Name: Dynamic Weather
Version: 2.0
Date: 22/07/2010
Category: Gameplay Effects and Changes
Requirements: Fallout 3 v1.7
Optional Requirements: Operation Anchorage (DLC), The Pitt (DLC), Broken Steel (DLC), Point Lookout (DLC)
Author: Xepha
Source: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10607



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Description/Details:
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Remaining true to Bethesda's vision of a polluted/radioactive/post-apocalyptic world, Dynamic Weather 2.0 presents a more natural, progressively changing, weather system. Utilizing Bethesda's original weather types, my own custom weather types and assets from Skindgrad's Enhanced Weather, Dynamic Weather includes Rainstorms, Lightning Storms as well as Fog and Sandstorms.

In varying degrees and depending on cloud cover, Dynamic Weather has much darker nights than Vanilla Fallout 3. If you're crazy enough to brave the night then you will need some form of Night Vision (Night Vision Goggles/Night Ghoul Eyes (Mart's Mutant Mod)).



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***IMPORTANT INFO***
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If you are updating from previous versions, it is recommended that a Clean Install is performed and ALL Xepha's Dynamic Weather - xxx.esp's be removed, as they are now obsolete/incompatible with 2.0

LOAD ORDER: To avoid conflicts with other mods (even if you don't think there will be any), it is important that you adjust your load order like so:

Load Xepha's Dynamic Weather.esm as your *last* esm.
Load all other Xepha's Dynamic Weather - xxx.esp's very late/last in your load order.

For further advice on load order, read the appropriate readme contained within the downloaded .zip file.

Skingrad24's Enhanced Weather - Rain and Snow MUST be installed and its ESM activated for rain effects in Dynamic Weather - Rain to work ! Pick it up here: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6170 then follow the install instructions in Dynamic Weather - Rain.zip



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Updates/History (abridged):
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Dynamic Weather 2.0, 22/07/2010

* Complete overhaul of climate system. The Dynamic Weather Progressive Climate is now entirely scripted for a more natural progression of weather types.

* Improvements/refinements across all weather types.

* Several entirely new de-greened, cleaner/clearer weather types.

* Weather types are now persistent across saves/game sessions. Weather changes after Fast-Travelling are also disabled.

* Climate volatility (or, how often the weather changes) is now more dynamic - meaning the amount of time between weather changes will never be the same. Weather changes can occur anywhere between 1 and every 4 hours (by default).

* The DC Ruins now exhibit a "fogged-up" version of the weather types that are used in the Wasteland. Essentially, this is a return to the fog/view distances that are used in vanilla FO3 and should ensure that nights in the DC Ruins are as dark as they should be. These are also used in the Dynamic Weather DLC add-ons.

* Rain weather types are now integrated into the Progressive Climate script, minus the Enhanced Weather Rain Sounds/Effects. Follow the Dynamic Weather - Rain ReadMe Install instructions to activate the Rain effects.

* The player-following dust particle effects of the Sandstorm weather type have now been moved to their own separate esp. This is primarily to give a choice for players with performance issues, but also paves the way for future additional effects to the Sandstorms (radiation/damage). The scripted Sandstorm sequence and weather types remain integrated into the new Progressive Climate, however.

* Dynamic Weather DLC Add-ons now utilize all Dynamic Weather's weather types.

* A few weather types have gone away. The Pitt specific weather type now exists as "Pollution". The Point Lookout specific "foggy" weather type is no longer used. The old style "Fog" weather type is also no longer used (due to poor transitions).



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DLC add-ons:
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* Operation Anchorage: Adds a new weather type to the Wasteland using the clouds seen in the simulator. Bailey's Crossroads has been given the Dynamic Weather treatment - the simulator remains untouched, however.

* The Pitt: Applies Dynamic Weather to The Pitt locations. Weather types appearing in the Pitt have been Image Space adjusted to keep in line with the polluted atmosphere.

* Broken Steel: Applies Dynamic Weather to Broken Steel locations.

* Point Lookout: Applies Dynamic Weather to Point Lookout locations. Weather types appearing in Point Lookout have been Image Space adjusted to keep in line with the swamp atmosphere.



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Miscellaneous Extras
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* Dynamic Weather - Rain: An optional add-on that adds weather effects to the Dynamic Weather climate utilizing the Rain meshes and textures and Sound Effects of Skingrad24's Enhanced Weather Rain mod.

* Dynamic Weather - Sandstorm: An optional add-on that adds sand/dust particle effects to the Sandstorm weather type.

* Green Tint Remover: An experimental, optional add-on for those people that are really sensitive to green.

* Night Time Sneak Boost: A rather crude add-on than simply adds +25 to your Sneak Skill between the hours of darkness (21:00 - 05:00) whilst outside. This is entirely independent and so can be used without Dynamic Weather. There are better alternatives, but it's there if you want it.



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Scripted Climate and Globals:
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The use of Global variables to control the scripted climate in Dynamic Weather 2.0 has afforded a modicum of customization:

Weather Volatility (amount of time between weather changes):

For example, using the console, enter (without text in brackets):

set gVolatilityMin to 2 (Default: 1)
set gVolatilityMax to 6 (Default: 4)

These two values determine the minimum and maximum value possible of gWeatherVolatility (the actual time between changes).


Weather Groups:

In Dynamic Weather 2.0 the various weather types are grouped together to form weather groups. Weather groups are made up of weather types with similar cloud textures.

So, starting out with a Clear weather type/group, when it is time for a weather change, the script sets a weather type and randomly picks the next weather group, so that we end up with a progression like: Clear > LightCloud > WastelandCloudy > UrbanCloudy > Overcast, etc. At any point along the progression the climate can revert to a previous weather group, or (depending on weather group/type) skew off to the Rain or Sandstorm groups.

It is possible to manipulate this to force the climate into a particular weather group. Use "setgs gWeatherGroup x" in the console where x equals one of the following:

gWeatherGroup 1 = Clear Weather Types
gWeatherGroup 2 = LightCloud Weather Types
gWeatherGroup 3 = WastelandCloudy Weather Types
gWeatherGroup 4 = LightRain Weather Types
gWeatherGroup 5 = UrbanCloudy Weather Types
gWeatherGroup 6 = Overcast Weather Types
gWeatherGroup 7 = Rain Weather Types
gWeatherGroup 8 = Sandstorm Weather Types

For example:

set gWeatherGroup to 7

Sets the Weather Group to the group of Rain weather types. However, this Weather Group will not become apparent until the next weather change. So, to force a weather change, a really low value of gWeatherVolatility could be used, like so:

set gWeatherVolatilty to 0.1

Which sets the next weather change at around 6 game minutes. Note: A new value for gWeatherGroup and gWeatherVolatility will be set by the Dynamic Weather climate script when the weather changes.

Unfortunately, it just isn't possible to force a new, specific weather type. The console commands fw, forceweather, sw, setweather, simply do not work.

Oh nice, you already finished it

Question though, the readme up there still states that fog is present in the weather types. True or false?

Furthermore, there's a download for sandstorm particles. Do you have screenshots for comparison, and what's the impact on FPS?

Thanks for your work, downloading...

A few thoughts on fog... might it be possible to get rid of the texture glitch by only adding fog when the sky is cloudy and / or dark already? As i mentioned in the other thread, i didn't notice the issue a couple of times and then another time it was quite visible suddenly, so maybe there's a workaround that involves adding fog only under certain weather conditions that mask the banding effect.

I uninstalled Fellout and installed this (Did a clean save after uninstalling Fellout first), but I'm getting a weird kind of seam/stripe in the sky:

http://i25.tinypic.com/2hi6v5l.jpg

...I also notice the 'banding' sometimes, between 19:30 and 20:30 mostly.

Edit 2: Can no day/night sky replacers be used at all when using Dynamic Weather?

Just a heads up, so far i'm very satisfied with your update. The weather doesn't change rapidly anymore, so i've only seen clear & cloudy skies and a sandstorm which appears to be clearing up right now (it's still quite foggy) - it really adds to the immersion when the storm just keeps going instead of vanishing after five minutes. Really nice. I guess FWE's default timescale adds even more to that since time is running slower.

Is it possible to increase the volume of the wind during the storm? The clouds are moving so fast, it's kind of odd that the wind sounds are relatively *normal*.

Sounds like a cool update. One question though, is there still a night eye edition? I get why people enjoy the darker nights, but I like being able to enjoy the ambiance.

You should warn people about the serious FPS drop when Enhanced Weather - Rain and Snow.esm and Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Rain.esp are used in order to activate rain effects. When it rains the game becomes almost unplayable for me.

Also, i'm not sure but i think i'm kind of stuck with it for the moment because it also appears to be introducing a DOF effect that doesn't go away when both mod files are removed (while it's raining, at least). Not sure, maybe Dynamic Weather 2.01 creates this effect and the rain mods aren't to be blamed. The problem is, in the end, that i'm already using a DOF mod. Both things combined look like this now:

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k120/scratch8o/unsorted/Fallout3exe011-58-22.jpg

I guess i have to wait for the rain (and DOF) to stop so i can remove the mods. Or is DW responsible for it? (if so then it's no problem - but i don't want to be stuck with this heavy DOF from now on in case DW isn't responsible).

Any help in getting rid of the effect faster (if DW not responsible) would be appreciated, too.

In the end, i think you should try to create your own version of rain. This one, while putting an enormous strain on the CPU, also doesn't look that nice since the fake effect is quite visible (or maybe it's the extreme DOF making it look bad?). Furthermore, while the thunderstorms introduce really nice lighting, its sounds are badly cut. Normally you'd hear thunder for quite a while until it completely recedes, but the sounds here stop almost immediately after the "main sound" has been played.

When I've used DOF mods in the past, the performance hit was pretty severe, so I'm surprised you're using one if you're having trouble with EW Rain. Can't say I'm surprised that using both would make the game unplayable though.

The "DoF" effect of Dynamic Weather isn't actually a DoF effect - if it wasn't for the performance hit, I would have used it for the rain weather types. The intended effect was one of a simulated rain "mist" if you like - it's basically an enhanced bloom effect. If you don't use the EW / DW Rain combo for rain effects, you'll be left with mist/fog weather types.

In previous versions, I'd added the extra Rain weather types and overridering climates to the DW Rain add-on. But since DW 2.0's progressive climate script (and other associated scripts) are rather large and unwieldy, I really didn't fancy creating a whole bunch of separate scripts for each add-on, that would need updating the next time I did an update. The additional weather type + scripts in the Anchorage add-on has proved more than enough for the time being. :wacko:

Well, I was going to say that screenshot looked awesome... But removing the DoF mod will allow you to see the intended effect, untainted - and possibly give a performance boost to boot.

The DOF itself only has minimal impact on my fps. The screenshot in my last post was made while i had both rain mods disabled and it ran fine. As soon as i readded them the FPS drop was noticable again.

So what you're saying is that DW introduces the mist effect? As you just said, yes - it looks nice, i totally agree. I just was afraid that this was a result of both rain mods and i might be stuck with this blurring from now on.

So - do i have to wait for the rain and mist effect to stop, then remove the mods? Or can i remove them now?

Alright, thanks for the clarification.

I'm using the Strong Motion Blur and Medium Very Far DOF modules from the "Motion Blur and Depth of Field Modular" mod: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7132


Thanks for your continuous work!