TES Skyrim 0.126

[chan]

Got it working pretty well, thanks again Boris Wonderful Christmas present

I see Sky values change light inside buildings, is this normal? I tried both skymathfix true and false, same result. Just want to know if I should change something before I start really tweaking settings.

Phinix, I see SSAO changes in Interior, haven't tested outside though. Not much change, and I can't tell differences between the mixing types. Maybe I need different light settings or something to see them?

[Phinix]

Thanks for taking the time to help, Mr. Boris.

I actually think mixing type 0 looks the best. What I discovered is the new method seems to handle fog distance differently. When I changed FadeFogRangeDay back to 7 and AOAmount to 1.5, I now see the effect.

Here is 0.119:
http://www.iparadigm.org/images/test/0119.jpg

Here is v0.125 with FadeFogRangeDay=7.0 and AOAmount=1.5:
http://www.iparadigm.org/images/test/125SSAO.jpg

Here is v0.125 with SSAO completely off:
http://www.iparadigm.org/images/test/125noSSAO.jpg

It is much more natural looking than 0.119. More subtle. I like it!

[jonwd7]

Hi Boris,

Thank you so much for the GUI! It is now so easy to create and customize presets, it is easier to create mine from scratch instead of finding the best fit and tweaking.

You will probably want to kill me as I have already made so many requests/suggestions before (I brought up reflections and changing settings from in game a while back), but I had some more ideas:

1) I recently changed my AOMixingType to 1 because the SSAO appearing underwater was a bit too distracting. I know a lot of people have already mentioned this, but now I also to have join them in wishing that there was an AOMixingType value for both Exteriors and Interiors. The new SSAO works great for outdoors, but I do still enjoy the overly contrasty and heavy SSAO that AOMixingType 2 gives for Interiors. I know you have already accommodated so many requests in splitting up values between Exterior and Interior and we're all very thankful for that. Is switching AOMixingType between Interior/Exterior possible?

2) Speaking of the underwater SSAO issue, I noticed that you said a few months ago it would be too costly to mask the water from SSAO computation due to hardware AA (Source). I am wondering is it still too costly, now that you have moved to some deferred methods and no longer support hardware AA?

3) While testing values for SSS, I noticed that to get a good look for the skin would cause trees to glow way too brightly. Especially when they should be in shadow, they tend to stick out like a sore thumb. I even had to double check I had Tree Shadows set to ON in the INI. To keep the trees from glowing so brightly I had to turn the SSS Mult value all the way down to 0.15. I am wondering why trees are affected so significantly by the SSS code and if there is anything you can do about it. For example, might you be able to create separate values for trees and skin?



A Question: I also noticed that children are not affected whatsoever by SSS, and this is probably due to a lack of shaders on the children NIFs. I was wondering if you could tell me how your code detects skin, so that I could possibly apply fixes to the children NIFs so that SSS shows up on them? I know that the adult NIFs have "soft lighting" and other shaders on their skin that the children do not have.

Lastly, bug report/question: I noticed that in some weathers when I am in or near the water, a dark circle follows my player around. It is still kind of there when ENB is disabled, but it becomes much more obvious and aliased/blocky. I disabled/enabled both reflections and SSAO and it is still there. (Images) ... It is much more apparent in motion, and more aliased/blocky. The aliasing is the only thing that bothers me particularly. Is this a known issue?

[ENBSeries]

chan

I see Sky values change light inside buildings, is this normal?

I don't understand, write what you change and what you have.

jonwd7
1) "Double" request.
2) The fix isn't such slow as with antialiasing enabled, it will cost same performance as to toggle detailed shadow filtering quality from 2 to 0 (when they are enabled).
3) Subsurface scattering is done in the game and i simply modify all objects which share same shaders. The trees use same computations as characters, it's not related to the mod, same with children. I haven't thought much how to detach plants from life organics. How to change children don't know, not familiar with models data in the game.

Never seen any circle or what you mean (and don't see it on screenshots or at least it's not circle). Turn on first person view and don't use tfc command, if the bug will dissapear, it's game issue with rendering sky for reflections.

[chan]

It is like ambient light. When I turn off skylight, everything gets a little darker.

[jonwd7]

jonwd7

3) Subsurface scattering is done in the game and i simply modify all objects which share same shaders. The trees use same computations as characters, it's not related to the mod, same with children. I haven't thought much how to detach plants from life organics. How to change children don't know, not familiar with models data in the game.

OK I took some images. (The background trees and the grass in the foreground are still glowing since I haven't edited their NIFs. I did turn up the SSS multiplier to a large amount for this image, but even at 1.0 the foliage and trees seem to ignore shadows and glow rather brightly.)

I turned off the glowing of the foliage by turning off the option which you can see in the last image. In the NIF files this is stored as "SLSF2_Soft_Lighting". The thing is, the "Soft Lighting" also has an attached value, "Lighting Effect 1", but I am not sure if it is a power or a multiplier. It ranges greatly among plants, from 0.3 to 10.0. Changing it has not seemed to make any difference in the amount the trees glow from SSS.

Might you be able to expose the "Lighting Effect 1" value attached to this Soft Lighting shader? I believe the name is just made up by the NifSkope team, but I believe the most common values for Lighting Effect 1 and 2 are 0.3 and 2.0, if that might help you find it. You might be able to utilize this multiplier/power in the SSS calculations, so that the brightness of the SSS for an object is defined not just by the global SSS multiplier in the INI, but the value that is attached to the NIF.

Also, "Soft Lighting" wasn't really meant to equal "SSS", I don't think. As you can see in the shader list there is also Rim Lighting and Back Lighting. Back Lighting is the best candidate for a vegetation shader... Maybe the easiest way to separate Skin SSS from Foliage SSS is to use Back Lighting for the vegetation and keep Soft Lighting for the skin.

Also, if anyone is interested in keeping the eyes from looking glowy or metallic with SSS, they can turn off the Soft Lighting shader, as eyeballs shouldn't really get SSS. The unfortunate thing with linking SSS to Soft Lighting is that it pretty much overrides the intended effect.

There also the two shader slots "Unused01" and "Unused02" (as seen in the shader flags), one could be used for Skin SSS and the other for Foliage SSS. This would of course require someone to release a mod with the fixed shader flags for the NIFs. But so would adding support for the "Lighting Effect 1" value for Soft Lighting.

[mindflux]

chan
Are you testing in an interior cell with sky visible (such as the temple in Whiterun)? If so, it's probably normal since the sky is enabled.

jonwd7
It doesn't look like you're using vanilla textures. Have you checked with them?

[jonwd7]

jonwd7
It doesn't look like you're using vanilla textures. Have you checked with them?

The textures are not responsible for what receives SSS and what doesn't. Though if Boris uses the specular data or something to affect the power of the SSS then maybe. The images I posted were with the SSS multiplier all the way up to 5.8 (for effect). I still think plants are too bright at 1.0 though.

Boris, so then I guess I should ask, do you use specular maps or some other texture lookup for the SSS power?

[mindflux]

The textures are not responsible for what receives SSS and what doesn't.

That goes without saying, but if I remember right some of the modded textures are already very bright by itself which might add to the problem. Anyway, interesting research.

[jonwd7]

The textures are not responsible for what receives SSS and what doesn't.

That goes without saying, but if I remember right some of the modded textures are already very bright by itself which might add to the problem. Anyway, interesting research.

It doesn't seem to make a difference.

Vanilla
Multiplier 1.0
Multiplier 5.8

Floral Overhaul
Multiplier 1.0
Multiplier 5.8

Anyway, I find I like skin at about 2.0 (not shown), but at 1.0 the trees are already a bit too bright for my taste, especially when they are in a shadow. The eyes are already way too glowy at 1.0.

I can fix that by turning off the Soft Lighting effect on the eye meshes at least. But that may also get rid of the glossiness in some regard.

Anyway, that's why I think a way should be figured to separate skin from foliage. The skin looks good at 2.0 and the vegetation looks good at < 1.0. Like I said there is already a value to use that is stored with the NIF data, but I don't know how the engine exposes this.