Help needed adding light with the console.

[cumbrianlad]

Hi,

 

I'm turning Skyhaven Temple into a player home. It was all going great until I started on the lighting.

 

Here's the problem:

 

I can add the torch pillars (6da93) and add the burning coals ((33da4). I even know which light was used in the original sconces and can add it.

 

The problem is that the light (BleakFallsDraugrTorch01NS) has been adjusted in Skyhaven temple to make it brighter by far. I've tried dozens of lights and none of them are anything like as bright.

 

Are there any console commands to increase brightness?

 

Alternatively, is there a way to load my console modified Temple into the creation kit? If I could do that, I could easily (I hope) add the new lighting effects there.

 

I've attached a pic of the outside that I'm happy with. I've got so far I don't want to give up on the idea now!

 

Edit: Problem solved! I was putting the lights in incorrectly. If It's any help to people this is what I did wrong and then how to do it right.

 

The wrong way.

 

Save the game

Enter the console and target the top of the torch pedestal

Use placeatme (Light's Base ID)

{I did this because it seemed to make sense to target the light source in the middle of my glowing embers.}

 

The Right Way.

 

Save game.

Enter the console.

Make sure no item reference is displayed mid screen (click on the same item twice to get shot of any reference that is there). Type tcl to toggle clipping off.

Fly up to a position a couple of feet above the torch pedestal. The exact height will vary depending what you are trying to illuminate. two or three feet was about right for me (60 to 90 cm for modern metric people)

Use player.placeatme (base ID), where base ID is anything reasonably sized. I used a cheese wheel which was perfect for the job.

Fly back down to where you can see the pedestal and your hovering object and reposition the object over the centre of the pedestal if necessary.

Select your hovering object and use placeatme (Light's Base Id).

Fly around the room checking out that the lighting effect is good and causes no problems like flickering, lines through shadows etc.

toggle clipping back on and delete the falling cheese wheel (or whatever you used to locate the light.

Save game if all is well. Go back and try again if you're not happy.

I placed half a dozen floating cheeses around the room so that I could trial a few light types at once, before committing to putting one over the torch pedestal, because it saves the clart of load, try light, load, try light and so on.

 

Edit 2: Amendment to edit, or the second amendment as the Americans might say.

 

I've learnt a bit more about light placement that alters what I said above a bit and might make light placement easier in some circumstances.

 

It's all to do with selecting the object that you want the light effect to centre on. You'll have noticed that when you use player.placeatme (Base ID), the object is placed at your feet. Normally it is flat on the ground (or tilted a bit if you haven't lined yourself up exactly) but sometimes it is half buried. This is not your fault, it's because each object has an 'origin', or a point that the rest of it is made around. Normally it's at the bottom but that isn't always the case.

 

When I clicked the torch pillar and used placeatme to position the light source, the light was placed at the origin of the pillar...on the floor in the middle of the pillar. Just like a torch placed on a carpet does little to illuminate any of the carpet except for a few tufts, the light source I used by the 'wrong' method didn't work well either.

 

I added more torch pillars after my first successful attempts and found that placing the embers in the bowls (at the top of the torch pillar) and targeting them and not the pillar worked as well as the cheese wheel method (because the origin of the embers was above the ground in the bowl). Targeting an object like this saves a lot of hassle because the x and y coordinates of the light are bang on.  This method also put the light source at a height that gave a nice pool of light on the floor beneath the finished torch pillar.

 

The 'cheese wheel' method above is still valid and essential for illuminating some items properly where there is no valid solid object to target for the light source. Using tcl, hovering and hoping that player.placeatme (Light's Base ID) will work quickly is frankly ridiculous.

 

 If anyone's interested I could put everything I've found into a tutorial with pix, because god knows I've struggled to find out about any of this. I'd need a few people to ask for it though because it'll take a bit of doing.

 

 

I'll post a pic of the finished room when I'm done but it's looking good so far.

 

Thanks.

[Buttons]

light and lighting are two different things. you can add a light source, like a candle or torch, but in many cases the light itself has to be added separately. and uh, its also a little tricky, seeing that you cant delete actual light once you have spawned it like you can with objects like furniture and torches. So getting the right light to match the light source can be painful. need to save before each attempt so you can go back to that save point if you get the lighting wrong. 

 

 

so yeah, for light itself, there is a whole list of different codes.