How does an ENB work?

[InDarkestNight]

Enbs tend to have a rather dramatic effect on the look of your game. However, I don't understand what they're doing under the hood to accomplish this.

The only features I've seen people mention is lighting, detailed shadows, bloom, and depth of field.

I can't run enbs anymore because they don't work on linux! Even so, even the most performance friendly ones dropped my fps too much. I've tried to replicate them in various ways with other mods, but I just don't understand what I have to do to replicate them.

Of the three features I mentioned, 2 can easily be accomplished with mods. Lighting overhauls aren't hard to find, especially on SE it would seem. You want depth of field? Use dynavision. You want to change the colors, brighten or darken the game, or add bloom? Imagintor. The only thing that doesn't seem possible to replicate is detailed shadows.

However, even using all of these, I can't seem to match the look of any enb no matter what I do. No setting I alter with imaginator seems to bring me much closer to any enb, no matter how close it is to vanilla. It would seem that enbs alter the graphics in ways that none of my tools can do.

What all is an enb actually doing? I've got 5 of the things it does, I just lack detailed shadows. What else could it be altering though? I just don't get it. I've noticed enbs tend to have quite a lot of files. I wouldn't know what each of them does though.

And yes, I know an enb is necessary for a lot of things, but what are they? I know Vivid Weather is limited by it not being an enb, but I've never seen it explained what enb can do that vivid weathers cannot. I don't even really know what all vivid weathers is doing. It re-textures the sky I know. It also clearly ups the saturation, or contrast, I don't know. I can see a difference between maxing out the contrast and saturaion with imaginator, but I can't figure for the life of me what its actually doing. They both seem to just make colors more vivid but in different ways. What is it actually doing the rgb values? If it was explained to me that way, then maybe I could understand what on earth they're doing.

Just for some examples, what on earth is Tetrachromatic enb doing? Turning up the contrast and saturation doesn't get anywhere close to the screenshots on the mod page. Even changing bloom does nothing. Its like the lights just work differently. Or Antique Dragon enb? Is it upping the contrast or saturation? It seems to be doing half of both of those at the same time, upping the contrast with some things and the saturation with other things. What about caffeine enb? Or rudy? Its like they're just applying some sort of filter over the game. I have NO idea at all what rudy is doing. How do these things work?

Edited January 27 by InDarkestNight

[anjenthedog]

If you can't use ENB, perhaps a combo of Imaginator (or similar mod) adjustments might help. ENB seems to be the way to get truly photo realistic gaming (far as I can tell, can't run on my system, graphics card isn't up to it and tbh, I'm not either... seems like too much work for this retired, somewhat burnt out brain), but you can get ~reasonable output using shader sets and tweaking.

[InDarkestNight]

Imaginator interests me, due to using similar things with Vivid Weathers. However, I just don't know how to use it. I don''t really understand what its doing, and it seems hard to keep your game from looking gaudy with the thing. Presets are hard to find, and most of them look awful. The only one that's ever interested me is this 'bleak' preset that sadly tints your entire game green. It almost makes it look like I'm trying to run the game on a phosphorus monitor the tint is so bad. All I can seem to do about it though is tint my game a different color.

[anjenthedog]

Imaginator's primary tools (imo) are the color, brightness, contrast  controls. oh and saturation. They do what brightness color tone and contrast do in any application (and saturation). they affect the color values, scene brightness, and to some degree sharpness (via contrast) of the field of view. saturation determines the weighting of all color upon your scene. Any others idk off hand.

BTW< if you don't understand how color tone works, do some googling on the subject. best I can say is that blue white feels different than a rosey white or yellow white. little shifts in color can change the whole appearance of a scene, but best imo (for learning)  to personally experience the shifts by self exploration. (corny but true)

If you have it, I'd suggest playing around with those basic tools (contrast, brightness and color tone) to get the feel. you can always reset values.  try some of its presets too (there's sub section that has presets). If it makes you feel any better I didn't know how to use it either, when I first started using it.

... Subtle adjustments to avoid the garish look.

[InDarkestNight]

Well, the main question of my thread is; what are enbs doing that imaginator cannot do? Why can I not even come close to replicating the look of any enb with imaginator? I was hoping someone who knew more about it could tell me how I could use imaginator to replicate some of the enbs I listed. Either that or I was hoping someone would explain to me how enbs work on a technical level so I could have a hint as to what I would need to do with imaginator to replicate the look of an enb. I also know about the ICBINE mods, but honestly I don't know what they're doing. They eat up a lot of processing power I know, so clearly they're doing more than imaginator is.

Like, what is Caffeine enb doing? What is different about the screenshots on its mod page compared to the same locations in the vanilla game (minus flora mods anyway). What about antique dragon? Strangely, vivid weathers seems to come closer to imitating its look than I can get imagintor to. I don't know why, but the mod page claims it conflicts with ICBINE because they're doing similar things. What about rudy? I can see a difference, but I can't imagine how to explain or what's happening. Its like an abstract form of 'spot the difference' game! What, do I need to just find the same locations in my game, take screenshots, and compare them to the ones on the enb pages? I have been going to the same locations to try and set imaginator, but nothing I do seems to work.

[anjenthedog]

Not sure. someone else will have to explain the technicalities. All I know is what my eyes see. ENB pops in a way I can't achieve using presets (via mods or via fiddling with imaginator settings.

As I think I noted when I first replied, no, it's not the same, but utilizing something like imaginator (and/or various shader presets) seems to produce something *closer to photo realistic than when settling for the vanilla handler alone, so, since I don't use ENB, it's my next best bet.

[LilRedMonster]

The only thing that will ever yield dramatic results that- are even comparable to ENB in Skyrim, in my opinion, is using Community Shaders and all it's associated mods. And then maybe popping a decent reshade on top just to compliment them.

ENB has been around...for awhile. I remember murdering my old old old rig when I tried my first enb with dark souls 2. Holy balls did it ever make my game look incredible but the cost was... steep, to say the least.

I have been bouncing around various modlists and so far I have found myself, in most cases, getting rid of all things enb and going with community shaders.

It's not quite as impressive as ENB is..not yet anyways but they are improving it and adding to it steadily so I believe it might get there eventually but honestly...

30 fps outdoors/45 fps indoors with an enb vs 120 fps steady everywhere with community shaders for the price of my game looking 2 years old rather than like if it was made yesterday? Yeah, that decision is easy for me.

[anjenthedog]

Community Shaders is fine, but again, it does not produce ENB levels of realism. It's fine, I use it in my game. But it's still not a true ENB equivalent.