Darker nights without affecting stealth?

[Mark_Immortell]

Is there any mod which makes the nights (and maybe the dungeons) darker, but doesn't change how stealthy you are? So only a visiual mod for this and not a gameplay changing mod (like I think Darker Nights is)?

[Tao314zdin]

I use Enhanced Light and FX and it is pretty dark when there are no light-sources (at night, in caves etc).

But I don't know if it affects stealth since I have a couple of dedicated stealth mods that tune it to what I want. I would just assume it should not, but you might want to check the mod-page.

[Ilja]

Post processing does not affect detection rate. You can use ENB to darken the area for this purpose.

[Death Approaches]

YOU DO NOT NEED IT.

Be a technical gamer; you got the dev console and lots of commands, let's use some!

If it's too bright, use 'scp'; it takes three floats, <saturation>, <brightness>, <contrast>. Let's say your current is 1.800000,1.225000,1.330000... if you entered 'shp 1.6,0.75,3.5' you'll find it quite dark and contrasty for daytime and nearly impossible to see your hand in front of your face at night. (depending on your monitor calibration; assuming regular lit room brightness and gamma 2.2 sRGB profile.)

For 'shp', it's a bit more subtle but can really change how you see the game world; nine floats. There are: eye adaptation to brightness <speed> and <strength> (that temporary darkening when you look away from a light source or the sky, how fast your "pupils adjust"), light bloom <radius> <threshold> and <scale> (similar but from the emit sources, values are size, cutoff, intensity), then target luminescence <lowerval> and <upperval>, and then sky sunlight <scale_val> and overall sky <scale_val>...

And a way to see what the settings are at currently: 'php' (print HDR parameters) which will also give you clues to how to learn some of those other console commands that affect the post-processing we're discussing for you.

Note you can adjust all this on-the-fly, too, just arrow up to your last scp or shp command, or put them in a plaintext file in the Skyrim game directory, edit your changes and save, and do 'bat light-test' (or whatever you name it) to apply it... rinse and repeat til you get what you like.

Happy mod-free lighting adjusting!

[Kussin]

ELFX - hardcore module

[Ilja]

Guys, I think you missed the part "but doesn't change how stealthy you are?"

Ingame darkness settings, like ELFX or console, will affect on detection rate, because they directly edit character visibility.

Post-processing does not affect on detection rate, because it only affects on screen visual, instead of actual visibility in game.

[Mark_Immortell]

Yeah, thanks Ilja, guess this is what I am looking for.

[Mark_Immortell]

Any ENB you can recommend?

[Tao314zdin]

Originally posted by Ilja:

Guys, I think you missed the part "but doesn't change how stealthy you are?"

Ingame darkness settings, like ELFX or console, will affect on detection rate, because they directly edit character visibility.

Post-processing does not affect on detection rate, because it only affects on screen visual, instead of actual visibility in game.

You mean they actually calculate the amount of light reaching character model in some way?

I thought it is just some position-based + mb take into account effects like candle-light applied to the character or armor-sound penalty and such.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Tao314zdin:

Originally posted by Ilja:

Guys, I think you missed the part "but doesn't change how stealthy you are?"

Ingame darkness settings, like ELFX or console, will affect on detection rate, because they directly edit character visibility.

Post-processing does not affect on detection rate, because it only affects on screen visual, instead of actual visibility in game.

You mean they actually calculate the amount of light reaching character model in some way?

I thought it is just some position-based + mb take into account effects like candle-light applied to the character or armor-sound penalty and such.

Light does take effect, so hiding in shadows is useful. However, vanilla system is so bonkers that you do not notice the difference on higher sneaking levels, where character can basically draw paintings on bandit butts without them noticing.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Mark_Immortell:

Any ENB you can recommend?

Unfortunately I haven't taken a look.

I am using Intrigued ENB, which pretty much just enhances the colors. Darkness comes from seasonal weather and lightning mods. As an outcome, I get to enjoy bright blue nights at Summer in Whiterun, but deep dark Autumn nights (like November in Finland) around Rift.