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16 comments
The first landscape pictures are convincing. The play of light and shadow in the Dwemer ruin is also excellent.
The downside is the very bright white-washed skies. I've tried to tweak the ENB with the help of Erwin, but I haven't had much look in reducing that blasting whiteness. I believe the settings of the LUT overwrite the abilities of the ENB, but I'm a real noob in regards of tweaking such things, so I don't really know, only that I can't get rid of it. I'd love more natural skies in Enderal. Indoors it's far more natural - or works with a better effect - so the condition between light and shadows are easier to use fort screenshots.
But I'm just babbling now...
Thank you!
Thanks a lot, Patrick!
I'm rather new to Enderal and already fascinated with how different it is compared to Skyrim yet it feels all quite familiar.
Your characters feel pretty unique and distinct visually, but I also sense some backstory behind each of these. I'm interested in learning more about them to get some inspiration for my own (I played Skyrim to death, but was always more of a min-maxer and "serious" player. I'd really like to get creative, silly and more "chaotic good" in my approach this time around, emphasis on "chaotic." But may also add some serious roleplay into the mix if I feel it.)
Any hints regarding builds, choice of mods for weapons, spells and armors for future playthroughs would be greatly appreciated.
I do have quite some hours in Enderal by now, but I'm still very early in the main story. I keep adding a lot of characters, because it's a great deal of fun seeing them elsewhere than Skyrim and I move very slowly since I'm screenshooting a lot. Added on this is the roleplaying aspect and you're spot on about each of my characters having a backstory. I've been writing fantasy for a long time and to see some of the chars from my own worldspace "come to life" in a game is pure fun for me.
I'm an old tabletop RPG-player with sheets and dices, so the level up system in Enderal is something I truly like. Sure, it makes the gameplay harder, especially since you can't use healing magic either without affecting your curse/fever, but I find this element a lot more giving than just drinking yourself full of potions to get out of the danger of dying. It also gives the beds a purpose as well as eating food and that's something I use for gameplay back in Skyrim as well. So yeah, I'm quite a serious roleplayer and each character has a strict formula to follow. The elf lady in this set for an example is supposed to be an Arcane Archer (haven't found a Summoned Bow spell yet though) using bows, Light armor, One-handed sword, Sneaking and some Mentalist spells. I've brought about 40-50 characters to Enderal by now and they all have a special "class" in mind. Some aren't even allowed to use magic at all. It resembles good old pen-n-paper roleplaying and that's from where I hail myself, so I really like making it happen in Skyrim/Enderal as well.
Regarding mods, I've more or less only picked cosmetic ones for the characters - bodytype, skin textures, hairs, eyes, bodypaints, etc. Same can be said about the armors/outfits/weapon mods I use. I put something together for a character and then I bring them to Enderal as well. It makes the equipment a bit overpowering at first since modded armors/weapons have much better stats, but it will bite me back in the end as I can't really use any of the magic armors I find. Some of them are Set items, so it will matter at some point, at least I'm guessing so, but my highest level is merely 12 at the moment and I've got plenty more to see and hear.
Other than that I haven't really added too much. Just a few texture mods for some small things, RaceMenu of course, XMPSE skeleton, UNP body, AddItem (to get the modded armors/weapons), Enhanced Blood, some added spells to give the mages more diversity, Facelight and a few more. No big mods really except for those that will help you make a more unique character. Enderal is a magical place as it is and you'll be lost in marvels just travelling through this land. I tend to roleplay to a point, but the main story is also one we must follow to reach the end of the game and I'm not sure these roles I have will fit to the story. I haven't finished this game yet, not by far, but I sure enjoy exploring it.
Lastly, you can make up pretty much any kind of build, so just go for one that seems interesting to you. When you've decided, find some armors/outfits and weapons that will fit the style you want (or go with what the game itself will reward you with) and create the character (or use a Skyrim preset, but remember there are only Nord, Redguard, High Elf and Breton included in Enderal under different race names). If you add outfits, be on the watch they can't have Dawnguard as a master file since Enderal doesn't support it. There are also issues with some of the races where the armors become invisible due to the fact they've made custom races. It might be fixed by some Enderal patch by now, but if not, you need to run the armors through this patcher and check the created mod in your game settings (place it last in the mod list). This is only necessary if you plan on playing the Kiléan (Breton) or the Aeterna (High elf) if I recall it correctly.
Enderal is a marvellous game and the fact you're into roleplaying elements such as reduced Healing, the use of food/drink/sleep and the level up system with Learning Points and Skill books tells me you're going to have a lot of fun as well. Harsh sometimes, but a real adventure...
Walk blessed!
If you ever want that overbundance to be less overbundant, because you want to play for a while or take pics in different lighting settings.
Somehow a certain value in the PrefsIni iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3 keeps going back to a value much higher then that , up to over a hundred.
That can cause the sky in Enderal to look "weird" or totally white-out . Make sure that that value is 3 if you want a more mainstream looking sky.
In the pic I highlighted it works for you , but just know that you can change that value
Yes, I know, they can look cool as backgrounds for certain shots, but I've never been much of a fan of such white-washed images. I didn't have them with the first installment of Enderal, so the skies were a lot more natural then. Since my return and the second version of the game, I hardly see colours of the sky during daylight. I checked the ini-file and you were right. I had 128 noted?! Changed it to 3 and will be testing it immediately...
I do have a lot of sets still to post though with wonkly skies, but hopefully I have it all correct now thanks to you! Wonderful advise! Thanks again, Erwin!
It did help, although I'm guessing the LUT's might do some odd tricks too. Clouds are more visible during daylight and nights now, but there are certain hours in the game where that white seems to overflow it all, namely during sunsets and sunrises. I haven't checked all LUT's, but I did with some and while the Vanilla settings have this warm beautiful golden sunlight at dawn and dusk, I still get blazing white skies. It's still better than before, so it was a great suggestion!
I wonder if there's a specific setting for sunsets/sunrises alone? I've tried to tweak some of the settings for sunlight/skylight/produceal sun in the ENB gui, but it didn't really do much. Turning off Bloom makes it slightly better, but it's still more or less white (just with less noise). It's times like this I wish I did spend more hours in learning and understanding the ENB gui and it's behaviour, but I still suspect the settings of the LUT's. Some of them are tweaked very strongly in both contrast and saturation.
Again, thank you for your guidance in this!
Underneath all the shaders and other stuff you use and that you can click on or of there is a section with "environment" in it.
The you can also change value's that influence lighting. ambient lighting intensity interior, direct lighting intensity interior and more of those terms.
Try the sliders on those values and see what it does ingame.
Pointlighting intensity is another one and below that somewhere you also have sliders for the sun intensity. Those might help to.
On the loeft side you could also alter the whitescale values in the shader guide (that's the one you were doing your changes in before.
They might help with the whiteness of the sky.
I have learned though that every LUT in caffeine has a different impact on lighting. So that would mean that , if you change LUT, you also need to change the values again.
Perhaps this will work, otherwise I could also advise you to give the Enb from Rudy a change. He did a great job and was specifficaly made with Enderal in mind. He also uploaded a lot of fixes for the game. These are also very usefull to install, even if you do not use the Enb...
I'll keep fiddle around on the right column of the gui then and see if I can find a good match. As you said though, the LUT's are indeed very individual in their behaviour which is also what I suspected. The white sky isn't that much of an issue, because I'm so used to it by now, but it sure would be nice to see some colours on the sky too. Before Caffeine, I did use Rudy as you know, and I did use it for Enderal back then too. Rudy himself even gave me some pointers, but that was before the new release of Enderal. I have his "Enderal fixes" installed even if I'm not using the ENB at the moment. I'm getting so spoiled by having the many LUT options, but perhaps I should give Rudy a try at least. I know he has worked tremendously on his ENB and it was more or less my favorite until I switched to Caffeine. I'll see what happens, but now I know where to try the tweaks at least...
This location is very cool with excellent eerieness and some good light conditions even when using a dark LUT. This LUT is quite bright though, but the place itself offers quite a lot of shadows too.
Thank you, Will!
Many thanks, my friend!