RAIN! it gets everywhere!

[otakuelf]

I'm relatively new to modding.

 

My goal is lofty and difficult

 

I want to make the rain and snow stop on solid objects without starting or stopping the weather in an area.

 

"rain and snow clipping" and "real shelter" already do kind of what I want.

 

However they require heavy modder work across all of skyrim and are not compatible with new dlc or mods.

 

What I hope to do is make a fix that effects the weather mesh/particle shader and it's interaction with the surrounding collision meshes.

 

Is this feasable? I hope so.

 

I'm currently crawling through learning Python but I have a general grasp on scripting and logic.

 

so here's my idea, and I'm really mostly an Idea guy but I will expand into a maker when push comes to shove.

 

Rain is created by falling mesh right? it's only active in the location near the player to reduce system stress I think. arrows can hit and stick to players, and things. can we make the rain "tiny arrows from the sky" that are cleaned up when they hit something? if so the rain should act right in any situation where the player cannot pass through the object (roofs, rocks etc) but not bushes cobwebs etc. Any knowledge of other forum threads where this "problem" is being discussed?

 

I know only a little about how the rain and snow in skyrim works atm and am looking for sources of knowledge reference and suggestion.

 

p.s. I would like to be able to make my mod compatible with "hypothermia" "frostfall" and "wet and cold" along with any other mods that are affected by or affect a player or npc's exposure to weather.

[unuroboros]

The mods you mention are clunky hacks because of the game engine itself. You will find no easy solution, unfortunately. Like you say, rain is just a shader... not a mesh, not a set of particles with physics. That's the whole point of shaders (as I understand them) - making believable effects that don't require heavy physics. Arrows are independent meshes and do have limited physics; not hyper-realistic physics like, say, a shooter that can calculate bullet drop and wind speed over several hundred meters.

 

I don't want to just "rain on your parade", though ;) so here's an idea that could at least give you something to chew on:

 

Consider lakes. You can see the rain falling from above the lake, or rather, while your camera is above water level. "Water" here is defined as an actual volumetric zone, kind of like an invisible cube that is flagged "I am water". When the camera object is inside of that cube, the game changes to a different shader, the one for the underwater effect. At the same time, you stop seeing the rain shader. Most pseudo rain collision hacks work on the same principle.