Enhanced Lighting for ENB, updated 25 November-14

[evok99]

Well that looks perfect!

[Kermles]

I downloaded skyrim to do some testing and naturally the first thing I do is come to grab ELE, but...

HOLY COW YOU MADE A LOT OF PROGRESS!!!

This is seriously amazing to see how far this has come, and the same for your effect files!

I cannot imagine the work that went into it, but thanks so much for all of your awesome stuff that you share. It's really appreciated!

KEEP ON ROCKIN IN THE FREE WORLD ♪♫♩

[Fequois]

Here is an image of that same interior with latest ELE-IL using ENB

[--JawZ--]

evok99;

Glad you like it.
ELE has a lot of potential and isn't limited to look or be as it is in it's default stage. It can be ELFX, it can be RLO and it can be Vanilla or your own visual look with just some simple tweaks here and there. Because I have not limited myself to any one visual look like most other lighting mods have.


Kermles;

Glad you think so and I hope the new version will be done soon so it can be released to the public.
There have been more and more feature implementation and optimizations of late and there will be some resources such as 3rd party plugins/programs available on the side that will allow an easier and faster way of implementing changes in color schemes for the end user to create their own version of ELE, that is designed for their specific preset.

The first tool will be an RGB calculation program that I've been using (just the equations though as the program isn't coded yet) for RGB color assignment for Weathers and Lighting template. I think it will be a Java GUI controlled program though, because from what I have seen it will be simplest language to program in, for me that is.
You enter one RGB value (Ambient Directional -Z, currently at least) and you end up with RGB values for all RGB values such as Ambient Directional, Ambient, Cloud Layers, Effect Lighting, Fog Near/Far, Horizon, Moon Glare, Sky Statics, Sky Lower/Upper, Stars, Sun, Sun Glare, Sun light/Directional and Water Multiplier with separation between Day, Night, Sunrise and Sunset for weathers and for Lighting Templates Interior and Dungeon separation.
That is my plan anyway and the equations are still being worked on to produce an overall "accurate" result.


Fequois;

Får hoppas att tålamodet håller i sig bättre för dig än personerna i GIF bilderna

[Kermles]

Oh wow, that sounds really exciting. So will it generate the ELE preset by itself or are the values for you to go edit in the CK? If you figure this out that will definitely be something to be seen And I agree that the new version is looking fantastic.

[--JawZ--]

Kermles;

It will not be tied to ELE in any specific way. It will only produce RGB values from any random input values. I will be using some of my own HDR images as result reference
to be able to produce equations that calculates all RGB values chosen from one set of RGB.

So this utility program can be used to create your own from scratch weather or interior lighting system from within Creation Kit or even TES5EDIT, if you wanted too.
I've just downloaded Visual Studio Express and will start working on the basics now, setup a general view of the form in Photoshop, just the layout so I have something
to go by, and then work on the code, both program code and math codes.

So as an example;

Input value would be a Ambient Directional Z- RGB corresponding value from an HDR image, in-game value or whatever source you use.
Sun light value from an HDR image is say 255, 245, 215 for an end result reference point
Then the Sun light equation will use the chosen Ambient Directional Z- value to end up with a value in similar RGB color channel range as the HDR reference image had.


Perhaps not the best explanation, but anyway the math equation will spit out values similar to how Creation Kit's "Set From Ambient" works. But with what I feel is better end
results and covers all RGB values and not just the Ambient Directional RGB values.
And no I have not used any code from Creation Kit or Bethesda or any other source, it's developed through my own Trial & Error sessions.

[Aiyen]

Got to admit that I do not entirely understand what you are trying to do JawZ..
The way I understand it is that you want to be able to provide all the CK values depending on a given reference. So if you got awesome image nr.2 and you want to produce that look then you sample that... put it through your magic code box and get the CK values required to produce a similar look ingame... approximately anyways since the direct equations are guessed.

[--JawZ--]

That process is about right. Not saying that it will end up looking as the image but it will contain colors that will blend well with the type of colors found
in the source image that was used for the Input value.

It's not an exact science exactly as it is simply something that will minimize the amount of needed typing and making it faster to incorporate RGB values
to all specified fields. Less guess work on what type of RGB values will look good together.

[Aiyen]

Ah good to know I understood something I was not aware of!

Could you not just decompose the image into its component RGB parts and then get the mean value from those layers and then use that value as what you use then? Or is that not accurate enough so you only want to sample parts of an image?

I would imagine you would need quite a few images to compensate for HDR effects as well.... especially the vanilla implementation which is rather extreme.


But quite interesting overall. Now we just need a script for tes5edit so that all the values get automatically written to the right spots of a given form! Half the battle is doing all those annoying edits manually!

[--JawZ--]

I've used a similar method in the past by minimizing the shades using a Photoshop filter called Patchwork which created this kind of result;

Before;

DSC_3066_Sunrise_Palette_Before by anders.wedin, on Flickr

After;

DSC_3066_Sunrise_Palette_After by anders.wedin, on Flickr


The purpose of this RGB calculator is to only need one set of RGB values to produce good results for all the other RGB values instead of having to fetch/pick multiple color values from multiple sources.
I just need one image per lighting type as a reference point that is focused on capturing the most out of each lighting type, for instance the Ambient or Sun light.
It's mostly for me to learn a bit more on how the layout of Visual Studio is and expand and improve my coding skills beyond ENB.


Here's a rough and early dev illustration of the calculator;

Early_Dev_RGB_Calculator by anders.wedin, on Flickr