Lighting problem

Help with any and all third party programs...if we can figure it out.

Re: Lighting problem

Postby Kiteflyer61 on Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:41 pm

If you set the fog density to 0 some graphics cards will show the entire interior as black. The fog works like it does outside. You don't see it much in interiors because most interiors aren't big enough for the other side of a room to be far enough away to get shrouded in fog. It can be a great tool to use in spooky tombs and dark caves, but it can be tricky to get the effect right. :)


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Re: Lighting problem

Postby shannon on Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:12 pm

Ok, I know what the problem is now. Hes got the ambient light set to 0 and the sunlight cranked way up. For a long time, I didnt understand what the difference was, and I dont think "cow guru" did either. Ambient light illuminates everything evenly, sunlight on the other hand only lights up certain angles...something like that lol.

It would look much better if you just copy the light settings from another interior cell that has normal lighting.
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Re: Lighting problem

Postby shannon on Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:15 pm

It totally looked like a negative light in the screenshot though! I was wrong.
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Re: Lighting problem

Postby morovir on Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:17 pm

shannon wrote:Ok, I know what the problem is now. Hes got the ambient light set to 0 and the sunlight cranked way up. For a long time, I didnt understand what the difference was, and I dont think "cow guru" did either. Ambient light illuminates everything evenly, sunlight on the other hand only lights up certain angles. Sort of like the light is coming from above and to the right or something.

It would look much better if you just copy the light settings from another interior cell that has normal lighting.


Sunlight will also change angle during the day, while ambient will remain the same all the time. Ambient lighting is really closer to diffuse lighting.

I've horsed around with lighting a lot, and I still don't understand it completely, so take that with a grain of salt...

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Re: Lighting problem

Postby Skydye on Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:21 pm

shannon wrote:It totally looked like a negative light in the screenshot though! I was wrong.

I agree it looked light a bad case of negative lighting.

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Re: Lighting problem

Postby morovir on Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:31 pm

Skydye wrote:
shannon wrote:It totally looked like a negative light in the screenshot though! I was wrong.

I agree it looked light a bad case of negative lighting.


Dark lights are absurdly hard to use, so it's not hard to imagine a "bad case" (though that doesn't appear to be the case here)

About the only use I've found for them is to darken the ceilings of buildings where I've set the "act as an exterior" flag. Without dark lights, the ceiling is *WAY* too bright.

The trick is getting the balance right, because otherwise you have NPC's with darkened heads. I'm still sorting out this bit of lighting buggery. It can also balance out really bright light sources for certain effects, but you have to be really careful with them.

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Re: Lighting problem

Postby Elaura on Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:37 pm

Ah-ha!  I think I understand, now.  What looked like shadow was, in reality, 'shade', as if the sun was on one side of the room and everything in the 'shade' of a static, including the walls, was in complete (or near complete) darkness.  The radius of the lights couldn't come near to penetrating the shadow and the sunlight was apparently overpowering any possible shadows caused by the little sconces, hence the shadows were at stark and odd angles.

I'm really glad I asked and you guys were all a great help.  I'll file this information, as well as that about negative lighting, away for future troubleshooting purposes.  I know of at least one other mod which had a very similar tomb.  I might load it again and toy with it a bit.  I've always wondered what that tomb actually looked like.

Makes me wonder why someone would go to all the trouble of making and decorating a space, just to hide it behind poor or negative lighting.  This thread can be left open for discussion, but I consider the issue solved.  Thanks again, you guys are truly the best!

@morovir: do you think it might be something MCP could address?
Last edited by Elaura on Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lighting problem

Postby shannon on Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:40 pm

I used them extensively in Hellhouse... they were actually quite useful, but that mod was supposed to have bizarre lighting.
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Re: Lighting problem

Postby peachykeen on Tue Jul 13, 2010 10:33 pm

Kiteflyer61 wrote:If you set the fog density to 0 some graphics cards will show the entire interior as black. The fog works like it does outside. You don't see it much in interiors because most interiors aren't big enough for the other side of a room to be far enough away to get shrouded in fog. It can be a great tool to use in spooky tombs and dark caves, but it can be tricky to get the effect right. :)


I'm not positive, but it's very possible running MGE can fix that. MGE changes the fog mode down in DirectX, so it might (and I don't know for sure) make sure it's calculated right. If not, it's something to add to the MGE wishlist.

morovir wrote:
shannon wrote:Ok, I know what the problem is now. Hes got the ambient light set to 0 and the sunlight cranked way up. For a long time, I didnt understand what the difference was, and I dont think "cow guru" did either. Ambient light illuminates everything evenly, sunlight on the other hand only lights up certain angles. Sort of like the light is coming from above and to the right or something.

Sunlight will also change angle during the day, while ambient will remain the same all the time. Ambient lighting is really closer to diffuse lighting.

I've horsed around with lighting a lot, and I still don't understand it completely, so take that with a grain of salt...


The formula is usually:
Code: Select all
emissive [or] ( ambient + ( diffuse * texture * angle * distance ) + ( specular/gloss * angle * shininess ) ), whichever is higher

So shannon was right, ambient doesn't take a surfaces angle to the light into account, diffuse (sunlight is a long-range kind of diffuse) does.
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Re: Lighting problem

Postby Kiteflyer61 on Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:07 am

It's been my experience that sunlight doesn't move (change angle) or fade (going from day to night). I've set up experiments with the sunlight settings and found that they are constant regardless of time of day. The angle seems to be preset as well. Which wall gets the extra light depends on which way the static is placed in the CS. There is a default north in interior cells, and setting the northmarker doesn't effect the cells direction for the lighting. We had this same discussion at TR a few months ago. If I can dig up my test cell I'll post it here so all of you can check it out. :)


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Edit: Here is a little test .esp to help everyone understand how lighting works. :) It's a series of cells with different light settings. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. I'm not an "expert", but I have done my homework. :D It's just a few cells with a single room for each extreme of the settings. The cell names tell you which settings are in effect for the cell you're in. Load the esp like any normal mod, go to Seyda Neen, and there will be a door in the middle of the courtyard just beyond where you exit the excise office. If you open the inventory, you can see the cell name on the top of the map window. Hope this helps. :)
Attachments
Lighting test.esp
A little testing .esp for lighting.
(4.77 KiB) Downloaded 1 time

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Re: Lighting problem

Postby peachykeen on Wed Jul 14, 2010 12:07 pm

Ah. I think the effect you're seeing is that those are true interiors, yes?
True interiors don't have a concept of time, as linked to weather. The weather system is what actually controls the sun angle, position, movement and color. If you were to make an interior-as-exterior or use an actual exterior, I do know that the sun color shifts and changes. I assume, for true interiors, it uses a static distant light and doesn't link that to the weather/gametime.
I know the formula I posted is correct, but if the game isn't moving the sun around, that would explain what you're seeing too. :)
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Re: Lighting problem

Postby Kiteflyer61 on Wed Jul 14, 2010 1:33 pm

I've never tested whether the sunlight settings in interiors set to behave as exteriors would shift and change. I assumed they did because of Mournhold. The OP was about a tomb which I assumed was a regular interior. :) I used the .esp I attached to explain how lighting works to a friend at TR. I figured it might help here as well. :)

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"Tis easy enough to be pleasant,
when life flows along like a song;
but the person worth while
is the one who will smile
when everything goes dead wrong."
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox


"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."- Aristotle

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