I have Darker Interiors installed but havent really noticedit indoors. im using fellout now which really makes you NEED a lightsource when outside at night. im looking for a similar effect when indoors. so far i havent found even a corner in an interior where a stealthy character can blend into the dark. SO... are there mods that:

1) makes indoors so dark that you'll need a light source or night vision in places without lighting
2) makes light sources give off real light (like the real lights mod in OB)

also, as it is, indoor darkness seems to be independent of outdoor conditions and im finding it unrealistic to go into interiors whose lighting is the same no matter how bright or dark it is outside

thanks!

-norbingel

There you go: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9250 + http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9084
The directional light can get a bit buggy at times... I experienced some glitches with items and npcs, but a location change will set that right again. I had no savegames corruptions up till now.

Ding! I must have that interior lighting!

I love the directional piplight. The only thing I've really noticed with it is sometimes it seems like it's not really lighting anything up, but simply turning it off and looking somewhere else fixes that. Small setback but totally worth the mod.

ah yes! looks very promising! thank you!

I use and love both of these, but neither makes the interior darker.
I also feel the "Darker Interior" mod, while a step in the right direction, could go a few steps further. I have been tempted a few times to dial down the numbers in the GECK, but I haven't got around to it yet.

well, for a general brightness change, there's always the brightness adjuster in the fallout-options dialogue.
for me, realistic interior lighting pretty much does it. in some places I can hardly see anything at all.

I found that it can tend to be a little... overly 'patchy' with the lighting, in that even well-lit areas end up looking incredibly gloomy, but otherwise, I can't imagine the darker areas any more darker. I still use/endorse it, though. I remember tippy-toeing my way through an old Metro Tunnel, and stopped only because I heard heavy breathing. Peeking around the corner, all I could see were the glints in the ghoul's eyes. o.o;

(( That's probably more scary if you're like me, where ghouls freak you out to begin with, and on top of that, hold yourself to a no re-loading rule, for the extra immersive fear factor. )) ^_^;

One thing to be aware of if you use both the "Darker Interiors" and "Realistic Interior lighting" is the issue of load order, as they don't play nicely together.
Load the former first and it wil be dark but you won't see the realistic lighting templates. Load the latter and you get the templates, but the stock level of ambience..

If you play in a brightly lit room, then the Realistic lighting can seem dark, but for crawling around in ghoul infested undergrounds I prefer a dimly lit room. In that case, the degree of ambience makes things a bit dim and shadowy, but with no real need for the excellent directional pip-light.
Actually I started going through "Realistic Interior lighting" and dimming the ambience to roughly half that of the "Darker Interiors", and even so the brightness of the light sources means there is few really bowel-clenchingly dark areas.

Since the last post, I have been crawling around in the Metro a fair bit.
It started to bother me how even with the mods that darkened the interior, I could still walk around pretty well in an unlit subway tunnel with no problem and no real need for a light.
And with no real fear either, I might add!

So finally I had enough, and I went through all the cells and templates for the caverns, vaults and tunnels, and reduced all the ambient light to 0.
What a difference it makes! Especially since I use the directional pipboy (flashlight).

Actually, these areas are still a bit overlit, but now the light sources are like islands in a menacing and unfamiliar world.
Crawling through a metro, listening to the growls of multiple ghouls, not being able to see anything except a few lights in the distance, but not daring to turn on my light because it will instantly attract them... quite a chilling experience!
It also makes traps and tripwires much more of a threat.
It literally changes the feeling of much of the game.
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/VonGrantoven/Dark.jpg

This is with just realistic interior lighting

http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo232/71boss351/fallout3/ScreenShot250.jpg
http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo232/71boss351/fallout3/ScreenShot252.jpg

Without my light I would have crapped myself many times over, I'd say that's plenty dark as is :shrug:

Your darkness is more of guaranteed crapping myself especially with increased spawns :unsure:

Wow, you must have your brightness set really low. I keep mine around 4 or 5 bars and it isn't nearly so dark.
Here is a shot from Anacostia station with Realistic Interiors.
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/VonGrantoven/RealIntrs.jpg
It is nice and gloomy but definitely still navigable, and the ambient allows you to track enemies by their silhouette even if they aren't near a light source.

I guess its a matter of taste though.
I am keen to get make such areas realistically dark, because I quite like the tense atmosphere. The scarier the better!
Ever play STALKER? There were some old abandoned underground complexes in that that honestly I dreaded entering!

Actually even reducing the ambient to zero, there are still far too many light sources to allow the game to get really terrifying to that extent.
Too bad...
I am tempted to go through in the GECK and strip out some of those bloody lights!

can you release this? i'd sure want to get a copy of it. even with realistic interior lighting it still too bright for me. of course, it would be much better if it can go along withe the aforementioned mod...

Sure, give me a little while to make sure that all the cells are appropriately changed.
There are a lot of areas to adjust, unfortunately.

I'm not sure you should do this, because I think setting the ambient light to 0 will break any Night Vision Goggles mods. I say this because if there is no ambient light for the NV Goggles to ramp up, then the goggles won't have any effect (other than turning any remaining light sources green). I'm not sure but it might be worth testing this before making too many changes. A setting of R,G,B - 1,1,1 might work better in this case.

Like I say, I'm not sure but I seem to remember using mods that have done this and they made night vision pretty useless.

:shrug:

Just double checked, nope, the brightness is 8 bars from the left. In other words, the default brightness smack dab in the middle. I don't think I have any mods changing the ambient lighting other than Realistic Interior lighting. Does Fellout change ambient lighting indoors? Only thing I can think of, or maybe it was just that Metro.

I love the darker metros and interiors, it makes it more tense and realistic. But yes, my taste requires me to not crap myself when a mob of ghouls appears out of the pitch black

Actually I was reading another post on NVG last night and the same thought ocurred to me. Outside of power armor I don't use NVG much (No point in putting effort into making things darker if you are just going to obviate it with IR goggles!) so it really didnt occur to me when I was making the changes.

I will definitely give the NVG question a hard look though.
Visually the difference between 0 and 1 (or even 10) is not major in any case.

Actually I was reading another post on NVG last night and the same thought ocurred to me. Outside of power armor I don't use NVG much (No point in putting effort into making things darker if you are just going to obviate it with IR goggles!) so it really didnt occur to me when I was making the changes.

I will definitely give the NVG question a hard look though.
Visually the difference between 0 and 1 (or even 10) is not major in any case.

@MrGary

Interesting, I was looking at some of your other (very nice) pics in the screenshot thread and they also looked a bit dark. Still, its a good look, and if you are getting the scary-dark underground without the need to tweak the amient, then lucky you!
Now if I could only find an easy way to dim or put out some of the many 200year old-but-still-burning lights in the Metros!

PS. Thats quite the avatar you have. I find seeing Ronnie's disapproving and dead face staring out of your posts more than a little disconcerting!

I was just doing some testing with this recently as well - and I feel strongly that the 1:1:1 RGB value used by Darker Interiors - is just too dark. Even with various NVG mods, there' just not enough light to amplify. So you're stuck either stumbling around in the dark, or turning on a pipboy light source and losing sneak. Plus you end up with weird things like models that glow brighter then their surroundings.

My recommendations are (assuming that the player has set their monitor gamma correctly, tuned their monitor to represent greys properly, and has set the in-game brightness correctly):

4:4:4 is probably the absolute darkest that you'll ever want to set a cell's ambient light level to. That is nearly pitch black, but gives enough that NVGs are of some use. You definitely need some sort of alternative light source for anything in the 4:4:4 to 8:8:8 range. Past about 6:6:6 and brighter, you'll be barely able to make out detail in the shadows, enough that you'll know something is there. Caves, metro tunnels, any place underground that is not actively inhabited by sentient beings (i.e. humans or non-feral ghouls). Anything under 8:8:8 will still end up showing as pretty much pitch black in video unless you match the color spaces up correctly.

8:8:8 up to 12:12:12 is good for situations where you want dark, but not pitch black. The lower end of the scale definitely makes a light source desireable, but at 12:12:12 you could stumble around without it being completely frustrating. I tend to stick with say 10-12 levels for places that a low-level player might go. With 8-10 used for abandoned above ground locations like houses or factories. If the location is absolutely abandoned, go lower in the range. If there's inhabitants, or it's a small room, or it was recently lived in, or there are lots of light sources around, go for the upper end of the range.

12:12:12 to 24:24:24 is the range that I'd suggest for places like the GNR Lobby, or the Alexandria library, or any place that is inhabited, above ground, with windows or with lots of light sources. At this level, NVGs are definitely optional, but a pipboy light can come in handy for examining something closely. At the upper end of the scale, there's definitely no need for the pipboy light at all.

(I've heavily modified the Darker Interiors mod for my own use with the above settings. I'm happy with it so far, more so then I was previously when it was making heavy use of 1:1:1 in a lot of cells.)

If i remember correctly Darker Interior Lighting also alters some faction relations. So things at the Citadel may get freaky it you take or move anything. Same with For Independence. I don't know if it alters any other places or not.

When I want things really dark in Fellout, ambient is 16,16,16 and I pull fog towards the player. That way the player is aware of what's immediately around him and there's enough brightness for an NV IMAD to work with, but the distance is all but invisible. It's quite a good effect.

Author of "RIL" here, and this is basically what I've come up with as well and what most of my settings are at for the mod.

You really don't want to set the ambient light at 0 for ANY reason. Fellout was like that for the longest time and it pissed me off, I think he has since figured it out thought and increased it. It causes various issues and honestly just plain looks bad. If you have ever been deep inside a REAL cave and turned out the light, then yes you literally can't see anything and would be the equivalent of 0 ambient light. BUT (this is a big but) if you have any light source you can barely make stuff out for quite a good distance so that would be about (well anything above 0 actually) 4-8 as said. You also need ambient light above 0 for NVG to work, again you get just the right level of visibility and murkiness with essentially pitch black areas around 4 - 8 ambient.

I noticed (that post was from months ago, but still) that anacostia crossing screen and that was waaay to bright, he likely didn't have the mod loading next to or very last. The way the mod has to work (if it's going to work there is no other way, and the likelihood of compatibility issues is practically nil) it has to be essentially last, as any mod that adds anything to any cell will break that cell, unless it already had the correct lighting template, which only like half to two-thirds of them do.


Fake Edit: ^^^ Yep he did. Also thats a really clever idea with the fog settings, I'll probably play around with it in the near future. Kind of modded out at the moment after I just finished my house mod thought .

Edit:

If you're talking about my mod, then all I did was add faction ownership to the cell like it should be, for compatibility with UOP. It's the same thing as Craterside Supply (or any other house), everything is owned by Moira, so why should you be able to take it at will. If that makes or breaks a mod for you then :facepalm:

Naturally the next step to shock us will be my "Lights Out!" idea.

Replace every light bulb in game with a bulb that can be broken if damaged. Add a layer of light from said bulb to add tot he illusion. And have that layer naturally come after the bulb destruction. So in effect. If the bulb is destroyed it can do something like this example.

Shoot bulb. Bulb breaks. Light layer shuts off= no longer shining. Add small short explosion for effect of change to graphic to hide said change in objects. Replace whole bulb with the small bulb parts during explosion mask. The parts(shards) will then get tossed in a small radial distance and become broken glass/bulb debris.

One can only hope......I still can't mod for crap or we would be blessed by such a mod by moi ! lol
That and destructible kitchenware....plates, mugs, pitchers etc.....

Indoors, this is true. Outdoors it is not. If you increase the value of Sunlight Dimmer in your IMAD, it amplifies the "sunlight" light source. This is a light source which bounces from east to west during the day and west to east at night (fake moonlight). Fellout usually uses 16,16,16 for both at night, though sometimes a bit less. But then, I get IMADs to play with, indoors generally doesn't


You should probably add that as a distinct and separate ESP to be loaded much higher in the load order, since it conflicts with anything and everything which also mods factions.

I did a lot more testing over the weekend, and have finished making changes to the Darker Interior ESPs for my own personal use (since I'm not the original mod author). I figure I'll play through with the new values and make sure that I like all the cells as-is. For one thing, I've only made two passes through and went on memory about which cells were occupied/unoccupied and which cells might need to be slightly brighter (like the houses in Greyditch and Minefield). Glancing through the list in GECK, there's still a lot of fine tuning that I want to make.

Haven't decided what to do with the changed ESPs (they're based off of http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13275. There are ESPs there for Broken Steel locations as well as Point Lookout, and I've already modified my copies to suit my tastes.

I remember looking at RIL, and considering using it... except that I was put off by the warning at the top of the description.

Originally, last year, I was using http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6703 uploaded by JoeDoe. There seems to be a few versions of this mod around now... if RIL didn't have the warning, that's probably the one I'd use.

Make sure you clean the mods (remove identical to master in FO3Edit) too, because otherwise you're going to conflict with a lot of other mods. GECK has a habit of writing out stuff it shouldn't be; Quite often the interior fogging tint, even if you haven't changed it. That annoys the hell out of me since Fellout changes fogging tints.