[RELz] Cava Obscura : IV

» Mon May 02, 2011 8:11 pm

Cava Obscura
By WrinklyNinja
Version: 1.3 (24/03/2011)

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35099

Description

Cava Obscura (or "Darkened Caves") darkens all the dungeons in the game by scaling down the ambient lighting and fog brightness to 10% of the vanilla levels. This brings a great improvement to immersion, and makes torches, light spells and nighteye useful, even necessary, when exploring dungeons.

Unlike similar mods (Darker Dungeons, Let There Be Darkness, etc.), it does not totally remove this ambient light, though unless you have very good night vision and a better contrast display than I do, any difference is not noticeable.

For those wondering why I bothered to edit the lighting values of every single dungeon in vanilla Oblivion, the Shivering Isles and many popular mods by hand, rather than relatively painlessly set everything to zero, the reason is that Bethesda took the care to light those dungeons with a variety of different lighting themes. I wanted to preserve at last some of the information that the lighting represents, so that it could be used by other mods even when the dungeons had been darkened: for example, so that a shader could raise the lighting levels again, etc. In addition, the game doesn't handle total darkness as well as near-total darkness, and even a tiny level of ambient light can help make scenes feel a lot more dynamic, as the light from any light sources diffuses better.

A few dungeons have not been altered, as they were already at similar light levels to that of the altered dungeons, and if they were also reduced by 10%, their lighting would have been set to zero.

As mentioned above, there are optional plugins that will darken the dungeons of the Shivering Isles and many popular mods. The supported mods are:

A Brotherhood Renewed
Adense Epic Dungeon
AFK Weye
Arrows Of The Ayleid King
Elsweyr: Deserts Of Anequina
Glenvar Castle
Haunted House (by Kevy)
Haunted House (by WillieSea)
Heart Of The Dead
Hoarfrost Castle
Knights Of The Nine
Kragenir's Death Quest
Kvatch Rebuilt
Lost Sword Of the Aylieds
Mehrunes Razor
Mimics!
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul
Spirit's Edge
The Ayleid Steps
The Forgotten Realm
The Lost Spires
The Northern Front
The Old Crow Inn
Thievery In The Imperial City
Thieves Den
UL: Arrius Creek
UL: Colovian Highlands
UL: Beaches Of Cyrodiil
UL: Brena River Ravine
UL: Blackwood Forest
UL: Skingrad Outskirts
UL: Snowdale
Verona House: Bloodlines
Windfall

This mod support plugin is a "Filter Patch". It requires Wrye Bash to function, as although it has many master files, Wrye Bash can filter out everything relating to mods you don't have installed, so that you can use it even if you have only one of the supported mods installed. See the 'Installation' section for more details.

ReadMe

Spoiler

============================

Cava Obscura
By WrinklyNinja
Version: 1.3 (24/03/2011)

============================

Index:

1. Description
2. Installation
3. Uninstallation
4. Compatibility/Known Bugs
5. Contact Information
6. Legal
7. Credits
8. Version History

============================
1. Description
============================

Cava Obscura (or "Darkened Caves") darkens all the dungeons in the game by scaling down the ambient lighting and fog brightness to 10% of the vanilla levels. This brings a great improvement to immersion, and makes torches, light spells and nighteye useful, even necessary, when exploring dungeons.

Unlike similar mods (Darker Dungeons, Let There Be Darkness, etc.), it does not totally remove this ambient light, though unless you have very good night vision and a better contrast display than I do, any difference is not noticeable.

For those wondering why I bothered to edit the lighting values of every single dungeon in vanilla Oblivion, the Shivering Isles and many popular mods by hand, rather than relatively painlessly set everything to zero, the reason is that Bethesda took the care to light those dungeons with a variety of different lighting themes. I wanted to preserve at last some of the information that the lighting represents, so that it could be used by other mods even when the dungeons had been darkened: for example, so that a shader could raise the lighting levels again, etc. In addition, the game doesn't handle total darkness as well as near-total darkness, and even a tiny level of ambient light can help make scenes feel a lot more dynamic, as the light from any light sources diffuses better.

A few dungeons have not been altered, as they were already at similar light levels to that of the altered dungeons, and if they were also reduced by 10%, their lighting would have been set to zero.

As mentioned above, there are optional plugins that will darken the dungeons of the Shivering Isles and many popular mods. The supported mods are:

A Brotherhood Renewed
Adense Epic Dungeon
AFK Weye
Arrows Of The Ayleid King
Elsweyr: Deserts Of Anequina
Glenvar Castle
Haunted House (by Kevy)
Haunted House (by WillieSea)
Heart Of The Dead
Hoarfrost Castle
Knights Of The Nine
Kragenir's Death Quest
Kvatch Rebuilt
Lost Sword Of the Aylieds
Mehrunes Razor
Mimics!
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul
Spirit's Edge
The Ayleid Steps
The Forgotten Realm
The Lost Spires
The Northern Front
The Old Crow Inn
Thievery In The Imperial City
Thieves Den
UL: Arrius Creek
UL: Colovian Highlands
UL: Beaches Of Cyrodiil
UL: Brena River Ravine
UL: Blackwood Forest
UL: Skingrad Outskirts
UL: Snowdale
UL: Cliffs of Anvil
Verona House: Bloodlines
Windfall

This mod support plugin is a "Filter Patch". It requires Wrye Bash to function, as although it has many master files, Wrye Bash can filter out everything relating to mods you don't have installed, so that you can use it even if you have only one of the supported mods installed. See the 'Installation' section for more details.

============================
2. Installation
============================

Recommended: Wrye Bash

This mod consists of the following plugins:

Cava Obscura - Cyrodiil.esp
Cava Obscura - SI.esp
Cava Obscura - Filter Patch For Mods.esp (requires Wrye Bash)

There are also some replacement meshes for the dungeon mist/dust cloud effects. The replacements are invisible, to stop them glowing in the dark.

To install using BAIN:

1. Move the archive to your Oblivion Mods\Bash Installers folder.
2. Open up Wrye Bash and switch to the 'Installers' tab.
3. Select the Cava Obscura archive and select which plugins you want to install.
4. Right-click the Cava Obscura archive and select 'Install'.
5. Rebuild your Bashed Patch, checking the boxes of the plugin(s) you have installed in the 'Import Cells' menu. Make sure to also check the box for 'Import Cells' itself.

To install using OBMM:

1. Open OBMM, and select 'Create' under the OMOD pane.
2. Click 'Add Archive', and select the Cava Obscura archive you downloaded. Agree to any messages that appear.
3. Create the OMOD.
4. Activate the OMOD, answering the questions that appear.
5. If you have Wrye Bash and a Bashed Patch, rebuild your Bashed Patch, checking the boxes of the plugin(s) you have installed in the 'Import Cells' menu. Make sure to also check the box for 'Import Cells' itself. Then deactivate the plugins.

To install manually:

1. Extract the plugins you wish to use to your Oblivion\Data folder.
2. If you do not have Wrye Bash installed, activate them. Do not attempt to install the Filter Patch if you don't have Wrye Bash installed.
3. If you do have Wrye Bash installed, leave them deactivated. Rebuild your Bashed Patch, checking the boxes of the plugin(s) you have installed in the 'Import Cells' menu. Make sure to also check the box for 'Import Cells' itself.

Load Order:

The plugins should load late in your load order, probably just before the Bashed Patch if you have one, and near any other Filter mods if you have any. Highly recommended is to use Better Oblivion Sorting Software (BOSS) to sort your load order for you, the positions of the Cava Obscura plugins have been added to its masterlist.

The "Cava Obscura - Filter Patch For Mods.esp" is a special plugin that requires Wrye Bash to function. It can only be used by leaving it unchecked and importing into your Bashed Patch. Its checkbox should then be marked with a dot. You can ignore the red checkbox and any warnings about missing masters you might get.

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3. Uninstallation
============================

If you installed the mod using Wrye Bash, right-click the archive in the packages list of the Installers tab and select 'Uninstall'.

If you installed the mod by converting it into an OMOD using OBMM, deactivate the OMOD in OBMM.

If you installed the mod manually, then delete the plugins you installed from your Data directory. The following replacement meshes will also have to be deleted from your Data directory:

meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxcloudsmall01.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxcloudthick01.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxcloudthick02.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxcloudthin02.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxgasplane01.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxmistgroundeffect01.nif

If you imported the plugins into your Bashed Patch, you will also need to rebuild your Bashed Patch.

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4. Compatibility/Known Bugs
============================

Cava Obscura should be compatible with any mod besides those that alter the ambient and fog lighting of dungeons (the two most popular of these are "Darker Dungeons" and "Let There Be Darkness"). Only use one such mod at a time.

Due to the inclusion of some replacement meshes, any mods that use them will look different, as the effects will appear to be missing. This shouldn't be a problem though.

Highly recommended for use alongside Cava Obscura is All Natural's Real Lights, which is perfectly compatible, as this mod affects ambient light, and Real Lights affects light sources - two totally separate things.

As I download and play more mods, I will extend the Filter Patch to cover them if I feel that their dungeons are too bright. Feel free to suggest mods that could be added, but bear in mind that I am only interested in adding support for mods I actually keep installed and play, so our differing tastes or opinions may mean that such suggestions are not implemented.

If you come across an interior that has been left bright, but you think should be dark, let me know, and I'll take another look at it. It is very possible that this can be the case, as looking at things in the CS and TES4Edit is very different from actually playing the game. The same goes for if you find an interior that has been darkened, but you don't think should have been.

============================
5. Contact Information
============================

To report bugs, suggestions or comment on the mod, PM wrinklyninja at the Bethesda Game Studios Forums, using that nickname. You may also find me at TES Nexus with the same nickname.

There should also be an official thread open on the Bethesda Game Studios Forums, just search for '[RELz] Cava Obscura' to find it. You can post in there as an alternative to messaging me. You must register for free to post messages.

============================
6. Legal
============================

This mod is distributed under the agreement that it shall not be modified or redistributed in any way, shape or form. The only site that this mod should be available from is TES Nexus - if you have downloaded it from another site, it was uploaded there without permission, and I would be grateful if you let me know about it.

If you want to upload this mod somewhere, or translate it, please ask for permission first.

============================
7. Credits
============================

..LprMan for his mod Let There Be Darkness, which was a great improvement over the original Darker Dungeons, a source of inspiration for this, and the mod from which the replacement meshes have been taken.
..Galcyon for his mod Darker Dungeons, which provided a massive boost to immersion.
..ElminsterEU for creating TES4Edit, without which half this mod would not have been possible, and the rest would have been significantly more tedious in making.
..Bethesda for creating Oblivion.

============================
8. Version History
============================

v1.3
- Updated support for the following mods in the Filter Patch:
-- Windfall
-- Elsweyr: Deserts of Anequina
- Added support for UL: Cliffs of Anvil to the Filter Patch.
- Fixed OMOD installation script.

v1.2
- Added support for Hoarfrost Castle to the Filter Patch.

v1.1
- Added support for the following mods to the Filter Patch:
-- The Aylied Steps
-- AFK Weye
-- Lost Sword Of the Aylieds
-- Mimics!
-- Spirit's Edge
-- The Forgotten Realm
-- The Northern Front
-- The Old Crow Inn
-- Heart Of The Dead
-- Thievery In The Imperial City
-- UL: Arrius Creek
-- UL: Skingrad Outskirts
-- UL: Snowdale
-- Glenvar Castle
-- Kragenir's Death Quest
-- Thieves Den
- Updated support for the following mods in the Filter Patch:
-- UL: Blackwood Forest
-- Mehrunes Razor
- Added replacement meshes for some of the dungeon mist/dust cloud effects. These are the same replacements as found in Let There Be Darkness.

v1.0
- Initial release.

» Tue May 03, 2011 7:19 am

Yay, my first mod!

So yeah, this is that mod I mentioned I might do in the All Natural thread. It's not finished, as there's still plenty of mods I've got installed but haven't played through that might need treatment from this, but I thought I'd get it out here as the likelyhood of me playing mods any time soon is slim.

Let me know if you spot anything I missed out, or anything that looks odd regarding lighting/fog in dungeons. I recommend using the meshes in Let There Be Darkness alongside this, as it stops them glowing. I've asked permission to include them in this myself, but haven't heard back yet.

» Mon May 02, 2011 7:07 pm

So is this better thought of as a "lite" version of darker mods?

10% of vanilla doesn't seem like much.

I use, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29692, which removes the fog that lights up even more, making it more realistic for certain places. You are in a place with absolutely no lights coming in so you should have blackness.

» Tue May 03, 2011 11:09 am

So is this better thought of as a "lite" version of darker mods?

10% of vanilla doesn't seem like much.

I use, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29692, which removes the fog that lights up even more, making it more realistic for certain places. You are in a place with absolutely no lights coming in so you should have blackness.

Gah, readme explains it a bit, but basically while 0 light makes sense, it doesn't make good in a game - you can't do much with 0. There's probably no noticeable difference between the darkness of this and LTBD, but this has 'residual' light that could be taken advantage of by shaders, etc. (in particular, I have a 'realistic' nighteye shader on the backburner that amplifies the available light - if there is none, you still can't see anything, which makes nighteye useless). The sensible argument for having no light can be used, yes, but then you restrict yourself to not using nighteye too, as logically if there's no light you can't have night vision. I use nighteye as an archer, as you can't hold a torch, so there's not really an alternative.

If you don't think there's much point to this, that's fine, I made this for personal use and only uploaded it because some people said they were interested, and because it will eventually (hopefully) tie in with my nighteye shader (which I really need to work on...).

Also, Let There Be More Darkness is essentially just LTBD extended to cover some mods (it sounded like you thought it was even darker than LTBD).

» Mon May 02, 2011 10:37 pm

Downloading now :goodjob:

I found LTBMD to be unrealistic in most places, because light is very difficult to keep out.

» Tue May 03, 2011 9:06 am

I just thought when I started and it was brought up that, yes, it is odd that these caves have these lights being cast out of no where, so I got these mods to darken.

As long as it affects NPCs in the same way, then I will use it. I saw a mod that said it only affected what you saw and not NPCs so I didn't get it. That would be unfair.

I currently have the Scout Toggle effect from Cobl Races Balanced with night eye and detect life. This brings me to think, why can I see undead too...which brings me to why can't undead see me in the dark...Skeletons don't have eyes yet they see in the day. Wasn't there a rule in D&D (never played) or some such that had undead can see the living? Perhaps there is a mod to do that...

There is a mod out there that removes the light that comes in through cracks and such when the time of day is night (like the holes in ceilings or that light that streams in while in tutorial). That might help with the "unrealistic" darkness you talk about.

» Tue May 03, 2011 2:30 am

Already downloaded, and going into my game now. I remember thinking LTBMD was too dark in some cases, too, and I'm excited to see how this'll compare. Plus, this has support for a lot more mods. That alone sold me. Another good job Wrinklyninja!

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:02 pm

Instant downlad!
That nighteye mod you mentioned also sounds highly interesting. I've been looking for a more realistic nighteye that merely magnifies the light already available, which is after all what night vision in real life does.

» Tue May 03, 2011 2:37 am

This was quick :goodjob:
After reading about your night-eye shader I also started wondering about the possibility to set the light strength on light spells and enchantments. The reasoning being that having a ring of light that light up 20 paces like the day and no more has it's drawbacks: 1. You can't spot enemies far away. 2. The light value makes you allot easier for NPC to discover, as the amount of light falling on you is rather great. I always wondered why there was no setting for light strength and only radius.

I too dislike the night-eye because it is always too bright and sees too far. The one I got now is one that's "called" dark, and it is a bit fuzzy; and still it is too bright :violin:

Thanks Wrinkly for all your work!

» Tue May 03, 2011 4:07 am

Darn, I forgot to add load order info. Well, it's in the latest BOSS masterlist on Google Code, so either run the updater, or if you're someone having problems with it, grab the file manually. It loads where Darker Dungeons/LTBD does.

» Mon May 02, 2011 6:47 pm

Downloading now. Good to see you got it done

» Tue May 03, 2011 9:30 am

I just thought when I started and it was brought up that, yes, it is odd that these caves have these lights being cast out of no where, so I got these mods to darken.

As long as it affects NPCs in the same way, then I will use it. I saw a mod that said it only affected what you saw and not NPCs so I didn't get it. That would be unfair.

Since he's only messing with the ambient light settings, the other unrealistic random sources are probably still there. If you want those gone too, you'll need to use the Real Lights portion of All Natural to get rid of them. Combining this with AN-RL would make for quite the experience.

It will affect NPCs and other creatures as well.

» Tue May 03, 2011 8:10 am

Made a side by side comparison between LTBD and CO and must say, the different is slim but I always found LTBD to be a bit too dark.

http://b.imagehost.org/0071/LTBD1.jpg
http://d.imagehost.org/0325/CAVE1.jpg

http://d.imagehost.org/0220/LTBD2.jpg
http://d.imagehost.org/0710/CAVE2.jpg

Liking it so far though! Cannot wait for a "proper" night-eye replacement tho.

» Tue May 03, 2011 9:01 am

Downloaded and installed, I'll try it out in an hour or two when I get time to actually play.

Just curious though; For the filter can I simply add a master to it for some mods I have installed to apply the effect to them? Or will that not work for some reason?

Thanks.

» Tue May 03, 2011 5:17 am

Also, out of curiosity, how do you make a filter based patch?

» Mon May 02, 2011 10:31 pm

Made a side by side comparison between LTBD and CO and must say, the different is slim but I always found LTBD to be a bit too dark.

http://b.imagehost.org/0071/LTBD1.jpg
http://d.imagehost.org/0325/CAVE1.jpg

http://d.imagehost.org/0220/LTBD2.jpg
http://d.imagehost.org/0710/CAVE2.jpg

Liking it so far though! Cannot wait for a "proper" night-eye replacement tho.

Are you using some sort of shader effect, and if so, what? The colour of the fire in the first pic looks really nice. Or is it a texture replacer for the Ayleid Ruin wall? Mind if I put those pics on the Nexus page?

Downloaded and installed, I'll try it out in an hour or two when I get time to actually play.

Just curious though; For the filter can I simply add a master to it for some mods I have installed to apply the effect to them? Or will that not work for some reason?

Thanks.

No, you've got to open it in TES4Edit and copy as override the records you want to alter, then make the changes in TES4Edit too. You need to have all the masters of the mod installed though.

Also, out of curiosity, how do you make a filter based patch?

Using TES4Edit - you load all the mods that you want to change, copy as override the records you want to alter into a new plugin, then make your changes. The downside is that you've got to have all the masters available when you load the filter, or TES4Edit will crash with a missing masters warning.

» Mon May 02, 2011 10:38 pm

Are you using some sort of shader effect, and if so, what? The colour of the fire in the first pic looks really nice. Or is it a texture replacer for the Ayleid Ruin wall? Mind if I put those pics on the Nexus page?

Both actually. QTP3R w/ the Lite variant. OBGE w/ coloreffects/mood and sharpening. Enabled the Film Grain option, and mixing that with sharpening results in awesomeness! Better quality looking textures than QTP3 (non-redimized) while having way less VRAM usage.

Go ahead, use them I don't mind.

edit:

This spot looked amazing as well. With LTBD the lights stayed static while CB made it look dynamic.

http://d.imagehost.org/0555/CAVE3.jpg

lunaaaa

» Tue May 03, 2011 7:10 am

Both actually. QTP3R w/ the Lite variant. OBGE w/ coloreffects/mood and sharpening. Enabled the Film Grain option, and mixing that with sharpening results in awesomeness! Better quality looking textures than QTP3 (non-redimized) while having way less VRAM usage.

Go ahead, use them I don't mind.

edit:

This spot looked amazing as well. With LTBD the lights stayed static while CB made it look dynamic.

http://d.imagehost.org/0555/CAVE3.jpg

lunaaaa

Ah, QTP3, that'd explain it. I thought there was a hint of film grain, it's good to be right.

Cheers for the pics.

I'm going to be investigating what LTBD did to the dust cloud/mist effect meshes - I think it turned them invisible, but I'm not sure. If I'm right, then I'd rather look for a better solution than that, having them not show up at a distance glowing, but when you get close with a light source, have them visible, so it's like they're actually interacting with the light than shining through from some other dimension. It's something that will require a bit of playing though, I've almost forgotten how they were originally.

EDIT: And I just realised I forgot the [RELz] for this topic. If a moderator is passing through and sees this, could they add it for me please?

» Tue May 03, 2011 12:41 am

Yes, here I removed those ugly menus. Looks a whole lot better.

http://b.imagehost.org/0569/cave5.jpg
http://b.imagehost.org/0089/cave6.jpg

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:26 pm

Thanks. You released this quicker than I could say "Yes, I'm definitely very interested. Please release it." :celebration:

Now I'm expecting your night eye shader 2moro. :wink_smile:

» Tue May 03, 2011 7:19 am

Yay, my first mod!

Congrats!

there's still plenty of mods I've got installed but haven't played through that might need treatment from this

The Ayleid Steps. Please please please!

Also, how does this dovetail with the Real Lights module from AN? My understanding of ANRL is that it deletes all the ambient lighting. Will loading CO later and importing cells from both override these changes for the dungeons you're tweaked?

Yes, here I removed those ugly menus. Looks a whole lot better.

http://b.imagehost.org/0569/cave5.jpg
http://b.imagehost.org/0089/cave6.jpg

Wow, those pics look awesome. Are they postprocessed (ie, Photoshop) or does OBGE actually make your game look like that? I avoided it with my old machine because I knew it would overtax it... and the all the info on the various options kinda makes me head spin. But it would be worth it to learn (now that I have a better machine) if I could get results like that.

» Mon May 02, 2011 10:32 pm

The Ayleid Steps. Please please please!

Also, how does this dovetail with the Real Lights module from AN? My understanding of ANRL is that it deletes all the ambient lighting. Will loading CO later and importing cells from both override these changes for the dungeons you're tweaked?

TAS is one of those mods I have installed, but haven't ever gotten around to playing. So it doesn't already have dark dungeons? I'll put that as a priority then.

RL affects light sources, whereas this affects cell lighting, so it's two separate areas, no overlap. I should probably put that in the readme.

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:39 pm

Downloaded and replaced LTBD in my load order. I honestly can't see any difference between them, but you had me sold with the promise of a realistic nighteye shader!

» Tue May 03, 2011 6:15 am

I'm going to be investigating what LTBD did to the dust cloud/mist effect meshes - I think it turned them invisible, but I'm not sure.

It turns them black.

» Tue May 03, 2011 12:53 am

When you add the thief mods then I will try it (thievery, den, etc) since LTBMD lists them and yours doesn't yet.