +/- Z. If you added color filters also, it would basically allow complete editing of the directional ambient color without having to edit the weather. Though I don't care as much about editing the colors.

3a. Also, I assume directional ambient has a significant effect on total ambient, and not just on the skylighting. So adding extremely bright directional ambient to the weather would also negatively affect the ambient in full sunlight. Thus, a multiplier/curve for these values in the skylighting options would help a lot.


Summary

#1 lets you balance IBL (and maybe ambient also) contribution between skylight/cloud shadowed areas and sunny areas.

#2 lets you multiply IBL (and maybe ambient also) contribution in only the areas shadowed by skylighting.

#3 lets you change the directional ambient brightness (and maybe color) without editing the weathers.
#3a lets you prohibit the directional ambient multipliers to only skylighting shadowed areas.

#1 + #2 + #3 adds more sky/ambient contribution to only the areas shadowed by skylighting, and does not affect sunny areas.


Secondary issue (see Video #2)

Subsurface scattering is extremely bright in skylighting shadowed areas. Like nuclear dawn / glowstick bright. Is having a multiplier for SSS inside of the skylighting options out of the question? This also heavily affects trees, which glow inside of skylighting areas.


Video #1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cHoYYhYKxc
Skylighting in darker, cloudy weathers still depends largely on the sun. The sun is occluded by a mountain, so the entire area is shadowed, yet there are still extremely dark shadows which the sun would appear to be having an influence on. So it's like shadow within a shadow.

Video #2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKyJBpgL1k8
Also, subsurface scattering is way too bright in these shadowed areas. More like a glowmap. Before the sabrecat died, it actually looked like it was glowing.

Video #3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npiZlbJ4LiU
Fairly acceptable results, but these settings affect the lit areas too much.


----------------------------

Also, on the topic of subsurface scattering...

Could we please get an option to decide whether we want ENB to use the diffuse map for its calculations, or the soft lighting map (_sk texture)? I know that you used to use the _sk map, but then got a lot of complaints because of crappy body mods using bad _sk maps.

With that said, the game relies a lot on the _sk maps for many objects, and sometimes they are entirely different from the diffuse map. For example, I can make a bright green _sk map, and stick it on a non-green object, and the point is that the _sk map will turn the object green depending on the soft lighting multiplier. This can no longer happen with ENB.

It's not just about the color either. Sometimes the _sk texture needs to mask off soft lighting completely. Since you bypass the mask, things can no longer be masked from having soft lighting. Example: I wanted to make all the clothing have soft/rim lighting. I want to use a mask to mask off parts of the clothing that are not cloth.

Example of it here: http://imgur.com/a/uaMAX#0

Yet since you hijack the softlighting shader for subsurface scattering, and ignore the mask everything will have SSS applied. This can ruin the appearance of hard materials (jewelry, metal). And oversaturate some clothing with color.


Also, your SSS completely removes other effects like rim lighting. A NIF can have both Soft Lighting and Rim Lighting flags set. When they have both with ENB on, rim no longer works.

Here is an example of a werewolf, which has a very dark diffuse and a lighter _sk. I've set the soft lighting multiplier to 10.0 on all of the skin/hair. I set the rim power to 1.0 on the skin, which means extremely soft/bright highlights. You can see when backlit that this makes a tremendous difference:

http://imgur.com/a/DF6HG#0

You can see that the werewolf should have pink SSS, yet since you use the diffuse it stays black. The removal of rim lighting is also a pretty big deal.


So, for those of us who don't use body mods with awful _sk textures, could we please get the option to choose which method to use? I care more about that than anything else discussed in this post.

[aleanne]

I'll continue implementing clouds in Skyrim, may be much simpler, but first i'll try to make technology preview for commercial purposes, because it's really worth it to be in games.

Go for it, man. I want to see your name on the splash screen of the next TES game. Clouds powered by ENB Tech (tm). Sounds good to me

And cloud computing is all the rage these days.

[ENBSeries]

jonwd7
I can't think about anything, but clouds. It's very complex and i'm too old for that. When i finish, then will think about other things, like skylighting (your post saved). SSS will not change any more, i'm done with it, discussed many times and did many versions of it, none of them work properly, current version is less buggy than any more proper, say thanks to bethesda and modders for that.

[Jafin16]

And cloud computing is all the rage these days.

I see what you did there

Boris
As excited as I would be to see those clouds in Skyrim, I'd be much happier with you marketing that technology. I have to say it would be awesome to see your clouds adopted as a mainstream cloud rendering solution! It also makes preset tweaking at the moment easier since I don't have to worry about everything I've done with clouds (which are very important in what I'm working on) completely obsolete. Still, looking forward to whatever the future holds for your work!