Water Woes

[BoredErica]

I've been having significant water issues in CS moving from 0.87 -> v1 & up. While I feel strongly about these, I know it's just my opinion & I might be doing something wrong. Someone suggested I posted them here anyways so here it is. I have 13600kf, 3080ti, 4k res, Cathedral weathers. Load order for v1.1.6: https://i.imgur.com/xDIh4EV.jpeg

https://imgsli.com/MzQwMTA2/6/7

Image 1: Markarth
Moving dark streaks in water of new CS.

Made a short video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2F6KBg3Duo
Here is a screenshot from a moment in the video: https://i.imgur.com/IVmAH0o.jpeg
In there, there are 3 red circled areas. The left shows the water seemingly reflecting the sky, but there's an odd pattern. The middle circle is the most common issue for me. IDK what to call it except call it an artifact to me. It looks very wrong. The right circle is the large, moving artifact I was trying to show in imgsli's first picture.

Image 2: Riverwood Bridge (looking in opposite direction of Riverwood), weather 81a noon
Dark wavy things on top of the water in newer CS. It almost looks like oil is on top of the water. Old CS looks off as well, but because the water is darker, darker weirdness is harder to see. In newer CS the water is brighter so the black stands out a lot. & on top of the black stuff, there are even white highlights contrasting on top of the blackness.

Image 3: Riverwood Bridge (walking at end of the bridge, so minor perspective shift), weather 81a noon
Now almost exact reverse: The water is totally lit up by white and the black stuff is gone. I find it very distracting.

Image 4: Outside of Winterhold looking towards the sea, weather 81a noon
I have 3 rectangles, the middle and right showing dark outlines in the waves. I think they're supposed to be shadows from the waves? It'd be nice to have a way to tone them down a little bit. The left rectangle shows some moving artifacts. New CS also has more water tiling issues. It gets exacerbated by clear weather with clear & far view distance (Cathedral Weathers) & some water mods (RWT).

Here is how extreme the water tiling gets when RWT is added: https://i.imgur.com/ohxOWdm.jpeg

Image 5: Outside of Winterhold looking towards the sea, weather 81a noon
With water changes in v1.1.6, the water color has reverted to how it used to be at a distance, which is too bright IMO. I preferred the darker water of 1.1.5. It also hides the water shadows bit more.

Summary:
My opinion is I'd rather reflections be less present than it should be by default, because when they are present, they can be very bright/distracting (like image 4). Same idea w/ wave shadows. That and tiling are exacerbated with brighter water (which I also don't prefer purely aesthetically on its own), RWT, and clear weather mod.

I feel like water is too distracting/busy w/ bright reflections or what I perceive to be artifacts, & with wave shadows.

EDIT:
Glowing water at Whiterun, vanilla ini, weather 10a235, 8pm Whiterun at stairs leading to dragonsreach looking down. It seems weather mods are exacerbating the water in some weather conditions, causing water to to appear as if they are glowing.

https://imgsli.com/MzQxODQ3/0/2

EDIT2:
Here is a zip file with the saves used in the imgsli comparison, if you want to directly load in in vanilla + CS enviroment to see what I am talking about. Bear in mind the latest version of CS reverted to 0.8.7-style water color which is darker, so some artifacts are harder to see. https://filebin.net/n06n2xe7gapixbyl/github.7z