[chinagreenelvis]

SOLVED! http://www.gta4-mods.com/misc/cge-enb-red-...and-eflc-f16575

// Original thread continues below

Because it's unclear as to whether or not Boris Yorontsov has abandoned the GTA IV ENB Series, I want to start a community effort with the goal of eradicating the red sky bug from ENB-modded GTA IV 1070 and EFLC installations. GTA IV 1040 does not suffer from this problem, and knowing the differences between the versions is a good place to start. I've read that changes in the RAGE engine are responsible, but there must be a way to circumvent it.

I'm currently testing with EFLC The Lost and Damned, the Simple Trainer, and a personally modified ENB Series 0.082 Beta mod. I will update this post with as many discoveries as I can make on my own. I strongly encourage others to chip in.

» Example of the red sky bug
» Location and direction at which the bug can be consistently seen

Updates

2011.11.10 - The red skies do not appear under the following weather conditions: Raining, Drizzle, and Lightning. Under other conditions, the red skies appear at all times but are more easily seen during the day.

2011.11.10 - I'm not sure, but I may have found the solution. Changing the following line of code enbeffect.fx seems to get rid of the red sky problem in the area described above. It appears to do so without breaking the other functions in the mod. After this adjustment, red skies can only be seen during times of texture pop-in, as when turning quickly or re-entering the game after pausing. I'm going to test a GTA IV 1070 installation using iCEnhancer 1.35 to see what the results there are.

CODE

sampler2D s4=sampler_state { Texture=<texs4>; };

CODE

sampler2D s4=sampler_state {  };

2011.11.10 - Testing on a clean install of GTA IV 1070 doesn't produce the same results. I must have had some leftover files from previous efforts to solve the problem that worked in conjunction with the code change. Going to try to figure out what they might have been.

2011.11.10 - I had it. I had it and now I've lost it. Some combination of leftover files and the order in which I was editing and testing enbeffect.fx had the problem solved and now I can't reproduce the results. I should have saved everything the way it was and made a copy before attempting to start fresh.

2011.11.11 - Nothing I'm trying will get me back to my initial starting conditions, whatever they were. All I know is that whatever files I started with, changing the weather to the aforementioned modes got rid of the red skies on every test cycle. Trying it now, I find that initially changing the weather to Raining, Drizzle, or Lightning will get rid of them but then switching to clear weather and then back to rain brings them back. This wasn't the case when I first started testing. I had some perfect combination of shaders and files that I just can't get back.

2011.11.11 - Partial success! I've gotten the game back to the point where rainy weather gets rid of the red skies, even after switching back and forth. Going to restart the game and test again to make certain. Either way, I'm making a backup copy of the entire folder right now. The mod files consist of the root directory files from my version above plus the folder files from the UndockedSwine version.

2011.11.11 - Failure. After restaring the game, I'm unable to produce the same results. It's as it was before - switching back and forth between weather types no longer gets rid of the red skies. I'm beginning to think the whole thing was a fluke.

2011.11.12 - After configuring my ENB mod for several days, I've noticed that Window-escaping from the game to go to my desktop and then re-entering it have the effect of causing memory leaks. It seems that these leaks were responsible for the illusion that I had fixed the bug at one point. Now if only we could make a mod that causes the needed issue without screwing up the rest of the game...

2011.11.17 - I've found a permanent fix that involves replacing the clouds shader and increasing the clipping distance to minimize a "black banding" side effect. You can download my ENBSeries modification which includes this fix at http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=492727.

2012.09.10 - I recently released the final version of the fix, which not only gets rid of the red sky but also does not produce a black line on the horizon. You can download the fix here at http://www.gta4-mods.com/misc/cge-enb-red-...and-eflc-f16575

This post has been edited by chinagreenelvis on Tuesday, Sep 11 2012, 01:23

[nkjellman]

I hope you can get rid of the red sky bug. But if you lost a file I know of a way you could get it back.

Open the folder where the file was. Right click and go to properties. Then Click the Previus versions tab. It could possably be backed up in one of the older versions of the folder its in.

[chinagreenelvis]

Unfortunately, I disabled that function in order to prevent my hard drives from filling up. I tried looking through my recycle bin and I thought I had the right ones, but I feel like I won't be able to reproduce the fix I had unless I work through that file again, removing bits the way I did before. The trouble is that there's no way of knowing what chunks of code I removed each time I edited it since it was arbitrary.

I am somewhat convinced that it's due to using a specific set of shaders, however; I find that if I install iCE 1.35 and then replace the text of iceeffect.fx and icebloom.fx with the corresponding files from my set and then edit the one line of code, it disables parts of the mod - just not the part I need.

[chinagreenelvis]

A reply from Boris:

QUOTE

Red sky bug is my own problem, it appears when unhandled sky/clouds shader from patch 1.0.7.0 used. I was too lazy to check all weather types and didn't found it. Don't know, may be sometime i'll do an update, but for sure don't wish to think about it now (busy with other things).

[sh1sh1n11]

QUOTE (chinagreenelvis @ Friday, Nov 11 2011, 09:48)

A reply from Boris: QUOTE Red sky bug is my own problem, it appears when unhandled sky/clouds shader from patch 1.0.7.0 used. I was too lazy to check all weather types and didn't found it. Don't know, may be sometime i'll do an update, but for sure don't wish to think about it now (busy with other things).

good for you! you found the source of the problem at least i am personally annoyed with all the bugs in the ICEnhancer, 1.25 aint that great, for some reason nights are too dark, almost as if i can hide a bear right in the middle of the street the version 1.3 had f*cking brightness issues which i fixed but then it had other problems like from night 22:00 to morning 6:00 the game would look all pixelated and like sh*t, the version 1.35 is overall too dark and can't find a way to change that in the iceshaderfx and this time around when the time reaches 22:00 or is in between 22:00 and 6:00 the game literally crashes i tried using the timecycle files from the version 1.25, that seems to fix that but then again the dark nights are back with f*cking red skies! god damn it

[ikt]

QUOTE (sh1sh1n11 @ Sunday, Nov 13 2011, 13:17)

QUOTE (chinagreenelvis @ Friday, Nov 11 2011, 09:48) A reply from Boris: QUOTE Red sky bug is my own problem, it appears when unhandled sky/clouds shader from patch 1.0.7.0 used. I was too lazy to check all weather types and didn't found it. Don't know, may be sometime i'll do an update, but for sure don't wish to think about it now (busy with other things). good for you! you found the source of the problem at least i am personally annoyed with all the bugs in the ICEnhancer, 1.25 aint that great, for some reason nights are too dark, almost as if i can hide a bear right in the middle of the street the version 1.3 had f*cking brightness issues which i fixed but then it had other problems like from night 22:00 to morning 6:00 the game would look all pixelated and like sh*t, the version 1.35 is overall too dark and can't find a way to change that in the iceshaderfx and this time around when the time reaches 22:00 or is in between 22:00 and 6:00 the game literally crashes i tried using the timecycle files from the version 1.25, that seems to fix that but then again the dark nights are back with f*cking red skies! god damn it

Patch 7 is inferior in any way, stop using it if you want prettyness. If you do want it stop nagging and start fixing the problems Boris mentioned yourself. Stop talking like modders get paid, you get to use their hard word, at least show a bit of respect.

[Vulgadrop]

QUOTE (ikt @ Sunday, Nov 13 2011, 11:53)

Patch 7 is inferior in any way, stop using it if you want prettyness. If you do want it stop nagging and start fixing the problems Boris mentioned yourself. Stop talking like modders get paid, you get to use their hard word, at least show a bit of respect.

I agree with the intention of your comment, but as you say, in what is patch 7 inferior exactly? let me tell you, in NOTHING (well yes, in ENB), so try to give arguments to convince us why the old patch is better, because I see a lot of problems with 1.0.4.0 patch, problems to render certain maps and objects, problems when spawn cars to "long" distance, very low shadow quality, grainy/invisible trees, grainy/weird objects, eats ALL memory, no-multiplayer, a lot of floating street textures, controls are really uncomfortable, dependency of xliveless that all it does is f*ck your game, and I could go... but really I think the people who say things like "1.0.4 patch is better than 1.0.7" just repeat/parroting it without think, or just are ENB lovers without caring anything more about the game.

PS: CGE, good work!

[PacketOVerload_x64Bit]

Pro-1070

Been there. Done it like a fanboi. Done it like a BOSS. Feel like a moron for it. Some things never change. ^ "In every way." - True.

And I apologize, but I've said 1070 screens were good before not because they were good, but because I didn't want to hurt feelings but rather keep including people in the ENB topics and on the ENB journey. Unhandled clouds - well that's a lead. Not the cause I heard but maybe I remembered wrong...to my understanding the problem is skylighting in the d3d9.dll enbseries.dll. I doubt that's in the .fx file - because if it had been - it would most likely be fixed already.

Now, when skylighting is fixed for patch 7 or EFLC, then maybe it will be able to hold a candle to 1040 or 1004. Without skylighting the "wow" is gone. Boris came into the thread and in much a disappointed display of discontent commented: "Skylighting is dead." - And regressed back to non-posting thereafter. That says alot.


-Packet

This post has been edited by PacketOVerload_x64Bit on Monday, Mar 26 2012, 05:57

[Vintage88]

QUOTE (Vulgadrop @ Sunday, Nov 13 2011, 11:53)

but really I think the people who say things like "1.0.4 patch is better than 1.0.7" just repeat/parroting it without think, or just are ENB lovers without caring anything more about the game.

Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding

[westsidebud]

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/sear...n&ct=clnk&gl=ca

i take it you fixed it then

Red Skies Fix
Thread Started on Dec 12, 2011, 4:51am

QUOTE

http://gtaiv.chinagreenelvis.com Under the folder "redsky," you will find ClassicSkies.zip - this can be used with any ENBSeries mod and is intended for those who want to play 1.0.7.0 or EFLC without the bug. There are two side effects to using the included shaders: 1. It will replace the ENBSeries skydome and clouds with the default GTA IV skies. This isn't so bad if you have a good custom timecycle, and my own ENB tries to compensate for this. 2. It will create a black line on the horizon between the sea and the sky; this black band can be minimized by setting the far clip distance in timecyc.dat to a maximum of 10000.00, already adjusted in CGE ENB. So for those of you who want an iCEnhancer with no red skies at the small sacrifice of the ENB sky, this is for you. And hey, feel free to give my own ENBSeries a spin while you're at it, there are custom presets with different looks and feels like film noir or vintage photos (These will also work with other ENBSeries mods to a degree as long as UsePaletteTexture=true in your .ini; Just ignore the included enbconfig.txt).

So i seen the bug and havn't tested your solution but thanks for sharing regardless

[little seoul]

even though this topic is old news now i have two solutions for enb:

1) use enb for patch 4 as that is what it was intended for.

or

2) wait for boris to release a new enb for gta iv that supports patch 7 & eflc.

patch 7 enb is not really ENB. it's a broken form of enb.
you have to just live with the glitches, the fact that it doesn't take full advantage of enb, red sky bug,
reflection issues, etc.
until their is an update made available by the creator.
sure you can fix red sky, but what about skylighting? the effect that makes enb special?
i use enb now mainly for the added visual oomph, but on patch 7 it's not as visually impressive.
and i could be arsed to go through the trouble of reinstalling patch 4 again - that was a nightmare.