One of the cool experiences of climbing a mountain is getting above the clouds and looking down on them. I was seriously disappointed after climbing up tall mountains, and especially High Hrothgar and the clouds were still a just a distant image painted on the sky.

I would like to see mod that makes it so that some of the taller peaks in Skyrim stick out above the clouds.

I can imagine a few ways to do this, the easiest way to envision, but certainly the most processor intensive way, is to simply remove the clouds layer from the sky, and use the fog that tends to cling to mountains to build actual clouds at an appropriate altitude.

You could also script it so that the cloud layer of the sky fades as you raise in altitude and on cloudy days fog is placed on the mountains at an appropriate altitude as you pass through them to create the illusion of passing through the clouds. Of course getting the looking down on the clouds effect is a little harder this way without also implementing the first method.

Honestly I don't know how to pull it off, only that I an disappointed with the current state of things even though I knew not to expect it to work like reality.

That is a very tall request, but a very interesting one. The Throat is supposedly the tallest (according to loading screen, I always though RM was taller) mountain in tamriel but I still don't feel like the game's scale is grand enough that adding a cloud layer in the way you described would look particularly good. The clouds everywhere else would look too low.

It's one of the technical conundrums of the idea yes. One of the reasons I proposed the second method. If you can create the illusion of passing through the clouds at an appropriate elevation then place a fog lower than the player to act as clouds it might work.

I'm aware its hard, heck it might even be impossible to make it look good at all. However, I feel that it is something at least worth trying. While I lack the technical expertise to do this, throwing it out there does get the idea into the minds of modders that might be willing to take on the challenge.

It is the tallest now because of the whole eruption of Red Mountain thing. That's what I think, at least.

If those were the two highest points, I'd say Tamriel is a rather flat world. Neither was particularly tall as far as our experiences go.


One issue I can think of for the clouds is that they would need at least a basic level of animation, even a script that makes them move around or something (and obviously it would need custom meshes). They would look a little odd I think if they were completely motionless. Plus clouds as you pass through them become rather wispy. They only look cloud-like from a distance. Not sure how that could be achieved. Once you were above it and looking down it would look like either a bit of fog that you could still see the rest of Skyrim through, or it would look like an actual cloud but you'd be blind climbing up through it.

They weren't tall in-game, but then again... the games are just representations of the lore.

The easiest way to do this would probably be to create a bunch of static cloud models that are actually just a bunch of billboards (i.e., flat squares) with cloud textures. They use this technique in quite a few games, including Crysis (though Crysis does fancy scattering for the clouds which make it look particularly good with a procedural light scattering skydome as well as using two other cloud types (volumetric and another mesh-based one if I remember correctly)). I don't know if there's a way to set the model up so the game knows to rotate the billboards to face the player, but that would be necessary to make them look good from all angles with a minimum amount of geometry (you *can* notice them rotating if you stare at it while moving, but if you're not really specifically paying attention, it looks quite good). This combined with a bit of the area fogging would make a convincing effect.

I know this method sounds really lame versus some of the great real time graphics research out there on the topic of doing realistic real time clouds, but it is seriously effective and combined with more advanced techniques used more sparingly it really makes the difference (as currently volumetric rendering methods are a bit slow, especially for large simulation grids).

Can anyone with experience with the NIF file format chime in on whether it's possible to get billboards to autorotate on the Z axis (at least, though if you're looking down you want them to look good from the top as well, which is a different can of worms altogether)?

Just my two septims as a game programmer and someone that's spent a lot of time implementing atmospheric scattering skies into games and researching how to do convincing clouds in real-time.

The problem I see with that idea is that when you climb the mount and pass through the cloud cover, it would just be a 2D line. So basically one second your under the clouds, the next above it. I guess if the final effect is achieved the way the OP wants it, it works. But seems like it ruin the effect, at least to me.

Of course the most ideal method, with full fluffy animated clouds for you to see from below and above and walk through, would be a tremendous undertaking.

Not if they're flagged to face the character. Which is what I mentioned about setting the billboards to auto-rotate. Most 3D model formats have a setting to make a regular 3D plane into a "billboard" (which means it rotates to face the player, so that the exact issue you described does not happen). However, it might be the case that the engine can't do arbitrary billboard rotation, and only does it around the Z axis. In this case, passing the cloud layer, you would see the edge of the billboards. If that's the case, a combination of Z-billboard clouds, the area fog (which I already mentioned would need to be combined with the billboard clouds) and possibly another set of mesh-based clouds that account for seeing the clouds top and bottom down. Like I mentioned, this is a well known and used technique and looks fantastic when utilized correctly. I did mention the caveats above, though. As long as they are accounted for, the clouds will look correct from the PC perspective.

Maybe I wasn't familiar enough with the terminology then and misunderstood. Is what you're describing the effect you see on game (especially older ones) that the objects are actually a 2D mesh that rotates to constantly face the player, something I remember especially for the foliage on trees, bushes, flowers, etc?

I'm wondering if you're missing the clouds that are already in the game?There is a "enbseries" patch that can fix that for you in case you're missing it.

That'd be it. Similar to the light beams found in dungeons in Oblivion. The fog meshes in that game too were also clusters of squares that constantly face the player to give the illusion of substance, as were the leaves on trees and fire and smoke.

Ah ok, I understand what he meant now. Thanks!

In that case then, that would be a pretty good solution for what the OP is looking for I think.