Published on Dec 24, 2016 A collection of my favorite sound, audio and ambiance mods for Fallout 4. Some of these make the game sound more realistic, others make the game more atmospheric, some. Edclub typing. Microcontroller based applied digital control solution manual programs. Visual basic 2008 express edition registration key generator. One hour of calm Fallout 4 ambient music and ambience.
to ENB series for Fallout 4!In terms of new effects, ENB 0.307 introduces some of the proverbial'big guns' we've been waiting for..Errr .. not THOSE big guns. What we're talking about is the introduction of ENB's legendaryAmbient Occlusion and Indirect Lighting effects, as well some initial 'Environment' parametersthat allow for manipulation of global lighting attributes.In this video we will take a look at both Ambient Occlusion and Indirect Lighting, includingvisual demonstrations, configuration tips, and some basic performance metrics.The new 'Environment' paramters introduced with ENB 0.307 will be covered in a separate video.. as there is just a lot to cover here.Alrighty , let's get started!PART 1: Ambient Occlusion & Indirect Lighting - Effect OverviewAmbient occlusion is a screen space effect that calculates how exposed each point ina scene is to ambient lighting. Areas with less exposure, such as recessed corners andcrevices are darkened accordingly.Some of you may be already familiar with Ambient Occlusion and some of its more commonlyimplemented variants, such as SSAO, HBAO, SSDO, HDAO and so on..ENB's implementation of Ambient Occlusion differs from each of these in a number of ways,one of which is the inclusion of an Indirect Lighting component -- rarely foundin video games or other graphics mods, though I believe recent versions of ReShade now alsooffer some version of this effect.In this scene, note how the underside of the car is illuminated by light reflecting onto it from the ground.As we toggle ENB's Ambient Occlusion effect off and on, note how this illumination is also affected.ENB's version of Ambient Occlusion also tends to provide broader range and coveragethan other versions of this effect. The effect is also very temporally stableat it's default settings, with virtually no noticeable shimmering or noise artifacts while in motion.While Indirect Lighting is a rather subtle effect, when employed along with Ambient Occlusion,these effects can really help to make objects appear more convincingly situatedin the environment created by the game world.Ok, let's take a look at how to enable and configure ENB's new Ambient Occlusion effect.PART 2: Setup & ConfigurationFirst off, before booting up the game, you will want to go into the Advanced section of theFallout 4 Launcher settings to ensure that the game's own Ambient Occlusion effects arenot being used, since we will be using ENB's effect instead. Just go ahead and make sureAmbient Occlusion is set to 'None', as shown here. Ok, let's go ahead and boot up the game.As always, we open our ENB interface by hitting Shift-Enter.We won't be needing our Shader Parameters or ENBseries panels today,so I will go ahead and minimize those.Now, in the 'enbseries.ini' panel, expand the 'Effect' section and make sure that'EnableSSAO' is selected.Next, let's expand the new 'SSAO_SSIL' section to reveal the parametersfor Ambient Occlusion and Indirect Lighting.The first option we see here is a toggle for 'Use Indirect Lighting'. However, like a few ofENB's other effects, simply toggling this option has no effect unless you also 'SAVE'and 'APPLY CHANGES' in the ENBseries panel, as shown here.Most ENB effects can be configured in real-timewithout this save-and-apply process, but a few parameters do require this.An easier way to disable Indirect Lighting for testing purposes is to simply lower the'IL Amount' value to zero, though disabling the effect entirely can actually help with performance,as we'll see later.. though of course, this is at the cost of some eye candy.Ok, now the next two options, 'ResolutionScale' and 'SourceTexturesScale' can actually onlybe modified by editing the enbseries.ini file while the game is not running, and as suchthey are 'greyed out' in this interface. These two settings also have the greatestimpact on the performance of the effect, though we will be sticking with the default valuesfor now.Next up we have 'Sampling Quality' which defaults to a value of 'High'. There is a 'Very High'option also available, though to my eye there is little discernable difference between thisand even the lower quality options. If in doubt, just leave this at 'High'.Next up is 'SamplingRange'. This parameter determines the 'tightness' of the effect,so to speak. At lower values, the shadowing is more detailed, but only darkens surfacesthat are in very close proximity, while at higher values the shadowing is more broad,but also affects larger portions of the scene geometry. I recommend a value between 0.15and 0.25 for Sampling Range, as the default value of 0.2 feels fairly balanced overall.Next up we have 'AOIntensity', and you will notice here that we have separate controlsfor Interiors as well. ENB only considers interiors to be areas that you enter through a door,so this Red Rocket garage we are in here is not actually considered an interior.The 'AOIntensity' parameter controls the overall darkness of the shadowing effect,as seen here.Next in line we have 'AOAmount', which also includes separate interior controls. Thisfunctions similarly to AO Intensity, but affects the strength of the effect in a different manner.I generally leave AOIntensity at a value of 1.0, and use the AOAmount para meterfor configuration of this effect. I generally reduce these from their default values of2.0 to somewhere between 0.5 and 1.0 to keep the shadowing from appearing too 'heavy'.Moving along, we have 'ILAmount' parameters which affect the strength of theIndirect Lighting effect in the same way that AOAmount affects the Ambient Occlusion effect.And again here we have separate controls for Interiors. I like to leave both of these atat the default value of 4.0, and this is the value that is used throughout this video.One nice little feature you can see here is that for many parameters, you can click andhold on the parameter name and drag your mouse clockwise and counter-clockwise to raise andlower the values in real time. This is VERY helpful in fine tuning these parameters to your liking.And finally, we come to the 'AOMixingType' parameter, also with separate controls providedfor interiors. This setting affects the way that the Ambient Occlusion and Indirect Lightingeffects are blended into the underlying image, and modifying these also require for you toclick 'Save' and 'Apply Changes' in the ENB series panel in order for the change to take effect.I generally recommend keeping these both at '2' for the stability of the effect acrossdifferent game environments, though as always feel free to experiment.Ok, and let's take a stroll outside to take a closer look at ENB's Indirect Lighting effect.Again, this effect simulates the reflection of bright light from one surface to another.. sort of like the 'inverse' of ambient occlusion. In this scene, notice how the undersideof the vehicle is slightly illuminated by the sunlight being reflected off the ground.If we disable Indirect Lighting in the ENB menu, and click 'Save' and 'Apply Changes',you will notice that this illumination disappears.If you adjust the 'SamplingRange' parameter in the ENB menu, you can see that this alsocontrols the range of the Indirect Lighting effect. At low values the illumination is
restricted to a smaller area, while at higer values the illumination covers more of the geometry.Here's another example of the Indirect Lighting effect, with the underside of the pink 'udder'of the Milk Machine illuminated by sunlight reflecting off the ground. Let's go aheadand set the 'AOIntesity' value to itse minimum value, 0.01, so that we can look at theIndirect Lighting effect on its own. Now we can toggle ENB on and off with Shift-F12 to see the impactof just this effect on this scene, including the illumination of the Milk Machine, thewooden planks on the ground, the truck chassis and even the grass.Here we can see Indirect Lighting working its magic in an interior scene, where lightreflecting off the wall on the right illuminates the nearby box and cabinet.Let's take a look at a few more comparison shots of some interior scenesto see how these effects help to enhance depth,and the 'voulmetric' feel of geometry in these types of environments.And now let's pay a quick visit to Diamond City to see how the complex geometry inthis area benefits from ENB's new effects.Notice how the soft shadowing affects geometrythroughout the scene, including objects well off in the distance.And let's toggle on and off the Indirect Lighting once more to better see how the effect is appliedto this colorful metal fixture here. It is worth noting that since ENB's Indirect Lightingeffect can be used on its own, this effect can be paired with either of Falout 4's own Ambient Occlusioneffects, SSAO or HBAO, if desired -- though, be advised this is likely toTANK your performance a bit...and speaking of PERFORMANCE, let's take a quick look at performance impact of these new effects!
PART 3: PerformanceFor this excercise, we will be monitoring GPU load with MSI Afterburner in the top leftcorner, and we will only have the new Ambient Occlision effect enabled, and we will alsolook at performance with the Indirect Lighting component enabled and disabled.However, let's first revist the ResolutionScale and SourceTexturesScale parameters we glossedover earlier. So, to modify these, simply open theENBseries.ini file in your Fallout 4 'root' folder, and scrollall the way down to the new 'SSAO_SSIL' section. The default values here are 1.0 forResolutionScale and 0.5 for SourceTexturesScale, and these are what I will use for performance testing.If you have a beefy rig, you can try increasing SourceTexturesScale to 0.75 or 1.0to help improve quality at the expense of performance, or alternately,if you have a not-so-beefy rig, you can try reducingResolutionScale down to 0.75 or 0.5 to help improve performance.The effect still looks pretty good with both of these values at 0.5.In any case, when done editing the file, just save and close, and boot up the game.Ok, back in the game now with the ENB mod disabled. My framerate is currently capped at 30, thoughwe can see that my GPU, an NVIDIA GTX 780M, is running at a load of around 56%. Now, whenI enable ENB with only the Ambient Occlusion effect active, we can that the GPU load jumpsup to around 74%, so clearly this is a fairly demanding effect, though the actual impactcan vary quite a bit depending on the complexity of the scene.Now let's disable the Indirect Lighting component of the effect only, and see what impact thishas on performance. So we will uncheck 'Use Indirect Lighting', and then click 'Save' andthen 'Apply Changes' in our ENBseries panel. We can see here that the GPU load has nowdropped to about 68%, so it is clear that disabling Indirect Lighting completely canhelp improve the performance of the effect.Alright, let's now see how the performance of ENB's Ambient Occlusion compares with the performance ofFallout 4's own HBAO and SSAO offerings.Starting off with ENB completely disabled,we can see that GPU usage hovers around 63% in this scene,and when we enable ENB using only the Ambient Occlusion effect,with Indirect Lighting also enabled, we see that GPU usage jumps up toaround 75%. And, when we disable ENB again, GPU usage drops back down to the low 60's.Next, let's take a look at the performance of the game's own HBAO effect. In this case