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http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27273749/Realistic%20Lighting%20Readme.html

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http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4323

New readme - long, so check it out there.

Other mods:

Other mods I like and recommend using with this:
Alternate sunglare: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1653
Bump roads (normal maps retexture): http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4304
Serious HD landscape textures: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2146
Pure Waters (best water textures ever): http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1111
My improved rock textures (link below)

747823's other mods:
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=849
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3871
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=736
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3296
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2854

Pluto's other mods:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1269

Huh! Until now I didn't realize this wasn't an EnB shader thing. I've been avoiding the hassle of setting that up. But now I think I'll give this a try. Thanks for all the effort you're putting into these mods!

And instead of losing FPS with a shader, you'll actually gain it from cutting bloom. Though in practice that might not make a difference on most computers, the main point is you won't have to do any additional setup nor will you lose any fps.

Awesome, I love this mod <3

Forgot to change a line in there - this mod WILL affect sneak. I've fine-tuned the values to make sure of that one. To test, use a prid player, and getdetected [player formID] while in the shadows and compare the light there from the light outside of the shadows.

Can i use the LessTint.esm from the No Tint mod with this mod, or would it be overkill as far as brightness goes?

I liked this mod but it made the snow way too bright in the daytime. Im using Serious HD snow.

Can't wait to try this!

I've left it as is in my game, since, in my experience, if you're out on a sunny day and not wearing goggles, that's what snow looks like, but they do provide optional dimmer snow textures in the latest version (older versions had them as a separate download.) It'd be nice though if they teamed up with one of the HD texture mod authors to make an HD version.

This looks good! There are some areas I'm not privvy to, mainly the fact that nights are now pitch black (realistically a night will only be pitch black if you are in a spot where there is heavy sky blocking like a forest, or the sky is ALSO black). Skyrim has too much ambient light, but ambient light in-general does have a purpose from an artistic standpoint - it is the light that the sky itself casts when it refracts and reflects the sun rays, which tints the atmosphere to be slightly blue, which in of itself acts as a very dull indirect lightsource.

In other words, shadows will never be very dark/black during daytime unless the area you are in has almost cave-like overgrowth, and night time will never be pitch black unless the sky is near equally black (no moons, no auroras, lots of cloud cover, etc), sans things like stars, which don't actually provide much ambient light.

Of course it can't be perfect. Skyrim for example has zero offical support for Ambient Occlusion (SSAO is one method of emulating this). Ambient occlusion is basically shadows created when the sky is blocked out, such as spaces under carriages or in areas where ambient lighting doesn't reach as much. It's pretty much the key to getting a well-lit scene that has good use of Ambient Light but also has a level of realistic depth and contrast to it to balance the ambient light.

I don't want to say this looks bad or anything, because it doesn't (and looks much better). I also love what you've done with areas like in that dwarven ruin. Personally though, I've got a nice shader setup that has things looking just the way I want. Atmospherics (i.e. distant mountains) have a blueish tint to them to match the atmospherics of the sky, which has a nice side effect of making my nights a little bit darker and appear much cooler in color, but still have a reasonable level of ambient light for my tastes (example: http://i.imgur.com/5m42K.jpg )

Though honestly looking back at it, I wouldn't mind if it was a little darker. I'll probably try your mod out with my shader setup even though it might be way overload

That reminds me, do you guys know how much access scripts will have to lighting conditions? It seems like brighter nights during auroras or full moons could be scripted somehow.

They very heavily conflict. It'll make most of the changes of the mod irrelevant. Lighting templates/weather changes would still persist, but it would overwrite all the imagespaces.

Nights need work only from the standpoint of getting proper lighting based on the moon phases. I'll need some scripts to manage that. The rest, you should make sure the monitor is calibrated.. I know I can see perfectly fine at night, even without a torch.

Btw: 747823's snow textures are 1024x1024, compared to vanilla 512x512. Fully HD 2048x2048 is overkill with no real visible improvement, particularly for something that doesn't need a lot of detail (the differences between one section of snow and another are.. fairly minor).

@above; changes for different weathers and the aurora's exist. Changes for moon phases, do not. If there's some get commands for phases, we'll be fine to script it.. otherwise I guess I can match the time of month.

I've been using this for the interiors and darker nights, but I'm curious as to just how the changes were achieved. By modifying the lightspaces, does that only change how the game renders areas; or does it actually affect the amount of light distributed within those areas in pre-rendering terms?
In particular I'm curious if it affects light levels on actors. If I use this mod for interiors and my dungeons turn very dark, does that mean that the actual light level on actors within the dungeon are also much lower?

Found this a while back, nice to see it's updated. I ended up just using the esp (from version Version_1_2b-4323-1-2b) as wasn't sure about those textures, and it was exactly the change I wanted to make to Skyrim. Every TES has been too saturated with light in dungeons and at night. This has made such a major difference to atmosphere.

Time to download and update (if needed for my game).

There's one thing that I think needs changing, once the CK is out. There are still some interiors that have ambient light, and no obvious light sources. They should be removed, or changed to something that emits light, if lighting is really required.

My warrior type character with his minor magic skills now has to make use of magelight for the first time.


Hmm, can't seem to login to download this file, and the contact form doesn't work... God I hate nexus....

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Are you asking whether the game-calculations take into account the new light levels? In which case, yes, the calculations for sneak and other functions will take into account the changes with this mod, and not just modify the rendering brightness and etc.

Edit: I get it now, yes. It's not just the rendering affected, but the true light levels.


I would definitely update. The previous 1.2b does not have any changes that affect the game's calculations. It's great and effective, but it only changes the rendering information (like the post processing does, but built in-game, not an overlay). The newer version has so many overall changes that it's hard to list all of them. My favorite is the sunsets/sunrises, which are fantastic due to fully tweaked weather files (that took a while to decipher which did what). The game was changed not just with the imagespaces (which is HDR/tinting/brightness/saturation/contrast/etc), but with the lighting templates and weather files to make the changes true to the game and not rendered effects.

As for the lights; definitely agree. Need the CK to really do that (it'd take ~30mins per cell in hex to get all the coordinates right, only a couple mins per cell with the CK). I'm really planning to get a few people together and go through every cell to add lights where they should be. I'd also like to implement some new light sources (oblivion's torches, magic torches, and lanterns? I think that was Oscuro's..) that are more flexible for people to use.

Alright then, i will uninstall the LessTint tomorrow and then install this mod, thanks Plutoman.

Had a look at the screen shots and it looks pretty good, but imho for more realistic lighting atleast in dungeons and caves, all of the candles and extra lights should be removed if there is no bandits or similar humans there. I find it hard to believe that spiders need light to move around, or draug for that matter. It would be completely awesome to go into a cave that had absolutely no light at all, and I would need to bring my own torch or lantern or cast a magelight spell. That would feel more realistic

Bassix:

That is a project for when the CK arrives, not sooner.

You beat me to it

If it was easily possible (it's currently possible, but it takes an extreme of time that I'm not willing to go through that extra effort when an easier method is just weeks away), I would do it. I'd also be adding in light sources to all the lights, lanterns, and candles that don't have them attached. It could hit performance pretty hard, though.

The game became so atmospheric with this... big thanks for this.

One thing that I think this mod should cover once the CK is out: dropping lit torches/lanterns/etc.

I can certainly make do with my Magelight spell (from an RP standpoint, my character has reason to dabble in Alteration, but from a gameplay standpoint, thank you for making that spell give off more light than the vanilla game, it really needed it), but I would still appreciate the ability to throw my lit torch to the ground as I grab my sword and prepare for combat with it remaining a functional light source.

As it is, though, this mod is doing everything I feel it should without SDK access. And it is a MASSIVE improvement. You have truly made me appreciate how important good lighting is to spectacular graphics. Thanks a bunch!

I like this mod. I use it sometimes, but not often. I like my fake lighting; it shows me what the developer was really going for in dungeons and in other certain places.

Overall, it definitely is the most realistic out of all the other mods.

Oh yes, sorry I was being rather ambitious at the moment. I am aware that the things I was talking about would take along time without the CK, but just wanted to get some ideas in for when the CK comes out.

keep up the good work

I like the sound of this - I wonder how the game handles drawing multiple shadows (e.g. if the stronger light source will wash out other shadows).

I wish it would have Global Illumination though. I've seen Gameplay Videos of Metro2033 and the Lightning due to this technique is just awesome - because the flashlight/ lightning in general is not a simple "light a conical area infront" but "light this wall and the whole room gets also lit" effect.


Stalker also featured this - though I can only speak for Shadow of Chernobyl (and in this game it wasn't even official, its a "buggy" feature which can be enabled by console commands - though especially for the flashlight it adds a lot of realism in dark, enclosed areas - but its sadly not really usable because of several bugs ).

Back to the Mod - I have been using this for several Versions now. have installed but not yet tried the latest version, though. I like to stay away from Post Processing mods though - I'd rather have the lightning improved at it's base as much as possible rather than taking a "weird" output and trying to make it "right" somehow.

This mod is definitely a must have! If you have played Oblivion and looke the darker scarier lighting then you will experience the same feeling with this mod. Pluto, being that this mod makes shadows much darker can Npc's see you if you are not in sneak mode but in the shadows?