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To put this script in I think you would need to manually place ents on every single roof surface. Unless a roof is it's own ent then you can applyallents.

(I have no idea what I'm talking about but it is accurate from other games that I mod)

I never noticed this before. I think Reneer's been working on something to do the same thing.

Reneer released a mod a few days ago that tries to fix the issue. I haven't tried it yet, but looking at the comments it tends to cause CTDs though (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29508).

It's not as easy as you may think. Rain is a particle effect attached to the camera node, that is all. It doesn't collide with anything, nor is there a way to directly alter the particle effect via script. The water behaviour is hardcoded and doesn't help at all. There is no script or something similar that could be used. And while it may look like the rain collides with the water it is really only a shader effect.

Except for buggy workarounds like the mod I linked to (don't get me wrong, it is certainly well scripted by a very good scripter, but there are limits even for the best scripters) you will have no luck fixing this issue I fear.

EDIT: Oh, and instead of waiting forever for rainy weather you can just open the console and type 'fw 38EF2 1'.

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Like I said, the rain doesn't collide with the water. The water surface is a shader effect. When it rains you simply get a different shader effect which is completely independent from the rain. You could make the water look like that even without any rain. The underwater part (where it doesn't rain) is hardcoded and can't be used anywhere. Not everything is scripted with the games script language, a large part of the game is hardcoded and can't be accessed.

The rain you see in game is tied to the camera node. Believe it or not, but it only ever rains in a small part around that node (around your view port). That is why rain drops and snowflakes move with you when you walk around. It's a simple effect, like the fireflies you see in game. Only that it moves with the view port. Unfortunately it can't be accessed by scripts so you need workarounds to make it not rain through buildings. Like switching from rainy weather to weather that looks like rainy weather minus the rain and then adding raindrops around the player, but not above the player. For a single house mod that is possible (although the transition still won't look perfect) but detecting any roof and placing fake rain via script is a very hard task that causes bugs, doesn't look good and is simply not worth the effort.

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From what I understand now and that Phitt said, to simulate rain one would need some hollow cylinder or something around the player either with animated rain texture or something similar, weather type with rain sounds but without rain, and a script attached to some kind of trigger zone that would change weather type to that rainless rainy weather and place that fake rain (or simply enable it if disabled).

It would require manual placing of the trigger zone and fake rain to work.

Or maybe just trigger zone, and fake rain could be single ref moved from some dummy cell to trigger with moveto?

The weather types are defined by region settings. When you walk through Cyrodiil you may have noticed that sometimes small pop ups appear that say something like 'Colovian Highlands' or 'Great Forest'. It also says that when you exit an interior like 'Door to Great Forest'. That is the region you are in. Each region has its own climate with a chance for different weather types to appear. In the Jerall Mountains you get snow, in the Blackwood Forest you get a lot of thunderstorms.

But it can also be scripted, that is how it's done near Oblivion gates where the weather changes to the sinister Oblivion weather until you leave the area. It is basically the same as the console code I posted, only used in a script.

Yes, that is a solution that could work for a single house mod. Duplicating the rain weather, removing the rain nif from the weather. Then placing rain effects around the house and enabling them once you enter the house when it's raining while switching to the rainless rainy weather at the same time. Only problem would be the numerous weather mods that may have a lot of different rain weather types. You could probably make compatibility patches for them though.

It will still not look perfect with that solution though. You will notice the change for sure when the regular rain switches to the pre-placed rain effects. But it is better than nothing if you really want it badly.

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Would it not be possible to use rain meshes instead. I understand that there where meshes used in Fallout 3 to create rain, so would it not be possible to do the same thing for Oblivion?
When it rains, the meshes would be used, and the rain shader disabled?

If you're walking forward and looking forward and going into i.e. stable, you probably won't pay much attention to rain so the change won't be that noticeable. I agree that it wouldn't be perfect...

But could it be like 'semi automated' like I mentioned above? Having some cube activator that would be hand-placed in every stable and that would call same fake rain from dummy cell when conditions are met (player inside trigger, rainy weather) and send it back else?


Edit:



The rain is not anywhere from the player, it's 'on your screen'. Like health bar and compass and other stuff.

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The camera is always where you are - that means you, the real person behind the monitor. It's your view port. If you play in 1st person the camera is in your character's head, if you play in 3rd person the camera is where you zoomed out to.

You could manipulate the rain nif, but you can't grab it with a script. So it's either all or nothing. If you move the rain away from the camera it will always be away from it in game. There is no reference, it's just a nif attached to a weather type. Maybe with Nifscript something like that could be possible, but I'm not sure whether it would be practicable since Nifscript creates new nifs on the fly and you'd need a lot of new nifs for a smooth transition. But then, even though you say I'm an expert, I don't know much about Nifscript and its inner workings. So maybe ask in the Nifscript thread whether it could theoretically work.



But if you'd walk out of the stable you'd notice it even more I guess. I think it could be semi automated, but it would require placing rain effects around all the stables, bridges and the like in game. And scripting them. And making sure that all that is compatible with all the different weather mods.

The rain actually is somewhere. It is a particle effect with a box emitter that is 1700 units large. That emitter is tied to the camera node. You can find the nif in meshes\sky. You can place it independent from weather somewhere in the game.

I did this in a small worldspace for RST, used snow meshes instead of the default snow effect. The final effect is nice, but it's also not perfect, there can be gaps in the weather if the nifs are not places carefully, and it takes a LOT of meshes to create a real "happening in the world" experience which can be hard on FPS even in my small worldspace. From my experience this would not be feasible for a world the size of Tamriel worldspace.

Because this worldspace has exterior houses, I tried a number of weather suggestions from this community and this was the best, but as I said, probably not too feasible on the scale the OP is seeking. :read:

[EDIT] Forgot, the other issue with meshes is that if the player gets higher than the mesh they can effectively get above the weather.

Oh, I always imagined it as a 2D animation...

You're right about going out of the stable! I forgot about that and only thought why would anyone walk backward into it!


That's why I said one fake rain mesh that would be moved around (where player is), so that only element that would need to be placed manually would be trigger with some script that would call FakeRainRef.moveto me(coordinates of trigger?).
Else, every trigger would have it's own script, it's own rain with it's own reference which would be annoying as hell.

But with moveto there could be few types of trigger (cube, cylinder, ...) each type with single script that would just need to be plopped into the CS which could be done by anyone really.

Maybe not have the rain world wide, just have it loaded in your current cell, or within a 20 meter radius around the character?

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The mesh is a particle emitter and when enabled takes a few seconds to start so anything you try to script has to compensate for the delay and for the movement of the player. For example you might have a nice effect if the player runs into a stable and sits there but what about those players who run in, root about, and leave? In my 3 years on this board I have seen this attempted many times in many ways, it may just be one of those limitations of the game and the reason Bethesda used the method they did. :shrug:

[EDIT] I think Phitt is about as bright a bloke in this regard as you could look to for advice and as he points out, any of the ways you can rig this will have some limitations, I think if you go at this with perfection as the final result you may be disappointed.

I was suggesting that the rain meshes would have collision data causing them to splash when they hit a roof. The 20m radius was a precaution to prevent a major FPS drop.

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This thread is a perfect example of why some forums have time limits on being able to edit posts.