SkyReal - Weather and Lighting

Description

SkyReal is a weather and lighting modification for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. SkyReal will bring an immense variety of new weathers to Skyrim. SkyReal focuses to bring balance between realism and fantasy, while at the same time achieve natural and stunning visuals. With new high quality cloud textures and fine-tuned lighting, SkyReal brings new life to Skyrim's sunsets, sunrises, days, and nights, as well as dungeons and interiors.

Features

A short summary of the features of SkyReal are:
- hundreds of new high quality cloud textures (inter alia, multi-colored clouds for sunrises and sunsets)
- hundreds of new weather systems with an immense variety
- all new, fine-tuned lighting
- dynamic nebulas
- new, realistic HDR
- longer weather transitions
- more varied climate changes (i.e. instead of fog 90 % of the time in Riften, it will be 40 %)
- new sunglare
- new galaxy texture
- (perhaps) new star texture

Variety

From mighty cumulus clouds to elegant cirrus clouds, from mourning rain clouds to majestic altocumulus clouds, SkyReal will deliver an unrivalled variety of clouds. Moreover, there will be a supreme variety of sunsets and sunrises; from fiery red to golden yellow. Finally, there will be a great variety of different kinds of lighting types, for instance: truly sunny days with blue skies, cloudy days with grey skies, dark moody sunsets, and bright lively sunrises. The skies and lighting have been fine-tuned to fit the climate of a northern environment, as Bethesda originally intended.

Realism and fantasy

SkyReal will focus to balance realism and fantasy, in order to make the world of Tamriel feel real, yet extraordinary. Most of the time the lighting and skies will aim to be realistic, but there will also be times when the lighting and skies will try to give you that fantasy feeling that should be in a fantasy world. For instance, the night lighting will not be pitch-black, but instead enough bright for you to be able to see where you are going without a torch, and will sometimes, but not always, have a slightly blue tint. Note, however, that there will be different options for the night lighting, so that people who want pitch-black nights can have it. In addition, on very rare occasions there will be nebulas in the night sky, blazing with astounding colours.

Natural and stunning visuals

The skies and lighting of SkyReal will also focus to bring natural and stunning visuals as a variety in Skyrim. There will be times when the skies and lighting deliberately aim to look unimpressive and simply calm and natural. However, there will also be times when the visuals strive to look stunning and to truly amaze the player; in other words, make your jaw drop to the floor. The reason for this is the already mentioned keyword: variety.

Screenshots

Days:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/199080
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/223003
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/223560
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/Images/229078

Sunset and sunrises:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/193262
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/195974
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/202018
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/223168
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/Images/223948
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/Images/229097

Nights:
http://oi46.tinypic.com/otm348.jpg

Dungeons and interiors:
To come much, much later.

Videos

To come much, much later.

The purposes of this forum thread

The main purpose of this forum thread is so that you can give me feedback on my work. I gladly accept constructive criticism so that I can further improve this upcoming mod. Other purposes for this thread are so that people can easily see the development stages of this mod. I also take advice; for instance if you want to see a specific type of cloud in the game, you can request it, or if you have a desire on how something should look, you can say it. Moreover, if you have taken some great cloud photographs yourself and would like them to be part of the picture library that I use to make cloud textures of, you can show them to me in this thread (or you can send me a PM), but I do recommend that you follow these guidelines that I have set up http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1423429-hlvrs-weather-mod/page__st__60__p__22358512#entry22358512. Finally, this thread can of course be used to ask questions in general about this mod.

The release date of this mod

I have no current release date of this mod, because it is an extensive project and I have an extensive ambition. I will work on this mod for as long as I feel like working on it, and for as long as I have time to do so. My saying to this question is therefore always the same “It will be done when it is done.”

FAQ

How compatible will this be with other mods?
On a general note, I'll try to make this mod as compatible as possible with other mods, but because it's such a massive overhaul with many features, this mod is meant to be your replacement for mods that are incompatible, like lighting and weather mods.
More specifically, however:
- Climates of Tamriel (CoT) and other weather mods: incompatible

- Climates of Tamriel (CoT) sounds plugin: probably incompatible (needs testing)
- ENB: compatible, but will most likely need to be adjusted to look right. I will also include ENB profiles with the mod made by “ENB experts” that are specifically designed to fit the weather and lighting of SkyReal.

- Frostfall: compatible

- RCRN: incompatible

- Realistic Lighting Overhaul (RLO): compatible with all parts that do not change weather and exterior lighting- Sounds of Skyrim (SoS): will be compatible

- Sounds of Skyrim (SoS): will be compatible

How dark will nights be, and will there be different night lighting options?
Nights will be much darker than vanilla, but they will still be so bright that you can see without a torch. Nights during thunderstorms, overcasts, and foggy and cloudy weather will naturally be even darker, while clear nights and nights with aurora borealis will be a bit brighter. I have tried to strike the balance between: “dark so that nights feel more immersive and beautiful and not bleak” and “bright so I can see without having a torch in front of me every second or without causing eye strain”.
Moreover, there will be several different night lighting options to please as many people as possible. For those who want pitch-black nights, they can have it; and for those who want brighter nights than I have as default, they can have it.

Will you add support for the Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs?
Dragonborn: yes.
Dawnguard: probably, but not completely sure yet. The reason for this is because I am not sure if I will buy Dawnguard. I do not think the DLC sounds very good or appealing to me. If I buy Dawnguard, I will make a compatibility patch. If I do not buy Dawnguard, I will try to make a compatibility patch with the help of other people who has Dawnguard.

News

Under this headline, I will write the latest news of this mod (i.e. screenshots, etc.) and I will always write a date to when I updated it so you know if you've missed anything. Sometimes I will also put up a poll asking questions about what people think about something, and then I will also post it as news here.

2013/03/27 - New screenshot added: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/Images/223948
2013/03/28 - http://oi46.tinypic.com/otm348.jpg
2013/04/07 - New screenshot added: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/Images/229078
2013/04/07 - New screenshot added: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/Images/229097
2013/04/14 - Unfortunately, my computer has broken, which forces me to buy a new one, along with new a monitor and speakers (the old ones were ready to be considered garbage). Therefore, it will take quite a while before you guys will see any new screenshots or updates, sorry! Since these new purchases will cost me a lot of money, especially for a student, I've also decided to set up a PayPal account (available through my Nexus profile) if any kind soul wishes to help me by donating.
2013/04/24 - Computer, monitor and speakers received and now installing!

2013/05/03 - Poll about blur levels added. Poll ended; thanks everyone for voting. The results are here: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1452257-wip-skyreal-%E2%80%93-weather-and-lighting/page-6#entry22619499

Reposted vote options from last thread:

So, now with everything all set, I'm finally ready to release new screenshots after my computer broke over a month ago. So here's this time's vote options for the screenshots
The option which gets the most votes "wins".

1. Jaw-dropping, photorealistic and dark altocumulus sunset (colors: pink, orange, blue)
2. Very moody, beautiful cirrus sunset. Gives me a very sentimental feeling for some reason, like when walking home from a long journey (colors: brown, orange, pink/purple, blue)
3. "Romantic" and stunning cirrus sunset (colors: orange, teal, purple, blue)
4. Stunning cirrus sunset with atmospheric moody colors (colors: golden brown, orange, purple)
5. Beautiful altocumulus that looks very natural and reminds me a little of this sunset type in CoT (although it's much higher quality): http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/images/17802-2-1349806676.jpg (colors: orange, yellow, teal, blue)

I figure I'd submit some thoughts on this rather than just voting. I don't think a simple vote would do this justice.

1 - This one doesn't quite "feel" right to me. It's probably the sudden, rather than gradual, difference in contrast. If the colors were more normalized and a wider, softer gradient was used, I might think otherwise. But as it is now, this one just looks wrong to me.
2 - Great all-round sunset. I'd pick this to be the best candidate for general purpose weather.
3 - It's... beautiful... *sniff*. I desperately want this... On occasion, not every night. Seeing this once every week and a half would be like the icing on the cake.
4 - Stunning, seductive, surreal. Absolutely perfect for twilight.
5 - I'd call this a nice sweet spot between 2 and 3. Looks very cool.
6 - Subtle; simple yet effective. Great choice for mostly cloudy or even overcast sunset.

With the exception of the first one, I want to see all of these in game. but if I had to pick one (and only one), I'd have to say 5.

Great job so far, looking forward to future development. .

EDIT: Stupid keyboard...

i vote 4

edit: ever heard of polls?

Thanks for the feedback. Always appreciated.

I disagree about the first one. I think it's a great sunset. What I love most about it is the gradual fade out of the sunset clouds compared to the dark altocumulus clouds. It's very hard to create such subtle fade outs. It's pretty close to similar sunsets in real life: http://tonosita.cocolog-nifty.com/photos/uncategorized/2011/06/21/dvc00715.jpg, http://agsci.oregonstate.edu/farmunit/sites/default/files/hyslop/Hyslopsunrise2.JPG. When you say sudden difference in contrast, what do you mean? Do you mean in the sky or do you mean between sky and landscape? If you see a strong contrast in the sky, it could be because of your monitor. I just bought a new monitor and the difference can be tremendous. But still, if it's not your monitor some people just have different taste . If you think there's anything specific I can change to make it look better, let me know.

I'm glad you appreciated all the rest of the sunsets. I like how you described number six - simple yet effective. That's exactly what I had in mind when making it

Lol. At first I thought "this question is too unimportant for a poll", but now I realize it's basically just the same as commenting votes here in the thread as posts. I'll do polls in the future, they're simpler and more organized...