Earthtear cavern, can you switch off the "ambient" light?

markulrich1966 · August 2019

(System: XBox (EU))

I bought the cavern tonight, and was very happy with it at first sight.

Until the night came.

Problem: the big center place with the pillars has some lights, that create a white-green glow.
The light source is not directly visible, you just can find the lights by placing a reflective area around (a floor). Once you located them, you can place a tree there, the light then gets visible (look like spots).

I wanted to use own ambient light to add atmosphere, but the cold green just destroys it.
Is there an undocumented option to switch off the lights?

The screenshots show the tree I use to make the lights visible.

The second picture with the Elsweyr gazebos show well, how the lights illuminate the surrounding in an unpleasant manner, it looks like a foto made with a flashlight.

bluebird · August 2019

There is no ingame way to tweak lighting in houses, unfortunately.

It would be nice if we had a light/intensity/day-night-toggle and other things, but we don't. And since you're on XBox you won't be able to use any AddOns either.

The light in your picture is the 'skylight' beam that devs use to illuminate caverns. There is the same lightbeam coming from an opening in the cliffs above the Colossal Aldmeri Grotto too. It's supposed to give the impression of natural light filtering through a rocky crevice... but in reality it often ends up too intrusive since the glare is so visible through items you put in front of it.

While you can't remove it, you could counteract it by adding lights of your own (like a large bonfire or brazier in the garden area) that would cast a warmer glow on your structures. You mentioned you're not a fan of the cold greenish blueish colour, so you could try using Daedric type braziers either visibly or sunken into the ground which give a strong orangey warm glow, or some Culanda Stones which give an extremely yellow glow, or some Clockwork Illuminators which have a more toned down gold glow. All of these items have a relatively good range of illumination compared to other lights (Brotherhood Braziers and the Orcish stone pillars are also quite good but those are Crowns only iiirc).

markulrich1966 · August 2019

I used the "reflective floor" method to try to find out more about the nature of these lights. They don't look like beams from above, because if I place a floor above them, they are covered by it. So they seem to be normal point lights. There are several of them, 3 to 5. One in the center, and one each illuminating the stone "arcs/doorways".

It looks very unnatural, as you cannot spot the source of the light, and it illuminates just the "plaza". The entrance area and everything behind is very dark as expected.

The problem with the method you suggest to use lights of other colour is, that the place gets even brighter like this, completely destroying the cave ambience.

I am still somewhat shocked that a 100 Euro addon has such a severe bug,/massive design error and even worse I also found out an issue that was mentioned in this board before, inaccessable areas below the "roof".

When I entered the cave my first thought was: "wow, I must build some platforms up there". And "the large area invites to create small light-isles".

Both does not work, both the reasons that would make this place so special and justify the high price.

I am somewhat disappointed and think of contacting the support to cancel the deal, as the cave in the current state does not "work" as expected. Must sleep a night over it.

bluebird · August 2019

markulrich1966 wrote: »

I used the "reflective floor" method to try to find out more about the nature of these lights. They don't look like beams from above, because if I place a floor above them, they are covered by it. So they seem to be normal point lights. There are several of them, 3 to 5. One in the center, and one each illuminating the stone "arcs/doorways".

It looks very unnatural, as you cannot spot the source of the light, and it illuminates just the "plaza". The entrance area and everything behind is very dark as expected.

Then perhaps we mean something else. I thought the lightbeam was the same as the Aldmeri Grotto one. You can't cover that with solid objects, it still shines through it. It exists to let in some 'natural' sun and moonlight through the skylight openings in the cliffs above, I was pretty sure that Earthtear works the same. But here are some pics to compare.

The colour of the light is warm instead of blue like your pictures, but that's because it was daylight when I took them, sorry couldn't wait for nightfall. the comparison should still work

. All the ruins/cliffs are illuminated with that lightbeam, but the unfortunate downside is that the glare goes through solid objects. If you look up towards the skybox at certain angles, no matter where you are, you get that glare shining through solid walls, cliffs, etc, illuminating objects caught in it. There is no way to 'block' it since it just moves with you and there's no way to create 'shade' since it goes through solid objects.

It is what it is. Rather frustrating but not the first nor the last of the many issues houses have in the game.

If it bothers you too much, you should indeed ask Support for a refund. Perhaps they can revert your purchase instead of you being stuck with a 100-Euro glitchy light house. Anyway, sorry to hear about your frustrations, good luck with resolving the issue!

markulrich1966 · August 2019

thanks for illustrating that mechanism. The one here is at least related. It is daytime now, so difficult to test. But it seems that like in your example the light is not blocked by massive structures.

I add 2 screenshots.

The first shows, that the light seens to shine in all directions, you can see it at the bottom side of the platforms above. The end parts are sligthly darker that the center where they are connected, right above the light.

The screenshot also shows, that even at daytime the center of the light (the yellow tree) is too strong, objects there are too bright. So it is not only a night problem.

Nevertheless I like to play around with the cave. The platforms are reached by a long plank walkway. Just a test setup to see where I can go and where not, it will look very different lateron. But the second screenshot already shows well that despite some invisible walls there still is place to build pathways and platforms high above. Will be fun trying to turn it into something good looking. The view from above is great

Thanks for your feedback, a pleasant contrast to the frequent disputes in the main forum.

It starts raining... in the cave... old bug since Murkmire according to older posts... well some stuff never get fixed....

katanagirl1 · August 2019

Interesting problem for you, I like Earthtear because it does not need a lot of additional lighting that takes up housing slots and it doesn’t have a lot of plants and rocks either.

It looks like you might have removed all the Redguard lanterns from the unfurnished house. I guess I’m not sure what your goal is here. Do you not want any lighting at all?

As far as invisible walls go, I was very disappointed that the ledge on the far right side from the entrance was not reachable. I planned to put a little Murkmire museum there.

Yes, the rain is very annoying.

YaYaPineapple · August 2019

Try changing your gamma setting.