The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

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Declutter: Omnidirectional Shadow Lights
   
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Dec 14, 2012 @ 9:17am
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Declutter: Omnidirectional Shadow Lights

In 1 collection by Team Vladof
Performance & Optimization (Low End / Old Comps)
24 items
Description
Makes majority of "Shadow Omnidirectional" and "Shadow Hemisphere" lights just "Omnidirectional". This means they won't do shadows. "Shadow Spotlight" are untouched, as they provide special spotlighting effects that omindirectional would have made look tacky (eg: skylight, light that shines down on an object on an alter, etc). This is intended for folks that have either turned shadows off, or want to get rid of interior shadows but keep outdoor shadows.

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Note

I've never liked the shadowing system in skyrim, so I turn it off via ini settings. However, I'm not sure how Beth coded shadow lights; wasn't sure if they were still wasting system overhead doing shadow calcs. So, this swats a fly with a sledgehammer by altering the majority of shadow-casting lights to be non-shadow-casting.

Likewise, I kept wondering why someone hasn't made the candles, braziers, etc in skyrim cast their own lights as opposed to a light object near them doing it (eg: have a cluster of 3 candles each cast their own light as opposed to 1 light object acting like all of their light together).

So, I experimented with making the brazier coals in White Run cast their own light. You'd think it'd look great, the braziers lighting around them, flickering, casting shadows ... but it didn't. It looked horrible. The way the game does outdoor shadowing sucks. First, the lights would randomly turn on/off for some unknown reason (I tried turning flickering off to just be stead...no dice). They wouldn't flicker when flickering was turned on. They stayed a constant white color even when I set them to a warmer orange tone. The shadows they cast looked awful, and also the outdoor shadowing system was casting its own shadows on the braziers which looked tacky in unision with the brazier shadows.

So, I switched shadowing off for them. While they were on and constant, the outdoor shadows dominated over the brazier light. IE: braziers that were under house awnings had a clear shadow from the house awning cast over them. This looked unrealistic and tacky as well.

So, for folks wondering why there hasn't been a "real lights" mod for skyrim, it's b/c the shadowing system sucks. Mods like "realistic lighting" hand tweak a lot of light bulb objects and things to make light sources look realistic while working within the limitations of the shadowing / lighting system. There is no simple "just replace these with real lights and you're done" quick fix. And even if there was, there are still special areas that use lighting w/o apparent light sources you have to take into account (eg: in Namira's cave, the braziers have no coals in them, but ghostly lights are hovering over them).

Anyways, this isn't intended to be "real lighting". This is intended to take skyrim's shadow system, kick its dog, slaps its wife, defile it's daughter, drink its last beer in the fridge, and give it the finger on the way out the door with a grand "adios, mf'er". Can't stand you shadowing system.

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Change Log

1.0
* original version
* altered most "Shadow Omnidirectional" and "Shadow Hemisphere" lights to be just "Omnidirectional", removing their ability to calc and cast shadows
19 Comments
Lenny The Wise Jan 5, 2017 @ 9:14am 
this will be a great help my computer is a medium high specs but you know i am always trying to make my games run better this will be a huge help fps over graphics is the way of old
poopfeast420 Apr 8, 2016 @ 10:04pm 
dope mod :whiterun:
Team Vladof  [author] Jan 11, 2016 @ 9:53am 
@The Sexy Heavy ... yeah, it's the 21st century, but tweaking is still a matter of trial and error. There's still enough difference between AMD and Nvidia cards, drivers, etc that folks on both sides of the fence have to test things to see if they help or hinder.
Tru Jan 11, 2016 @ 8:05am 
Really weird. This hurt performance on my AMD Radeon HD5450 The particles mod seemed to help, but the omnidirectional shadows hurt.
Team Vladof  [author] Dec 31, 2015 @ 1:51pm 
To get rid of all shadows you have to tweak the .ini files. I think the .ini tweaks on the collection page this mod is associated to has something for that.
Pacifist Dec 31, 2015 @ 1:49pm 
Is there a mod to get rid of all shadows? Not just indoors.
crockett king Apr 1, 2015 @ 5:49am 
The best mod for indoor no other mods needed went from 15 fps to 50 outstanding.
ElimenoLMNO Dec 3, 2014 @ 4:25pm 
I didn't lag before, but I found this getting really annoying, it would make my wife's face all shaded and weird, because I run at low - medium, thank you.
Team Vladof  [author] Oct 24, 2014 @ 12:08pm 
@Death The Kid ... look at my "Performance & Optimization (Low End / Old Comps)" collection (link is above). It details .ini tweaks to turn off shadows. Beth has been slapping a new coat of paint on the aging Gamebryo engine each iteration of TES (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim). The pro is they can polish the engine a little, then focus more time on content and faster release. The con is the underlying engine isn't optimized for some of the stuff they shoe-horn in. Most of the whiz-bang features are just handled with brute hardware instead of an elegant engine. Since Zenimax has both Beth (good IP) and Id (good game engines), hopefully they'll team up on the next TES game.
Moxxie Oct 22, 2014 @ 2:30pm 
Is there a way to remove ALL shadows? After installing this mod i no longer lag in indoor locations like homes and places like that, but i still lag in outdoor areas, and it ruins/dungeons. Plus when ever i move, all the large shadows start flickering and going all over the place