Happy New Year, fellow wanderers! :celebrate:

Okay, okay... I'm gonna go out on a limb here and let this loose to you guys. Fingers crossed everything is present and correct! :hehe:

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1062919 for those that like to read. :read:

http://s830.photobucket.com/albums/zz221/Xepha/dynamic%20weather/?albumview=slideshow for those that like to just look at the pictures. :liplick:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10607 for those that like to download! :clap:

Wall of text, for those that like to reply "tl;dr".

Name: Dynamic Weather
Version: 1.0
Date: 12/31/2009
Category: Gameplay Effects and Changes
Requirements: Fallout 3 v1.7
Optional Requirements: Operation Anchorage (DLC), Broken Steel (DLC)
Author(s): Xepha
Source: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10607

Description
===========
Bored of the same old weather where ever you go in the Wasteland? Tired of bright as day "night"? Then this mod is for you!

Essentially a Wasteland Moods spin-off, combined with my previous Darker Nights, what we have here is lightly modified vanilla weather types, heavily modified vanilla weather types, modified DLC weather types and a few creations of my own, all changing randomly as you wander the Capital Wasteland.

Details
=======
Dynamic Weather changes the weather throughout the Capital Wasteland approximately every 4 hours, semi-randomly, from a choice of 13 weather types (14, if using the optional Anchorage esp). Weather types are weighted so that clearer skies are more likely to appear than cloudy ones (60% and 30%, respectively). Fog/Sandstorm weather types have considerably less chance of appearing (10%).

Sunset begins and ends an hour later, so days are a little longer than vanilla - I always felt days were a little too short, even with a smaller timescale setting.

Speaking of timescale - I would highly recommend using a smaller timescale when using this mod, because as well as making the days last longer, it also increases the length of weather transitions. To change timescale, break open the console and type

set timescale to x

where x is a number - default is 30, and I would recommend a setting of 10 (or lower).

I would also highly recommend the use of Night Vision Goggles, as nights will now be *very* dark. Search the nexus and find some you like!

Oh, additionally there is an optional/experimental Night Time Sneak Boost module, which attempts to make up for the lack of visibility at night. It merely adds 25 points to your Sneak skill during hours of darkness (and when outdoors only) and is only effective when crouching.

To-Do List/Planned Updates
==========================
The Pitt and Point Lookout Compatibility
Integration/Compatibility with Skingrad24's Enhanced Weather - Rain
More weather types/cloud textures
Refinement/improvement of current weather types/cloud textures
More control over weather via scripts
Choice of weather types, possibly via different esp's or via a config menu

Install
=======
1. Extract files to (install folder)\Fallout 3\Data\
2. Using FOMM, place a checkmark beside the required .esp file(s):

Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Main (***Required / Load First***)
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Anchorage (Optional / Requires Operation Anchorage)
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Broken Steel (Optional / Requires Broken Steel)

3. Load late/last in load order to avoid conflicts/breaking my mod

Uninstall
=========
1. Using FOMM, uncheck the .esp file(s).
2. Delete the files/folders associated with the mod.

C:\..\Fallout 3\Data\Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Main
C:\..\Fallout 3\Data\Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Anchorage
C:\..\Fallout 3\Data\Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Broken Steel
C:\..\Fallout 3\Data\Textures\Sky\falloutFogClouds.dds
C:\..\Fallout 3\Data\Textures\Sky\falloutFogHorizon.dds
C:\..\Fallout 3\Data\Textures\Sky\WastelandLightCloudLower.dds
C:\..\Fallout 3\Data\Textures\Sky\WastelandLightCloudUpper.dds

Incompatibility
===============
Will *not* work with other weather modification mods, e.g. Fellout, Wasteland Moods, Wasteland Weather Overhaul, etc.

Note: Enhanced Weather - Rain *will* work.

Known Issues or Bugs
====================
- Bethesda bug: If the weather is in transition (i.e. changing) when moving from exterior to interior cells, the clouds will fail to appear when you go outside again. A workaround script is in place to handle this and although the effect can be a little jarring, it's a lot less immersion breaking than staring at the sky wondering "Where have all the clouds gone?" (clouds suddenly blink into existence) "Oh.. There they are...". If I discover better ways of handling this, I'll be sure to update.

History
=======
1.0, 12/31/2009 - Initial release.

Contact
=======
Xepha @ http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/
Xepha537 @ http://www.fallout3nexus.com

Credits
=======
Thanks to TheOutbreak/Yossarian22, whose work forms a foundation for this mod.
Thanks to the Fallout 3 modding community for its wealth of information
Thanks to Bethesda for creating Fallout 3.
Thanks to www.fallout3nexus.com for the a one-stop-shop resource for authors and players.
Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.

Honourable Mentions should go to those whose work has provided help/inspiration (whether they know it or not), namely:

Hattix - Fellout
Skingrad24 - Enhanced Weather
Maxwell Adams - Wasteland Weather Overhaul
omgpineapples - View distance decreased

Tools Used
==========
The G.E.C.K. - http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/Main_Page
GIMP - http://www.gimp.org
7-Zip - http://www.7-zip.org
Readme Generator - http://lhammonds.game-host.org/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.asp

Licensing/Legal
===============
You can do whatever you want with this mod but all I ask in return is that
you give me credit if you distribute any part of this mod. I would also like
to know what mods are including my work.

Try lowering the ambient and sunlight values to near-black for night time (as well as distant fog), and then making the lower sky and upper sky completely black. To make lighted objects (self-illuminated or otherwise) still stand out in that darkness, find the imagespace modifier associated with it and jack up the Brightness multiplier to about 2x. You may need to do some fine-tuning back-and-forth in the game to get it just right.

I've got my own personal night-time dark-ifier that I did that with. Then you'll have true black night skies and shiny stars, and extra-bright glowey bits (like the Pipboy Lamp)

EDIT: Oh yeah, don't forget to lower the clouds to near-black colors as well. You will certainly notice them if you neglect to.

One little caveat: environmental reflections on meshes. A lot of them aren't set to emulate the brightness of any lighting on them, so they're full shiny at night. There are a lot of meshes with this issue (most of them buildings), but I've been going through them and fixing them.

Details on that here: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2339

Thank for the tip!

It's funny how you start to figure out different ways of doing stuff after you've done the bulk of the work. But my aim is to get it "just right", so I'll definitely be exploring different ways of doing stuff for future updates.

:)

Erk... edited just as you posted.

Read the caveat about environmental reflections.

I've managed to nab most of the meshes that have the problem, but there are still a few left that I need to go hunt down. There are also issues with the "ground shadow" mesh parts doing something similar, but it's not as easy a fix and is more of an excision of the offending mesh part because the problem is that it's a different NIF shader property and the coloration is vertex color based (and I am NOT going to change the colors of that many vertices! :wacko: )

any chance you can individually package certain weather patterns,
for instance, i have been looking for a fog mod for a long time

I like this mod. I don't think it's as good as Fellout (otherwise I'd make Fellout better), but I do think it's a good mod and well worth players trying it out.

Well done!

The man has spoken! :bowdown:

Thank-you!

Happy New Year!

:D

Ah... Missed these posts. Let's see.



I think I've seen you mention something like this before. It all sounds a little out of my modding skill range, I think. :wacko: Those little "shadows" around the base of walls and such has always bugged me, but if what you say is true it sounds like a lot of work!




I'm not really sure this is something I would do, to be honest, simply because of the amount of different esp's I'd have to juggle when providing updates. I'm more likely to implement some kind of config/menu system to choose your own weather types, however. Could be some time away though that as it's not really very high on my to-do list. I do agree, though, it would be cool to pick and choose your weather types.

-Xeph' B)

Believe me, it is. I'm coming down the home stretch though on fixing a vast majority of the meshes in question. The downside is that it's probably 200MBs worth of modified meshes. I may put it up as a resource for those who want darkened nights but no window shinyness. It makes the envmap shinyness depend on lighting circumstances and also blackifies or removes all non-black edge shadows that I've encountered. I'm bound to have missed some, though, but the majority of them are out.

There's also the issue of water. It has a nuclear glow to it. The water shader's weird acting in dark lighting... It can be fixed with some color tweeking as well, but it has the side effect of making it murky black when under water. I've been toying with settings to try and push back the range of the murk a bit, but so far no success.

I like the idea of how this works, and also like much of the weather I see here, but I really have to ask a stupid question, or at least make a stupid request, or perhaps a stupid suggestion..

Anyways, just a thought for your consideration, take it how you will and use it or don't use it for whatever it is worth

*ahem* Yeah, anyways..

Contrary to one of the tag lines being about making nights darker, that's obviously not the primary focus of this mod (as far as I can tell). That is instead, making weather a lot more interesting and diverse.

Is there a chance of making a version with nights that are not super dark? Please remember that there are many people who play in rooms that are not themselves pitch dark. It's much, much easier to play in a super dark game environment when the room is dark, but myself, and likely many others, simply do not have that luxury. I always end up turning off the available weather mods because I like to play during game night too, but then I end up being unable to see anything, it's just too bright in here. A combination of glare and bright ambient light make it pretty much impossible to see anything during a rainstorm at night with Enhanced Weather (as an example). And I don't mean impossible as in really hard.. I mean.. freakin' impossible

Well, quite...

Perhaps I didn't make it that clear that this mod is essentially an evolution of my last mod - so it was always going to have darker nights. I think my descriptions may not be particularly clear (as I was trying to get the mod Relz'd so I could get on with New Year festivities! )

Regardless, I do understand where you're coming from. Sometimes you just want to disgregard total immersion and get on with playing the game! I've tried modding this during the day, and it just doesn't work - but then I've always been a bit of a night owl - so my gaming room is generally under low ambient lighting conditions. That, and the fact that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is one my favorite games - you can see why the nights have ended up so dark!

A couple of questions for you.

Have your tried using Night Vision Goggles mods? Did it/would it help?
And - if I was going to make a less-dark version - how dark can dark be? Like vanilla Fallout 3 nights? Or somewhere inbetween?

I can't promise anything, but I'm definitely not finished with this mod yet, so there's always the possibility.

-Xeph' B)

Myself I don't mind darker nights, but I do mind nuclear sunglare - a lot.

Currently using Fellout and Enhanced Weather - and they are great, but lack variety. So this is intriguing.

Wondering if I just replaced the sunglare.dds file with a beaming variety if that would solve the nuclear bomb effect of the sun in this mod.

Then also - does this mod address the green tint the way that fellout does?

I don't mind the green tint - if appropriate, such as in radioactive areas or under certain weather conditions.

You say it is compatible with Enhanced Weather - Rain ... how about Enhanced Weather - Rand and Snow?

thanks

200MB!! Good grief... :wacko: Definitely sounds interesting, though, MadCat!

Water... Something I've been meaning to pay more attention to. I've made a couple of changes, namely the Potomac both north and south of the bridge near the Super Duper Mart. I think my main problem with water is though, that I don't know where a given water type is is the wasteland - which means I can't edit it if I can't see it...

So, while I'm on the subject - I need to ask, how do I find out which water type is displayed in the Render Window. (Finding the water type to change the Potomac was mere deduction, the rest, however, are somewhat more cryptically named. :wacko: Is there a way?

-Xeph' B)

Nulear Bomb!?

Very interesting. Can I ask if the the nuclear sunglare effect is greater than that seen in vanilla fallout? If it's the same, then there's nothing to worry about. If the glare is greater than vanilla, would you mind providing a screenshot (with time of day), as something may have gone wonky (although I don't see how) or I may have overdone a setting somewhere.

Green tint is here to stay! In fact I have in mind weather types that have more green in them. Really, I never had a problem with the green tint - just the fact that nights were too bright and the weather never changes - hence this mod. Hattix must have really hated The Matrix...

EW Rain/Snow: To be honest, I haven't done massive amounts of testing. But it does work - simply because that mod's weather is scripted. However, during testing, it simply did not stop raining! So, I intend to eventually provide an update, that integrates the rain (and possibly snow) provided by EW in a more controlled fashion.

-Xeph' B)



P.s. I hate this forum software - it keeps logging me out!!! :banghead:

Several screenshots found in your own slideshow: The sun is not just in the sky - it is the sky.

Not a fan of the green tint, so will probably skip this - no offense - to each their own.

I just agree with most - that after 200 years the world would not be that radioactive and certainly there is no rationale for the green tint. As if radioactivity were colored. It is a cheap effect placed upon the world to simulate radioactive wasteland.

Now having it as a shader when you yourself are radioactive or even creating radioactive anomalies (a la STALKER) or storms with radioactive clouds (not just radioactive rain) then green tint or even yellow, or blue or whatever would be kind of neat.

At this point though - will stick with what I've got.

Ah-ha! Right, I thought you were trying to tell me that you'd discovered some kind of ultra nuclear sky (i.e. even greater than that found in vanilla FO).

But no, that's cool. If you don't like it, you don't like it. But I would say that that slideshow is a fair representation of what's going on in my mod (green tint/nuclear sky and all).

Personally, I find the weather/color schemes found in fallout 3 to be quite fitting and in line with the general over-the-top nature of the game - hence nuclear sky, etc... It's not quite as refined as, say, Stalker, but it's alright. :nod:

Uh, I'm gonna put this here..

Hit on a bit of a snag while working on The Pitt add-on...

While I have different weather types actually appearing in The Pitt, it seems to me that they are coming out way too bright - as if an Image Space is overriding the changes I've made.

A little explanation of how those changes are achieved: To have changing weather any Region Weather data are removed (Regions > Weather Tab), then a new Climate and Image Space is applied to all relevant World Spaces. Now, while this works flawlessly in the Wasteland, this doesn't appear to be the case in The Pitt (and by extension, probably not Point Lookout and Broken Steel (which I've already released *oops*).

So, it's a little frustrating and I'm a little unsure how to proceed as I don't quite know why the weather is coming out to bright. My first thought was to create a new unique Image Space for The Pitt with different Bright Clamp (etc) values to try and reign the brightness in. So far, no dice, and its proving problematic as to what values to actually use since I'm essentially making them blind as the Geck doesn't appear to display changes to Image Space values...

It also occured to me that the too bright issue may be due to the fact that the DLC World Spaces are considerably smaller than the Capital Wasteland - although I don't understand quite how or why this would be the case...

Another thought (and if I am unable to clamp the brighness) was that it actually might make more sense to not have every weather type appearing in The Pitt/Point Lookout since part of The Pitt questline involves . I've not visited Point Lookout yet, but since it is a Marshland i'm not too confident that having desert-like weather appearing would be appropriate (even though that was my initial intention). In this case it might make more sense to just apply a little Darker Nights magic to The Pitt/Point Lookout - but this would still leave me with the too-bright issue in Broken Steel, however. I'm also not really overly keen on creating new weather types to cycle through for each DLC - as this will push development time back even further.

What to do? What to do?

Anyone have any ideas? Words of wisdom to share?

-Xeph' :sadvaultboy:

Just dropping a quick line . . . loving the mod so far =) I never was a big fan of Fellout . . . and had been using the Wasteland Weather Overhaul . . . I find your mod even better, with more diversity in the feeling and moodyness of the wasteland. I was contemplating making my own weather mod, but now I don't have to!

Two thumbs up!

..and you sir, are a gentleman in my book

on topic somewhere beyond GPS retrieval..
Adrius has a point, I can't run super dark nights either simply due to the hallway light here in the livingroom thats on for my 4yr old to find the head at night when he needs to pee.

I luved the sandstorm pics!! :goodjob:

Just downloaded this last night and everything looks great. I like how different the weathers look from each other.

Love the sub-title.
Though I'm far to fond of the rain mod to use this before they're compatible I have to say I'm very impressed and will defenatley download when they are.

They are compatible so far as I've seen. I'm running both this and enhanced weather, although I'm using an older version of EW. Don't know if that matters.

Okay, panic over!

Check my last post (a few posts back), seems I missed something, so the brightness is behaving itself again. :clap: I'm such a noob sometimes... :facepalm:

Anyway, I think I know what I'm going to do with The Pitt now. So as not to lose the whole "everyone's dying of pollution and radiation" feel, I'll be creating a new Pitt Climate which (combined with a Pitt hued tint via Image Space) will give more chance of cloudy/foggy/dusty weather types. How does that sound? Otherwise, ETA: uh, soon-ish!

Should look something like this:

http://s830.photobucket.com/albums/zz221/Xepha/dynamic%20weather%20the%20pitt/?albumview=slideshow

I'll probably do something similar to Point Lookout as well. Well, as soon as I can get off this [censored] Space-Ship!!! :swear:

Thanks for the comments so far guys!

-Xeph' B)

Fingers crossed that this mod is still going - it's one of the reasons I'm looking at getting FO3 for the PC (I've only played it on the 360 before).

Looks good as it is though!

Hey!

Funny you should say that. I'm just writing up the readme now. :read:

So, unless I suddenly decide to start messing with stuff (it's happened before :rolleyes: ) - there should be an update - uhh - soon!