Deviously Cursed Loot LE 9.0 (2021-03-09)

[WhatRules]

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I did try Rudy and Vividian, and I have a soft spot for Antique Dragon - I really love the insane over-saturated look, the deep deep blue skies that are almost black - but Caffeine has a lot of different color tables, so to say it replicate the "blue" shaders of Snapdragon is correct, but missed an important detail. Snapdragon and Caffeine (and Ancient Dragon) all have a choice of different color tables out-of-the-box, and Caffeine can be used to replicate the looks of other popular ENBs reasonably well with minimal effort. In fact, I prefer the Caffeine fake-bleak more than actual Bleak.

 

How you set up your weather probably makes more difference than what ENB you use in terms of distinctiveness. Some older ENBs aren't much more than a color LUT and a few ambient light settings away from each other. You can get the same results by tweaking Snapdragon or Caffeine. Modern Snapdragon is fast enough to play if you turn off dynamic DOF.

 

I think Vividian was an exception in older ENBs, because it is closely tied to weather mods, it has a very predictable outcome. They're made to work together, but still ... Vividian is pale and washed out compared to Antique Dragon   

 

A realistic ENB can be nice too. Real ENB is still a solid choice. I'm not sure Rudy is realistic, but sure, it is more subdued than default Caffeine, or Antique Dragon, which are extremely saturated. With the wrong skin texture, Caffeine can look awful, producing glowing red skin from many light sources.

 

I couldn't go back to 2D sky and 2.5D weather though. Real Clouds (though mocked by MXR) works almost infallibly, and when the clouds are low over the mountains it's effective and quite realistic. Other nice touches are Waves for Realistic Water 2, and Revamped Exterior Fog.

 

Good texture packs are clearly important too, and there are so many choices now. Everyone uses some amount of SMIM I think, but beyond that ... (Real) Blended Roads is a standout though, due to the availability of bridges/bridge replacements. Real Roads got a bit sabotaged when its bridge support was suddenly yanked off the Nexus (though you can work around that if you try).

 

One thing I think is a worthwhile "tip", is to use Simply Bigger Trees, with the slow animation patch, and Realistic Aspens (you can still get it), and avoid SFO for anything but a bit of ground cover (take out all the trees and grass). I also use Tamriel Reloaded without grass and trees. SFO's trees just don't look right.

SFO trees look pretty good with the high-res pines imo. Haven't really given it much thought after being content with that, but I think I like the variation it brings. I don't know what bigger trees would give me, except being bigger, which also makes the branches less dense. If there was a mod that made trees more lush and better quality without eating much FPS, then I would be interested.

 

About the Caffeine ENB. I think it sounds really good that it has several palettes to choose from, and that it doesn't force adaptation in dark areas(which can mess with some outfits I have). Do you know if it looks good with SG textures? Some ENBs I've tried turned people's faces so red it looked like they had a skin disease. I'm using Fair Skin Complexion for my character but I don't want mature NPCs to have that young doll look, so SG textures is a must for me.

[Aerth]

Ok, everything seems to be working now, thanks for help once again  I am just at beginning of the game, after talk to Alvor. Only thing I really needed to turn off was Mysoginy, so I can do some questing and talking. 

[Lupine00]

7 hours ago, saltshade said:

SFO trees look pretty good with the high-res pines imo. Haven't really given it much thought after being content with that, but I think I like the variation it brings. I don't know what bigger trees would give me, except being bigger, which also makes the branches less dense. If there was a mod that made trees more lush and better quality without eating much FPS, then I would be interested.

If you think Simply Bigger Trees gives less dense forest than SFO trees, you have it back to front. The forest density is incredible with SBT, and I've tried a lot of tree setups.

SFO feels sparse and empty by comparison.

 

If you haven't actually compared the two approaches in your own game, you've missed out. Most ENB authors advise not using SFO trees, and recommend SBT, and I think they're right.

 

There feels like more tree variation without SFO than with it, but if you just dumped the pines that would help fix a big defect in SFO. The SFO junipers are also horrifically bad, literally "glowing" so I can't imagine leaving them in...

 

...And there's the root of most SFO problems, the overall brightness of the textures is too uneven, resulting in some trees that are dark, and some that almost glow - popping out of the setting distractingly. Even ignoring brightness (which you can tweak yourself in Photoshop) too many trees are highly distinctive in appearance, so when replicated it looks really weird seeing two or three of them in the same place - they leap out  at you as copies of each other. Those distinctive patterns are easy for the eye to match up across a scene.

 

SFO has some similar issues with its smaller plants too. Some are just too bright, even with an ENB like Bleak. And then there's the sub-standard billboards in SFO. Rebuilding vanilla LOD from them results in ... bad results ... extreme popping and discontinuity ... only DynDOLOD makes SFO acceptable, but its a huge benefit with SBT too. You probably don't want SBT without DynDOLOD, but then, you probably don't want to do without DynDOLOD ever  

 

The original Beth trees, for their faults, had none of these issues, and scaling them up and adding high-resolution textures (I use Trees HD - just the textures) fixes the main problem with them.

 

I use Whiterun Forest Hold, to de-tundra Whiterun, and the gigantic ultra-dense forest that results with SBT, slow animation, and the Trees HD textures is highly atmospheric. Add the 3D mist that floats over the pools and such, and it looks very pleasing.

 

I'll shut up about trees now, as they seem suspiciously like they have nothing to do with DCL.

 

 

Skin textures on the other hand...

When I spoke of "wrong skin texture", I meant one that wasn't intended for ENB, but instead for vanilla.

FSC is still being updated and should have that. SG Textures many not, as its old. But I guess FSC is for people who like that "carved out of soap" look, or K-Pop idol skin. Demoniac is fairly modern, and has some options based off SG, so you might want to look at that. Though it's "sold" as being all about gloss, it has a NoGloss option, which I use.

 

I think I alluded earlier to red-skin issues, and I think this results as much from your lighting mod as your skin texture. I use Demoniac "NoGloss" for ENB at 8K.  I think I had issues with Better Because skins glowing red in a nasty way, and that was probably because their SSS was set up for vanilla, not ENB. I stopped using the BB skins (he made many different ones) as they seem low resolution now, and the redness. The latter was probably fixable. I should figure out how to do it properly.

 

This mod has some settings that help reduce SSS problems for older ENBs: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50835. It's just some ENB configs. I'm not sure it adds anything to Caffeine or Snapdragon - I don't use it - but the front page has some useful info if you're changing your ENB settings.

 

I found my worst red-glow problems came from using ELFX interiors alone. When I put ELE over them, it reduced the problem (I think) by making the fire and candle-lights less red. You will get red glows in interior in some places, and I guess, highlighted against a big fire, it can look right.

 

Sometimes this would crop up in a modded area that used its own lights, and there's no fix for this apart from fixing all the lights in Tes5Edit, but keeping ELFX and ELE as late in the LO as feasible helps.

 

Take a look here: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/b9qcgb/texture_slots_and_ways_to_use_them/

 

 

It's the _sk textures that matter for vanilla SSS, so if you find your skin looks weird, tweaking those may help. Darker = less SSS overall.

They might still matter for ENB, I can't remember. Probably it depends on whether you enable the ENB model, and if you don't you get vanilla, and _sk controls the SSS, or maybe they're still used to some extent by the ENB?

 

(What I believe currently, is that in ENB mode, the alpha channel on the _sk texture controls the amount of SSS, and the rest is ignored, but in vanilla the color channels are used as a blend color, and in ENB if you don't enable texture alpha, there is no texture control at all, but it's possible ENB does use the _sk colors).

 

I can't remember trying this out explicitly. Maybe an expert on this topic can explain?

 

When introduced into ENB, the write up was this: "When enabled, alpha channel of sss textures is used to modify subsurface scattering computation radius and amount. Alpha values between 192..255 affect radius by decreasing it up to 4 times, 0..191 values modify amount of subsurface effect. By default alpha is white in textures, so i don't expect any issues with existing body modifications, feel free to modify their sss texture alpha channel, dxt5 format is preffered."

 

This may provide some clues: https://gwynhyrs-saga.tumblr.com/post/175403266968/fun-with-subsurface-scattering-skyrim-with-an

 

 

On a more DCL-like topic, I notice the "ebonite" texture for the pet-suit looks a lot more like leather than any other texture labelled ebonite. Put another way, it's definitely leather, just a bit more glossy than the other leather.

[Ursur1major]

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

If you think Simply Bigger Trees gives less dense forest than SFO trees, you have it back to front. The forest density is incredible with SBT, and I've tried a lot of tree setups.

SFO feels sparse and empty by comparison. 

I think you misread Saltshades comment, it's not the forest density they're talking about but branch density, since I imagine the trees are made bigger without further alterations, increasing the spaces between branches as a side effect of directly increasing the size of the trees.

[WhatRules]

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

If you think Simply Bigger Trees gives less dense forest than SFO trees, you have it back to front. The forest density is incredible with SBT, and I've tried a lot of tree setups.

SFO feels sparse and empty by comparison.

 

If you haven't actually compared the two approaches in your own game, you've missed out. Most ENB authors advise not using SFO trees, and recommend SBT, and I think they're right.

 

There feels like more tree variation without SFO than with it, but if you just dumped the pines that would help fix a big defect in SFO. The SFO junipers are also horrifically bad, literally "glowing" so I can't imagine leaving them in...

 

...And there's the root of most SFO problems, the overall brightness of the textures is too uneven, resulting in some trees that are dark, and some that almost glow - popping out of the setting distractingly. Even ignoring brightness (which you can tweak yourself in Photoshop) too many trees are highly distinctive in appearance, so when replicated it looks really weird seeing two or three of them in the same place - they leap out  at you as copies of each other. Those distinctive patterns are easy for the eye to match up across a scene.

 

I'm aware of this and have made adjustments in photoshop to the brightest plants(The ones that annoyed me anyway). But I guess I'll try "Simply fatter trees" just to see what it looks like when you turn normal forest into giant forest.

[helpme181]

Why would the shopping quest dialogue, actions and comments when bound dialogue  happen  on a naked pc with only dd's device hider is equipped?

 

Also I can only equip armour from this or any other mod on a naked follower? they will even prefer to wear rags vanilla armour works fine

 

I'm certain it's not this mod to both questions but it's doing my head in and I would like to dress them in clothes from this one so I thought I'd try asking here. (Google search doesn't help)

[A Little Kitten]

On 6/23/2019 at 6:32 AM, Lupine00 said:

Spoiler

Some DCL-based screenshots from a while back:

From Cursed Collar.

 

Just some random bondage that happened due to looking in a barrel.

 

Live another Life start

 

Being disobedient.

 

Holy fck i was so blody hell scared what picture is there going to be at the end, after reading your comment about gameVSreality...

[Crota]

On 6/23/2019 at 3:00 PM, El_Duderino said:

The latter. Those Premium Line devices are rewards during

  Hide contents

Chloe's quest. ?

 

But was it not also part of a Life another Life Alternative start at one point?

 

Where you start off in in almost no chains then end up putting them all on to rescue Laura ( or maybe Chloe) like you were saying?

 

Also where do I start the Chloe Quest?

[o0o0o]

On 6/19/2019 at 8:57 PM, Starphyre said:

You need Fuz Rho D'oh from the Nexus

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/15109

 

 

 

Ah geez, thank you Starphyre! 

[Lupine00]

10 hours ago, saltshade said:

I'm aware of this and have made adjustments in photoshop to the brightest plants(The ones that annoyed me anyway). But I guess I'll try "Simply fatter trees" just to see what it looks like when you turn normal forest into giant forest.

First time I heard of it, I thought it would look stupid. Instead it looked right, and I realised that all along trees had simply been too small.

 

Here are some examples - I made them small so they're less annoying.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lupine00]

Some more DCL pics ... this time from 8.0 ...

 

Welcome to Dragonar!

 

 

I love these tables full of fun stuff...

Gah! Prison has ruined my hair already!

 

Everyone is playing their part nicely.

 

The guards have so much to give! Alas, unlike previous picture, girl in background is not getting her animation override.

 

 

Crack leading to alternate reality hidden in the depths of the mine. I spent hours down here searching the dark corners for stuff to do with escape, but the only help wasn't hidden at all.

 

[WhatRules]

4 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

First time I heard of it, I thought it would look stupid. Instead it looked right, and I realised that all along trees had simply been too small.

 

Here are some examples - I made them small so they're less annoying.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I tried it and I have to say forests feel more epic now. But there is the occasional clipping here and there. Outside Riverwood there was a tree clipping through a cliff. But enough about trees. I'll give this some air until there is a mod called "More devious trees".

[El_Duderino]

12 hours ago, Crota said:

But was it not also part of a Life another Life Alternative start at one point?

...

Also where do I start the Chloe Quest?

Technically those are two different and unique quests, each playable on its own, but story-wise they tie nicely into each other: Once you complete the LAL quest ("Delivery Refused"), you will be just outside of Helgen. And there, if you go into the dungeon of the Keep, the Chloe quest will start. (Which is the one you are referring to.)

[DonQuiWho]

On 6/22/2019 at 2:05 AM, donkeywho said:

@Kimy

 

DCL 8.3 is really really hard fun when set up properly.  It gets to the point, in some circs, where you literally have to continuously think out every 400 yards or so ?    Which makes it a real teaser

 

Two quick queries, please, tho'?

 

1 - 'Lost' gear

 

I inadvertently got sucked into Southfringe Sanctum and Bashnag stole my armour and weapons etc, then decked my PC out in a load of restraints, plus a DCL Slave Collar, and then sent her off to fight the horde of nasty spiders

 

I didn't manage to get her back to kill the swine, as she was trussed up like a dummy in a fetish shop window, but is the 'gear' gone for good?  If I go back, and transform Bashnag into eating material, will he have all that stuff in his inventory?

 

Reason for doubt is that I had a similar experience when finishing the Cursed Collar quest, when just before the final exit from the deep dark cave (or whatever it's called) the last stage nicked all the PC's stuff, and the geography of the location prevents going back for it.  It seemed gone for good

 

I don't mind if it's gone.  Arguably adds to the challenge, but it would be good to know if this is intentional, as in most mods and other circs, suchlike is usually recoverable (even tho' I do think that the mod author is as devious as have created it to do just that LOL)

 

2 - 'Realistic Follower Combat'

 

Do Skyrim followers play their bowstrings by ear, or is it just a fluke that, when wearing DD blindfolds or hoods, they always seem to know where the enemy is, and be able to fill them with more arrows than are in the average pincushion?

 

Or, putting it another way, is there any way of making things more 'realistic' by stopping Followers using bows, and maybe at least other ranged weapons, when their eyes are 'covered'?

 

And if so, is this a request I should be making to you here, or to you on one of the the DDi or DDe threads?   I'll gladly cut and paste it to there too  ?

 

TIA for any response you care to make

 

Asking nicely, but while all this talk about the size of your wood and trees is fascinating, it risks other queries re DCL itself getting lost, so, as Kimy herself is probably very busy, if you could maybe stuff it all back into your deep dark underpants for a little while, does anyone have any help to offer on my earlier questions, and those raised by others above?

 

TIA for any help anyone can give

[Zaflis]

1 hour ago, donkeywho said:

1 - ...Bashnag stole my armour and weapons etc, ...

If I go back, and transform Bashnag into eating material, will he have all that stuff in his inventory?

If you still have the stolen gear as quest in your journal then it should still be there. You should check that quickly like so:

Make a manual save then use Free Me! from Cursed Loot MCM. Use console "kill" command on any npc that tries to get in your way and find the npc as quickly as possible.

 

Quote

2 - ...is there any way of making things more 'realistic' by stopping Followers using bows, and maybe at least other ranged weapons, when their eyes are 'covered'?

 

And if so, is this a request I should be making to you here, or to you on one of the the DDi or DDe threads?

I'm sure Kimy sees it here, but the feature you are asking is of very minor importance, i assume. Most people propably don't gear up their followers. It could conflict badly with follower mods that change their AI, but i don't know much about it.

 

11 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Crack leading to alternate reality hidden in the depths of the mine. I spent hours down here searching the dark corners for stuff to do with escape, but the only help wasn't hidden at all.

I actually spent a while in CK today, refreshing my memory and seeing if i can fix it.

 

So i started CK, selected Cursed Loot and had no active file (i wanted to make it a patch). Finding the crack was easy:

Spoiler

 

But editing was trickier and took me another CK restart to reset my mess-ups. I looked up a snap to object key Shift-Q, making the ramp a source and then snapping the small floor at the right to it. And there you have it, no seam... at least in CK.

Spoiler

Then i saved it as dagonar_seam_fix and it made an esp in overwrite, which i made into new mod. Made sure it's enabled. Long story short, went to prison ingame and seam was still there. Checked file in TES5Edit and there was only a header saved into it ? So CK was "super smart" to think i didn't modify that area at all and the change didn't register. Now i'm a little too annoyed to try that again, and i'm not sure how to enforce it to register. Move it a bigger step, save, restart CK again and move it where it should be?

[DonQuiWho]

48 minutes ago, Zaflis said:

If you still have the stolen gear as quest in your journal then it should still be there. You should check that quickly like so:

Make a manual save then use Free Me! from Cursed Loot MCM. Use console "kill" command on any npc that tries to get in your way and find the npc as quickly as possible.

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

It's not really quest gear that's a problem, it's almost everything else LOL.  You just seem to get left with a very minimalist set of armour and weaponry etc.  It makes the game a challenge, I suppose, but I was just curious if it was intended

[TeaAndBiscuits]

Can someone please tell me where do I find all of the Bound Queen gear?  So far I have discovered only the belt in Queen Potema's catacombs.

[Zaflis]

2 hours ago, donkeywho said:

It's not really quest gear that's a problem, ...

You misunderstood. When npc defeats you, Cursed Loot starts a quest so that you can track down where your gear is. If that quest never even started, then the gear wasn't stolen by this mod but some other.

[A Little Kitten]

2 hours ago, TeaAndBiscuits said:

Can someone please tell me where do I find all of the Bound Queen gear?  So far I have discovered only the belt in Queen Potema's catacombs.

Nowhere but anywhere

[Tenri]

3 hours ago, TeaAndBiscuits said:

Can someone please tell me where do I find all of the Bound Queen gear?  So far I have discovered only the belt in Queen Potema's catacombs.

Unless it has changed

They are random drops from boss chests, I think, and it should work for any boss chest, not in specific ones.

[TeaAndBiscuits]

57 minutes ago, Tenri said:

Unless it has changed

They are random drops from boss chests, I think, and it should work for any boss chest, not in specific ones.

Thank you!

 

TECHNICAL PROBLEM: The "Bondage Dialogue" (asking to bind / get freed by NPCs) has dissapeared. What can I do to fix it?

[Zaflis]

12 minutes ago, TeaAndBiscuits said:

TECHNICAL PROBLEM: The "Bondage Dialogue" (asking to bind / get freed by NPCs) has dissapeared. What can I do to fix it?

There are some npcs that never have those dialogs, i think Leah and Leon are 1 of those. But otherwise i don't know if it's a bug or why but some random times you just don't have them. Keep playing and hope for best or try saving and reloading and see if they appear. That's i guess all you can do.

[TeaAndBiscuits]

19 minutes ago, Zaflis said:

There are some npcs that never have those dialogs, i think Leah and Leon are 1 of those. But otherwise i don't know if it's a bug or why but some random times you just don't have them. Keep playing and hope for best or try saving and reloading and see if they appear. That's i guess all you can do.

What super weird, is in some of my saves I get the dialogue option and in others I do not. 

[Tenri]

1 hour ago, TeaAndBiscuits said:

What super weird, is in some of my saves I get the dialogue option and in others I do not. 

Is the "Active Quest Runnin" flag true in the Debug tab of the Cursed Loot MCM in the saves that the dialog is gone for?

I ask because your last question was about a quest that I imagine would end up setting that after a point.

 

I don't know if that would block the "Bondage Dialog" but I wouldn't be surprised.

[DonQuiWho]

4 hours ago, Zaflis said:

You misunderstood. When npc defeats you, Cursed Loot starts a quest so that you can track down where your gear is. If that quest never even started, then the gear wasn't stolen by this mod but some other.

OK, fair point.  I'll look at the 'Slave Collar' event again, but the gear got taken at the outset, and not returned when the collar released.  I may still have part of the Bashnag quest 'hanging', so I'll revisit that when I can and see it that helps

 

But does the 'recover your gear' quest actually start at the end of the Cursed Collar quest?  Which is the point where mine went missing

 

In partic, there's an MCM option for some sort of surprise at the end of the Cursed Collar quest, and just before leaving the cave exit in the ground near the bridge over the river, the gear seemed to be stolen as part of, or - my memory is not precise on this - just before or after the final collar event run by that mysogynist wizard who sends you all over Skyrim collecting the shiny chains and other bits and pieces. 

 

There's NO quest to recover the gear tho.  Nor was any other quest or mod active that I can think on that would do that.  Hence my asking Kimy if this is a final twist in the tale.  (Having no weapons available when you get out, straight into the bunch of bandits sitting on top of that trap door, doesn't make for an easy life either ? )

 

Anyone else out there encountered this sort of event/happening, please?