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Cava Obscura
By WrinklyNinja
Version: 1.4 (23/07/2011)

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Index:

1. Description
2. Installation
3. Uninstallation
4. Compatibility/Known Bugs
5. Contact Information
6. Legal
7. Credits
8. Version History


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1. Description
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Cava Obscura (or "Darkened Caves") darkens all the dungeons in the game by scaling down the ambient lighting and fog brightness to 10% of the vanilla levels. This brings a great improvement to immersion, and makes torches, light spells and nighteye useful, even necessary, when exploring dungeons.

Unlike similar mods (Darker Dungeons, Let There Be Darkness, etc.), it does not totally remove this ambient light, though unless you have very good night vision and a better contrast display than I do, any difference is not noticeable.

For those wondering why I bothered to edit the lighting values of every single dungeon in vanilla Oblivion, the Shivering Isles and many popular mods by hand, rather than relatively painlessly set everything to zero, the reason is that Bethesda took the care to light those dungeons with a variety of different lighting themes. I wanted to preserve at last some of the information that the lighting represents, so that it could be used by other mods even when the dungeons had been darkened: for example, so that a shader could raise the lighting levels again, etc. In addition, the game doesn't handle total darkness as well as near-total darkness, and even a tiny level of ambient light can help make scenes feel a lot more dynamic, as the light from any light sources diffuses better.

A few dungeons have not been altered, as they were already at similar light levels to that of the altered dungeons, and if they were also reduced to 10%, their lighting would have been set to zero.

As mentioned above, there are optional plugins that will darken the dungeons of the Shivering Isles and many popular mods. The supported mods are:

A Brotherhood Renewed
Adense Epic Dungeon
AFK Weye
Arrows Of The Ayleid King
Daedric Shrine Ruins
Defenders Of Cyrodiil
Dungeons Of Blackwood
Dwemer Ruins
Elsweyr: Deserts Of Anequina
Glenvar Castle
Haunted House (by Kevy)
Haunted House (by WillieSea)
Heart Of The Dead
Hoarfrost Castle
Knights Of The Nine
Kragenir's Death Quest
Kvatch Rebuilt
Lost Sword Of the Aylieds
Mehrunes Razor
Mimics!
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul
Skyrim Nord Tombs
Spirit's Edge
The Ayleid Steps
The Forgotten Realm
The Lost Spires
The Northern Front
The Old Crow Inn
Thievery In The Imperial City
Thieves Den
UL: Arrius Creek
UL: Colovian Highlands
UL: Beaches Of Cyrodiil
UL: Brena River Ravine
UL: Blackwood Forest
UL: Skingrad Outskirts
UL: Snowdale
UL: Cliffs of Anvil
Verona House: Bloodlines
Windfall

This mod support plugin is a "Filter Patch". It requires Wrye Bash to function, as although it has many master files, Wrye Bash can filter out everything relating to mods you don't have installed, so that you can use it even if you have only one of the supported mods installed. See the 'Installation' section for more details.


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2. Installation
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Recommended: Wrye Bash

This mod consists of the following plugins:

Cava Obscura - Cyrodiil.esp
Cava Obscura - SI.esp
Cava Obscura - Filter Patch For Mods.esp (requires Wrye Bash)

There are also some replacement meshes for the dungeon mist/dust cloud effects. The replacements are invisible, to stop them glowing in the dark.


To install using BAIN:

1. Move the archive to your Oblivion Mods\Bash Installers folder.
2. Open up Wrye Bash and switch to the 'Installers' tab.
3. Select the Cava Obscura archive and select which plugins you want to install.
4. Right-click the Cava Obscura archive and select 'Install'.
5. Rebuild your Bashed Patch, checking the boxes of the plugin(s) you have installed in the 'Import Cells' menu. Make sure to also check the box for 'Import Cells' itself.

To install using OBMM:

1. Open OBMM, and select 'Create' under the OMOD pane.
2. Click 'Add Archive', and select the Cava Obscura archive you downloaded. Agree to any messages that appear.
3. Create the OMOD.
4. Activate the OMOD, answering the questions that appear.
5. If you have Wrye Bash and a Bashed Patch, rebuild your Bashed Patch, checking the boxes of the plugin(s) you have installed in the 'Import Cells' menu. Make sure to also check the box for 'Import Cells' itself. Then deactivate the plugins.

To install manually:

1. Extract the plugins you wish to use to your Oblivion\Data folder.
2a. If you do not have Wrye Bash installed, activate them. Do not attempt to install the Filter Patch if you don't have Wrye Bash installed.
2b. If you do have Wrye Bash installed, leave them deactivated. Rebuild your Bashed Patch, checking the boxes of the plugin(s) you have installed in the 'Import Cells' menu. Make sure to also check the box for 'Import Cells' itself.

Load Order:

The plugins should load late in your load order, probably just before the Bashed Patch if you have one, and near any other Filter mods if you have any. Highly recommended is to use Better Oblivion Sorting Software (BOSS) to sort your load order for you, the positions of the Cava Obscura plugins have been added to its masterlist.


The "Cava Obscura - Filter Patch For Mods.esp" is a special plugin that requires Wrye Bash to function. It can only be used by leaving it unchecked and importing into your Bashed Patch. Its checkbox should then be marked with a dot. You can ignore the red checkbox and any warnings about missing masters you might get.

Replacement Meshes:

Cava Obscura includes some replacement meshes for a few mist/dust effects that turns them invisible. This is because they are not affected by the lighting in-game and so show up even in the dark, as if they are glowing. Since I find this to be a little immersion breaking, I have included the replacements to avoid this issue. This does, however, result in the loss of some atmosphere from the dungeons. If you find you would rather keep the mist/dust effects, simply delete the replacement meshes as detailed in the Uninstallation section below.


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3. Uninstallation
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If you installed the mod using Wrye Bash, right-click the archive in the packages list of the Installers tab and select 'Uninstall'.

If you installed the mod by converting it into an OMOD using OBMM, deactivate the OMOD in OBMM.

If you installed the mod manually, then delete the plugins you installed from your Data directory. The following replacement meshes will also have to be deleted from your Data directory:

meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxcloudsmall01.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxcloudthick01.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxcloudthick02.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxcloudthin02.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxgasplane01.nif
meshes\dungeons\misc\fx\fxmistgroundeffect01.nif

If you imported the plugins into your Bashed Patch, you will also need to rebuild your Bashed Patch.


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4. Compatibility/Known Bugs
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Cava Obscura should be compatible with any mod besides those that alter the ambient and fog lighting of dungeons (the two most popular of these are "Darker Dungeons" and "Let There Be Darkness"). Only use one such mod at a time.

Due to the inclusion of some replacement meshes, any mods that use them will look different, as the effects will appear to be missing. This shouldn't be a problem though.

Highly recommended for use alongside Cava Obscura is All Natural's Real Lights, which is perfectly compatible, as this mod affects ambient light, and Real Lights affects light sources - two totally separate things.

As I download and play more mods, I will extend the Filter Patch to cover them if I feel that their dungeons are too bright. Feel free to suggest mods that could be added, but bear in mind that I am only interested in adding support for mods I actually keep installed and play, so our differing tastes or opinions may mean that such suggestions are not implemented.

If you come across an interior that has been left bright, but you think should be dark, let me know, and I'll take another look at it. It is very possible that this can be the case, as looking at things in the CS and TES4Edit is very different from actually playing the game. The same goes for if you find an interior that has been darkened, but you don't think should have been.


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5. Contact Information
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To report bugs, suggestions or comment on the mod, PM wrinklyninja at the Bethesda Game Studios Forums, using that nickname. You may also find me at TES Nexus with the same nickname.

There should also be an official thread open on the Bethesda Game Studios Forums, just search for '[RELz] Cava Obscura' to find it. You can post in there as an alternative to messaging me. You must register for free to post messages.


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6. Legal
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This mod is distributed under the agreement that it shall not be modified or redistributed in any way, shape or form. The only site that this mod should be available from is TES Nexus - if you have downloaded it from another site, it was uploaded there without permission, and I would be grateful if you let me know about it.

If you want to upload this mod somewhere, or translate it, please ask for permission first.



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7. Credits
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..LprMan for his mod Let There Be Darkness, which was a great improvement over the original Darker Dungeons, a source of inspiration for this, and the mod from which the replacement meshes have been taken.
..Galcyon for his mod Darker Dungeons, which provided a massive boost to immersion.
..ElminsterEU for creating TES4Edit, without which half this mod would not have been possible, and the rest would have been significantly more tedious in making.
..Bethesda for creating Oblivion.


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8. Version History
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v1.4
- Added support for the following mods to the Filter Patch:
-- Daedric Shrine Ruins
-- Defenders Of Cyrodiil
-- Dungeons Of Blackwood
-- Dwemer Ruins
-- Skyrim Nord Tombs

v1.3
- Updated support for the following mods in the Filter Patch:
-- Windfall
-- Elsweyr: Deserts of Anequina
- Added support for UL: Cliffs of Anvil to the Filter Patch.
- Fixed OMOD installation script.

v1.2
- Added support for Hoarfrost Castle to the Filter Patch.

v1.1
- Added support for the following mods to the Filter Patch:
-- The Aylied Steps
-- AFK Weye
-- Lost Sword Of the Aylieds
-- Mimics!
-- Spirit's Edge
-- The Forgotten Realm
-- The Northern Front
-- The Old Crow Inn
-- Heart Of The Dead
-- Thievery In The Imperial City
-- UL: Arrius Creek
-- UL: Skingrad Outskirts
-- UL: Snowdale
-- Glenvar Castle
-- Kragenir's Death Quest
-- Thieves Den
- Updated support for the following mods in the Filter Patch:
-- UL: Blackwood Forest
-- Mehrunes Razor
- Added replacement meshes for some of the dungeon mist/dust cloud effects. These are the same replacements as found in Let There Be Darkness.

v1.0
- Initial release.