@pluto

have you taken a look at the mod i linked to on the first page? It claims to bring true darkness (not post processed). if it works as advertised, maybe you could see how he did it

Yep. Well, I can manage that part of it, but he doesn't bring true darkness as in lower light levels, it's just a lack of tint and some lowered ambients. The problem is in trying to lower it further, and making it 'dark'.

Basically, I can duplicate what he did, but the effect isn't dramatic. Take a look at his screenshots. I can't get it further than that.

I found a pretty suitable exterior darkness setup for now.

The pictures are pretty degraded by the .jpg encoding, especially the darkest one.
In-game it looks pretty stellar (especially when you pop shift-F12 and compare the differences, haha)

Vanilla:
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/4071/vanillaw.jpg

Skyrim Enhanced Shaders /w Darker Nights settings:
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/2950/enhancedshadersdarkerni.jpg

Skyrim Enhanced Shaders /w Darker Nights settings
+ DarkeningAmountNight=30 instead of 13:
http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2950/enhancedshadersdarkerni.jpg

Using the Skyrim Enhanced Shaders "Darker Nights" setup
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=822

I don't know if I'll keep the setting at 30, but at least it's "proof of concept"

Let me know if you guys find any other tweaks with this setup to improve it. 8D

I still don't have a looking for a good indoor dungeon darkening setup. 8\

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EDIT:
Scratch that. The one people have been mentioning earlier does a pretty good job.
(I was just a fool and hadn't activated the .esp files after installing with BAIN.)

Here's some comparisons. Note that I do also have Skyrim Enhanced Shaders on as well.
Without http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=648 mod:
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae307/leviathan1753/EnhancedShaders.png

WITH http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=648 mod:
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae307/leviathan1753/EnhancedShaderswDarkerInt.png

Not too shabby for looks, considering the other options out there. Can't speak towards NPC reaction at all.

I didn't use the guy's other plugins, just the darker dungeons optional one he offers. Why that's not a separate mod, I don't know, haha.

WOW!!

thanks for this Norbingel

Thought I've not tried the darker variants - I can say that the main No Tint and Desaturation esm is great. It is amazing how colorful this game really is. Not gaudy like Oblivion, but far more colorful that it is with the tint.

Going to try the darker mods next, but I had to immediately jump out of game to post this

thanks again.

[edit just saw the above post]
Still not sure and we may not be able to tell for certain til the CK comes out if the darkness this mod applies affects stealth and NPC detection or not.

But the main tint remove mod is great stuff.

[edit 2] I don't understand the strings stuff though:

That's what I had been trying. I got to the conclusion that I don't like the way shader mods work, in general. Sure, you can fiddle with the settings and color tones. In the end, all they do is add a "screen-filter" to counter the vanilla tint. The outcome is an image either over saturated or dark. For example, darker nights should not allow nights to get dark with aurora borealis. Those things I suspect can only be done with the CK.

And this is where the "No Tint and Desaturation" comes to the rescue

@ Psymon:

I'm going to try it out. Perhaps I can make some sense of it.

I'm still wanting pitch black caves (really, that's still a lot of light coming in from that small opening...). For some reason, that just seems to be against the game's possibilities without access to the CK and specific imagespace stuff.

Also, it's relatively easy to get your own tint set with the imagespaces, without using a shader. No need to counteract, you can have something already changed, but that doesn't make NPC's react, either. We need something that actually changes the lums which doesn't seem to be working properly.

Also, that mod author should not be using esm files.. he should definitely be using esp's, and instead of fiddling with the strings file, he should just copy the names instead of doing all the extra work. Ah well. This whole project is frustrating me. I can get darker nights and interiors, but there's issues with eye adaption, LOD light levels (skies would be dark, ground, trees, etc would be dark, but the LOD mountains wouldn't actually darken..), issues with the fake lights inside caves, issues with settings actually working properly (you'd think the sunlight dimmer would be simple ). Too much work >.<

it did seem strange how i NEVER used a torch in skyrim after 80 hours yet in oblivion i seemed to use one for 50% of dungeon delving -> only those races with night sight shouldn';t need torches but apparently all develoyed some sort of nightvision since oblivion.

I managed this...

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=10673

Still, it's not very easy.

Did the best I could.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2896

Not perfect, but it does work. Currently only affects nights, though. Been working on dungeons with little effect.

That's amazing!

The way FXAA shaders work always give bad results. Everything, from game assets to ambient light, was thought toghether. I'm no artist, so color changes always look worse IMO.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=648 makes a real difference. Without any need for even sharpen, or post rendering effects.

There's two moons, Masser and Secunda, besides the aurora, so I understand why Bethesda wanted to make nights so bright. But it feels just too much light - especially in caves.
I hope you continue to work on this when the CK comes out. You have my full support!

Thanks for doing this! I'm going to try your http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2896!

I'm using http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=648, but only the Darker Nights and Darker Interiors. As I was using http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=240, I simply edited the configuration file for the shader and reset the saturation to 0.00 and gamma to 1.00 (same with in-game gamma to 1.0000 in SkyrimPrefs.ini). I left the shader exposure and blue shift values alone. Perfect! Nights are pretty much pitch-black and trying to ride a horse even with a torch, I kept bumping into things because I couldn't see that far ahead, just like you wouldn't be able to in real life Personally, I like the look of the FXAA shaders (blur and sharpen), so to me, this combination is perfect

I put up some new versions, check them out.

Anyone who's ever been outside on a moonlit night after a fresh snow can say that it is significantly brighter outside. However, I do agree that areas like riverwood and whiterun are just way too bright at night.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=11050

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=11054

Progress has been made. Except for missing light sources. >.<

What is meant by missing light sources? You mean bulbs of light without a source?

Is this just lowering ambient light?

From reading the caption under the new pictures, I think he means bulbs of light without sources.

Take a look at the second picture, and look at the fire. There's no visible light from it. Now, the fire's a bad example, but in some areas, there were lit lanterns that had no light radiating from them, while just a short ways away, another identical lit lantern WOULD have light radiating from it.

I'll probably do a release, but I'm disappointed because I can't actually add in those light sources. It's classic bethesda, and why All Natural and Real Lights was needed for Oblivion, because they did the same thing there.

Just posted this over at the nexus forums. I think I was getting messed up colours from my "No Tint and Desaturation" install. That may be why I didn't like this combination of darker nights with the tint attenuation.

Pictures with Bit of Tint, DarkerInteriors.esm, DarkerInteriorsAdd.esm, DarkerNights.esm: http://imgur.com/4ey7P | http://imgur.com/hlc22 | http://imgur.com/rTZdn

Pictures with DarkerInteriors.esm, DarkerInteriorsAdd.esm, DarkerNights.esm: http://imgur.com/ifw0l | http://imgur.com/wu7Bd | http://imgur.com/IzZiw

Vanilla comparison by day: http://imgur.com/7Pu6q

Using Bit of Tint version of NoTint.esm was adding way too much colour, making the image tones overboard with radioactive glow arround. Then when I removed it was beautiful again!

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About "True Darker Nights" mod:

The only problem I am having right now with True Darker Nights is:

- white mountains, due to extreme levels of dark tones
- and very little light from actual light sources, such as moons or sky.

Check the pictures in this album: http://imgur.com/a/Bmz4Z#0.

I didn't care to post this over the nexus page because I know Plutoman reads this thread

(edit:) Made another album for comparison with "No Tint and Desaturation" mod (just DarkerInteriors.esm, DarkerInteriorsAdd.esm, DarkerNights.esm) under the same circumstances: http://imgur.com/a/BxD43#0.

BTW, the shots were taken with vanilla game, without any kind of FXAA shader injector mods - that would defeat the purpose of comparison between these two mods.

Yep, I do read it.

I'm working on some of the kinks in the darker nights. If I can isolate which weather is associated with the various moon and auroras I can do separate edits for each. The white mountains is due to the fog color being too white, which works in vanilla, but needs edited here. The shadows and grass at night is something I'm also seeing about fixing.

Main problem with that guy's no tint and desaturation mod is that he's made it so improperly.. Heck, it even crashes tessnip if I try to open it.

Edit: That came off a bit harshly. Don't mean it quite that way. More just thinking he should stop trying to make esm's when it should be esp's.

Just updated my mod. Should be much smoother now.

Thanks Plutoman. I have a preference over the other mod in terms of darkness tones. If the light source from the sky and moon could be upped a bit and the ambient light near the ground level attenuated, it would be great. I'm going to test your latest v20.

Just tried the latest enb series beta. It totally reigns in terms of interior luminosity. It is a beta so the appearance in exteriors is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-HT2YmqUY.
I think the author had to increase the brightness because every other setting had to be toned down. That makes the outside look overly bright.

You have to take a look and this short album inside a house and cave: http://imgur.com/a/BpZ0h#0

SSAO also made the fake lights more apparent inside interiors. See this: http://imgur.com/a/cGVI9#0

Putting fake light bulbs is like a brand thing with Bethesda games. Besides not getting burned by the fire, you can see the light was placed in the horizontal wood trunk.

Haven't increased the light sources from the moon/sun, but I have added some light due to the aurora's. I can't use injection settings, like the ENBseries, because I'm not sure my computer can handle it.

However, I'm working on a genuine interiors mod.. Honestly, considering just going from cell to cell and editing them all one by one.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=11528
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=11527

Candlehearth hall in Windhelm. Heck yes. This is some work though.

Great job Pluto, looking forward to this.

Your True Darkness v20 improved a lot!

I don't know if it is too much trouble (probably, a lot). Personally, I would check interiors one by one only when CK comes out and focus on more general lighting settings. For example, DarkerNight esm from No Tint mod did not disable shadows altogether. Perhaps you can find a generic setting that still allows good customization but is not such pain to hack into in hex mode.

Just a suggestion, please don't feel obliged to anything. And thank you again for your mod!