ENB Shadows

[Bloodfang]

Hey guys,

 

I'm having some issues at the moment, I'd like to play FO4 again and I have all set up now, all my mods, my character's custom outfit etc.

Problem is, the game is just washed out and not very pleasant to look at.

 

Like in Skyrim, I like to use a good ENB that makes the color vibrant and the visuals sharp enough. I've looked at all the ENB available on the Nexus and while some Olympus could fit the bill, they all have this thing making the shadows extremely dark. Even during the day, if you turn you character to not face the sunlight, your whole body will turn black from the shadows. It's even worse if you play a character with a dark skintone.

 

Any tips to balance this without losing the vibrant colors ? Gamma/Brightness/Saturation aren't very helpful.

 

Thanks !

[Sinful Raevyn]

I am still learning about ENB's, so I may be wrong... BUT! Don't ENB's have a customization menu built in? Like, if you press Shift+Enter it should open up a menu for your current installed ENB with a bunch of different customization options. (Don't forget to open console after you do so, so you can actually click on the menus)... So if you find a preset you really really like, you can just open the menu to edit the shadows to be not quite as strong?

 

In theory at least. I haven't gone through all the options yet for the menu, because I like the preset I have.

[Bloodfang]

I admit I don't usually touch the settings except a few ones, as for the shadows being too dark the only way I managed to "fix" them was to increase the brightness or reduce saturation/contrast but that means I lose the vibrant colors which were the reasons why I wanted ENB in the first place. Somehow I find Fallout 4 ENB much less impactful compared to what we have in Skyrim. Shame... seems Fallout games always get the shortest stick in terms of mods.

[tomomi1922]

Hey guys,

 

I'm having some issues at the moment, I'd like to play FO4 again and I have all set up now, all my mods, my character's custom outfit etc.

Problem is, the game is just washed out and not very pleasant to look at.

 

Like in Skyrim, I like to use a good ENB that makes the color vibrant and the visuals sharp enough. I've looked at all the ENB available on the Nexus and while some Olympus could fit the bill, they all have this thing making the shadows extremely dark. Even during the day, if you turn you character to not face the sunlight, your whole body will turn black from the shadows. It's even worse if you play a character with a dark skintone.

 

Any tips to balance this without losing the vibrant colors ? Gamma/Brightness/Saturation aren't very helpful.

 

Thanks !

 

With this, I want to bring up how dependent and ignorance driven the mod users community is. They just want to download a mod that WORKS without bothering to understand how things work (and tweak to their needs).  And also the mod creators just trying to keep their users in the dark by offering all kind of marketing term assurance without educating users ... (just keep on telling how great the mod will offer to your game, without telling you even if this is a texture replacement or with an .esp). So you need to break away from this cycle!

 

But here is the bottom line of ENB: it is a tool to alter DirectX processes. You can turn off game processes and use ENB (like SSAO, DOF, Lens flare).  ENB offers a color correction tool.  It's not the best, but important.  I also use Reshade to deal with the post procress (like a real color correction tool in real life for professional video).

 

So what can you do?  The quick fix: Download the latest version of ENB (should be .311).  Check out their main site.  Apply it to your favourite ENB preset you downloaded somewhere. JUST donot overwrite enbseries.ini on main Fallout 4 folder.  When in game, go to console mode, then hit Shift-Enter to open ENB control.  If shadow is that dark for you, there are 2 locations you can fix: 

 

1. In ENBEFFECTS.FX: go look for "Out Black", and increase value (should be zero) to something like .1, should be good enough. If not, go .15, .2 ... try other values if you like (for learning sake).  

 

2. in ENVIRONMENT (only available with newest ENB), you can adjust lighting PER time of day (divided in Dawn, Sunrise, Day, Sunset, Dusk, Night). You can increase "Day Ambient Light" if your shadow in day time is too dark.  Also to note that this ENVIRONMENT setting can literately replace your Darker Night mod (except for other options like Stealth Detection).

 

These 2 are quick fixes.  There are other adjustments too, like Brightness, Gamma, Contrast, Contrast Grey Level, etc... but they also affect over all values, and it would take me a lot more text to write a tutorial on ENB and overall color correction theory in video production.  And keep in mind you NEED to tweak, because what looks good for the creators on his monitor does not always look the same to you.  Go to the store and see 100s of TV and monitors and they all look different.  I have 2 monitors (and they look different).  I am about to buy a $2000 professional color monitor (with 10 bit color) and it should offer true color for color correction.  And it will look different than my current monitors as well.

[Bloodfang]

 

 

 

With this, I want to bring up how dependent and ignorance driven the mod users community is. They just want to download a mod that WORKS without bothering to understand how things work (and tweak to their needs).  And also the mod creators just trying to keep their users in the dark by offering all kind of marketing term assurance without educating users ... (just keep on telling how great the mod will offer to your game, without telling you even if this is a texture replacement or with an .esp). So you need to break away from this cycle!

 

But here is the bottom line of ENB: it is a tool to alter DirectX processes. You can turn off game processes and use ENB (like SSAO, DOF, Lens flare).  ENB offers a color correction tool.  It's not the best, but important.  I also use Reshade to deal with the post procress (like a real color correction tool in real life for professional video).

 

So what can you do?  The quick fix: Download the latest version of ENB (should be .311).  Check out their main site.  Apply it to your favourite ENB preset you downloaded somewhere. JUST donot overwrite enbseries.ini on main Fallout 4 folder.  When in game, go to console mode, then hit Shift-Enter to open ENB control.  If shadow is that dark for you, there are 2 locations you can fix: 

 

1. In ENBEFFECTS.FX: go look for "Out Black", and increase value (should be zero) to something like .1, should be good enough. If not, go .15, .2 ... try other values if you like (for learning sake).  

 

2. in ENVIRONMENT (only available with newest ENB), you can adjust lighting PER time of day (divided in Dawn, Sunrise, Day, Sunset, Dusk, Night). You can increase "Day Ambient Light" if your shadow in day time is too dark.  Also to note that this ENVIRONMENT setting can literately replace your Darker Night mod (except for other options like Stealth Detection).

 

These 2 are quick fixes.  There are other adjustments too, like Brightness, Gamma, Contrast, Contrast Grey Level, etc... but they also affect over all values, and it would take me a lot more text to write a tutorial on ENB and overall color correction theory in video production.  And keep in mind you NEED to tweak, because what looks good for the creators on his monitor does not always look the same to you.  Go to the store and see 100s of TV and monitors and they all look different.  I have 2 monitors (and they look different).  I am about to buy a $2000 professional color monitor (with 10 bit color) and it should offer true color for color correction.  And it will look different than my current monitors as well.

 

 

Quite a big mouth you have, just for your information, I can't count how many times I have edited mods to suit my tastes, textures, meshes.. you name it. I just never really bothered with ENB because in Skyrim I simply downloaded an ENB, and that's it. There were loads of them with vibrant colors that suited me just fine. That's why I never looked for more until now for Fallout 4.

 

Here is my Nexus profile, http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/users/1185394/?

 

Please, next time instead of acting like a hero, don't call people ignorant for no good reason.

[tomomi1922]

Sigh, why do you act so defensive?  I didn't direct this AT you.  I said general public of mod users do this. They refuse to even try learning a thing or two trying to FIX something that would take 5 min.  

So in this scenario, was it you who complained about ENB not always fitting your taste?  I mean for good reasons.  I can create a perfect ENB setting on my end, and it is going to be all jacked up on your end.  That is perfectly normal.  So I am NOT attacking you there.  In fact, I was trying to give you some hints on how to start editing ENB.  It's a lot easier than creating mods because you can't CTD with these values, and you can change them on the fly.  AND in worst scenario, you can upload default value and start again.

I am not saying I am better than you.  But in real life, I am a colorist.  I work with software like Da Vinci Resolve to color correct professional videos.  High end colorists get paid $5000 + just to deliver a 30 second video, with this same Da Vinci Resolve software.  I am not saying I am getting paid as much.  But all I am saying is I am a little more at home with color correction even though the tools given by ENB and Reshade are rather primitive for my taste.  It is missing tons of important features.  BUT THEN AGAIN, this is not professional software, but freeware created by kind hearted individuals.  So I am extremely grateful for their efforts.  

So with that, I think I just want to extend my hand and offer some help to people.  Because people just expect things to work right out of the box.  

[Bloodfang]

Sigh, why do you act so defensive?  I didn't direct this AT you.  I said general public of mod users do this. They refuse to even try learning a thing or two trying to FIX something that would take 5 min.  

 

 

 

I don't know, maybe because you thought using my case would be a great idea to hightlight your idea of mod users in general.

 

Thanks for the help though, even if I don't play FO4 anymore but at least you did gave some hints to follow.

[tomomi1922]

 

Sigh, why do you act so defensive?  I didn't direct this AT you.  I said general public of mod users do this. They refuse to even try learning a thing or two trying to FIX something that would take 5 min.  

 

 

 

I don't know, maybe because you thought using my case would be a great idea to hightlight your idea of mod users in general.

 

Thanks for the help though, even if I don't play FO4 anymore but at least you did gave some hints to follow.

 

 

Maybe the way I worded it set you off in the wrong way.  For that you have mmy apology.  But the whole thing I want to get at is ... you (or anyone else) do not HAVE to be stuck at exactly what ENB gives you.  I am glad you did some mods.  I am sure you did it because you wanted something changed to make your game better. It didn't have to be big, just a few adjustments and things would be right.  Am I correct?  

 

So same with ENB. You like an ENB so much, but it is just a bit too much (or too little) here and there.  So my whole intention was to tell you ... "hey, you do have the power to change it".  And even easier said than done when it is right there in your game with generally a smaller learning curve.

 

Look at this channel called Tapioks on youtube.  He is one of the very few (or even the only one) who actually made indepth video discussing the ins and outs of ENB.  His videos really helped me figure out the meaning of a lot of parameters.  Or sometimes I just wanted to find the default values.  Like what range is considered "normal" and I can start nudging from there and see workable changes right in front of my eyes.  Trust me, some parameters are so bizzare you have no idea what they really do, or what their usable values are.  Here is link to one of his video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m94mgLygq3M

 

What game do you play now?  Aren't you thinking about coming back to FO4?  Feel free to drop in for some help with ENB, I got a lot to offer.  All those hours watching tapioks videos and adjusting ENB and Reshade settings in game kinda made me quite an expert.  And they work almost identical in Skyrim as well. What tapioks tutored about Skyrim, I can use directly in FO4, maybe with different values.