[LE] Getting Candelight and Torches to work with static shadows

[hurtifrej]

Hiya!

 

I am wondering if anyone has a mod setup that let's dynamic light sources such as Candlelight and player held Torches work with the shadows cast by static objects such as trees.

 

I am running Legendary Edition and I have ENB and a few shadow / light mods but I still cannot get it to work. I can't remember the default Vanilla behavior so I am not sure if it is something I've messed up with mods, or if it is something that simply cannot work within the limitations of the game, or if it is my ENB settings, or something else.

 

The behavior I have currently is that while Candlelight illuminates the area, it does nothing for the hard shadows cast by trees, buildings or other large static objects. The ground where a tree casts its shadow is unaffected by the dynamic light, which makes the light a lot less useful at night, since there are a lot trees around, and the ground is pitch black despite having a light source with me.

 

Mostly I just want to know where to direct my attention, or if it is even fixable at all. There are a lot of potential variables, and I don't know enough about ENB and how Skyrim renders shadows to know what the problem is.

I am grateful for any help!

Screenshot of the problem:

The character is in the center (hard to see). To the bottom left and right you can see the road as it is fully illuminated by the spell, and the big black shadow from the trees in the center

I am grateful for any help!

Edited January 16, 2023 by hurtifrej

[Tlam99]

The stronger the light source, the "stronger" the shadow. The weaker light source cannot lift the cast shadow above the level. The stronger part always wins. (depths bias)

Make the source very bright, reduce radius ( increase falloff exponent). There is also a limit for mixed lightsources, 4 or so, don't remember.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Tlam99

[t.ara]

The game has different light sources to offer and those you can ´t use for a shadow, it´s simply not work in such a way because those consume more power off the engine. 4 SLs in one cell is a limit, too close at each other, nothing will work without autoswitching between the nearest lights...if their intensity (radius) is not set up correctly. That spell light is being used also in different other circumstances, quite disturbing and simply an effect light only.

And if you would carry such a shadow light, all the other shadow lights in different cells may technically switched off for the time being present. The shadow light of skyrim has another downside aspects, aside of their technical restrictions for the engine which is an own chapter of the engine at all.

Edited January 16, 2023 by t.ara

[hurtifrej]

2 hours ago, t.ara said:

The game has different light sources to offer and those you can ´t use for a shadow, it´s simply not work in such a way because those consume more power off the engine. 4 SLs in one cell is a limit, too close at each other, nothing will work without autoswitching between the nearest lights...if their intensity (radius) is not set up correctly. That spell light is being used also in different other circumstances, quite disturbing and simply an effect light only.

And if you would carry such a shadow light, all the other shadow lights in different cells may technically switched off for the time being present. The shadow light of skyrim has another downside aspects, aside of their technical restrictions for the engine which is an own chapter of the engine at all.

Ah, so it is not really doable? No matter what settings or mods I use, I will still have something like what I see in the screenshot?

[t.ara]

14 hours ago, hurtifrej said:

Ah, so it is not really doable? No matter what settings or mods I use, I will still have something like what I see in the screenshot?

the shadow lights can offer this shadows, what u maybe are looking for-but if you wear such a sort of light, it will become interrupted by the body-i think skyrim also has no particulary shadow (half shadow)...if you want to experiment with those, you need to know how the shadow-lights are being made. And then this sort of light is probably not working as a carry light-this is experimental. The facelight of skyrim is an example of a carryable light without any medium...maybe this can become replaced by a shadow light for some testing...but this sort of light maybe is conflictiong with other stuff of lightning...you only can experiment with this things.