Cobb Rim Lighting

A cheap hack for emulating the character coloring seen in Fallout 4. No scripts, no DLL injection, no ENB, and no significant performance impact!

fake edge lighting

[Also available for Skyrim Classic]

Rim lighting is the practice of lighting a character from behind, often used to simulate the way light bounces around a scene. Fallout 4 uses rim lighting to shade character models more realistically. In Skyrim, edge lighting can be faked by creating an EffectShader that applies a faint glow to the edges of the character model. (EffectShaders are a technique used to apply glows to characters affected by magical spells. These glows are different from the "character lights" built into Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition, and they work in all versions of Skyrim.) It's a subtle effect that can sometimes be overwhelmed by the game's lighting, but in many lighting conditions it makes characters look more realistic.

This effect does not use scripts and should not have any significant impact on performance. It does not require ENB or any other add-ons. It's just an ESP file out of the box.

There are currently two versions of this mod catering for different lighting setups. The "boosted" version is designed for Skyrim Special's vanilla lights: the rim lighting effect is four times stronger than Skyrim Classic's, and it's still visible despite the remaster's horrible contrast filter. The "original" version uses the same values ​​as the mod does in Classic. The blending modes of these two files have been changed to work with Skyrim Special (a direct port of the Classic mod resulting in pitch black character models).

Require

This mod uses spells to apply border lighting shaders to characters, so you may want a Brawl Bugs patch to prevent those breaking brawls.

compatibility

This mod is not compatible with any other mod that relies on EffectShaders; character models generally cannot have more than one EffectShader at a time. Known incompatibilities include:

bloody facial

The bloodstain effect in Bloody Facial is implemented as EffectShaders and is not compatible with Cobb Rim Lighting.

Subsurface Scattering Shader (SSSSSS) for skin

This mod uses the same technology as Cobb Rim Lighting. Only one of the two mods can be running at a time.

wet and cold

Wet and Cold features the ability to coat your character model with snow and ash; these effects are EffectShaders and are not compatible with Cobb Rim Lighting. However, Wet and Cold's dripping effects should be fully compatible.

debug

If you need to turn the border shader on and off, the following console commands will work. The shader is synchronized with the automatically launched task; it will only be visible on the player while that task is running. Shaders can take up to five minutes to disappear from NPCs after stopping a mission.

startquest CobbRimLightQuest

StopCobbRimLightQuest

Customization in TES5Edit

If you wish to modify the brightness of your mod in Creation Kit or xEdit, you will need to pay attention to the following values:

There are three shaders for fading between two different intensities, depending on whether you're in a particularly dark environment. The settings you need to modify to customize the mod are as follows:

Values ​​used in multiple shaders:

High = 0.06 (boost: 0.24)

Low = 0.04 (Boost: 0.16)

In Skyrim Classic, these values ​​are almost directly related to the RGB added to the character's edges. Multiply them by 255 to get an idea of ​​how bright the edges are. Skyrim Special's vanilla lights have too much contrast, so the relationship breaks down completely.

Full strength shader:

Full alpha rate: high

Sustainability alpha ratio: high

Half intensity shader:

Full alpha rate: high

Sustainability alpha ratio: low

Transition shader:

Full alpha rate: low

Sustainability alpha ratio: low

Alpha Pulse Amplitude: Low divided by High

(For example of alpha pulse amplitude, 0.04/0.06 = 2/3 = 0.666...)

Do not change the fade time or alpha pulse frequency …