Torches don't cast shadows

[savior99]

Hi, i have installed "lanterns of skyrim", "better torches" and Enhanced lights and FX, together with other 40 mods roughly.

 

I noticed that in dungeons, torches make light, but don't cast shadows...neither do braziers...candles do though.

 

I even uninstalled ELFX and installed Realistic Light overhaul, but same "problem".

 

Is this normal?

 

 

[prod80]

This is normal and this is on purpose ... Skyrim engine has limitations. Giving torches shadows causes a *load of graphic bugs.

 

And if you're curious of what kind of bugs it causes :P download this mod for Solitude and have ELFX or RLO installed as well... go walk around Solitude @ night... you'll see all kind of lights going on and off and having ridiculous strange behaviour... then you'll understand why they dont have shadows :)

Very buggy city lighting mod: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/21148

[savior99]

thanks man, one problem less to solve :wink:

Edited May 22, 2013 by savior99

[blitzen]

The game engine allegedly only supports a maximum of 4 shadow-casting light sources simultaneously, so having the torch consume one of them would only leave 3 for other sources, and can cause other issues as mentioned above. There is a mod which does add that to the torch, but then you would lose it for other light sources. And braziers and candles don't inherently cast light on other game objects. Nothing does. That capability has to be added via a separate light source game element. The way Bethesda built the game, the actual light sources usually aren't directly linked to objects like fires, candles, etc. They rely on ambient lighting, and do things such as placing a single light source between two wall sconces to provide fake light. A mod such as Relighting Skyrim associates the actual light source objects with the flaming objects (fires, candles, etc.), so they appear to light up other objects and cast shadows, which looks a lot more realistic. You can try the torch mod to see what happens, but given the limitations of the game engine for lighting, expect to see issues. Some of the problems may be addressed by using an ENB, but I don't use one so I can't be sure.

[savior99]

thanks for the advice man, i have already installed the "better torches", then ELFX and now replaced that with RLO.

 

i found weird that in a dungeon, torch didn't cast shadow, but a small altar with some candles did...

 

do you thinkg installing "Relighting Skyrim" would mess things up after 2 lighting mods?

 

I would really like to have proper light sources from fire, as it should be.

[blitzen]

I use ELFX for indoor lighting and Relighting Skyrim for exterior lighting. I also run with an old version of Realistic Lighting (3.5), which allows me to tweak the vanilla lighting settings via an executable java .jar patcher that Plutoman built. He hasn't built one for RLO. The only lighting problems I see are from mods that introduce new houses, towns, or rearrange existing structures, such as taverns. I'm happy with how it looks using these 3 lighting mods. I've tried several ENB configurations, but prefer the look of ELFX, RS, and RL, even though you have more limitations when using the vanilla lighting engine. The ENB post-processing can improve shadows and other areas where the skyrim lighting is severely handicapped, at a potentially significant performance cost.