WARNING: SweetFX apparently does not work with Windows 10's DirectX drivers, and causes crashes. I'm looking into a way to resolve this.
This is my first ENB, and even though it's been "finished" for a couple months now, it could look and work VERY differently on your systems, which is why I decided to throw the BETA tag on there. SCREENSHOTS ENCOURAGED!! Let's see how it looks on your system!
NOTE: Color, contrast, sharpness effects are all done in SweetFX and will not show in screenshots unless they are taken with the SweetFX hotkey! This may be why your screenshots look different when compared to mine.
TO THOSE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH DoF, READ THIS...
The DoF shader code I'm using has two modes, first person, and third person, which determines the focus point. It is defaulted to first person. It works like a camera, and focuses on whatever the crosshair is on. This means that if you're in third person and from behind, the crosshair is going to be on top of you, and will blur the foreground. If you're in third person and turn around to look at yourself, the crosshair is going to be trained on the background and YOU will blur unless you move it just right to where it's trained on you. Unless you change the mode to third-person focus, that is.
At the moment there is no hybrid mode (I didn't write the shader code though I am going to try and modify it) so if you want to play in third person, the best way is to change the following in the shader file (BE CAREFUL.) until I get a hybrid mode going:
Edit enbeffectprepass.fx and look for #define USE_FOCUS_FIRST. Put two foward slashes (//) in front of it to comment it out, and remove the two slashes in front of #define USE_FOCUS_THIRD. This will make it so that the focus point is slightly off center for third-person.
Hope that helps for now.
A few extra things to note:
- The DoF is set up for first-person mode, and acts like a real eye or camera, so whatever your crosshair is on takes the focus. This DoF doesn't blur out the whole world around you; you can look far away, but when you get close to an object or a person, it kicks in. That might feel different if you're used to just having an "always on" DoF. This includes third person. If the camera is close to your character but crosshair is over something far away, your char will blur. Hasn't been any issue for me but it has come up once already. The shader code could use some intelligence to check third person and put a focus bubble around the PC, but that's beyond my ability at the moment!
- I am running VERY dark nights, so all of my sky settings reflect this. You might have a weird dark sky if you have vanilla nights, which is why I have the optional dark nights plugs available.
- In my own game, I completely removed all sun sprites and glare, so only the procedural sun is running, I suggest doing the same!
- I am open to suggestions, ESPECIALLY technical, since there are still a few things about the inner workings of the shaders I don't fully grasp
- This uses Original Post Processing, which is how it was made to retain the vanilla look; changing this could wash out your image or have odd results, since it was not built for that (yet!)
FAQ:
Q: What armor is that?? A: It's called "Boiled Leather Cuirass" from either Common Clothes (or Brigandage?). I'm wearing it with the DB Shrouded Hood, Bosmer mask, and re-textured DB Shrouded Handwraps.
Q: What kind of framerate do you get on your 980? A: SO many things factor into frame rate, for example, adding NPCs to towns will punish your FPS, with or without ENB. That said, I get 60fps or above indoors, and outdoors ENB takes off 5-15 FPS depending on the area (trees, draw distance, etc.)
Q: How can I make my game look exactly like your screenshots? A: I have put countless hours into fine-tuning everything in my game, including making many of my own weathers, and textures, so that might be tough, but here is an article with all of my most-important visual mods!
Q: How will this perform on my system? A: There is literally no way to know unless you just try it! ENB are easy to add/remove, so try it out! I made it on a GTX 680 then beefed up a little once I got a GTX 980.
Q: Will you be adding weather support? A: YES! Much like each effect, I am working on this very carefully to ensure fully detailed implementation.
Q: Is this safe to install/remove? A: Yes, ENB presets don't do anything to saved games or anything else, so it is 100% safe to add and remove at-will.
Q: How do I change darkness level at night? A: Edit the ENVIRONMENT > AMBIENT LIGHTING AMOUNT NIGHT and DIRECT LIGHTING AMOUNT NIGHT settings, as well as the SKY > INTENSITY NIGHT settings to adjust sky color
I've tested out several ENBs over the past several months, but this is one I will always go back to. It was my first ENB and it ran like a dream on my PC with barely any FPS loss. Thank you so much for this!!!
Is most of the color related effects still tied to Sweetfx? I'm interested in using this but i need to have the steam overlay activated since i often play this through steam link and last time i mixed that and sweetfx i had some issues that rendered them incompatible.
looks fantastic by the way, i remember using this back in early 2016 before i upgraded my pc and it ran both great and had a really nice vanilla-type feel while looking alot better.
My goodness. This ENB + Imaginator = the best looking vanilla flavored ENB, period. I mean, as far as ENB's in general goes, it looks really good, performs better than most, and it really stays true to skyrim's art design. And since it uses vanilla game post processing, imaginator works amazingly well with this ENB...
Try Contrast -6, Brightness -6, Saturation +35, Sunlight +2, Sky -1, Blue +10, and Orange/Red/Yellow all +1. Beautiful....i'm gonna post some screenshots
By the way i think the vanilla game looks ugly, even if you try to enhance with imaginator and sweetfx...this ENB really takes the vanilla color pallete and adds in a whole range of smooth and slick polished looking graphics. HD-ifies it, but doesn't make skyrim look like the middle of summer all the time, keeps the look it should have thank you so much
Performs at a very playable framerate using the Ultra preset you made for your 980, but im using a gtx 770, i5 3570k @4.4ghz, and ugridstoload=7 with maxed out grass distance, Tamriel ReloadedHD,skyrim2k,SMIM,officialhdtexturepack, and Enhanced Landscapes (+ DynDoLod)
and requiem covers the perfect game experience
(between 41-55 fps outdoors, you know how it goes, its not so laggy that it hinders gameplay and looks beautiful, breathtaking, i'll show some screenshots to show how imaginator really makes this pop largely from blue +10 in tintor, with the blue atmospheric haze from the mountains in the distance, looks realistic, i'm happy
EDIT: probably due to my ugrids=7, max grass distance, lush grass, dyndolod, but the lowest fps i get is the low 30's, near riften, which i think is an extra intensive spot)
This ENB is really beautiful, amazing work, I love the quality of the light and the subtlety of the DoF, makes things so much more realistic. In particular, I really wanted an ENB where the light reflected a country that's on a high northern latitude, as I imagine Skyrim would be :p This really captures that feeling for me, so a massive thank you!! I'm using the Default version, on an a new Nvidia 1060 Gfx 4gb card, I also use your other mod Simply Bigger Trees, so thank you for that as well
hey just curious this was my preset back in normal Skyrim any plan to port it to SSE as well ? or is the ENB compatible with SSE? not quite sure because tweaking ENB is not really my thing and miscalculation can break my game too lol
For anyone running Windows 10, you can get SweetFX working by installing DirectX June 2010 from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109.
DOVAHKI1N wrote: fadingsignal, thank you for this preset! Not tried it out yet, because I will do a complete re-install, but from what I read in the description it is exactly what I want. I have only two questions:
1) I want to use CoT, v5. In your Article with your most important visual mods (thank you, btw, very helpful), you say if using Straylight with CoT, the Weather Patch for it is a 100% must. However on the description page for the weather patch it says that CoT v5 is NOT SUPPORTED. Can I use Straylight ENB and CoT v5 WITHOUT the Weather Patch?
2) I am using a very low-end system at the moment (update planned but will take some time (at least a year)). Apologies if I am being dense, but can I try the ULTRA version regardless or would it fck up my game? (NVIDIA GForce GTX 750 graphics card)
Hey! I said it was a "must" only because the weather patch for previous versions before CoT 5 made it look better. I haven't used CoT 5 but it's fine w/o the patch.
The only way to know how it will perform is if you try it out. It won't break anything. The better performance version barely looks much different than ultra, to be honest. Not noticeable during regular gameplay.
Thank you for your quick response! I will come back and endorse (it will take a while, not nearly done rebuilding my mods list but I WILL come back ;-))
Give Feedback
513 comments
This is my first ENB, and even though it's been "finished" for a couple months now, it could look and work VERY differently on your systems, which is why I decided to throw the BETA tag on there. SCREENSHOTS ENCOURAGED!! Let's see how it looks on your system!
NOTE: Color, contrast, sharpness effects are all done in SweetFX and will not show in screenshots unless they are taken with the SweetFX hotkey! This may be why your screenshots look different when compared to mine.
TO THOSE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH DoF, READ THIS...
The DoF shader code I'm using has two modes, first person, and third person, which determines the focus point. It is defaulted to first person. It works like a camera, and focuses on whatever the crosshair is on. This means that if you're in third person and from behind, the crosshair is going to be on top of you, and will blur the foreground. If you're in third person and turn around to look at yourself, the crosshair is going to be trained on the background and YOU will blur unless you move it just right to where it's trained on you. Unless you change the mode to third-person focus, that is.
At the moment there is no hybrid mode (I didn't write the shader code though I am going to try and modify it) so if you want to play in third person, the best way is to change the following in the shader file (BE CAREFUL.) until I get a hybrid mode going:
Edit enbeffectprepass.fx and look for #define USE_FOCUS_FIRST. Put two foward slashes (//) in front of it to comment it out, and remove the two slashes in front of #define USE_FOCUS_THIRD. This will make it so that the focus point is slightly off center for third-person.
Hope that helps for now.
A few extra things to note:
- The DoF is set up for first-person mode, and acts like a real eye or camera, so whatever your crosshair is on takes the focus. This DoF doesn't blur out the whole world around you; you can look far away, but when you get close to an object or a person, it kicks in. That might feel different if you're used to just having an "always on" DoF. This includes third person. If the camera is close to your character but crosshair is over something far away, your char will blur. Hasn't been any issue for me but it has come up once already. The shader code could use some intelligence to check third person and put a focus bubble around the PC, but that's beyond my ability at the moment!
- I am running VERY dark nights, so all of my sky settings reflect this. You might have a weird dark sky if you have vanilla nights, which is why I have the optional dark nights plugs available.
- In my own game, I completely removed all sun sprites and glare, so only the procedural sun is running, I suggest doing the same!
- I am open to suggestions, ESPECIALLY technical, since there are still a few things about the inner workings of the shaders I don't fully grasp
- This uses Original Post Processing, which is how it was made to retain the vanilla look; changing this could wash out your image or have odd results, since it was not built for that (yet!)
FAQ:
Q: What armor is that??
A: It's called "Boiled Leather Cuirass" from either Common Clothes (or Brigandage?). I'm wearing it with the DB Shrouded Hood, Bosmer mask, and re-textured DB Shrouded Handwraps.
Q: What kind of framerate do you get on your 980?
A: SO many things factor into frame rate, for example, adding NPCs to towns will punish your FPS, with or without ENB. That said, I get 60fps or above indoors, and outdoors ENB takes off 5-15 FPS depending on the area (trees, draw distance, etc.)
Q: How can I make my game look exactly like your screenshots?
A: I have put countless hours into fine-tuning everything in my game, including making many of my own weathers, and textures, so that might be tough, but here is an article with all of my most-important visual mods!
Q: How will this perform on my system?
A: There is literally no way to know unless you just try it! ENB are easy to add/remove, so try it out!
Q: Will you be adding weather support?
A: YES! Much like each effect, I am working on this very carefully to ensure fully detailed implementation.
Q: Is this safe to install/remove?
A: Yes, ENB presets don't do anything to saved games or anything else, so it is 100% safe to add and remove at-will.
Q: How do I change darkness level at night?
A: Edit the ENVIRONMENT > AMBIENT LIGHTING AMOUNT NIGHT and DIRECT LIGHTING AMOUNT NIGHT settings, as well as the SKY > INTENSITY NIGHT settings to adjust sky color
can someone help me please ?
looks fantastic by the way, i remember using this back in early 2016 before i upgraded my pc and it ran both great and had a really nice vanilla-type feel while looking alot better.
Try Contrast -6, Brightness -6, Saturation +35, Sunlight +2, Sky -1, Blue +10, and Orange/Red/Yellow all +1. Beautiful....i'm gonna post some screenshots
By the way i think the vanilla game looks ugly, even if you try to enhance with imaginator and sweetfx...this ENB really takes the vanilla color pallete and adds in a whole range of smooth and slick polished looking graphics. HD-ifies it, but doesn't make skyrim look like the middle of summer all the time, keeps the look it should have
Performs at a very playable framerate using the Ultra preset you made for your 980, but im using a gtx 770, i5 3570k @4.4ghz, and ugridstoload=7 with maxed out grass distance, Tamriel ReloadedHD,skyrim2k,SMIM,officialhdtexturepack, and Enhanced Landscapes (+ DynDoLod)
and requiem covers the perfect game experience
(between 41-55 fps outdoors, you know how it goes, its not so laggy that it hinders gameplay and looks beautiful, breathtaking, i'll show some screenshots to show how imaginator really makes this pop largely from blue +10 in tintor, with the blue atmospheric haze from the mountains in the distance, looks realistic, i'm happy
EDIT: probably due to my ugrids=7, max grass distance, lush grass, dyndolod, but the lowest fps i get is the low 30's, near riften, which i think is an extra intensive spot)
any plan to port it to SSE as well ? or is the ENB compatible with SSE?
not quite sure because tweaking ENB is not really my thing
and miscalculation can break my game too lol
Thank you for your quick response! I will come back and endorse (it will take a while, not nearly done rebuilding my mods list but I WILL come back ;-))