Black Terrain Bug Helper

Black Terrain Bug Helper

Update v5

Added a version to be used with Energy Visuals Plus

Added optimisation config options. See changelog

Terrain Light Limit Info

The Dark Terrain Issue Caused by an Engine Limit

Fallout 3 has an engine limit that allows only 4 lights on a terrain section. When it is exceeded, light completely disappears from the terrain leaving it darkened.

This occurs in the base game, but often the issue is from mods completely overloading the terrain with lights.

So, this is not a bug, and this mod does not change that. To know if a terrain section has it's 4 light limit exceeded, save and reload, and these dark textures will remain.

Mod Description

The Same Dark Terrain Issue but Is Caused by a Bug (what the mod handles)

Despite the player being on terrain that is within the engine's 4 light limit, the engine will occasionally screw up and the terrain will go dark as if it were above lighting capacity.

You may have noticed that sometimes if you save and reload in an area with the dark terrain, reloading will fix it. This is because the engine re-processes the lights which fixes the issue.

Some info within the spoiler for anyone interested.

When this bug happens

Bug 1:

When the terrain is within the allowed number of lights, but there is also more lights in the area that don't touch the terrain.

- The engine gets confused while accumulating the lights, and the bug still occurs despite the terrain only having 4 lights..

- This bug is common in areas where mods add lighting, and the mod author respects the 4 lights per terrain limit.

- Can happen in the base game to a lesser extent.

- Reloading a save does not fix this (but it might just affect a different texture nearby instead)

Bug 2:

When cells are loading in while the player is traversing towards them, the engine will just screw up rendering the lights.

- This bugs happens inconsistently and sometimes will only occur after leaving and returning to an area a few times.

- Reloading a save does fix this.

The Fixes Explained