ZILO - Zinni's Internal Lighting Overhaul


First off, a quick explanation for taking this on...
In light of the extended absence of Sheathana'ich and the wonderful work he was doing with http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=813360, I've started this in case Shea does not return. I know real life happens and it's expected. I know many of you and I myself hope that nothing serious has come of his health. Should Shea return while this is still in progress and will continue on RLDD, I'll gladly bow out as I think he was pretty close to a release, within a few months, iirc. I'm not out to steal thunder from someone who was already doing an amazing job.

I am however out of other games to keep my attention. I like to play in the shadows and if I can see my sneaky little Khajiit or whoever on screen, it just seems to me that the enemy would as well. Not to mention, it's almost ridiculous to try and figure out what shade of gray is deep enough to actually hide in in most places. So, since I've got time on my hands and no other game holding my interest, I decided to do something about it. Besides, so far it's a lot fun.

On to the mod....

• I'm stripping out (so to speak) all the lighting in the cells unless its flame actually gives off light, and even then it might be moved around or disabled.
  
• Then I go in and hand place each light source and light itself.
  
• The only ambient lighting will be that coming from wells, sinkholes, windows, sky lights and all that jazz. And those light sources are scripted (thanks to Ismelda Lasombra), with seven different lights during the day.
  
• I'm also adding in light sources of my own creation. We'll see some of those when I get to the more interesting inhabitants of Tamriel's underworld.

These animations start from dawn and go to night.
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Sinkhole.gif
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/FirstChamber.gif

Galleries for specific dungeons and the floors done.
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Sideways%20Cave/?albumview=grid 1-3
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Tutorial%20Dungeon/?albumview=grid 1-4 - Prolly gonna redo most of this, later.
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Vahtacen/?albumview=grid 1-2
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Varondo/?albumview=grid 1-3
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Veyond/?albumview=grid 1-4
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Vilverin/?albumview=grid 1-4
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Vindasel/?albumview=grid
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc105/zinnikeys/ZILO/Welke/?albumview=grid 1-3
More to be added as I get them done.

I'm also playing with certain kinds of lights (mostly torches, candles, and the like), being able to be turned on and off by the player. Whether to help you hide in the shadows or to light your way better would be up to you. But more concrete info later as I get settled in with this.
I'm still hazy on what to really do with the light beams: lose them altogether, stagger it during certain times... just can't get happy with those damn things.

Constructive feedback and suggestions are always welcome. And no, there is not eta on completion. Though the Oblivion version will be ready for download as soon as it's done and before I start on SI.

Happy Hunting,
Zinni

Looks great. I too was really looking forward to RLDD. I do have one question: What about getting rid of the light in the window and the light beams when it is nighttime? For example, the http://www.imageno.com/1imsqosd510bpic.html picture.

ah, good call, I'll slap the script on them too.

Okay, put up some new screens. I added two more lighting conditions, Late Day and Evening, to the scripted lights. I also re-textured the skydome.nif for each lighting condition and put a script on them. I also took out the light beams and scripted new ones to only appear during day, late day and dusk, with less beam coming through on the last two. And I played with the ambient lights coloring some more.

Is there any difference between the screen shots in the prison cell other than the light beam or am I just retarded?

Great work !!! With this mod the game looks a lot better and the ability of khajit of see in the dark is much more usefull.

How about the texture in the window...?

yea....

Anyone know the console command to see FPS?

And is there a key command to disable the HUD, even the "/" from the console?

Console command is TDT

This is a nice idea but combine with Ambient dungeons and Screen Effects(which i use), it would be uber darker then it already is.

Sweet, looks great man. The nighttime pictures look more immersive now.

I don't want to sound condescending or anything, (because it does look great) but do you think the outside should be pitch black at night? I guess this depends on if you're using a darker nights mod, because what you have there is fine if you're using vanilla.

I've redid the textures and darkened the night and evening up a bit more, i use darker nights myself... I'm gonna redo the screenshots, take out the old ones and just post the new ones from what ive done over the last few days.. I also added 1 last ambient lighting schedule to the windows/skylights/sinkholes etc.. Morning, scheduled between dawn and day. the transition between dawn and day was too drastic. but ill update the OP some time this weekend.

Okay, cleaned and updated the OP and cleaned up the screen shots quite a bit and added new ones
enjoy




Thanks for command
As for Ambient Dungeons and Screen Effects.. neither are what I'm looking for or doing with this, by themselves or separately. Though, both are pretty cool looking.

This is certanly beautiful! I'm eager on these one's

This is really great. Keep up the good work, and good luck with all of it. You mentioned loading up the tutorial dungeon on tesnexus for testing in your OP. I may be able to help you out. I just have to find time during this busy semester of mine. :read:

Feelin pretty evil today, so I made this...
http://www.imageno.com/wkh213krrt6ypic.html
http://www.imageno.com/1m5sydazmai0pic.html

Just test shots. Wanted to see how he looked so I just slapped him on a torch and it's holder.
But feeling pretty good about that one

Zinni

pretty sweet! if you put them in a coupla dungeons, it would certainly spook someone out.

just a question, is this supposed to be a replacement or expansion to Real Lights?

Replacement

On another note..
I took the hallowed out skull I made for the crucified skeley above and slapped a candle in it. And yea, the skull and candle are one .nif. I hated seeing a skull in game with a candle on its head, pick up the skull and the candles floating in mid air.
http://www.imageno.com/f8b8p9fjqb2vpic.html

Question::: I had done this before awhile ago (http://www.imageno.com/2irlmbddub8cpic.html), but didn't like the way the eye sockets came out. I found when testing last time as it does now, that the light from the candle seems to dance on the top of the skull, as if someone was waving a flashlight from inside it. I had asked in here before (diff thread), if there's was something I could do to stop this, but nothing came of it. Anyone got any ideas?

If there's nothing I can do about this, I'd want to use it anyway. I kinda justify it in my head as the thickness of the skull in that area isn't thick enough to keep the light from shining through it.

Were you sure to merely disable existing lights instead of outright deleting them? A known cause of seemingly random CTDs is an ESM-placed reference that was deleted by one mod and called on by another.

Sorry if I just sent you back to Square One... :wacko:

say what?

If a mod attempts to do something with an in-world object reference that was deleted by another mod, then the game often crashes to the desktop (CTD).

So its best to disable lights instead of deleting them.

It was a big discovery made by I think the UOP team. They got to spend some time undeleting alllllll the stuff they deleted and instead disabling them instead.

Ahh, okay. Wasn't aware of that. So, thanks for the heads up MadCat.

Well I fixed that problem tonight ... http://www.imageno.com/uo4x3n31av1kpic.html (Just in time for Halloween! We need more Seasonal mods damnit.)

Was flipping through RLDD's last thread for any techniques Shea might've stumbled upon and low and behold a post about him experimenting with moving the attachlight node in nifskope. Which made me wonder if that was the problem. So, I loaded my .nif and sure enough, the default attachlight node on the candle was well above the top of the skull. So big thanks to Shea for that.

You know what I thought would be cool with those hanging skelies. If you made the skills a billboard like fire, so they always face the player, then have a whole row of them... lol

Anyhoo, good job thus far, keep it up!

Just came across this thread today. It looks great. I was actually thinking about doing something like this myself, but I don't have enough knowledge to much more than changing the default lighting variables and adding in candles. Will this actually improve sneaking?