Blue, blue, my world is blue

[RedRavyn]

The color blue makes my head hurt (paraphrased from Arnbjorn of the Companions). Actually, it doesn't. I like blue. I like blue flowers. I like blue skies. I like blue butterflies. I like blue jeans. But I digress. I hate blue light.

 

Why did Bethesda decide to make Candlelight and Magelight blue? Why did they decide to give a blue tint to Nighteye? I think I know the reason. Some developer was so enamored of the color blue that he decided to make all of Skyrim blue. It almost is -- hence that annoying, unrealistic, bluish, washed-out look of most of the place. I'm surprised that torches don't give off blue light.

 

To remedy this problem I'm working on a mod to fix things. I've already made Candlelight and Magelight white, just like it should be. There is no color at all to the light, or there are all the colors in equal amounts, depending upon how you look at these things. Suffice it to say that my version of these spells doesn't alter the appearance of objects in the game at all. To me that's a Good Thing. Cute colors aren't.

 

My problem arose when I started looking at the NightEyeEffect parameters. Unlike the LightFFSelf and LightFFAimed effects there's no associated "item" that can be edited to change the color, and I can't find anything in the CK that seems to have anything to do with the color effect associated with Night Eye.

 

Does Night Eye use an independent shader that is automagically referenced by the game engine for this effect? If so can anyone direct me to instructions on how to alter this shader to make a full color (i.e., as if one were viewing the world in white light and not that horrid blue tint) Night Eye? I know nothing at all about shaders. I used a mod in Oblivion to fix this issue and it did a great job, except that it went all wonky with some of the vegetation, making it look so dark that it was almost black -- annoying, but I could live with it. I was going to look into trying to fix that and then I got Skyrim and haven't looked at Oblivion, since.

 

I'd also like to remove the radial blur that's associated with Night Eye but I don't have a clue how to do that. While I'm at it, I'd also like to somehow assign NightEye to some key other than "Z" and make it a toggle, rather than a "cast spell". Having it on the same key as the one used to shout just doesn't make sense to me. Shouts should use their own activation key, but Bethesda lumped all the magical effects that weren't spells into one category and assigned all of them to the "Z" key. Combine that with the pathetic "Favorites" feature of this game and it gets unwieldy in a hurry.

[AstralFire]

Isn't NightEye an ImageSpace?

[RedRavyn]

All I did was find the night eye effect in the CK and navigated around a bit trying to find out how to set its parameters. It's in the Magic Effects section and its name is NightEyeEffect. There's an associated script, "magicNightEyeScript", and I examined that, but as nearly as I can tell it's mostly just there to make sure that the appropriate sound effects are played when it's enabled and disabled. I'll admit, though, that this was my first time looking at Papyrus code, so I might have missed something.

 

I took your hint, though, and started looking at that angle. It's not under Imagespaces, but under Imagespace Modifiers. I'll examine that and see what I can do, but it looks like you put me on the right path. I appreciate the tip, even though I don't know beans about imagespaces. Today has been a day of learning for me. Yes, it's actually possible to teach an old dog new tricks.

[AstralFire]

Glad I could help! I've been afraid to dally about much with ISes and IS Mods, so hopefully someone else who knows more will nip along. :)

[RedRavyn]

I doubt that I would have figured this out without some help, AstralFire. Before now I didn't even know what an imagespace was, so I wouldn't even have bothered to look, there.

 

Candlelight tint = none ... check

Candlelight range extended ... check

Magelight tint = none ... check

Magelight range extended ... check

Nighteye tint = none ... check

Nighteye radial blur removed ... check

Nighteye toggleable ... check

 

I think it's been a productive evening for me, although I'm sure a lot of experienced Skyrim modders could have done this in their sleep. Now, I just wonder if anyone else out there would appreciate this mod, seeing that it combines no less than four existing mods into one. Like other compilations, though, what you see is what you get. It doesn't come in different versions or with options because I made it for me.

 

It still needs a bit of tweaking, although it's servicable as is. I might make Nighteye a little dimmer. I'm definitely considering reducing the intensity of Candlelight and probably reducing its range. Magelight is right about where I want it. Just for the information of anyone reading this, yes this modifies the vanilla spells. You don't have the option of using the original blue-tinted Candlelight or Magelight as long as this mod is enabled. After all, the reason I made it in the first place was because I hated that blue tint.

 

This mod also affects the Vampire Hunter's Sight and Werewolf Nighteye, although I didn't make either of those into toggles since I'm not running either a vampire or werewolf right now. I might consider including them as toggles if there are people who are interested in this mod and want that, since the change is trivial to make. Would you believe it was as simple as setting the "duration" of the effect to zero? I figured that might be the case because some other things I've encountered use "zero" to mean "infinite" when a duration of zero has no real meaning.

[jet4571]

I dont think Candlelight should be white but more of a warm yellow or tan kinda color. the spell has the color as it's namesake would be the best way to go.

 

Magelight.. yeah white works.

[RedRavyn]

I understand where you're coming from, jet. The problem is that I made it white because I have a visual problem that makes color-cues almost necessary for identifying things in my environment, and that carries over to gaming. When the game fiddles with the colors I lose the ability to readily identify the things I'm looking at. Don't ask -- just accept it, because it's a bit difficult to explain. Sort of like trying to explain to a person born without eyes what the color "red" is. I would consider modifying any public release version of this mod to include your suggestion, though.