Lighting problems

Post » Sat May 28, 2011 7:46 pm

I really like how are lighting and light source radius in my game, but something is definitely wrong.
First of all, lighting on the ground is rather "blocky", with illuminated areas and then very dark on the ones near them, but I guess is how MW handle it, with textures lit up or dark.
The most annoying problem is on NPCs though. When they move they literally "flash" on and off, sometimes when they stop they are not lit up at all, even if they hold a light source in their hand.
I could stand the first problem, but the second one is really annoying.

Here my lighting settings:

[LightAttenuation]
UseConstant=0
ConstantValue=http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1160160-lighting-problems/0.0
;
UseLinear=0
LinearMethod=0
LinearValue=http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1160160-lighting-problems/0
LinearRadiusMult=0
;
UseQuadratic=1
QuadraticMethod=2
QuadraticValue=http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1160160-lighting-problems/5
QuadraticRadiusMult=2

I also use TLM (and Illuminated Windows, but I think has nothing to do with it). Finally, my "Ambient Night Color" values are all 006,006,006.

Anyone has an idea of what I've done wrong?
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Tiffany Holmes
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 11:19 am

MCP should fix these problems with the lighting fixes group. You can see the screenshots of specifically those bugs on the TESNexus page.
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Verity Hurding
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 6:04 am

Are you sure this isn't due to some change to some variable a mod could have altered? I don't recal having this problem in vanilla Morrowind, but I encountered it a few days ago when enabling a bunch of mods all at once. It seemed to appear/disappear whenever I enabled/disabled Starfire's NPC Additions.

But now you mention it, I remember disabling that light fix in the MCP for that same install... I'll try enabling that again this evening, thanks.
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Sami Blackburn
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 4:14 pm

MCP should fix these problems with the lighting fixes group. You can see the screenshots of specifically those bugs on the TESNexus page.


I didn't remember the MCP had that fix, however I have already the patch installed. So I reinstalled it using the backup, I did it several times but the problems persists, with or without it NPCs still flash, and I have portion of the ground with absolutely different lightning.

Are you sure this isn't due to some change to some variable a mod could have altered? I don't recal having this problem in vanilla Morrowind, but I encountered it a few days ago when enabling a bunch of mods all at once. It seemed to appear/disappear whenever I enabled/disabled Starfire's NPC Additions.


Well I have NPC Additions installed, although I don't know how it could cause this problems. I think I will just have to try disabling it.
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Jose ordaz
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 8:08 am

I believe it has something to do with the amount of light sources around. I get the flickering especially in Balmora, pretty much all NPCs with torches have the light flicker on and off as they walk. Same for the player. And Balmora has a ton of light sources. Once I move out of Balmora then suddenly the torch works fine for me again.

It wouldn't surprise me if all those lights together is one of the primary reasons why most people often report having the most FPS issues in Balmora, next to the number of NPCs...
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Tinkerbells
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 1:03 pm

I believe it has something to do with the amount of light sources around. I get the flickering especially in Balmora, pretty much all NPCs with torches have the light flicker on and off as they walk. Same for the player. And Balmora has a ton of light sources. Once I move out of Balmora then suddenly the torch works fine for me again.


Exactly, it's right where I'm testing this thing, but I notice it in Seyda Neen too. However, disabling NPC Additions, with a lot less NPCs, I could watch an isolated guard witha torch, far enough from any other light sources and its lighting was working correctly. Instead near the Fighter's Guild where there are a lot of lights all NPCs walking around there were filckering. It's definitely the number of light sources that causes this problem.
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Ally Chimienti
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 4:38 pm

when this came up in the MCP thread someone mentioned ini values, this seems as good a place as any to re-ask what the tweaked setting are to "fix" the blockyness i experience with default settings.
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Mark Hepworth
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 4:39 pm

when this came up in the MCP thread someone mentioned ini values, this seems as good a place as any to re-ask what the tweaked setting are to "fix" the blockyness i experience with default settings.

Using Quadratic and Linear (and even Constant) together seems to soften the edges of the ground light, but it really is a problem with the engine itself and not much can be done.

my settings... (used in conjuction with Vurt's weather tweaks as well.)
[LightAttenuation]UseConstant=0ConstantValue=http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1160160-lighting-problems/0.0;UseLinear=1LinearMethod=1LinearValue=0.1LinearRadiusMult=0.618;UseQuadratic=1QuadraticMethod=2QuadraticValue=4.0QuadraticRadiusMult=2.0;OutQuadInLin=0


As mentioned, the more light sources, the more blocky lighting appears.
It also seems to happen more around dusk and dawn, when the world lighting is changing.
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Queen of Spades
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 1:24 pm

I believe it has something to do with the amount of light sources around. I get the flickering especially in Balmora, pretty much all NPCs with torches have the light flicker on and off as they walk. Same for the player. And Balmora has a ton of light sources. Once I move out of Balmora then suddenly the torch works fine for me again.

It wouldn't surprise me if all those lights together is one of the primary reasons why most people often report having the most FPS issues in Balmora, next to the number of NPCs...


can't be. i added 200+ lights to vivec with no fps loss. but lights interact with each other. if you have too many lights with big radii, strange things happen. move a light, change it's radius and other lights go off and such.
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Ymani Hood
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 6:01 am

thanks pluto, i'll give that a go. i've only changed to quadradic to use windows glow, perhaps using linear at the same till will soften it a bit....

get a bit garrish having everything so high quality, but having lighting that resembles that of quake 1 or 2.
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Natalie Harvey
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 8:56 am

http://www.yacoby.net/es/forum/12/6046021166065800.html

That thread might be of useful reading. Also I think part of the lighting problem is from the fact that morrowind uses DX 8 and some hard coded limits of the number of lights or something.
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Sara Lee
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 11:41 am

Was a consensus ever reached concerning the cause of the blinking torchlight? I have tested and retested my entire modlist with and without MCP and discovered it *ONLY* happens with Starfire's NPC Additions running. From looking in the mod, I have discovered only one reference to lighting of any sort. There is a Leveled Item list called SF_commoner(a+p)_torch which includes only one item, the torch_infinite_time. I checked this against vanilla Morrowind and SF did not change anything about that torch.

I stripped my install down to just Morrowind and the two expansions, added back SF's NPC Additions and got the strobe effect. I disabled it and added back MGE, MCP, and MPP 1.6.5 beta and all of my mods one at a time, I only got the flashing torchlight when I checked SF's NPC Additions.

It happens whether it is me carrying the torch or an NPC carrying it and it happens with no additional mod-added lighting; there must be *something* in that mod. Since there is a fix written into MCP to address this issue (which doesn't work for me, sadly) then the cause of it must be known, right? Maybe if we can put the known cause and compare it to a known trigger, the speculation can end and a real fix can be discovered. Does anyone have any ideas where to look next? Could it possibly be a .nif issue? I have had some amazingly unrelated issues with incompatible .nif file

EDIT: After reading this thread, I checked one more thing . . . I took the torch from one of the flickering NPCs and walked staight out of Balmora with it. The flickering *did* stop right before the bridge toward Fort Moonmoth. So, yes, it does appear to be an issue with the number of lights, but short of disabling SF's NPC Additions or turning off quadratic lighting, what can be done? Is there another light that can be given to SF's NPCs? Will changing the quadratic lighting settings make a difference? As I said, the lighting group fix in MCP doesn't fix this issue [for me].
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DAVId Bryant
 
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