What's a good lighting setup?

[herdustisverypretty]

I've tried ELFX as well as RLO, and also a couple of ENBs and Reshades. But everything is way too dark! I record Skyrim for let's plays and I can't have pitch black interiors as no one on Youtube can see it then. 

 

I know there's been posts like this for old Skyrim, but what about Special Edition? What's a good lighting setup that looks nice but isn't so dark? 

[Kaz Aanh]

Turn up brightness or gamma.

 

Not sure if SE enb has ambientlighting settings in the [enviroiment] tab

[khumak]

Not much point using a lighting mod if you want lots of ambient light.  The vanilla game keeps everything bright as day whether it's indoor, outdoor, day, or night.  For some extra brightness with a lighting mod you could use Wearable lanterns and Claralux.  Both have configurable brightness and glow but only for your lantern and outdoor lights respectively.

[herdustisverypretty]

Not much point using a lighting mod if you want lots of ambient light.  The vanilla game keeps everything bright as day whether it's indoor, outdoor, day, or night.  For some extra brightness with a lighting mod you could use Wearable lanterns and Claralux.  Both have configurable brightness and glow but only for your lantern and outdoor lights respectively.

 

Yes but vanilla lighting is far too bright. At night it looks like day time. I want it to be a little dark at least. I want darkness but with lots of lighting such as candles to brighten up interiors as mods make them too dark, even with the brightness slider. Realistically there would be lights inside. You wouldn't have just one candle in a room. Candles don't give off much brightness, you need multiple. 

[skymon5]

I'm just getting around to adding some mods to my Skyrim SE and I added several lighting mods that work well together.

 

1. Enhanced Lights and FX, using the main module, ELFXEnhancer, and ELFX - Exteriors. (ELFX)

 

2. Vivid WeathersSE, including Extended Rain, Extended Snow, and Winter.  (Vivid WeathersSE)

Once this is installed and you start your game, the mod places a Vivid Weather book in your inventory.  Open it up and you can adjust the various weather/environment conditions, like night time and daytime brightness.

 

Still playing around with these mods, but so far so good.  Update us if you find a good combo that works for you.  Good luck!

 

 

[khumak]

I like Vivid Weather + ELFX + ELFX Enhancer + Darker Nights + Claralux for lighting/weather.

[herdustisverypretty]

I'm just getting around to adding some mods to my Skyrim SE and I added several lighting mods that work well together.

 

1. Enhanced Lights and FX, using the main module, ELFXEnhancer, and ELFX - Exteriors. (ELFX)

 

2. Vivid WeathersSE, including Extended Rain, Extended Snow, and Winter.  (Vivid WeathersSE)

Once this is installed and you start your game, the mod places a Vivid Weather book in your inventory.  Open it up and you can adjust the various weather/environment conditions, like night time and daytime brightness.

 

Still playing around with these mods, but so far so good.  Update us if you find a good combo that works for you.  Good luck!

 

 

I like Vivid Weather + ELFX + ELFX Enhancer + Darker Nights + Claralux for lighting/weather.

 

 

Unfortunate as I've been quite happy playing with Dolomite Weathers/True Storms. Vivid Weathers doesn't have any really heavy rain. Is there some sort of way to get heavy rain mods working with Vivid Weathers?

[khumak]

 

I'm just getting around to adding some mods to my Skyrim SE and I added several lighting mods that work well together.

 

1. Enhanced Lights and FX, using the main module, ELFXEnhancer, and ELFX - Exteriors. (ELFX)

 

2. Vivid WeathersSE, including Extended Rain, Extended Snow, and Winter.  (Vivid WeathersSE)

Once this is installed and you start your game, the mod places a Vivid Weather book in your inventory.  Open it up and you can adjust the various weather/environment conditions, like night time and daytime brightness.

 

Still playing around with these mods, but so far so good.  Update us if you find a good combo that works for you.  Good luck!

 

 

I like Vivid Weather + ELFX + ELFX Enhancer + Darker Nights + Claralux for lighting/weather.

 

 

Unfortunate as I've been quite happy playing with Dolomite Weathers/True Storms. Vivid Weathers doesn't have any really heavy rain. Is there some sort of way to get heavy rain mods working with Vivid Weathers?

 

 

My understanding is that True Storms modifies vanilla weathers.  Vivid Weather completely removes vanilla weathers.  So they won't work together until someone makes a patch that either adds vanilla weathers back in so True Storms can modify them or maybe updates True Storms so that it modifies some of the stormier weathers in Vivid Weather instead of the vanilla weather.  Vivid does have some pretty stormy weathers but not as heavy as True Storms.  I heard that someone did make a patch for an older version of Vivid that works but I haven't tried it.

 

[Taskmaster]

For Special Edition I'd recommend:

 

ELFX(raw) - no Enhancer, no Hardcore, etc. Plain Enhanced Lighting and FX, no other additional feature.

Enhancer and the other features have an effect on all light sources(removed a lot of hue and tone, as it darkened the sources), so even outdoor light sources and torches get altered.

Skyrim LE ENB's features could compensate what Enhancer(and the other additional plugins) would do to the light sources, but I honestly wouldn't recommend Enhancer in LE, either - again you could use ENB to darken/lighten interiors in LE without messing with the tones light sources provide.

 

One of the following weathers:

Dolomite Weathers

Rustic Weathers(personal recommendation)

or Natural and Atmospheric Tamriel(on Photorealistic Tamriel ENB page)

 

Reshade(any version, preferably 3.x+).

There's a bunch of reshade presets on nexus and everywhere else, and you can use reshade presets from other games(even Fallout 4 or GTA) and install them in SSE(and tweak further) if you want to.

[herdustisverypretty]

For Special Edition I'd recommend:

 

ELFX(raw) - no Enhancer, no Hardcore, etc. Plain Enhanced Lighting and FX, no other additional feature.

Enhancer and the other features have an effect on all light sources(removed a lot of hue and tone, as it darkened the sources), so even outdoor light sources and torches get altered.

Skyrim LE ENB's features could compensate what Enhancer(and the other additional plugins) would do to the light sources, but I honestly wouldn't recommend Enhancer in LE, either - again you could use ENB to darken/lighten interiors in LE without messing with the tones light sources provide.

 

One of the following weathers:

Dolomite Weathers

Rustic Weathers(personal recommendation)

or Natural and Atmospheric Tamriel(on Photorealistic Tamriel ENB page)

 

Reshade(any version, preferably 3.x+).

There's a bunch of reshade presets on nexus and everywhere else, and you can use reshade presets from other games(even Fallout 4 or GTA) and install them in SSE(and tweak further) if you want to.

 

Ooooh Rustic Weathers looks nice. I didn't even know about that mod. Might have to try that out. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Guest]

For Special Edition I'd recommend:

 

ELFX(raw) - no Enhancer, no Hardcore, etc. Plain Enhanced Lighting and FX, no other additional feature.

Enhancer and the other features have an effect on all light sources(removed a lot of hue and tone, as it darkened the sources), so even outdoor light sources and torches get altered.

Skyrim LE ENB's features could compensate what Enhancer(and the other additional plugins) would do to the light sources, but I honestly wouldn't recommend Enhancer in LE, either - again you could use ENB to darken/lighten interiors in LE without messing with the tones light sources provide.

 

One of the following weathers:

Dolomite Weathers

Rustic Weathers(personal recommendation)

or Natural and Atmospheric Tamriel(on Photorealistic Tamriel ENB page)

 

Reshade(any version, preferably 3.x+).

There's a bunch of reshade presets on nexus and everywhere else, and you can use reshade presets from other games(even Fallout 4 or GTA) and install them in SSE(and tweak further) if you want to.

Great minds and all that.

 

In classic I adore the  ELFX + enhancer combo. It gives everything a sumptuous and yummy Rembrandt look that I can't get enough of. However, SSE already has an issue with crushed blacks and the enhancer just adds to it, so instead of achieving a sense of depth and subtle contrast, everything is smothered in a funereal pal of flat, lifeless gloom. I wouldn't recommend it for SSE, but luckily ELFX on it's own looks pretty much like ELFX+enhancer in LE with my setup.

 

Another issue as I understand it is, we don't have ENBs doing much more than a Reshade, so no way in post-processing to properly treat interior lighting separately from exteriors. Eg Re-Engaged is tuned around ELFX+Enhancer, but it's also trying to be tuned for Dolomite or NAT. 

 

I like Dolomite Weathers and I think it's successful in it's concept, because it often had me wanting to reach for some skiing goggles to deal with it's extreme bloom and blown out whites. Honestly the only reason I ever stuck with it long enough to get my eyes trained to it's extremes was for it's clarity, those glorious skies and mountain top lighting. Majestic Mountains now takes care of those though. 

 

Rustic Weathers  - looks dull as fuck in a lot of it's screenshots which explains why nobody much cares about it.  And that's a bit tragic really because it's very good. but you have to see it in action to appreciate why. Texture details really pop, colours are bang on, contrast is kept under control, brightness is absolutely where I want it to be all of the time. Nights are dark but not unmanageable.  Extreme weather effects are on par with True Storms I think. In my opinion it's the best weather mod for general gameplay, it won't win any big drama awards but it also won't give you eye fatigue. 

[Bluegunk]

True Storms / Vivid Weathers SE patches are here:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2517/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/7815/?

But they are out of date. Technically Vivid and True Storms are incompatible.

 

[lupus_hegemonia]

The BEST weather mods, are two: Vivid Weathers & CoT.

All the others are "very good", but not even close to "V.W." or "CoT".

 

I've tested ALL... I mean it, I've tested so far over 2,000 mods (over 40+ re-construction of my mod list, etc)...

 

...The best so far "combo" for weather & lighting, to me, to my flavor, is this:
 

1a. Climates of Tamriel SE (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2237/?) or

1b. Vivid Weathers Special Edition (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2187/?)

2. True Storms (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2472/?)

3a. TSCoT Compatibility Patch (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4198/?) or

3b. VividWeathersSE TruesStormsSE Patch (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2517/?)

4. Real Rain SE (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2022/?)

5. Lightning During Storms Sse (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/8778/?)

6a. Enhanced Lights and Effects - ELFX (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2424/?) or

6b. Enhanced Lighting for ENB (ELE) (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1377/?)

7. [ΟPTIONAL] WEBS SE lighting mod patch (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4873/?)

8. Realistic Water Two (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2182/?)

9a. [OPTIONAL] CLARALUX SSE - Controllable Lights Everywhere (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2371/? ) or

9b. Lanterns of Skyrim (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2429/? )

10a. Skyrim SE Re-Engaged ReShade - And the Sun-Sunflare Optional Add-On. (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1089/?) or

10b. Rudy ENB (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4796/? )

 

Personally I'm using CoT, because indeed, the following are true (pros/cons):

 

Why you should use Vivid Weathers:
PROS: The Snows , Fogs, and Rain weather types and lighting are in my view vastly superior to CoT. The game has a more modern feel, with realistic shadowing and clarity. Using the in-game book, you can configure the look of bloom , set the color saturation, and brightness settings for nights and interiors - all on the fly, in game.

CONS: It doesn't handle the new Godray system very well outside of fogs. It can lose details in the shadows, and sometimes the overall darkness of the lighting at mid to long ranges in shadows can darken the entire scene. Sometimes handles sunset and sunrise poorly from a lighting perspective. The sun looks odd. The clarity is a plus, but highlights the inherent flaws that skyrim has at distance if you dont run DoF (Depth of Field). Lighting was a little inconsistant, but a recent patch seemed to decrease this. 
 

Why you should use Climates of Tamriel:

PROS: Gives a look and feel more like Oldrim. Handles godrays very well. Brings out details in shadow similar to vanilla in SE, giving an atmospheric result. Handles night lighting with better clarity, as well as textures in those situations feel more colorful and rich. Users who like fantasy looks will find this drastically superior to Vivid. Usually sunset and nearly always sunrise are handled perfectly, and are stunning. Lighting is extremely consistant.

CONS: Can feel washed out, sometimes extremely badly washed out at times. Fog is weaker. Rain looks thin and somewhat cartoony.  It simply fails to have the same depth as far as fog, snow, and rain as vivid. Lods at distance can look flat due to lighting. Characters look a little more 'digital' due to the lighting when outside. The 'haze' that creates the atmosphere is sometimes too blue, and breaks my immersion. I feel the weather transitions are somewhat more jarring than vivid, probably just due to the more atmospheric lighting.

Even if CoT is worst in raining/storm/snow... combining the above mods with CoT... is getting much superior to Vivid Weathers.

[khumak]

The only thing I'm still missing for lighting is a mod that lets me change the intensity of interior light sources.  I like nights and hostile interiors pitch black, but I don't like having to carry a torch/lantern inside inns, houses, castles, etc. 

 

Configurable ambient light could potentially also work except that again I want ambient light in dungeons to be zero but would want it considerably brighter in friendly areas.  Haven't really found a solution to that issue yet.  With Vivid Weather + ELFX + ELFX Enhancer + Darker nights + Claralux, lighting outside and in dungeons is perfect but I have to keep my wearable lantern lit at all times when I'm inside or I can't see anything. 

 

In oldrim the enb I was using allowed me to change light intensity for each individual type of light source as well as ambient light for each individual type of interior with separate settings for both day and night and separate settings for each individual weather both for outside and for interiors.  Took forever to set up but once done it was perfect.

[khumak]

I finally found the lighting setup I've been looking for.  Enhanced Lights and Effects (base module only, no enhancer, no exteriors, no weather) + ELE (load after ELFX) + Vivid Weather + Darker Nights + Claralux + Wearable Lanterns.

 

Now dungeons are pitch black so you can't see without a torch but friendly interiors are brightly lit so you don't need a torch.  Outdoor areas are realistically lit based on time of day and weather so at noon it's nice and bright, during a rain storm it's suitably gloomy and somewhat dark, and at night it's quite dark (although not as dark as dungeons).  Claralux gives plenty of exterior light sources that have adjustable style, weight, brightness, and glow.  Wearable lanterns gives me the extra lighting I need in dungeons and outdoors at night but is no longer needed in towns and cities.

[circ]

I was looking for an interior lighting mod, and will continue to look.

 

I initially used ELE + RS, but recently dropped ELE because I just can't stand the orange hue it adds to everything touched by interior light and the way it blurs fireplaces with bloom.

 

So just earlier, I gave ELFX a try on SSE. Not as dark as ELE but definitely an improvement over vanilla. However, ELFX too seems to think orange is the new hip thing. And although it doesn't screw up fireplaces as much as ELE, it isn't crisp and clear and realistic like vanilla actually is.

 

So, finally tried RLO. Least dark of the three. Doesn't turn you into an orange popsicle either. The only lighting mod that actually adds some nice FX to things. Moon/sunlight through windows, which looks beautiful. But every single lightsource it wants to turn into a welding rod or a smelter. What the hell. The light they cast off is fairly minimal, but it shines like a blinding sun. Come on people.

 

So, I'm just sticking with vanilla + RS. It's not the worst thing in the world. Orange, really?

 

Some visual examples:

 

ELE+RS (oh god why can't I see shit)

 

 

ELFX only (what is this please stop)

 

 

RLO (how has that cooking pot not melted?)

 

 

Vanilla + RS (oh it's a firepit with embers)